Google has gone quiet since its announcement
last month that it was unwilling to continue censoring search results on
Google.cn in China.
The
Washington Post reported Thursday that the company is seeking help from
the U.S.
government to trace hackers behind security breaches, which it said targeted
its own intellectual property and individual human rights activists. A Reuters analysis
said the company may also be grappling with the financial and legal
implications of ceasing censorship in defiance of Chinese law.
Regardless of Google’s next step or the motivations behind
it, the company’s January
12 statement has already had a positive effect: Journalists and human
rights activists who have long complained about e-mail security in relation to China
have a much wider audience for their concerns.
Foreign
correspondents, Tibetan activist Tensin
Seldon, Beijing-based lawyer Teng Biao
and Chinese blogger Wei
Zhuoyun have publicized anxieties about compromised personal e-mail
accounts in the wake of Google’s revelations. The Independent
Chinese PEN
Center told CPJ by e-mail that at
least 22 of its members within China,
and 18 based overseas, were concerned about the integrity of their Gmail
addresses. E-mails automatically forwarding to another e-mail address without
the owner’s knowledge is one hallmark of a hacked account.
There is no evidence that the Chinese government is
sponsoring the attacks. The targeting of activists, however, fuels suspicion
that information authorities are tolerating the unauthorized activity.
Internet users in China who worry about government
access to their computers point
out that Mozilla and Microsoft now accept Web sites with digital
certificates signed by the state-affiliated China Internet Network Information
Center (CNNIC), and issued by an intermediary certificate authority, Entrust. (A
brief English-language discussion of the certificates, and how to disable them,
is available here.)
Critics suggest the certificates could be misused to impersonate encrypted Web
sites, causing Internet users to reveal sensitive information to the
government.
No one has produced evidence of the certificates being
misused. But in a country where vague charges of “revealing state secrets” are
frequently used to imprison
journalists and online commentators—one, Shi Tao, for a private email—dissidents
are concerned. And regular Internet users frustrated by the intrusive censorship
in China
are also unwilling to trust authorities who monitor day-to-day usage so
officiously, but do little to combat illegal hackers. In a plea that explicitly
links to Google’s statement, some Internet users are calling
on international corporations to stop cooperating with CNNIC by accepting
the certificates.
Whatever Google’s present silence means, the company has at
least allowed others to voice these frustrations with more chance of being
heard.
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