New Media

For this International Day of Peace, I was generously invited by The Mark to write about a possible pathway to peace. To no one’s surprise, I chose the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And I’d like to think that if reality played out this way, we’d have a solution in about 24 hours. Read the full article, China Can Solve Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. An excerpt:

Middle East watchers and pundits are gobsmacked at the sheer speed of the talks. How could these leaders hash out an agreement in mere hours after decades of wrangling and bloodshed?

That morning, an utterly forgettable American envoy named Joe walked into the room and sheepishly addressed the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He turned out to be an accountant. Querulous introductions followed. Next, he outlined some harsh truths.

“Look, the U.S. just can’t afford to keep pouring money down the drain and neither can our European pals,” Joe said with a shrug. “We’re broke. And our Chinese creditors, to whom we owe trillions, are threatening to call in our loans. And they’ve given us certain … conditions on our discretionary spending.”

When I first heard of Google’s threat to withdraw its online services from China over censorship and intellectual property theft, my response was “what took them so long?” It’s not like these complaints are anything new. The company’s slogan, “Don’t Be Evil”, has been a favored target of critics since the Internet giant first went along with Chinese online censorship efforts in 2002.

So why is it only now that Google is considering this move? It turns out the “intellectual property” at risk from the latest attack is not financial data or proprietary Google code. According to Google, it’s something a bit more damning:

We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

Now, email accounts get broken into all the time. I’ve worked for an IT consulting firm that specializes in security, so I know a thing or two about how easy it is to hack email, blogs, corporate websites and such. Sad to say, but most of us are vulnerable. The scale of the problem is typically underestimated because many of the hacking victims worldwide don’t know yet that their accounts have been compromised — often for months or even years.

Hackers can cover their tracks and even make it appear that the person conducting the attack is from another country. In the case of the email accounts of the human rights activists, it would be perverse (and make bad business sense) for Google to withdraw services from hundreds of millions of Chinese just because the accounts were broken into. After all, human rights activists get hacked just like everyone else. Google’s stance just wouldn’t make much sense, particularly after putting up with China’s abusive rules for eight years.

It would be perverse, unless Google had definitive proof that these accounts had been hacked directly by employees of the Chinese state.

That could be a good reason to cease doing business in China. After all, cooperating with a censorship regime can be argued to an extent as at least doing the lesser evil. But remaining silent while you know that your infrastructure is hijacked by a totalitarian government to target human rights activists? That is evil, pure and simple.

It’s no longer enough to not be evil. It’s time to be good.

When it comes to technology, you really do get what you pay for. Ever complained at the unfairness of having to pay through the nose for software while people outside of North America pick up items like Microsoft Professional Office suite for $10 (or entirely for free)? I know I have. Software if frickin’ expensive.

Turns out there was a downside for those smart fellas getting that good deal in distant lands. All this time, businesses in China and other places where intellectual property has weak protection have been setting themselves up for a disaster that will hobble the Asian economy for the foreseeable future. Pirated software means no security patches, leaving vast swathes of Asia’s corporate sector at the mercy of cyber criminals. Ah, the irony. Check out the full story in my Techvibes post, Piracy and Corruption in the Far East.

A Falun Gong protester gets shot at and beaten up by three attackers outside of a a foreign embassy. Not exactly surprising stuff, except that the building was the Chinese consulate in Vancouver.

Falun Gong protesters have held a permanent vigil to protest human rights violations against their group outside the embassy for six years. Despite objections from Mayor Sam Sullivan over a year ago, the protest still stands. Has the Chinese government’s patience finally been exhausted?

If not, what other explanation could there be? It’s not like the victim was strutting down Granville Street around midnight, gawking at the testosterone and alcohol-fueled goons who have taken over our entertainment district.

One niggling question is why the mainstream media hasn’t picked up on this incident yet. It has been four days since the assault.

The Epoch Times’ editorial line is unabashedly anti-Communist China and pro-Falun Gong, so one has to read even their straight-up news articles like the one reporting this incident with a skeptical eye. But why isn’t the Vancouver Sun, the Province or even the Georgia Straight reporting an assault outside a foreign embassy involving a gun?

Just asking.

Even before the United Kingdom handed Hong Kong back to China ten years ago, jittery residents of that plucky capitalist (but by no means democratic) outpost packed up and set up new digs on the other side of the Pacific Rim in Vancouver.

I’m glad they did. For one, if they hadn’t, I never would have met my wife. On a less selfish note, her family was part of the wave of immigration by educated, hard-working, entrepreneurial people who have helped transform Vancouver from a sleepy Victorian-Canadian burgh into a thriving multicultural metropolis.

Meanwhile, it seems as though everyone’s predictions about the fall of Hong Kong following the handover are best extremely premature and at worst just plain wrong. The one country, two systems arrangement is working out pretty well. Hong Kong’s democrats aren’t any closer to electing their local representatives ten years on, but commentators likely would have said the same thing if the Brits had somehow extended their stay. Meanwhile, its economy is still humming along. Perhaps it isn’t quite the land of opportunity it was before, but that seems to have more to do with the low cost of labor in the mainland than any sort of communist regulations.

In any case, China’s loss has absolutely been Canada’s gain. As we celebrated the 140th birthday of the Canadian nation on the west coast, we’re reminded once again of how great this country really is, thanks to people from across the ocean who have chosen to be a part of it.