Big Trouble in China…

There have been a few net stories from China in the past week, so here are three that we were most interested in.

Google Hacker found

U.S. authorities tracked down the “Hacker” behind the famous Google attacks last month.

The man, who isn’t an evil Chinese spy, but instead is a freelance security consultant with ties to the Chinese government and military, did not commit the attack, but instead was behind the code used.

He posted bits of code to a hacking forum, saying it was a work in progress, only for the code to be used with an internet explorer 6 security loophole. He doesn’t work full time for the Chinese government and even the U.S have said the man didn’t want his code used in this way.

The revelations make it harder for the government to distance themselves from claims they were behind the attacks, which targeted lots of foreign companies, because they had access to the mans work. He is quoted as saying: “[He] would rather not have uniformed guys looking over his shoulder, but there is no way anyone of his skill level can get away from that kind of thing,”

Nexus One not going to Beijing

The hotly anticipated Google phone is not going to have a coming out party in Beijing.

Reuters reported that the event was cancelled, but a spokesperson told CNET:

“The reports are incorrect,” she said. “There was not a Nexus One launch event scheduled in Beijing. Google is hosting 3 Android Developer Labs in Asia over the next couple weeks in Singapore, Taipei, and Hong Kong. These are technical events for developers who want to build applications for Android. We never planned to hold an Android Developer Lab in Beijing, and suggestions that we did plan one are not true.”

That being said, many people see this as an important event/non-event. Things are still very tense between China and Google and many see this as a direct result of the shenanigans that severely angered Google last month.

Chinese Government wants to meet .CN site owners in person

Take a seat right over there boy...

The Chinese government wants to sit down and have a serious Father of the new girlfriend style chat with all webmasters of .CN site owners according to rumors posted on this site.

The latest rumour to come out of the country suggest that authorities will require an in-person meeting with any prospective website operator behind a .CN domain name to green-light it.

The applicant would be required to show some kind of ID to ensure that the authorities can act against him should his website be used to display illicit content at any time.

This isn’t the first time they’ve thrown a spanner in the works for owners of the cheap domain.

Often new rules are announced hours before being enforced, giving site owners very little time to adapt or change their sites.

China is also notorious for deleting sites that contain “undesirable content”, from pornography to super liberal sites to critics.