Google's half-truths, and a plea for perspective | Hacker News Reader

Google's half-truths, and a plea for perspective

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78 pointsandreyf43 comments

What is this, an episode of Lie To Me? :-)

Government spies in the Shanghai office stealing Google's source tree seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess China will just build their own Google now...

Yeah, this guy's been watching too much TV.

I've trained with Ekman's METT and SETT programs, and I didn't interpret his facial cues the same way. Those expressions looked like anger and sadness to me.

Anger and sadness are certainly there, and with good reason. But the tension during some answers and not during others is there, as well. Not because he's lying, but because he's making sure not to say something he is not allowed to. The pre-rehearsed part about not claiming the attack to have been state-sponsored is a good control - the anger/sadness is there, but the tension is not.

A corporate spokesperson giving an interview on television is nothing but an exercise in avoiding saying things that are not "allowed." It could just be that the times when you see tension is that those weren't scripted questions, and he had to come up with a response on the spot. The questions where he was more relaxed could be questions they anticipated, and had already formulated answers for.

Right, I'm asking "when is he saying things close to that which is not allowed?", and "when is he saying things unrelated to what is unallowed?". For example, when he talks about the distinction between the attacks on GMail and the malware on user machines, he's very comfortable, even though he's clearly off-script. When he's talking about Google's desire to stay in China, he's downright confident.

Even if he were especially tense during those moments (and I'm not seeing it, relative to his tension throughout the interview), your interpretation is a huge stretch from a tiny piece of data. There are many alternative explanations. The moments you cite are exactly those where he's laying down google's gauntlet. He was on national TV, claiming that it is no longer possible to do business with a powerful nation because its representatives have been suppressing opponents to its totalitarian policies with highly illegal and unethical tactics. I would be pretty tense under those circumstances, too. Every person of Chinese descent I met after that, I would be wondering what they think of me.

your interpretation is a huge stretch from a tiny piece of data

Did you read the article? That's exactly why I source the NYT and Google's blog for more data - I'm not saying I read that this was a broad attack against 34 international corporations spanning nearly all major industries because they guy flinched one way or another, I'm saying I noticed him flinch (without the sounds on) on questions which happen to also be half-truths by the content of his blog post.

Yes, your argument was a non sequitur. Just because they were also apparently targeting industrial espionage, it doesn't follow that dissidents weren't "clearly targeted." Both of the Drummond quotes you highlight are completely in line with your subsequent analysis.

it doesn't follow that dissidents weren't "clearly targeted

Right. Half-truths meaning "these are not lies, yet they aren’t something Drummord is completely comfortable about, either". I'm saying his statements are true, but only a minor part of the whole picture - that this was a much bigger attack, and Chinese dissidents were a minor target.

Yes, and now we're back to the "huge stretch" I claimed before.

Government spies in the Shanghai office stealing Google's source tree seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess China will just build their own Google now...

The NYT article explicitly says the opposite: "attackers may have succeeded in penetrating elaborate computer security systems and obtaining crucial corporate data and software source code, though Google said it did not itself suffer losses of that kind". In general, that's not the language I hear them using - "broad", "sophisticated", and "targeting infrastructure of a variety of major corporations".

FWIW, Wikileaks is saying that they were 'infiltrating' the Google repos: http://twitter.com/wikileaks/ (and specifically http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7688415363 ). The NYT is simply parroting Google, so I give Wikileaks more credence.

(Colloquially, you can be 'stealing' something while haven't yet actually absconded with it yet, and be foiled if discovered.)

Wikileaks: "Several rumours from google sources that China accessed google's US-gov intercept system which provides gmail subjects/dates"

I'm remembering recent news about convenient gov't web portals to telecom records...

"How did Google find out the other companies were being targeted?"

Google runs data centers, and probably sees a lot more traffic than for its own services. Also, who is to say these companies are not using Google products (Gmail, Docs, etc.)? In other words, I think Google might be in a position to know.

I read somewhere (probably here) that Google accounts for 5% of global internet traffic.

Yes but that's all traffic to and from its datacenters. I don't touch Google if I request a page from bofa.com, e.g., except maybe through their public dns.

Analytics.

Google supposedly hacked the hackers and found evidence that they had infiltrated the other companies.

Do you have any evidence for this?

It was in MacWorld's report and I've seen it a few other places, but no first hand information.

Here's my guess. Google initially detected an attack coming from Chinese IP ranges and subsequently checked what other requests the IPs had made.

This is what led to the accounts that were accessed not "through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers".

Although they mention gmail in the statement, the expansion to other industries is made on the Google Enterprise blog (mainly aimed at promoting Google Apps to large companies), so it seems likely the same Chinese IPs accessed users of Google Apps.

So this isn't the Chinese government targeting other industries so much as dissidents that might work there. Google's statement still seems consistent to me, although they have shied away from mentioning Google Apps.

> and subsequently checked what other requests the IPs had made.

By how?

Gmail stores the last IP that accessed your account - it's shown at the bottom of your inbox:

Last account activity: 14 minutes ago at X.X.X.X

My guess is they used that.

Yes but how do they get the other IP addresses that had been accessed without having that traffic go through Google?

Sorry, I could have made my original comment clearer. I don't think there were any other IP addresses accessed.

The "other industries" that were involved were using Google Apps, so Google has access to those records. That's why they have to inform the other companies their security was breached: the traffic did go through Google so they're the only ones who know about it.

That's the six hundred million dollar question in my mind.

How exactly did Google know that those other institutions were under attack?

Unless the attack resulted in rooted Google machines that then attacked outward, or all those institutions were running on Google Apps.

Major institutions running on Google Apps seems unlikely (Are any major institutions outside of academia running Google Apps hosted by Google?). And attacking outward from a rooted box inside Google's network seems careless, unless the attackers were leveraging some dedicated pathways that made their job easier. Which suggests the breach was far more serious than indicated.

Google's security team eventually managed to gain access to a server that was used to control the hacked systems, and discovered that it was not the only company to be hit.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1050300

I'd never heard of FACS before. The Wikipedia page he links to doesn't contain much info. Wikipedia says nothing about which AUs correspond to which emotions. Does anyone know any good articles on this? It's interesting.

Malcolm Gladwell's article for the New Yorker is a great start:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/08/05/020805fa_fact_gl...

Paul Ekman is the guy who popularized it. Here is a good overview of his life/work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA8nYZg4VnI

Regarding reading expressions in particular, good start is "Emotions Revealed" [1], which was pretty comprehensive, but not as comprehensive (or as expensive) as his METT system: http://face.paulekman.com/products.aspx The half-smirk when talking about the other companies is contempt. The raised chin is shame. A lot of fear and sadness in the beginning, with exceptions of talking about the technical details of the attack and Google's desire to stay in China towards the end - lots of confidence there. If you watching him carefully with the sound off, I think you can pick up on the emotions intuitively.

In a more cynical light, this is good to keep in mind as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facecrime

1. http://www.amazon.com/Emotions-Revealed-Recognizing-Communic...

I doubt that lie detection voodoo actually works when the person being interviewed is new to the whole being on TV thing.

That's pretty much accurate. Lie detection methods almost all base around detecting stress, and large amounts of stress (like being on TV for the first time) tend to throw them way off. In order to really have a baseline to compare lies against, you need to have a baseline. If they're not stable enough to do that, the science of it gets lost, and it's basically up to totally subjective methods.

A quote in Macworld suggests it's Google's law enforcement backdoor that was compromised. Google didn't mention that in their press release, which is a mighty big omission.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?ne...

Andreyf, is this original content you have written or was it borrowed in another social experiment?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049430

All original, just for you :) I'd appreciate it if you didn't hijack this conversation into another 30-comment unrelated thread, though.

I read an interesting article yesterday about the news coverage of North Korea's drive towards nuclear weapons. Looking back on it now, it's obvious that the North started a nuclearization program in 1996 and pursued it each year no matter what was going on at the negotiating table. (Both political parties and the Clinton and Bush administration were taken to task in this article)

Looking at the press coverage, however, was even more interesting. There were some quite prominent columnists who insisted that the North was misunderstood, that they weren't committed to continuing to develop weapons, and that the various tactics used by both administrations were really what was at the root of the North's belligerence.

Sometimes pleas for perspective can be good, and sometimes they can all be so much noise. I'm not going to characterize this piece, but I'll note that there is a great similarity between how NK was covered with nukes and how China is being covered with CyberWarfare.

I find it disconcerting.

Oops, is "plea for perspective" not the right phrase? I meant to say that a coordinated attack on a variety (probably all) major US corporations might be more significant than what Google does with their .cn properties...

I think you're after a "call for perspective". I didn't catch from the article exactly what the "Google half truths" actually are.

If that was your goal, your reference to "google half truths" was a big distraction. If what they do with their cn properties is less signifigant, then don't devote so many words to them, and instead focus on your message.

just speculation, Adobe might be on the list: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=17387

Hm, the article seems to jump between "Adobe was attacked" and "Adobe software was used as attack vector", in a way that inspires the least of confidence. sigh

They were definitely attacked: http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/01/adobe_investiga...

Both could be true

I don't think you could ever mine a chief council's interview for much information. However, human rights activists are certainly targeted but you are way off base to suggest companys are not.

I am in a rush so I can't pull up a story I recent heard about where a foreign business man was brought into custody. A large portion of billionaires in China are children of party officials that were installed in those positions.

The party very much wants to stay in power in China and they are not only worried about idealistic, which I am sympathetic to, and not so wealth opposition. They are worried about business leaders and all evidence indicates they are keeping an eye on them as well.

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