Google detects politically motivated malware attacks in Vietnam

01 Apr 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized

Google’s Security blog has revealed that a number of malicious malware attacks on Vietnamese computers have been specifically designed to spy on and target “blogs containing messages of political dissent”. Google described this example of internet hacktivism as a direct attempt to “squelch opposition” to a Chinese-backed bauxite mining project in Vietnam which has divided public opinion.

China to spend four billion on improving state media

01 Apr 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized

The Chinese government has reportedly invested £4bn to expanding the nation’s news networks and media channels. Newspapers such as the China Daily are to be remodelled to resemble British broadsheets, and China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s largest state television network, is to increase their service to include broadcasts in Russian and Arabic in addition to its English, French and Spanish transmissions. The move comes after President Hu Jintao’s remark on the “increasingly fierce struggle in the domain of news and opinion” in the global media circuit. Click here for an in-depth look at China’s conflicting approaches to international and national news.

Further blockages for Google in China

31 Mar 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized

Yesterday Chinese users of the Google.cn search engine faced problems accessing results for normal terms such as “dog” or “home”. Although Google has redirected traffic to its uncensored servers in Hong Kong, internet users in mainland China still face the Great Firewall, which bans access to sites containing sensitive information. The glitch was caused by Google’s new coding which incorporated “gs_rfai” into certain search terms. The letters “RFA” was mistaken to be an acronym for Radio Free Asia, a site banned by the Great Firewall.