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, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Google is synonymous with Internet search in much of the world however they have been struggling for recognition in China.  This is a huge step for the Google company as a whole, who was the brunt of many different attacks from various folks on the web for running a filtered engine for China.   The same day they publically admit they are thinking of leaving the chinese market place  ‘Iranian’ hackers paralyze the Chinese search engine Baidu thus showing China that they need more than one big player in the marketplace.  Baidu is by far China’s most-used search engine and is responsible for more than half of China’s Internet search market

One thing is for sure – Google will take a hit moving out of the market place – just like they did moving into it.

In retrospect the hack was a very simple one, just a hijack of the dns control from Register.com – have you changed your login and password for your domain registrar lately?  This is after all the same hack method used to take Twitter offline just one month ago.

as Chuck Russel, Jason Reynolds, David Helbig, and Clif Guy discussed Internet Campus while enjoying a beautiful night on the beach just a couple hundred feet away in the beach parking lot, Jason’s car window was smashed and Clif’s briefcase/laptop bag was stolen containing his laptop, digital camera, web cam, cables, and all kinds of personal items.

Recently I purchased a Mac Powerbook Pro – and I absolutely love this machine…  I think I might need to start attending a 12 step program as I sleep with this thing, take it to church with me (ok so I use it while preaching…) and it has even made the occasional trip to the bathroom with me… it would be devastating for me to loose this or have it stolen.

I looked into purchasing the LoJack software until I read a quick tidbit on BitBud’s blog about encryption for our servers, files, laptops etc… as well as Adeona – a free Open Source LoJack software.

Adeona is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central service.  Whats nice is its 3 primary properties:

• Private: Adeona uses state-of-the-art cryptographic mechanisms to ensure that the owner is the only party that can use the system to reveal the locations visited by a device.
• Reliable: Adeona uses a community-based remote storage facility, ensuring retrievability of recent location updates.
• Open source and free: Adeona’s software is licensed under GPLv2. While your locations are secret, the tracking system’s design is not.

The Mac OS X version also has an option to capture pictures of the laptop user or thief using the built-in iSight camera and the freeware tool isightcapture.

So what are you waiting for?   LoJack your hardware !