Chinese hackers resume attacks on U.S. targets
For the last three months or so, the U.S. government and some of its defense contractors have engaged in a war of shame on China to pressure it to cool its cyber attacks on U.S. targets. The campaign appeared to be yielding results, but it seems that Chinese hackers were only catching their breath.
The notorious Unit 61398, also known as the "Comment Crew," -- an elite cyber unit linked by U.S. security firms to the China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) -- has renewed its raids on U.S. entities using different techniques, the New York Times has reported.
Cyber security firm Mandiant told the Times that the attacks had been renewed, but would not identify the targets -- although it did acknowledge that many of them were the same ones assaulted earlier by the Chinese cyber unit.
Mandiant did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Read more...
Intel sets up joint lab with China’s Baidu for mobile apps
Intel is hoping to get more Chinese developers to back its products by forming a new joint innovation lab with the nation's largest search engine, Baidu.
The lab is part of an agreement the two companies signed on Thursday that will focus on developing software for China's mobile Internet market. Developers in the country will have access to Intel-powered products, including PCs, tablets, and mobile devices, to test and port software for Baidu and Intel platforms.
"If you are a developer, you will now have more choices of platform and more opportunities in business," said Christos Georgiopoulos, Intel general manager for developer relations. Read more...
China slams U.S. for discriminating against nation’s tech vendors
China has slammed a new U.S. funding law that will tighten scrutiny of information technology purchases from the country, and said it could severely damage the mutual trust between the two nations.
"The contents of the U.S. congressional act sends a very wrong signal, and could directly affect normal trade between Chinese enterprises and U.S. business partners," the country's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Friday.
The funding law, signed by U.S. President Barack Obama last week, includes a provision that U.S. authorities will vet all IT system purchases made by select federal agencies, including the Commerce and Justice Departments, NASA, and the National Science Foundation. Read more...
Microsoft, Lenovo to promote genuine Windows on PCs
In the midst of its latest campaign to fight piracy in China, Microsoft has signed an agreement with Lenovo to ensure that its PCs ship with licensed versions of Windows software on its computers.
As part of the agreement signed Tuesday, Lenovo will also encourage its resellers to promote PCs with genuine Microsoft software.
Lenovo's pledge is notable, given that the company has long been China's largest PC vendor, with a market share of 36.7 percent. The company is also known to have a vast distribution network in the country that extends into China's smaller cities.
Microsoft has been fighting piracy in the country for years. In a recent survey, the company bought 169 PCs from the country's local electronic shops and found that all contained pirated Windows software. Read more...
White House warns China to crack down on cyberattacks
A top U.S. official called on China to investigate and stop cyberattacks, which he said pose a growing threat to the countries' economic relationship.
Tom Donilon, U.S. President Barack Obama's national security advisor, said the U.S. will take steps to protect its economy from cyberthreats, which he said have eclipsed ordinary cybercrime and hacking.
U.S. businesses have serious concerns about the theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies "through cyber intrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale," he said.
"The international community cannot afford to tolerate such activity from any country," said Donilon in a speech to The Asia Society in New York. Read more...
China wary of Android dominance over nation’s tech market
China signaled it wants to reduce its dependence on Google's Android OS, alleging that the U.S. company has discriminated against local companies over the use of the mobile operating system.
"Our country's mobile operating system research and development is heavily reliant on Android," according to a white paper from a research division of China's tech regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. "Although the Android system currently remains open source, the core technologies and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google."
The comments, published online this month, were reported by local publications on Tuesday. Read more...
Everyone knew what China was doing — now what?
The report released this week by security firm Mandiant laid out damning evidence linking China to a sophisticated cyber espionage ring and set off an avalanche of alarms and hand-wringing that brings to mind the scene in "Casablanca" where Captain Renault exclaims, "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
That China engages in cyber spying has been an open secret. InfoWorld's own Roger Grimes has been issuing warnings for more than two years about the dangers of APTs (advanced persistent threats) and detailed the methods used by cyber spies to steadily mine corporations' sensitive data. Read more...
After Congress’ report, what next for China’s tech firms?
There's a new television show, "Revolution," which looks at what happens to society after every piece of complex technology, including power generation, stops working. The reasons for this outage aren't explained. Maybe it's China's fault. After years of allegedly building backdoors into equipment, something implanted by China went awry and accidentally turned off everything everywhere.
The prelude for this plotline was written by the U.S. House intelligence committee in its report Monday about Chinese telecommunications vendors Huawei Technologies and ZTE. The committee is telling private sector firms -- in a big headline on its website -- to "use another vendor" as it warns of "long-term security risks."
At the minimum, analysts believe the House intelligence report will bring more scrutiny to joint efforts and agreements by U.S. and China technology companies, but trade problems can't be ruled out either. Read more...
Two factories, two fates: Foxconn ascends on cheap labor, Sharp hangs on
Shige Watanabe remembers the boom days.
"It was solid cars on the roads. The factories ran full steam, constantly," he says, standing in front of the electronics shop he has run for 30 years in the Japanese town of Yaita. A car occasionally cruises by his shop window, packed with Aquos TVs and other Sharp appliances, but the giant Sharp plant across the street is still, its windows dark on a quiet Friday afternoon.
About 1,500 miles to the west, in the outskirts of Zhengzhou, China, the scene is very different, with the sounds of traffic and construction heavy in the air. This is Foxconn Electronics territory, and thousands of assembly workers roam the streets between shifts, walking around piles of bricks and construction equipment. Building crews scramble to finish dormitories next to bustling factory lines, and tractors flatten fields nearby to build more. Read more...
Apple kicks off new iPad sales in China next week
Apple today said it would start selling the new iPad in China starting Friday, July 20.
As analysts expected, the move came quickly after Apple settled a dispute with a Chinese company over the iPad name.
The tablet, which Apple launched in the U.S. in March, will be priced the same as the current iPad 2, which is the model now for sale in the People's Republic of China (PRC), or mainland China: $499 (US) for the base 16GB iPad with Wi-Fi only, up to $829 for the 64GB Wi-Fi/3G configuration.
Current prices for the iPad 2 run from 2,988 yuan to 5,488 yuan, which at Tuesday's exchange rate is $469 to $861.
As in other markets, Apple will continue to sell the iPad 2 for $399 (2,542 yuan at today's exchange rate) in China.
Chinese buyers will be able to purchase iPads through the Apple online store, some authorized resellers and by reservation at one of the country's five Apple retail stores. The latter can be made daily between 9 a.m. and noon local time, starting July 19, for next-day pick up. Read more...
Silicon Valley’s top threat is China, survey finds
A significant number of high-level technology executives appear to believe Silicon Valley's days as the world's innovation hub are numbered.
At least that's the findings of a KPMG survey of 668 technology business executives at $1 billion-plus companies, start-ups and venture capital firms around the world.
Of those surveyed by the audit, tax and advisory firm, 44% believe it's likely that the "technology innovation center of the world," now in Silicon Valley, will shift to another country in the next four years.
The most likely choice among respondents is China. Read more...
Mark Zuckerberg makes surprise cameo on Chinese TV
Social media sites and blogs have lit up after eagle-eyed viewers spotted a surprise cameo in a Chinese TV documentary about the country's police force: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his now-wife, Priscilla Chan.
The documentary by CCTV was part of a series on Chinese police and high-tech crime-solving methods. A few seconds of footage showing Zuckerberg and Chan walking behind two police officers were shown included in a brief clip posted online by the Hebei province satellite station. Read more...
Microsoft boots Chinese firm for leaking Windows exploit
Microsoft on Thursday identified a Chinese security partner as the source of a leak last March in its highly restricted vulnerability information-sharing program.
The company, Hangzhou DPTech Technologies, was tossed out of the Microsoft Active Protection Program (MAPP) for leaking the proof-of-concept exploit.
"During our investigation into the disclosure of confidential data shared with our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) partners, we determined that a member ... Hangzhou DPTech Technologies Co., Ltd., had breached our non-disclosure agreement (NDA)," Yunsun Wee, director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, wrote in a post to a company blog. "Microsoft takes breaches of our NDAs very seriously and has removed this partner from the MAPP Program." Read more...
Chinese Web giant Sina’s new citizen reporting platform pulled amid rumor of government interference
We’ve seen plenty of efforts aimed at creating citizen news channels — the last few days alone saw Dabble and Signal launch — but Chinese Web giant Sina‘s effort to join the grouping cluster of news-gathering services has been the most curious yet.
Earlier today Sina, which runs popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo, launched Baoliao, a real-time news reporting platform. However, there’s a problem. As Tech in Asia points out, Baoliao is nowhere to be found.
The Chinese government has been hot on cracking down on anonymous Internet users and the reporting of ‘harmful information’, could it be that the state stepped in to bring down the service just hours after it launched? Read more...
Chinese PC Market Will Grow 12% In 2012
If you were wondering where all the PC growth was, look East, young person. IHS, formerly iSuppli, expects that desktop sales will rise 8% and Ultrabook sales will take up 15 to 20 percent of notebook shipments. Windows 8 and Intel’s Ivy Bridge are to be driving factors in PC growth this year.
In comparison, IDC found that 2011 PC shipments shrank in Europe and the United States by 9%. Read more...