Published On:Sunday 1 January 2012
A big irony, China worried about its own internet security
It's a big irony on day 1 of the new year, 2012. China worried over the internet security and phishing attacks. "Ha ha ha… China which is a major hub for attacking on the global PCs is now worried about its own security. Isn't it a big joke for the day?" said James Simero, internet expert in the US based Search For News Agency.
The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of China issued a notification on Friday that China's top search engines are now required to post the links of five state-owned banks at the top of every search page. Though, Chinese officials themselves couldn't believe on their ears when they heard this news, kept their enthusiasm quite.
Wang Hu, a MPS official said "Actually, earlier we used to think that we were the most secure nation in the world. But Meng Jianzhu's (Minister of Public Security) was an eye opener. He told us that many phishing attacks came through US email service providers such as GMAIL, YAHOO MAIL, HOTMAIL, etc. Therefore, we tried to take first step to secure our internet."
Interestingly, search engines also agreed to comply. The top 10 search engine companies operating in China, including Baidu , Bing, Sogou and Yahoo and six others now must post the official website links to Industrial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Postal Savings Bank of China, along with China UnionPay and CebNet.
The reason behind putting the web addresses was that financial institutions reported phishing attacks, or the siphoning of user passwords, claiming that customers have lost private data since 2010.
Meng Laihua, another official of MPS said that the above implementation would be one way. "We shall make it sure that all the attacks that are coming from international communities such as US, India, Korea and Japan would be stopped. However, currently the idea is one way and we don't guarantee about the foreign banks," he said.
When DCFC reporter asked Meng, how about the stopping phishing attacks from China on the India and the US websites, Meng stared at his security who indicated the reporter to shut his mouth or will have to face a severe damages.
US President Barack Obama protested against the biased approach of China and argued that the red country could have included Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgans. "See, today most of the American and European banks are bleeding. If China would ask these search engines to tag names of US banks, they would manage to cut their ad spending and would get some new customers also. This will help US to reduce its unemployment problem," said Obama.
India is keenly watching the developments. India's Telecom Minister, Kapil Sibal who is also famous for his Zero Loss Theory and Internet Censorship was pleased to see such a development in his neighboring nation. "Stupidity and height of stupidity is our mantra, sometimes I feel. See where China is going. They are progressing faster than us. Every day, new restrictions will make free and pure internet surfing. I don't understand why my critics are against my mantra of internet freedom. Now tell me what Google do in China, what Facebook will do there, they have to listen to Chinese authorities. It is really unfortunate that intelligent scholars like me who invented revolutionary Zero Loss Theory and cheap Tablet PCs, are trashed like this," Kapil Sibal said.
Communist leader Sitaram Yechuri said "We should learn about internet security from our big brother, China. But it hardly matters with Indian government who does not want to improve."