'Chinese' hack nabbed single-sign-on source
When alleged Chinese hackers infiltrated Google's internal systems in December, they lifted source code for a password system that controls access to almost all of the company's web services, according to a report citing a person with direct knowledge of Google's investigation into the matter.
The New York Times reports that the December attack nabbed code for the system that controls single-sign-on for millions of users across myriad Google services, including Gmail and the company's online business applications. Originally codenamed Gaia - a nod to the Greek godess of the earth - it is now known simply as Single Sign-On.
According to The Times, the attack began when an instant message was sent to a Google employee in China who was running Microsoft's Messenger client. When the employee clicked on a weblink in the IM, attackers gained access to the employee's PC, and from there, they tapped machines used by "a critical group of software developers" at the company's Mountain View headquarters. Eventually, they also gained access to a software repository where source code for the Gaia system was stored.
Code was moved to machines housed by the Texas-based webhost Rackspace, The Times says, before it was transferred to some other, unknown destination.
At some point, according to The Times, the attackers gained access to an internal Google directory called Moma, which houses info on the "work activities" of company employees. This may have been used to locate specific individuals inside the company. The attackers "seemed to have precise intelligence" about the names of the Gaia software developers.
However, The Times says, the attackers "do not appear" to have lifted the passwords of individual Gmail users.
On January 12, Google told the world that Chinese hackers had stolen unspecified intellectual property from the company's internal system, and it said evidence indicated that "a primary motive" of the attacks was to gain access to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. In light of the attack - and what it described as other, routine attacks on the Gmail accounts of such activists - Google said it had resolved to stop censoring search results in the country.
A little more than two months later, after talks with Chinese government, Google shut down its Chinese search engine, Google.cn, and redirected visitors to its Hong Kong-based engine, Google.com.hk, where it now provides uncensored search results in simplified Chinese.
According to The Times, Google continues to use the Gaia system, and the paper questions whether the attackers may use the course code to locate security weaknesses n the system itself. ®
By Cade Metz in San Francisco
Source: http://newscri.be/link/1077234
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
The Yin And Yang Of China's Housing Bubble
For some, housing is out of reach; for others there's a windfall.
Wu Junkai
HONG KONG -- Five years ago Wu Junkai had just graduated from college and moved to Beijing. When the lease came up on the flat he shared with a roommate, he was the only one who wanted to stay. "I thought why not buy the flat once and for all," Wu said.
Even better: the apartment's value has skyrocketed amidst the real estate bubble in China.
"I paid 6,300 yuan ($923) per square meter at that time," said Wu of his 136 square-meter apartment near Beijing's East Fourth Ring. "Now it costs almost 22,000 yuan ($3,223)--I couldn't imagine it has soared so much."
But not everyone is so lucky. Ning Haixin graduated last year, when Chinese housing prices were shooting up. Though Ning works at a high-tech company and earns a handsome salary in the country's capital, he said he doesn't see buying a home in Beijing for the next five years.
Beijing's housing price is going crazy, and people are always talking about housing bubbles," said Ning. "Most of my friends are living in rented flats. I want to wait and see if this property boom will go bust."
Zhang Xin, CEO of Soho China and one of China's richest billionaires, warned a real estate bubble in a recent Forbes interview. (See: "China's Developer Lament") Zhang said developers are rushing to build and sell more property to speculators even though there is no apparent need for more buildings, and the bubble keeps growing.
Beijing along with 69 other large and medium-sized cities in mainland China have witnessed a sizzling property market--property prices climbed 11.7% in March to a 5-year high. Real estate investment in the first quarter rose 35.1% to 65.94 million yuan ($9.66 million), according to latest government data.
Beijing is trying to cool home prices without bursting the bubble. The State Council raised the minimum down-payment required to 50% from 40% for second home buyers and to 30% for first home buyers for apartments larger than 90 square meters. The country's cabinet is also mulling an individual housing consumption tax.
When Wu bought his apartment five years ago, his down-payment was just 20% of the price--far less than Ning would have to put down if he were to buy. And today, it takes 40 years for a middle-income family with an annual income of 100,000 to 150,000 yuan ($14,649 to $21,974) to pay off the loan on a 100 square-meter flat in Beijing, according to Wen Hongwei, project director at the Beijing branch of Guangdong Pearl River Investment.
Wen remains optimistic about the mainland property market. "There may be bubbles in the short term, but after this round of government adjustment, the market will resume a healthy growing momentum in the second half of this year," said Wen.
Sun Hung Kai Properties ( SUHJY.PK - news - people ), Hong Kong's biggest real estate developer by market value, saw its net profit soar 19.7 times to HK$14.3 billion ($1.84 billion) in the second half of last year. The company predicts the mainland China property market will rise in the long run given the central government's strong economic stimulus package and reluctance to raise interest rates, according to its latest financial report. Sun Hung Kai owns of 88.3 million square feet of land in mainland China. Its shares dropped 0.6% as of Tuesday noon.
"Though Beijing is taking action to cool the country's boiling property market, its aim is to keep the market in good stable shape rather than rein in its development as the property market contributes to 10-20% of the country's GDP," said Wen. "March has already seen the country's first trade deficit in the past 6 years. The central government certainly doesn't want to halt another wagon that drives its economic growth."
Jennifer Po-ying Cheung, 04.20.10, 03:45 AM EDT
Source: http://newscri.be/link/1077237
Chinese Pigs 'Direct Descendants' of First Domesticated Breeds
ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2010) — Modern-day Chinese pigs are directly descended from ancient pigs which were the first to be domesticated in the region 10,000 years ago, a new archaeological and genetic study has revealed.
An international team of researchers, led by Durham University (UK) and the China Agricultural University, in Beijing, say their findings suggest a difference between patterns of early domestication and movement of pigs in Europe and parts of East Asia.
The research, published April 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, looked at the DNA sequences of more than 1,500 modern and 18 ancient pigs.
Lead author Dr Greger Larson, in the Department of Archaeology, at Durham University, said: "Previous studies of European domestic pigs demonstrated that the first pigs in Europe were imported from the Near East. Those first populations were then completely replaced by pigs descended from European wild boar.
"However, despite the occurrence of genetically distinct populations of wild boar throughout modern China, these populations have not been incorporated into domestic stocks.
"The earliest known Chinese domestic pigs have a direct connection with modern Chinese breeds, suggesting a long, unbroken history of pigs and people in this part of East Asia."
The finding is part of a wider research project into pig domestication and early human migration in East Asia.
The study also uncovered multiple centres of pig domestication and a complex picture of human migration across East Asia.
After pigs were incorporated into domestic stocks in Southeast Asia, the animals then migrated with people south and east to New Guinea, eventually reaching the remote Pacific, including Hawai'i, Tahiti, and Fiji, the researchers said.
The DNA analysis also found that wild boar were probably domesticated in many places including India and peninsular Southeast Asia several thousand years ago.
As current interpretations of archaeological records in these regions do not yet support these findings, the group has referred to them as "cryptic domestications."
They suggest that additional archaeological digs and new analytical techniques may help to resolve the problem.
Dr Larson added: "Our evidence suggests an intriguingly complex pattern of local domestication and regional turnover and calls for a reappraisal of the archaeological record across South and East Asia.
"We may even find additional centres of pig domestication when we take a closer look at the picture in that part of the world."
The research is part of an ongoing research project based at Durham University which aims to re-evaluate the archaeological evidence for pig domestication and husbandry and explore the role of animals in reconstructing ancient human migration, trade and exchange networks.
The DNA testing was carried out at the China Agricultural University and was analysed at Durham University and Uppsala University, Sweden.
The research was funded by the National Basic Research Programme of China and the National Key Technology R&D Programme of China.
Adapted from materials provided by Durham University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Source: http://newscri.be/link/1077253
An international team of researchers, led by Durham University (UK) and the China Agricultural University, in Beijing, say their findings suggest a difference between patterns of early domestication and movement of pigs in Europe and parts of East Asia.
The research, published April 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, looked at the DNA sequences of more than 1,500 modern and 18 ancient pigs.
Lead author Dr Greger Larson, in the Department of Archaeology, at Durham University, said: "Previous studies of European domestic pigs demonstrated that the first pigs in Europe were imported from the Near East. Those first populations were then completely replaced by pigs descended from European wild boar.
"However, despite the occurrence of genetically distinct populations of wild boar throughout modern China, these populations have not been incorporated into domestic stocks.
"The earliest known Chinese domestic pigs have a direct connection with modern Chinese breeds, suggesting a long, unbroken history of pigs and people in this part of East Asia."
The finding is part of a wider research project into pig domestication and early human migration in East Asia.
The study also uncovered multiple centres of pig domestication and a complex picture of human migration across East Asia.
After pigs were incorporated into domestic stocks in Southeast Asia, the animals then migrated with people south and east to New Guinea, eventually reaching the remote Pacific, including Hawai'i, Tahiti, and Fiji, the researchers said.
The DNA analysis also found that wild boar were probably domesticated in many places including India and peninsular Southeast Asia several thousand years ago.
As current interpretations of archaeological records in these regions do not yet support these findings, the group has referred to them as "cryptic domestications."
They suggest that additional archaeological digs and new analytical techniques may help to resolve the problem.
Dr Larson added: "Our evidence suggests an intriguingly complex pattern of local domestication and regional turnover and calls for a reappraisal of the archaeological record across South and East Asia.
"We may even find additional centres of pig domestication when we take a closer look at the picture in that part of the world."
The research is part of an ongoing research project based at Durham University which aims to re-evaluate the archaeological evidence for pig domestication and husbandry and explore the role of animals in reconstructing ancient human migration, trade and exchange networks.
The DNA testing was carried out at the China Agricultural University and was analysed at Durham University and Uppsala University, Sweden.
The research was funded by the National Basic Research Programme of China and the National Key Technology R&D Programme of China.
Adapted from materials provided by Durham University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Source: http://newscri.be/link/1077253
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