IN REMARKS sure to maintain the high profile of internet censorship in China, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton called on Beijing to investigate cyber attacks on human rights activists using Google services and other US companies.
The attacks have prompted the web giant to threaten to quit China.
Comparing internet censorship to the Berlin Wall, Mrs Clinton’s controversial remarks came as China tried to put a lid on the fallout from the spat with Google, saying the web giant’s threat to exit China over censorship and cyber attacks should not be linked to Sino-US ties.
“Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation,” she said.
In Beijing, the Chinese government sought to play down the impact of the incident.
“The Google incident should not be linked to bilateral relations, otherwise that would be overinterpreting it,” vice-foreign minister He Yafei told the Xinhua news agency.
Mrs Clinton went on to mention China as among a number of countries where there has been “a spike in threats to the free flow of information” over the past year. She also named Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt and Vietnam.
“The internet has already been a source of tremendous progress in China, and it’s great that so many people there are now online,” she said at the Newseum journalism museum in Washington DC.
“But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century.”
Mrs Clinton added that a refusal to accept censorship by US companies should “become a trademark characteristic of American technology companies”.
Respondents to a survey in China said they should be allowed to read whatever they want on the internet. Only 21 per cent said the government should be allowed to meddle in people’s private information.
Mrs Clinton said the state department would hold a high-level meeting next month for talks on internet freedom with companies providing network services. “We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas,” she said.
Google said it no longer wanted to censor its Chinese Google.cn site, and wanted to talk to Beijing about offering a legal, unfiltered Chinese site. Searches for sensitive topics on Google.cn are still largely being censored.
Many in China see Google’s ultimatum as a business tactic because its market share trails the popular Chinese search site Baidu, which is strictly censored.
Despite extensive public debate of the Google issue in China, hacking has been rarely mentioned in official media.
Hacker attack on Boards.ie
ONLINE COMMUNITY site Boards.ie was suspended for several hours yesterday after an attack by hackers who accessed members’ user names, e-mail addresses and passwords.
The hugely popular discussion forum was breached shortly after 11am by a “source external to Ireland”, according to Tom Murphy, the website’s co-founder.
He said the Garda, the Data Protection Commissioner and an independent security consultancy had been informed about the incident.
“Like all large sites we are regularly the target for disruption and take continual actions to proactively protect your data,” he informed site users.
“If you use the same password on Boards as you do on other services, you should change it on those other services to be safe,” Mr Murphy advised members.
He said it was unknown whether the data accessed would be used for malicious purposes.
A warning e-mail was sent to all users last night indicating that individual accounts were not in danger but that the forum had taken the step of changing all user passwords as a precaution. PAMELA NEWENHAM