I was in the office yesterday and in passing conversation Google’s recent actions became the subject of conversation. “Dumb move”, came from across the table, which made me think a bit. Since I had heard the news last week, I was thinking nothing but smart move, so this came as a surprise and caused me to think about it for a while, hence, this blog posting.
DUMB
The first dumb point that comes from this is that Google just shot themselves in the foot in the largest internet population in the world. The recent news profiles China as the largest internet ‘market’, but I think different. While the user population may be there, it is by far not the largest spending market, so let’s start calling it the most populous internet market. Now that we put this into perspective, Google may have made a dumb move in this large market, but probably does not see the revenue return per user that it realizes in other markets.
The other argument for dumb was that Google’s continued survival in the market would be very difficult if it did decide to stay in China. Now that Google made the pull-out threat, their market share would fall even more because current and future potential advertisers do not know if they will stay in the market. This impact would only be temporary, and Google has the coffers to stand the test of time if they decide to continue playing in the market.
The last dumb argument is when Google setup in China four years ago, they upset many groups around the globe by abiding by China censorship regulations. Since that whole debate and the effects of all that backlash have ceded, why make this move and go through another lashing again?
SMART
This is where I lean a bit more for a couple reasons that are personal in nature – humanity, human rights, and security. While the smart arguments are fewer, I think they are stronger. They draw the line and stand up for what is right.
One smart argument is the opposite of the last dumb argument – stop the censorship and let the Chinese people live free of oppression and carry the right to freedom of press and freedom of speech. Let the Chinese people decide what views they want to hear and what political stances they want to assume.
This is related to the next smart argument, which is the artist underground in China. Artists in China have so much talent that is oppressed by the communist state. If the Chinese people were allowed to express their views openly, and engage in open debate, a renaissance would evolve in art, technology, and society. This is what I would look forward to in a free, open China.
The last smart argument is that of security, which is the very reason why I take the liberty to publish this blog posting. If, in fact, the hack that penetrated Google’s systems was state-sponsored, then this is a very good place for a multi-national company to draw the line. THIS IS WHERE THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE DRAWN THE LINE TWO YEARS AGO!! China’s cyber military capability is far beyond the US from an offensive perspective, and I think it is time to test their defensive capabilities. Not to start a cold war or anything, but when we discover state-sponsored snooping on our networks, we should retaliate in the same under-handed manner. Yes, Mom’s voice goes off in the back of my head: “Two wrongs don’t make a right!” Well, that is true, but sitting ducks get blown away is the appropriate answer when it comes to attacks.
The code for the Google hack was immediately made public and a Metasploit exploit has also been produced. Two days ago I went through the code and it appears to be rather unsophisticated; pretty much like what would be required in phishing. Send some starter code and get the user to visit a web set that will complete the exploit. So this means a Google employee reacted to an email that got them hacked? Back to the security education argument….
If you have any comments, or smart/dumb argument suggestions that I may have missed, post something.
On, on…. 73s.