Evidence is accumulating that the Chinese government was in fact behind attacks on Google and other major U.S. companies, investigators say. The New York Times reported the attacks have been traced to two schools in China, one of which has close ties to the Chinese military. The attacks likely originated in April, months earlier than previously believed, the sources said.
On Jan. 12, Google revealed that its servers had been under attack since mid-December and charged that the hackers were politically motivated. “We have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties,” Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said. Google went on to announce it was reconsidering its role in China, an announcement that made headlines around the world.
Smoking Gun?
Officially, National Security Agency investigators and other computer security experts have only traced the attacks to servers in Taiwan. The news that schools tightly connected to the Chinese government are involved appears to verify Google’s charges.
But not necessarily. For instance, an American military contractor acquired evidence leading investigators to suspect an Ukrainian computer-science professor at one school with military ties.
The schools are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lancing Vocational School, the Times’ sources said. Jiaotong is one of China’s top computer-science schools. Lancing is a huge vocational school founded with military funding and which trains some computer scientists for the military. Interestingly, the school’s computer network is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, Google’s main competitor in China, the Times reported.
Nothing New Here
Intelligence analysts are split about what the latest evidence means. Some say the schools are simply extensions of the Chinese government. Others suggest the schools were a “false flag” operation being run…