Category Archives: China

China’s Other E-Commerce Giant Follows Its Own Path

Long overshadowed by its rival Alibaba, JD is basing its business on logistics and a promise to cater to shoppers from click to package delivery.

China Blocks Virtual Network Use

China has blocked several popular services that let citizens skirt state censorship systems and reach banned sites.

Jet Data Theft ‘Shows Cyber-Spy Risk’

The reported theft by Chinese spies of designs for Australia’s new warplane, the US-built F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet, highlights cyber-espionage risks, Australia’s FM says.

Alibaba to Join Microsoft’s Fight Against Pirate Software in China

Microsoft and Chinese online commerce giant Alibaba have signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the Chinese firm take measures to help protect Microsoft’s intellectual property in its online stores.

Microsoft has long struggled with software piracy in China, with then-CEO Steve Ballmer saying in 2011 that the company was missing something like 95 percent of potential revenue due to lax protection of intellectual property rights.

With the new agreement in place, Alibaba will remove counterfeit and unlicensed software from its eBay-like Taobao marketplace and its Tmall B2C site. The two companies will also work together to tell consumers that counterfeit software poses risks to their security and privacy, with Alibaba also helping the unwitting buyers of unlicensed software seek compensation from sellers. A Microsoft-sponsored study claimed that some 85 percent of PCs sold with pirated software in China were infected with malware.

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Bits Special Section: China, a Fish Barrel for Cybercriminals

The naïveté of new Internet users, and an emphasis on bolstering the web’s growth, have left China’s more than 600 million Internet users vulnerable to cybercrime.

NSA Director: China Can Damage US Power Grid

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NSA Director: China can damage US power grid

Chinese Arrests over iOS Malware

Three people believed to have been involved in creating malware that penetrated Apple’s strict controls have been arrested in China.

Bits Blog: Apple Links China’s UnionPay Cards to App Store

Chinese users can now use China UnionPay cards to buy items in the App Store.

Alibaba, Shrugging Off Slowdown in Chinese Economy, Reports Strong First Earnings

Revenue at the Chinese e-commerce company, which went public in September, rose 54 percent, to $2.7 billion.

China Says It’s Developed A Laser To Bring Down Drones

The laser, China said, can destroy small-scale drones flying at a low altitude. The U.S. tested a similar system, last year. It put it aboard a ship in the Persian Gulf.

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China Denies Shutting Foreign Sites

The director of China’s internet regulator admits that some foreign websites cannot be visited but denies shutting them down.

Protesters in Hong Kong on Edge as Police Track Their Online Footprints

A man’s arrest over posts about the pro-democracy demonstrations raises concern that the authorities have begun to patrol the Internet.

Chinese Government Launches Man-in-Middle Attack Against iCloud

A screen capture shows the warning of a fake iCloud.com certificate—signed by an official Chinese certificate authority.

GreatFire.org

GreatFire.org, a group that monitors censorship by the Chinese government’s national firewall system (often referred to as the “Great Firewall”), reports that China is using the system as part of a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack on users of Apple’s iCloud service within the country. The attacks come as Apple begins the official rollout of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus on the Chinese mainland.

The attack, which uses a fake certificate and Domain Name Service address for the iCloud service, is affecting users nationwide in China. The GreatFire.org team speculates that the attack is an effort to help the government circumvent the improved security features of the new phones by compromising their iCloud credentials and allowing the government to gain access to cloud-stored content such as phone backups.

Chinese iCloud users attempting to log in with Firefox and Chrome browsers would have been alerted to the fraudulent certificate. However, those using Mac OS X’s built-in iCloud login or another browser may not have been aware of the rerouting, and their iCloud credentials would have been immediately compromised. Using two-step verification would prevent the hijacking of compromised accounts.

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Chinese Find Number URLs Easier Than Letters

Chinese characters don’t readily work with the English-centric internet. The New Republic’s Chris Beam tells NPR’s Scott Simon that the Chinese use numbers that when pronounced, sound like words.

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