If you have been wondering how safe cloud computing technologies are for proprietary secrets and sensitive information storage you can draw your own conclusions after reading the following details related to the Google hacking incident in which China is blamed.  Whether or not the Chinese government is behind the incident is still unclear and it is appearing to be less of an effort to identify 'human rights' activists in that country than it is an attempt to exploit and steal Google secrets. Still, the real question should be how safe is cloud computing on a global scale?

Yesterday the world finally learned the truth about the attack on Google by Chinese hackers which became public in January, 2010. According to a source within the Google Corporation, who requested his identity remain anonymous, the raid on Google lasted less than two days and took place in December, 2009.  According to this source and The New York Times reporter, John Markoff, the theft was not of user accounts in the typical sense. Instead, the theft involved that of a Google Development Team which had vast amounts of proprietary information in the ‘clouds’.  Apparently, developers previously used a single password to access a range of services within the Google Developers Intranet and it was this information that was acquired by hackers.

The NYT story reports access was gained when an active link within an instant message sent to a Google employee working in China was clicked. The original IM was sent using Microsoft’s Messenger program and the link connected the employee’s machine to what the article referred to as a “poisoned’ web site. Having gained access to the single machine made it possible for the intruders to gain access to a critical group of software developers at Google Headquarters based on the single login criteria. From there the hackers gained control of a software repository used by the development team. Cloud computing is a new wave in technology that allows software and database records to enjoy centralized storage. These stores of information make it possible for numerous team members around the globe to easily collaborate on projects without the necessity of physical proximity. Cloud computing has also made possible what is known as SaaS. SaaS is an acronym for software as a service.

At Manwaring Web Solutions we believe common sense dictates. Although common sense is often times not so common so we feel it important to warn everyone... in situations where a single breach can result in disastrous losses….never click on a link from an unknown source via email or instant message systems.

This is important so it is worth repeating...

DO NOT CLICK ON AN EMAIL OR INSTANT MESSAGE LINK FROM ANYONE YOU ARE NOT WELL ACQUAINTED. 

To finish enlightening you on the Google Theft....

In Google’s case, the intruders seemed to have precise intelligence about the names of the Gaia software developers, and they first tried to access their work computers and then used a et of sophisticated techniques to gain access to the repositories where the source code for the program was stored.  

They (intruders) then transferred the stolen software to computers owned by Rackspace, a Texas company. Rackspace, which had no knowledge of the transaction, offers Web-hosting services. It is not known where the software was sent from there. The intruders had access to an internal Google corporate directory known as Moma, which holds information about the work activities of each Google employee, and they may have used it to find specific employees.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36655005          

On March 22, 2010, Google made good on threats to pull out of services to China by shifting search services from mainland China to an unfiltered Hong Kong site. This action has been criticized as 'totally wrong' by China. This move comes as a response to hackers obtaining proprietary information and e-mail data of some human-rights activists in a sophisticated attack on Google.

Then on March 25,2010, Google attempted to advance its campaign by attempting to get other companies to join in putting pressure on Chinese government officials over alleged human-rights violations. One company, Go Daddy has followed suit.

Internet domain registrar GoDaddy.com announced it had stopped selling new Web domain names in China, citing dismay with government policies it says are designed to tighten control over Internet use by residents. "We don't want to be an agent for the Chinese government," says Christine Jones, Go Daddy's general counsel.

It is doubtful many other countries will join this pair as one company put it... "Just because the situation got bad for you doesn't mean it's bad for everybody else," says Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the Web site Search Engine Land.

Whether or not this move will have any political influence on the leaders of China remains to be seen in the future. 

Source: BusinessWeek

Have you heard of Google's upcoming "Caffeine" update?  It is big news - a complete rebuild of Google's search platform!  Searchengineland.com summed it up nicely, "we can guess that this new infrastructure may include ways of crawling the web more comprehensively, determining reputation and authority (possibly beyond the link graph and what’s typically thought of as PageRank), and returning more relevant results more quickly, although Google’s Matt Cutts told me that the changes are 'primarily in how we index'".  This should be important to any website owner. Google controls such a large control of the search engine market that even small changes in a site's placement in SERPs can drastically affect the web site traffic.

Google's Matt Cutts confirmed a few days ago that this update will not be pushed out completely until after the Holidays.  I guess they don't want to rock the boat too much during the big holiday shopping season.  Matt specifically mentions that he wants web masters to breathe easy and not worry about the update until after the holidays have passed. Personally, I'm a little disappointed. I was really looking forward to this upcoming release. While I didn't roll up my sleeves and do any major testing in their sandbox (which is now closed), I did check out some of my sites - and client sites. I liked what I saw. I think this update will really help clean out sites that relied on spammy techniques to rank well and make room for more worthwhile sites - like mine! :)  I wish the update was hitting more quickly, but I guess we will all have to wait.