Chinese schools deny role in Google hack

IDG News Service - Two schools in China where computers were reportedly linked to cyberattacks on Google and other companies have denied involvement in the hack, Chinese state media said Sunday.

Investigators say they have traced the attacks back to computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University, which is one of China's top universities, and Lanxiang Vocational School in eastern Shandong province, The New York Times reported this week. That may not mean the attacks were launched from those computers since their IP (Internet Protocol) addresses could have been used by attackers elsewhere seeking to hide their location.
A spokesperson said the Shanghai university was "shocked and indignant to hear these baseless allegations" and denied any link to students or teachers at the school, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. A representative of the vocational school said investigation of its staff found no trace that the attacks originated there, Xinhua said. The representative also denied any ties between the school and China's military.
The Chinese vocational school has about 20,000 students learning skills such as cooking, car repair and hairdressing, Xinhua said.
Google said last month that it planned to stop censoring results on its China-based search engine, citing cyberattacks apparently launched from China as one reason for the move. Google has said it is in talks with Chinese authorities, but Google.cn is still censoring sensitive political and other search results.

Space Station Computer Failure Knocks Out Communications Briefly

A main computer failure aboard the International Space Station knocked out communications between the orbiting laboratory and Earth for a short time Sunday, but the station has since recovered, NASA officials said.

One of three command and control computers on the space station failed just before 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT), but a backup kicked in as designed to restore communications with Earth after about an hour.

Since then, each of the three computers has suffered a so-called transition event, in which the primary computer shifts to a backup, but the space station's main control computers are currently all online, NASA officials said. The glitch has occurred four times.

Engineers currently suspect the computer problem may be due to commands sent from Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Mission Control radioed the station's crew to say it is being "ultra-cautious" with the commands it is sending. Engineers are also studying odd signals from computers in the station's new Tranquility module, which was just delivered by the space shuttle Endeavour this month.

Only the command computers were affected and the space station's life support systems continued to work fine, NASA spokesperson Pat Ryan said on NASA TV.

"There's been no impact to life support systems on board the space station, so no threat to crew safety," Ryan said.

The space station's three main command and control computers work in a tiered setup, with one serving as the prime machine, a second as backup and the third in a standby mode for extra protection. Each of those computers has suffered a malfunction at one point, and then recovered, Ryan said.

The space station is currently home to five astronauts: Two Americans, two Russians and one Japanese astronaut. The astronauts were enjoying a much-needed day off after a busy nine days while Endeavour's six-astronaut crew was visiting.

"We're thinking we might need another day off," space station commander Jeffrey Williams of NASA told Mission Control as they worked through the glitch.

Some of the astronauts missed their regular video phone calls to family members on Earth because of the computer problems. Mission Control assured them they would be able to reschedule the calls.

While the space station crew worked through the computer problems, astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour were sleeping. The crew will wake up later this afternoon to prepare for a planned 10:20 p.m. EST (0020 Monday GMT) landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Rainy and cloudy weather is expected at the landing strip, as well as at a backup runway in California, and could keep the shuttle in orbit an extra day.

Endeavour is returning to Earth to wrap up a two-week mission that delivered the space station's new Tranquility module and a seven-window lookout called the Cupola.

The dome-shaped lookout includes the largest window ever sent to space and gives astronauts phenomenal panoramic views of Earth and space.

Endeavour has enough supplies to stay in orbit until Tuesday, but Mission Control plans to land the shuttle by Monday to keep one day in reserve. The shuttle's STS-130 flight is the first of NASA's five final shuttle missions before the agency retires its three-orbiter fleet in the fall.

IT groups warn Chinese on regulation

The US and the European Union are pushing China to soften or drop plans for compulsory certification of a range of technology products, as foreign IT companies warn that Beijing’s regulatory requirements are pushing them out of the market.

The complaints come after Google’s announcement last month that it was reviewing the feasibility of operations in China, saying it had been attacked by hackers based there. This highlighted a broadening conflict between the Beijing and foreign business over information security and intellectual property.
Rules set to take effect on May 1 will exclude suppliers of encryption-related products such as firewalls, secure routers or smart cards from government tenders unless they undergo testing and certification to meet Chinese standards. In some cases this will require submitting software source codes and other confidential information.

Foreign businesses fear the authorities could pass information on to their state-owned competitors. They also argue thattheir products could become unsafe if Beijing used its knowledge of software architecture to install “back doors” for surveillance.
“To many it feels that the Chinese government is trying to get its hands on every bit of information that passes through this country,” said Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.
Beijing’s failure to announce implementation regulations leads some foreign companies to conclude that the objective is to lock them out of the market.

John Neuffer, vice-president for global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, a lobby group, said: “The looming choice for many of our companies is to create costly bifurcated product lines, one for China and one for the rest of the world, or to ponder less ambitious trade and investment choices in that market.”

Industry sources and diplomats said they hoped for a compromise, especially as Beijing had shown flexibility last year. Following months of quiet lobbying, China agreed in April, just days before the rules were due to take effect, to delay implementation for a year and limit their scope to government procurement.
Deborah Mesloh, deputy US trade representative for public affairs, said: “Since then the US has continued to ask China to follow global norms in this area, and we are continuing those discussions.”
Mr Neuffer added: “The foreign high-tech industry wants to continue its win-win partnership with the very important China market. But whether through unique standards or onerous regulatory requirements that veer markedly from global approaches, we are feeling less welcome.”