US secretary of state Hillary Clinton blasted China on Thursday, calling for consequences and condemnation for those who carry out cyber attacks, in a speech which addressed Google’s concerns about China.
Clinton’s tough remarks were made in a speech at the Newseum
in Washington, DC. The issue was highlighted after Google’s announcement last week that it might withdraw from China after an alleged cyber attack aimed at gathering information from the email accounts of human rights activists.
The US administration threw its weight behind Google by calling on the Chinese government to review the allegations.
“We look to the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make this announcement,” Clinton said. “We need to create a world in which access to networks and information brings people closer.”
China has also succeeded in infuriating India. National security adviser M K Narayanan told The Times of London that his office and other government departments were targeted on December 15, the same date when Google reported cyber attacks originating from China.
He said the attack came in the form of an email with a PDF attachment containing a Trojan which allows the hacker to gain access to a computer remotely and to download or delete files.
China has denied the allegations, but no one is convinced.
As far as the US is concerned, the Google episode, in which the Internet giant has threatened to quit China over issues of hacking and spying on dissidents by the Chinese government, stands out as potentially more of a tipping point than issues such as exchange rates and naval research rights in the South China Sea.
According to analysts, Google’s willingness to sacrifice a China market (which it probably knows it can’t win, given the predominance of China’s home-grown search engine Baidu) has focused attention on issues of profits versus ethics in US business.
