People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

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abhishek_sharma
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by abhishek_sharma »

It Isn’t Working for Anyone Else

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12tue1.html
If it sticks to its cheap-renminbi guns, however, it is bound to draw a protectionist response. The Obama administration already has caved to political demands and slapped exceptional tariffs on Chinese tires and antidumping duties on steel pipes. Congress has been uncharacteristically quiet, but patience is wearing thin in Washington and everywhere.

India has filed a stack of trade complaints against China. And the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum recently urged the adoption of “market-oriented exchange rates” for Asian currencies, a reference to China’s manipulation.

A trade war with China would be disastrous and bound to escalate around the world. Restraint is needed. But we fear no one is going to feel restrained if China doesn’t change its strategy.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by pgbhat »

China arrests 21 Indians for smuggling diamonds
retaliation for BALCO. :-?
"The Chinese government has in the past given a lot of incentives to diamond traders. I think there is some kind of misunderstanding. The Indian traders cannot be involved in something like this.They possibly cannot be involved in smuggling," said Gujarat Hira Bourse Secretary Pravin Nanavati.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Singha »

the obama admin has altered a bush2 era arms deal with taiwan and omitted F-16 and blackhawk items in a obvious caving in to beijing demands.

todays ABM test was meant to convey more chinese 'anger' at whatever little is left on the eqpt list.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Rupesh »

Bride-less Chinese could look to Kerala for succor
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Chinese fishing nets that dot the backwaters off Kochi and elsewhere in Kerala speak of times gone by when Chinese traders sought the state’s spices. The Chinese now have another reason to enviously gawk at the state, for its status of having more women than men.
the fact that both societies have a long association with communism may enhance their compatibility.
:?:
Whether a shortage of women in the rest of the country and a more acute deficiency in China will have direct implications for Kerala is, however, not easily predicted. Says Udayan Mishra: “The Japanese example is a pointer. Many men there prefer their single status and are content with happy clubs and the like.”

But if the Chinese are not game to toe that line, fishing nets will not be the only ties that bind China and Kerala.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Jarita »

^^^ What an obnoxious article. Are women commodities like coconuts and fish to be traded when resources at home go down?
Whoever wrote that rubbish needs to be pulled up
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by svinayak »

Jarita wrote:^^^ What an obnoxious article. Are women commodities like coconuts and fish to be traded when resources at home go down?
Whoever wrote that rubbish needs to be pulled up
Why dont you write back to this paper and say in that letter that it is deeply offensive
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Jarita »

^^ I did
JE Menon
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by JE Menon »

>>Another fact is Chinese girls find Desi men attractive. Dont ask for refrences etc.

Bit of an irony there no, boss? Anyway if you could furnish some references that would be nice.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Jarita »

^^^ Don't mean to bust your bubble but Chinese girls find a whole spectrum of men attractive. Their guys often crib that it is hardest for a CHinese guy to get a Chinese girl.
Top of their list of pref. is men of pale hues (no mention of race). All else is next

I've worked with these pple substantially and we are not at the top of the totem pole for them.


Again, does anyone on this board know mandarin? We have to know the language to have a valuable discussion. The reason the Pakistani thread gets so many hits is because we understand them
hnair
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by hnair »

Two unrelated news :roll:

3 Chinese arrested over factory accident in India
Three Chinese engineers have been arrested and charged in the deaths of 40 factory workers killed when a chimney collapsed at the power plant they were building in central India, a police officer said Tuesday.

The accident occurred in September when the 820-foot- (250-meter-) tall chimney came crashing down on the plant's cafeteria as the workers had tea.

The power plant, owned by Bharat Aluminum Co., or BALCO, was being built by a Chinese construction company with the help of local contractors in Korba, about 600 miles (960 kilometers) southeast of New Delhi.

The Chinese engineers were arrested Monday at the end of police investigation that charged them with culpable homicide not amounting to murder :evil: , R.K. Vij, inspector-general of police, told The Associated Press. If convicted, they can be jailed for up to 10 years.

China arrests 21 Indians for smuggling diamonds

New Delhi: China has detained 21 Indian diamond merchants accusing them of being part of a smuggling gang.

All the 21 Indian traders were detained on January 8 in the Chinese city of Shenzen.

The news of Indian diamond merchants being detained was first reported on some Chinese news websites alerting the families of some of the traders in Surat.

"We have got information from the net that some Surat diamond traders have been arrested in China. We are sure our people will not indulge in smuggling. We are in touch with the government and the least we expect is that they should get legal aid," said Surat Diamond Association President Rohit Mehta.

Chinese police say the Indians along with at least 50 people arrested are a part of a massive smuggling ring. Police say they had been used as carriers to smuggle in diamonds from Hong Kong.

But Indian External Affairs Ministry officials rejected reports the arrest was part of diplomatic tit for tat between India and China.

"We have asked for a full report. We are waiting for full details on the arrest of Indians in China," said Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao

Gujarat's diamond industry accounts for a majority of all the diamonds that are cut and polished anywhere in the world and is clearly worried.

"The Chinese government has in the past given a lot of incentives to diamond traders. I think there is some kind of misunderstanding. They possibly cannot be involved in smuggling," claimed Gujarat Hira Bourse Secretary Pravin Nanavati.

More details are expected when Indian diplomats meet the detained traders on Wednesday.
So now 1 Shoddy Chinese worker = 7 Indian Entrepreuners? Sounds Paki to me....
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Stan_Savljevic »

hnair wrote: So now 1 Shoddy Chinese worker = 7 Indian Entrepreuners? Sounds Paki to me....
Own goal or reverse stuff? wait and watch...
It is a curious coincidence that two days after Indian merchants were arrested, three Chinese engineers were arrested by the Chhattisgarh Police in connection with the collapse of the under-construction chimney of Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) in Korba district on September 23 last year. Forty-one people were killed and many injured in the incident.
http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/jan/ ... racket.htm
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by hnair »

Stan_Savljevic-saar, I did not get your post as it was a bit ambigous. But if it is like reverse goal by us that you are saying, I disagree, my take is like this: Chimney fell long time back. And *they* knew the charge sheeting is going to happen and took a preemptive measure.
That is why I left that "mad" emoticon on the charges. Only three people are culpable?

India's diamond trade is something as vital and iconic as IT. And it needs a lot of people to travel around Asia with highly valuable physical objects, unlike IT.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Stan_Savljevic »

If you read the rediff report, it comes across as a xinhua plant. The article seems to suggest that the diamond-sellers are already guilty, not like I have any kinda trust in the chini judicial system, an oxymoron in itself. An Indian media outlet batting for the chinis is what I referred to as "own goal," not like that is a "new" discovery for folks here, who have heard of chindu.

Regarding the "reverse stuff", I am wondering if GoI got its chaddis turning and decided to act NOW only cos the diamond-sellers were harassed with a case. Otherwise, GoI w(c)ould/might have done one more Afzal guru, may be, may be not, who knows?! IPL, Surat diamond industry, yoga, turmeric, basmati rice, a long list of stuff that are iconic of what is India. You and me know it, but do the doofusi who shifted IPL to Suud Afrika know it?
Nandu
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Nandu »

Google to stop censoring results in China. Mulling possible pullout.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... china.html
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by sanjaykumar »

Bit of an irony there no, boss? Anyway if you could furnish some references that would be nice.



An observation (no secrets will be divulged).

A few months ago I was finishing my coffee in a coffeehouse when a nice looking Chinese female came to the table I was vacating. She picked up the somewhat used serviette I had left and rubbed it on her hands subsequently touching her hand to her mouth and, I presume smelling the serviette.

Needless to say I was a bit bemused and this episode makes no sense in other than a highly charged, erotic sense.

I do not know if this can be extrapolated to the general desi as I don't appear to be particularly desi looking, to nondesis at least.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by a_kumar »

JE Menon wrote:Anyway if you could furnish some references that would be nice.
Very subtle!! :wink:
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by putnanja »

Nandu wrote:Google to stop censoring results in China. Mulling possible pullout.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... china.html
Just came across this myself. Some important points need to be quoted from the article.
Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, 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. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.

...
...
JwalaMukhi
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by JwalaMukhi »

More confirmation of surplus men...
China to be short 24 million wives, study says
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100112/ap_ ... nder_gap_1
China enforces strict family planning controls, including limiting most couples to having one child.
The BMJ study found even higher gender ratios, with 140 boys for every 100 girls in the 1-4 age range in Jiangxi and Henan provinces. The figures were based on data from 2005.

China imposed strict birth controls in the 1970s to limit growth of its huge population, noting that resources, especially land, were increasingly strained and that changes were needed in its new push to modernize. The government says the controls have prevented an additional 400 million births in the world's most populous country of 1.3 billion.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Nandu »

Re: Google vs. China. China has independent censor systems embedded in the ISPs, so it is in theory possible for them to "allow" google to provide uncensored results and then block those at the ISP level.

However, at this point, it has probably become a pissing match and they will lose face by doing it, so it looks like goog's exit is more or less certain.

Also, a couple of unconfirmed, and unconfirmable rumors at this twitter account. http://twitter.com/wikileaks
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by a_kumar »

JwalaMukhi wrote:More confirmation of surplus men...
China to be short 24 million wives, study says
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100112/ap_ ... nder_gap_1
China enforces strict family planning controls, including limiting most couples to having one child.
The BMJ study found even higher gender ratios, with 140 boys for every 100 girls in the 1-4 age range in Jiangxi and Henan provinces. The figures were based on data from 2005.

China imposed strict birth controls in the 1970s to limit growth of its huge population, noting that resources, especially land, were increasingly strained and that changes were needed in its new push to modernize. The government says the controls have prevented an additional 400 million births in the world's most populous country of 1.3 billion.
Ok.. am I the only one seeing this?

"1:1.4" is impossible without selective abortions!! But that was never high-lighted as a problem in China. Now, that smoke is visible, where is the "fire"?

On another side, (don't remember the source, but) even a ratio of "1:1.2" is considered bad enough to throw a society into chaos with all the hormones going wild!! Interesting the impact of this overall.
sanjaykumar
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by sanjaykumar »

1:1.4" is impossible without selective abortions!!


No the terrible thing is that one does not need to abort when one can commit infanticide. :(
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by a_kumar »

^
Yes.. missed it.

Going back to the actual point, female abortion/infanticide seems to be a widely acknowledged issue.

Impact of China's one-child policy-Indian Journal of Medical Ethics

Also interesting!
Even the authoritarian government of China has had to make concessions to the cultural male preference in allowing a majority of its (rural) population a second child when the first is a girl.
Probabilistically, this is a disaster, if true!
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Singha »

goog claims they will no longer co-operate to censor search results.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that "we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China."

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by pgbhat »

Google May Close Operations in China ---- NYTimes Video
CNBC interview with David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google, who discusses the Internet giant's reaction to an assault by hackers who sought to penetrate the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
Basically claims Google is not very big in China anyways and profits are not major a deal. Also claims 20 other companies (IT and non-IT) are affected by similar issues.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by kmkraoind »

Clinton Says China Must Explain Alleged Google E-Mail Attacks

Seems to be something seriously cooking between US and PRC. First, even not bothering about business prospects (which is the case of most US companies) Google even threatened to pull out one of biggest markets, now administration is also asking an explanation for it. Probably these are first signs of a major (trade) war or I am just a paranoid
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by pgbhat »

As the google guy says their business in not big in China. Mr. Drummond says be good and do good. Time will tell.
either way.....
Principles only mean something when you stick to them when its inconvenient.
The Contender 8)
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Philip »

With no respect to my multitude of dear friends in the gay community,China at one stroke can solve the problem of the lack of "wives"It can legalise gay marriages and there henceforth will be no need for "fake" weddings for social reasons.This will also dramatically bring down the birth rate too which China is trying hard to contain.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by abhik »

^^^^
So could they possibly change the Indo -China border line in G-earth now that they may no longer have any china operations? Would be a good parting shot from Google.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Singha »

good idea. google was way behind baidu in china and no hopes of ever making any money since anything sw can be easily pirated. also pirated clones of nexus one should be rolling out of the assembly lines soon. some factories run a special "night shift" to make unauthorized copies of the legit stuff they make during the day and sell off cheaper :mrgreen:

but definitely a break from the long and monotonous gubo the US has been doing. gubo is so popular, vaseline nowadays sells a huge 475ml TUB of it.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by abhik »

Google is taking its revenge it seams,
ndtv report:Google snubs china with tank man photo
The iconic "Tank Man" photo taken during the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and banned in China was available on Google.cn on Wednesday, hours after the online giant vowed to defy Chinese Internet censors.
thats true checked my self, and
Searches for other sensitive topics such as the Dalai Lama and the banned Falungong spiritual group were also returned on Google, but were also available on some Chinese portals.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Akshut »

Google was consistently losing market share to Baidu, Sohu, Sina, etc.

Image
Image

And here's the Tank picture shown on "google.cn" recently
http://g.imagehost.org/0930/snap.jpg
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by jaladipc »

Google already uncensored few sites I guess.

Got information from folks in Chinese mainland that they can browse few articles about the Tainanmen massacre and some other democratic articles where the ISP has less firewalls.


Top
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by anuj »

[deleted]
Last edited by anuj on 13 Jan 2010 23:18, edited 1 time in total.
Avinash R
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Avinash R »

Apparently Baidu faced a DNS attack yesterday

China's largest search engine hacked
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Nandu »

anuj, that is just some wikipedia vandalism that got cached. Nothing intentional on the search engine's part.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by anuj »

Nandu wrote:anuj, that is just some wikipedia vandalism that got cached. Nothing intentional on the search engine's part.
Your right. Some ip from UK is responsible for it.
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by a_kumar »

jaladipc wrote:Google already uncensored few sites I guess.

Got information from folks in Chinese mainland that they can browse few articles about the Tainanmen massacre and some other democratic articles where the ISP has less firewalls.
Ok people.. time to re-install and welcome Chrome!! :)
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Gagan »

Brahma Chellaney rubs it on the Chinese - on the New York Times.
A Smoking Dragon in Sheep's Clothing
By BRAHMA CHELLANEY

NEW DELHI — China presents itself as a schizophrenic power: a developing country on select international issues, but in other matters a rising superpower with new muscular confidence that supposedly is in the same league as the United States.

At the recent Copenhagen climate-change summit, China was the former: It loudly emphasized its membership in the developing world and quietly used poor countries, especially from Africa, to raise procedural obstacles in the negotiations.

Make no mistake: China, the world’s largest polluter whose carbon emissions are growing at the fastest rate, was the principal target at Copenhagen. But China cleverly deflected pressure by hiding behind small, poor countries and forging a negotiating alliance with India and two other major developing countries, Brazil and South Africa, who together are known as the BASIC bloc.

China escaped without making a binding commitment on carbon-emissions cuts, at least for now. But carbon-light India, with per-capita emissions just 26 percent of the world average, undercut its interest by getting bracketed with the world’s largest polluter.

Let’s be clear: On climate change, trade liberalization, currency and related issues, China — despite its emergence as a financial and trade Goliath — defines itself as a developing country and expediently seeks to join hands with poor nations so it can shield practices

...

But on political and security issues, it sees itself as without a peer in Asia, and is greatly enthused by the idea of a U.S-China “Group of Two.”

...
Read in full
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Re: People's Republic of China Nov 22, 2009

Post by Singha »

wired.com...netz troops are speculating they were attacked too.

Google Hackers Targeted Source Code of More Than 30 Companies

* By Kim Zetter Email Author
* January 13, 2010 |


A hack attack that targeted Google in December also hit 33 other companies, including financial institutions and defense contractors, and was aimed at stealing source code from the companies, say security researchers at iDefense.

The hackers used a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Reader to deliver malware to many of the companies and were in some cases successful at siphoning the source code they sought, according to a statement distributed Tuesday by iDefense, a division of VeriSign. The attack was similar to one that targeted other companies last July, the company said.

A spokeswoman for iDefense wouldn’t name any of the other companies that were targeted in the recent attack, except Adobe.

Adobe acknowledged Tuesday in a blog post that it discovered Jan. 2 that it had been the target of a “sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies.”


The company didn’t say whether it was a victim of the same attack that struck Google. But Adobe’s announcement came just minutes after Google revealed that it had been the target of a “highly sophisticated” hack attack originating in China in December.

Neither Google nor Adobe provided details about how the hacks occurred. Google said only that the hackers were able to steal unspecified intellectual property from it, and that they had focused their attack on obtaining access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists who were involved in China rights issues.

But according to iDefense, whose customers include some of the 33 companies that were hacked, the attacks were well targeted and “unusually sophisticated” and aimed at grabbing source code from several hi-tech companies based in Silicon Valley as well as financial institutions and defense contractors.

The hackers gained access to the company networks by sending targeted e-mails to employees, some of which contained a malicious PDF attachment. The malicious code exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe’s Reader application.

Zero day vulnerabilities are security flaws in software for which there is currently no patch. Adobe announced in mid-December that a new zero-day vulnerability in its Reader and Acrobat programs was being actively targeted by attackers. The company made the announcement after security researchers not affiliated with Adobe discovered attacks being conducted against the vulnerability. Adobe patched the critical vulnerability only on Tuesday this week.

In the recent attack on some of the companies, once a recipient clicked on the malicious PDF attachment, a backdoor Trojan program called Trojan.Hydraq was installed on their machine in the form of a Windows DLL, according to iDefense.

IDefense says that when Google discovered malware on its systems in December, it found that the code was communicating with a server set up to receive information stolen from the targeted companies.

“It was configured in such a way that it was able to receive a massive amount of data being exfiltrated to it,” says an iDefense spokeswoman who asked not to be named.

Google was able to determine, by examining the server, that the hackers had struck numerous other companies, she said. Google said in its Tuesday announcement that 20 other companies had been hacked. But iDefense found evidence that at least 33 were targeted.

The recent attacks bear a strong resemblance to another attack that occurred in July 2009, which targeted about 100 IT companies, iDefense says. In that earlier attack, the hackers also sent targeted e-mail to companies with a malicious PDF attachment, but it’s unclear how successful that attack was.

According to Ryan Olson, an analyst for iDefense, the attacks in July and December targeted different vulnerabilities. The one in July affected Adobe’s Reader, Acrobat and Flash applications, which it patched Jul. 30. The vulnerability the hackers are believed to have used in December also affected Reader and Acrobat.

iDefense obtained samples of the malicious codes used in the July attack and the more recent one and found that although the malware was different in the two attacks, the programs both communicated with similar command-and-control servers. The servers each used the HomeLinux DynamicDNS to change their IP address, and both currently point to IP addresses belonging to a subset of addresses owned by Linode, a U.S.-based company that offers Virtual Private Server hosting.

“The IP addresses in question are … six IP addresses apart from each other,” iDefense said in its statement. “Considering this proximity, it is possible that the two attacks are one and the same, and that the organizations targeted in the [recent] Silicon Valley attacks have been compromised since July.”

Olson told Threat Level that the attackers are “incredibly good” at finding new exploits and infecting the right people but that nothing he’d seen in the malware indicated they were above average in writing malicious code.

“The sophistication here is all about the fact they were able to target the right people using a previously unknown vulnerability,” he says.

The iDefense spokeswoman told Threat Level that her company waited a week to disclose details about the attack until after Google went public with the news that it had been hacked. She said it’s her understanding that Google’s source code was targeted in the hack attack.

Google declined to publicly discuss the details of iDefense’s report.

Adobe’s announcement didn’t discuss specifically whether hackers had stolen its source code but said that it had “no evidence to indicate that any sensitive information — including customer, financial, employee or any other sensitive data — has been compromised” in the attack.

This post was updated with information from Olson about the malware used in the attack. It also was updated to clarify that the Hydraq trojan and PDF exploit were used to breach some of the companies, but not all of them.
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