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Google's half-truths, and a plea for perspective

78 points| andreyf | 16 years ago |andreyf.tumblr.com | reply

43 comments

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[+] dtf|16 years ago|reply
What is this, an episode of Lie To Me? :-)

Government spies in the Shanghai office stealing Google's source tree seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess China will just build their own Google now...

[+] andreyf|16 years ago|reply
Government spies in the Shanghai office stealing Google's source tree seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess China will just build their own Google now...

The NYT article explicitly says the opposite: "attackers may have succeeded in penetrating elaborate computer security systems and obtaining crucial corporate data and software source code, though Google said it did not itself suffer losses of that kind". In general, that's not the language I hear them using - "broad", "sophisticated", and "targeting infrastructure of a variety of major corporations".

[+] Estragon|16 years ago|reply
Yeah, this guy's been watching too much TV.

I've trained with Ekman's METT and SETT programs, and I didn't interpret his facial cues the same way. Those expressions looked like anger and sadness to me.

[+] lr|16 years ago|reply
"How did Google find out the other companies were being targeted?"

Google runs data centers, and probably sees a lot more traffic than for its own services. Also, who is to say these companies are not using Google products (Gmail, Docs, etc.)? In other words, I think Google might be in a position to know.

[+] jonknee|16 years ago|reply
Google supposedly hacked the hackers and found evidence that they had infiltrated the other companies.
[+] madh|16 years ago|reply
I read somewhere (probably here) that Google accounts for 5% of global internet traffic.
[+] mcobrien|16 years ago|reply
Here's my guess. Google initially detected an attack coming from Chinese IP ranges and subsequently checked what other requests the IPs had made.

This is what led to the accounts that were accessed not "through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers".

Although they mention gmail in the statement, the expansion to other industries is made on the Google Enterprise blog (mainly aimed at promoting Google Apps to large companies), so it seems likely the same Chinese IPs accessed users of Google Apps.

So this isn't the Chinese government targeting other industries so much as dissidents that might work there. Google's statement still seems consistent to me, although they have shied away from mentioning Google Apps.

[+] est|16 years ago|reply
> and subsequently checked what other requests the IPs had made.

By how?

[+] ramidarigaz|16 years ago|reply
I'd never heard of FACS before. The Wikipedia page he links to doesn't contain much info. Wikipedia says nothing about which AUs correspond to which emotions. Does anyone know any good articles on this? It's interesting.
[+] andreyf|16 years ago|reply
Paul Ekman is the guy who popularized it. Here is a good overview of his life/work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA8nYZg4VnI

Regarding reading expressions in particular, good start is "Emotions Revealed" [1], which was pretty comprehensive, but not as comprehensive (or as expensive) as his METT system: http://face.paulekman.com/products.aspx The half-smirk when talking about the other companies is contempt. The raised chin is shame. A lot of fear and sadness in the beginning, with exceptions of talking about the technical details of the attack and Google's desire to stay in China towards the end - lots of confidence there. If you watching him carefully with the sound off, I think you can pick up on the emotions intuitively.

In a more cynical light, this is good to keep in mind as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facecrime

1. http://www.amazon.com/Emotions-Revealed-Recognizing-Communic...

[+] natch|16 years ago|reply
I doubt that lie detection voodoo actually works when the person being interviewed is new to the whole being on TV thing.
[+] Groxx|16 years ago|reply
That's pretty much accurate. Lie detection methods almost all base around detecting stress, and large amounts of stress (like being on TV for the first time) tend to throw them way off. In order to really have a baseline to compare lies against, you need to have a baseline. If they're not stable enough to do that, the science of it gets lost, and it's basically up to totally subjective methods.
[+] Femur|16 years ago|reply
Andreyf, is this original content you have written or was it borrowed in another social experiment?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049430

[+] andreyf|16 years ago|reply
All original, just for you :) I'd appreciate it if you didn't hijack this conversation into another 30-comment unrelated thread, though.
[+] DanielBMarkham|16 years ago|reply
I read an interesting article yesterday about the news coverage of North Korea's drive towards nuclear weapons. Looking back on it now, it's obvious that the North started a nuclearization program in 1996 and pursued it each year no matter what was going on at the negotiating table. (Both political parties and the Clinton and Bush administration were taken to task in this article)

Looking at the press coverage, however, was even more interesting. There were some quite prominent columnists who insisted that the North was misunderstood, that they weren't committed to continuing to develop weapons, and that the various tactics used by both administrations were really what was at the root of the North's belligerence.

Sometimes pleas for perspective can be good, and sometimes they can all be so much noise. I'm not going to characterize this piece, but I'll note that there is a great similarity between how NK was covered with nukes and how China is being covered with CyberWarfare.

I find it disconcerting.

[+] andreyf|16 years ago|reply
Oops, is "plea for perspective" not the right phrase? I meant to say that a coordinated attack on a variety (probably all) major US corporations might be more significant than what Google does with their .cn properties...
[+] rortian|16 years ago|reply
I don't think you could ever mine a chief council's interview for much information. However, human rights activists are certainly targeted but you are way off base to suggest companys are not.

I am in a rush so I can't pull up a story I recent heard about where a foreign business man was brought into custody. A large portion of billionaires in China are children of party officials that were installed in those positions.

The party very much wants to stay in power in China and they are not only worried about idealistic, which I am sympathetic to, and not so wealth opposition. They are worried about business leaders and all evidence indicates they are keeping an eye on them as well.