A "Google-plex" of troubles

Written by Alberto Redi (halfmoon)
Friday, 27 October 2006  
Original

From one side of the world to the other, life is not  easy for Google!

These days, a number of troubles of various nature bothered  the crystal-clear image of the most beloved searching engine in the world, and of course have caused some worry to Google’s management:

On Monday, the Korean Times  reported that according to Geot, a leading network security company in South Korea , Google had been used to hide viruses by unknown attackers. The attack was carried out by uploading a backdoor file to a Googlepages.com server, that is part of a service allowing people to create their own web pages for free.  

The company realized what had happened while searching for Internet sites spreading malicious codes, indeed in their random search they  found three web sites linked to a Googlepages.com server where they discovered a dangerous backdoor program.

According to Geot official Kim Byung-hoon, the problem could turn out to be heavier than expected, since it is impossible for them to know how many computers have been infected.

Backdoors, are designed to remain hidden from casual inspections and in spite of the number of existing patches and anti-virus software that could avoid avoid such risks, there’s still a  high number of machines that are actually vulnerable to similar attacks.  Once the backdoor file have affected a Computer, the machine becomes a Zombie in the hands of the attackers who  are now able to get complete access to the contents and to watch, change or delete files or to send emails.    

This is not the first time something like this happens: crackers  already tried to steal financial information by capturing the keystrokes of users in  June. “But this time around, they were to control client computers as a whole,'' Kim said.

On this proposal some accusations were moved against the company managing the famous searching engine that according to experts who preferred to remain anonymous, “should change its policy of focusing solely on convenience while turning a blind eye to security”.

 But this has not been the only trouble for Google in last days, indeed yesterday  the Australian magazine The Age   spread out the news about a serious accusation of racism  that has been moved against Google by the leader  of Fightdemback!, an organization promoting the fight against Race-Hate in Australia and New Zealand.

Mr. Brian Stokes, co-founder of FightDemBack!, blames Google for refusing to take offline a series of racist and neo-nazi  blogs targeting minority groups in Australia that are hosted on Google's Blogger service:

"We have probably knocked about 25 or 30 Nazi, white supremacist, racist in general websites off the web, in the two and a bit years [since the group founded]," he said referring specifically to two Blogger journals that Google has refused to remove from the web - Red Watch NZ and Patriot Alliance Downunder .

According to Mr. Stroke, these blogs are just media for a racial hate propaganda based on nazi values such as blood purity and aversion against all “hostile alien elements that are destructive to who we are and we as a race hold dear.”

What’s more , Patriot Alliance Downunder publishes photos and complete names of of anti-racism activists from Australia and New Zealand, making these information available to those who could actually represent a risk for them, whereas on Red Watch NZ there are comments such as  "Today is a sad day for National Socialists all over the world. Today in 1946, the Eternal Jew managed to swindle the Allied Nations into hanging 10 of our comrades at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial."

Mr. Stroke said then he cannot figure out the reason  why these blogs are allowed to stay online since  a part from ideological conflicts , they appear to violate Blogger's user agreement.

In the terms of use, indeed it is written: "Member agrees not to transmit through the Service any unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, or harmful material of any kind or nature. Member further agrees not to transmit any material that encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation."

Anyway Google, whose corporate motto is "don't be evil", declared  it will take the blogs in question offline only if ordered to do so by a court, and it recommended working directly with the authors to have this information removed or changed.

 That’s all from Google’s world… For the time being.