Google Boss Schmidt Labels China ‘IT Menace’

Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt , uses a new book to call China an Internet menace that backs cyber-crime for economic and political gain, reports say.

The New Digital Age – due for release in April – reportedly brands China “the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information”.

China is “the most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies, according to a review obtained by the wall street journal (WSJ).

Revolution coming?

Beijing has been accused by several governments, foreign companies and organizations of carrying out extensive cyber espionage for many years, seeking to gather information and to control China’s image.

This, it says, is because Washington “will not take the same path of digital corporate espionage, as its laws are much stricter (and better enforced) and because illicit competition violates the American sense of fair play”.

The book argues that Western governments could do more to follow China’s lead and develop stronger relationships between the state and technology companies.

States will benefit if they use software and technology made by trusted companies, it suggests.

“Where Huawei gains market share, the influence and reach of China grow as well,” the WSJ quoted the authors as writing.

The WSJ this week said its computer systems had been hacked by specialists in China who were trying to monitor its China coverage.

It was the second reported attack on a major US news outlet in days, as the New York Times reported earlier that Chinese hackers had “persistently” penetrated its systems for the last four months.

China’s foreign ministry dismissed the New York Times’ accusations as “groundless” and “totally irresponsible.

BBC News