China schools deny Google hack

Two schools in China where computers were reportedly linked to cyberattacks on Google and other companies have denied involvement in the hack, Chinese state media said Sunday.

Investigators say they have traced the attacks back to computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University, which is one of China’s top universities, and Lanxiang Vocational School in eastern Shandong province, The New York Times reported this week. That may not mean the attacks were launched from those computers since their IP (Internet Protocol) addresses could have been used by attackers elsewhere seeking to hide their location.

A spokesperson said the Shanghai university was “shocked and indignant to hear these baseless allegations” and denied any link to students or teachers at the school, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. A representative of the vocational school said investigation of its staff found no trace that the attacks originated there, Xinhua said. The representative also denied any ties between the school and China’s military.

The Chinese vocational school has about 20,000 students learning skills such as cooking, car repair and hairdressing, Xinhua said.

Google said last month that it planned to stop censoring results on its China-based search engine, citing cyberattacks apparently launched from China as one reason for the move. Google has said it is in talks with Chinese authorities, but Google.cn is still censoring sensitive political and other search results.

Source: PC World