Things just got a little more interesting in the world of cyberpolitics.

Google revealed today that they’ve detected a sophisticated attack on their infrastructure originating from China back in December, an attack which they say impacted more than twenty other large companies in various sectors. Specifically, the attackers attempted to access Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google does not lay blame on any specific party, however, it does indicate that it is reconsidering its approach to China.

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn

Externally Google has been pressured by various NGOs and governments with respect to its approach in China since it decided to censor its search results in the country. A move which some claimed was antithetical to the Company’s mantra “Don’t be evil.” In fact Google along with other search results faced a US congressional hearing back in 2006. Nonetheless, many queries in google.cn continue to deliver this note as part of the results: ” 据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。” or “According to local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not shown.” Until today, it appeared that the revenue from China outweighed the costs.

With this move, the pendulum has clearly shifted. However, many questions remain regarding how decision was arrived at and how it will play out: Whether the costs of operating in country have become too much compared to the net revenue (to the tune of 22 billion dollars in the second quarter of 2009)? Or if Google is simply finding its infrastructure too vulnerable in the country? Has Google returned core values with respect to freedom of information, or caved in to external pressure regarding China’s censorship policies? Will China comply with Google, or will they reach a compromise? And if Google does indeed pull out of the Chinese market will its place be filled with other foreign search giants like Yahoo, or will it set precedent?

This is really the first major news this decade about cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks have become commonplace in recent years, however in this case the economic and diplomatic stakes are incredibly high. Beyond the scope of the attack on Google, and the battle of the nerds… cyberwarfare between nations is not such a remote possibility as the internet and information technology take a more prominent role in national infrastructures. The following is an excerpt from a piece I wrote late last year on the transformation of war:

“… Constructivism takes an optimistic approach towards norms and progress. However, while norms can change to ameliorate conflict among nations, they can just as easily bring an ever-changing face to war. Indeed the 20th century was witness to a shift in the paradigm of warfare that took conflict from the trenches into cities. The democratization of war was a shift in norms which instead of creating taboos of war, propagandized war. This led to even more destructive weapons and created a situation where wars were supplied by, and waged on citizens. It is possible that even if the killing of human beings as a part of warfare becomes taboo (to the extent that state-sanctioned slavery is today), war itself might evolve. Going back to the definition of war, it is an act that is a means and not an end; and certainly any act that engages two parties in aggression, and achieves the desired outcome by force may constitute warfare. For example, in a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on technology, cyber attacks are becoming increasingly threatening^*. Equipment disruption, invasion of data banks and information highway can all be considered modes of cyber warfare. This type of warfare would not require massive troop mobilization; and it may not lead to civilian casualties, unless that is desired. But compromising critical systems in a nation could paralyze it and threaten its security. This type of warfare would have little resemblances to historic wars, however, it would achieve the same outcomes.”

*Hildreth, S. A. (2001). Cyberwarfare. Congressional Research Service policy paper.

A venerated sage with vast power and knowledge, you gently guide forces around you while serving as a champion of the light.

“Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not – for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you, everywhere.” *source

I was kind of hoping to be a STer like Picard or Spock or Data… even Worf would’ve been fine. Turns out I am just an old little green hippie inside… we know these quizzes never lie!

In other news, the web’s abuzz about Google Wave. From the preview, I can’t decide whether they’re streamlining user-experience by collapsing multiple services into one, or creating an entirely new service that may even be too bloated with functionalities. But Google rarely disappoints and the fact that this is open source is good news and the real-time document editing capabilities look fantastic. I can’t even begin to describe how many times I’ve needed something exactly like this for collaboration projects, because Google Docs just does not do it… so I am definitely looking forward to when this thing actually comes out.

What I am really looking forward to though is this upcoming summer (yes, summer still hasn’t quite started here, you can still breathe in Montreal) there are some exciting things coming this way.

If you haven’t heard about this already you will definitely will within the next few days. The past few weeks Google has been unrolling new technology left and right. The most exciting debute, though, belongs to Street View, part of the Google maps suit, and something which will likely be integrated into Google Earth soon. The name of the feature is pretty self-explanatory. Essentially by selecting “street view” on the map, you are given the option to zoom in to one of several cities (currently the feature is available for five cities in the US) and take a ride in the streets, viewing a 360° view of your selected location.

This has been done in the past, both by private and governmental organizations and the pictures are readily available online if you look hard enough for them. Google itself, in fact, has contracted several companies specializing in street photography. (View some of their work) However, what I think is exciting about Google integerating this feature into their service is thier ability to take a currently existing technology, take it to the next level, and make it available to the mass population. Additionally, I think that being able to view the world on the street level in Google maps and Earth was an inevitable next step.
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The improvement of the world must be highly contextualized.
-Hans Rosling

This is one of the best gems that I’ve stumbled upon in recent memory, thanks to /.. Recently it was reported that Google has snaped up Karolinska stats tool for an ‘undisclosed sum’ ;). This tool was developed by the Hans Rosling (a professor of international health at Swedens’ Karolinska institute) and his son under the wing of Gapminder. The objective of the tool, called the Trendalyzer software, is to gather and present a variety of data from public data-bases that are normally inaccessible to the public in the same place in a comprehensive yet elegant manner.

So what? Companies spend millions of dollars a year attempting to improve their statistical analysis tools to compete in the market– after all, you don’t want to sell to the individual, the individual varies too much, you want to sell to the masses, and to do that you must understand the mind of the population. Good statistical analysis tools are even more important in the public arena where the report quotes Rosling stating that “public organizations around the world invest 20 billion dollars a year producing different kinds of statistics.”

What is apparently fantastic about the Trendalyzer is its ability to present a multitude of data in a way that is simple and visually attractive, and really expresses the association between different parameters. You can view a sample “graph” at Google:

http://tools.google.com/gapminder/

The video below, however, really shows Rosling’s tool in action. Watch Rosling (and his dynamic personality) in a few slides essentially dispel the notion of a divided world and show the diversity that is present in regions that are often ‘lumped’ together… to those of us who would rather die than attempt to understand statistics. It’s fascinating!!

http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=hans_rosling

I thought maybe they know everything I am going to teach them about. So I did a pretest, when they came. And one of the questions from which I learnt a lot was this one: Which country has the highest child mortality of these five pairs. And I put them together so that one in each country has twice the rate of mortality as the other… so I got a confidence interval which was pretty narrow. And I got happy of course. At 1.8 out of 5 answers possible, that means that there was a place for a professor of international health and for my course. But one late night, when I was compiling my reprot I really realized my discovery. I have shown the Swedish top students know, statistically less significant about the world than the chimpanzees. Because the chimpanzees would score half right. If I gave them two bananas, with Sri Lanka and Turkey, they would be right half of the cases. But the students are not that. The problem for me was not ignorance, it was pre-conceived ideas. I did also an unethical study of the professors of the Karolinska Institute that have some of the noble prizes in medicine, and they are on par with the chimpanzees there. So this where I realized that there was a need to communicate…

-Hans Rosling

So much potential! First, I am very excited to see how Google will expand this project (I still can’t get over the awesomeness that is Google Earth ) and second, man, someone please give me a ticket to Sweden! I am very impressed with their international health program… and I need to take Dr. Rosling’s lectures.