Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Flaws -- Not Adobe Flaws -- Responsible for China's Attack on Google; Microsoft Takes China's Side, as Usual



Summary: Microsoft's very special relationship with another suppressive entity and the blame games in China's crack attack

LAST NIGHT we showed that Microsoft Windows zombies were responsible for the attacks on Google. There are hundreds of millions of such zombie PCs and according to IDG, "DDoS Attacks Are Back (and Bigger Than Before)"

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are certainly nothing new. Companies have suffered the scourge since the beginning of the digital age. But DDoS seems to be finding its way back into headlines in the past six months, in thanks to some high-profile targets and, experts say, two important changes in the nature of the attacks.

The targets are basically the same -- private companies and government websites. The motive is typically something like extortion or to disrupt the operations of a competing company or an unpopular government. But the ferocity and depth of the attacks have snowballed, thanks in large part to the proliferation of botnets and a shift from targeting ISP connections to aiming legitimate-looking requests at servers themselves.


IDG also shows that the attack on Google relies on Microsoft flaws (page rendering as malicious execution and the notion of clicking attachments to execute data files). "Adobe may be off the hook," says this report:

IE Exploit Used to Launch Chinese Attacks on Google



[...]

Early speculation focused on the Abobe Reader zero-day exploit as the source of the Chinese attacks on Google and other corporations earlier this week, but Adobe may be off the hook--or at least share the blame. Microsoft has determined that an unknown flaw in Internet Explorer was one of the holes used to launch the attacks which have led to Google threatening to shut down its Chinese operations.


To Google, there is no real solution here; to leave China would be a case of staging a protest, but it would neither secure Google nor be practicable.

Here's an interesting scenario: If Google does stick to its guns and leaves China because the country continues to insist on censoring web search results and blocking websites, will it also pull Android cellphones from the Chinese market?


Let's not forget that Google relies on cheap Chinese workforce to make its profitable products (like phones and appliances). The West is generally far too dependent on Chinese labour and export.

Microsoft -- not surprisingly -- has no problem with what China is doing and as IDG's Erik Larkin puts it, to Microsoft it's just another technical case of patches (never mind if exploiters/crackers are supported by the Chinese government). Microsoft does not even address the problem immediately, so in the mean time it just externalises the costs, also to Google and Google's clients.

Ballmer: Microsoft Will Stay in China



Microsoft does not plan to follow Google's lead in pulling out of China, the software giant's CEO told news outlets on Thursday.


Like China, Microsoft China disregards copyright law and Microsoft has special relationships in China. McCain (of the Republican party) comes to mind here; Bill Gates is a friend of the China regime and McCain recommended Steve Ballmer for the Chinese ambassador position. Microsoft and China are similar in many ways; neither tolerates contest and they both repress clients/citizens. Microsoft removes its competition -- including GNU/Linux and Apple -- from search results, as systematically proven before.

One of our readers, who is more of a hardliner by some people's judgment, wrote to us the following:

Contempt, perjury or treason?

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/... http://news.cnet.com/China-looks-into... http://www.maximumpc.com/article/...

Add to that the incident where Gates intercepted China's President Hu, which Hu went along with, on his first official visit in office to the United States.

http://windowsitpro.com/article/...

Maybe Gates' recent visit to the Whitehouse was about pleading for his life more than about begging for a too-big-to-fail corporate welfare handout.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/... title="http://www.aaxnet.com/news/M000714.html http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/18007/... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-... http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/30/china.us/... http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/...

Seriously, could Osama bin Laden himself arranged better? If it doesn't beat all that Gates and his minions aren't even hiding in caves. The perpetraitors {sic} are still on free foot and even getting puff-pieces in the media. There is some corrective action:

http://mae.pennnet.com/display_article/... http://www.fcw.com/Articles/2008/03/06...

There are at least three sides to the cyberwar that started last year: China, Microsoft and the US. The first two appear to be in an uneasy aliance to bring down the third after which the first will easily take down the second.


More thoughts would be welcome. Views are not being suppressed.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day