Outsourcing: China

China Health Ministry declares Internet addiction is a disorder

Paul Mah — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:11:53 -0500

China may well be the very first county to define Internet addiction as a disorder and give official recognition to it as a clinical disease. This comes in the wake of an increasing number of people, in the world's most populous nation, who spend a great deal of time in chat rooms, on message boards or playing online games. Essentially, you are addicted if you find yourself using the Internet more than six hours per day, or exhibit a number of symptoms such as insomnia, difficulty concentrating, mental or physical stress, irritation or experience the desire to go back online. This definition comes out of research performed at the Beijing Military General Hospital, which studied more than 3,000 people over four years. If you recall, we reported a few months ago that China had more broadband subscribers than the United States at the end of 2007.

To read more about this story:
- check out this Ars Technica article

Microsoft WGA tactics anger XP users all over China

Paul Mah — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:25:00 -0400

Microsoft has made good on an August warning and rolled out a new, more aggressive version of its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool for Windows XP systems. Computers running versions of Windows that are not genuine now get bombarded with constant nag messages and have their desktop background switched to a solid black color every 60 minutes. This move has struck a nerve among China's computer users--where nine out of 10 copies of Windows are pirated. In an ironic twist, some are calling it a violation of their rights, despite the fact that they might not have paid for it.

The problem stems from the fact that some may have unwittingly installed counterfeit versions of Windows. In addition, many purchase their computers from markets, where pirated software could be preinstalled without the user's knowledge. Of even greater concern is a survey by leading Chinese web portal, Sina.com where nearly 90 percent of respondents, or around 130,000 people, say they would not buy Microsoft products again as a result of this.

To read more about Microsoft's WGA changes:
- check out this article from TG Daily

Cybercrime payoff greater than drug dealing

Judi Hasson — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:36:25 -0400

Crime, or at least cybercrime, pays. Business is so good, in fact, that even in the midst of an economic downturn, cybercrime is growing. The FBI reports that, for the first time ever, revenues from cybercrime have exceeded drug trafficking as the most lucrative illegal global business. It is estimated that the cyber crooks are reaping more than $1 trillion annually in illegal profits

"What we've seen is really a deep stratification of electronic crime into a growing, prosperous and responsive economy, with a number of specialty organizations, syndication and deepening organization of peers, both within a vertical skill set and across the entire enterprise of electronic crime," said Peter Cassidy, secretary general of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a nonprofit organization dedicated to counteracting cybercrime. "Increasingly, we see this is turning into big business."

Cassidy said cyber criminals come from all over the world, with large concentrations in Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as parts of Africa. In recent years, China has also emerged as a global security threat. A recent McAfee report found that of 265 countries surveyed, Hong Kong was the biggest security risk, with almost 19 percent of websites with the .hk domain hosting malware. It was followed by the .cn domain out of the People's Republic of China, and then by the Philippines, Romania and Russia.

For more on the payoff of cybercrime:
- check out this CRN.com article

Related Article:
Dutch botnet masters arrested

Dell sees IT market softening

Judi Hasson — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:03:41 -0400

The news was not good from Dell. The company this week warned that demand for its computers and servers is down, reflecting the soft market for technology equipment worldwide. "We saw a very weak August," Dell's chief financial officer, Brian T. Gladden, said this week at a Bank of America investors conference in San Francisco. Prior to this announcement, Dell said last month that weakness in spending in the United States had carried over to Europe and Asia.

The New York Times reported that only about 20 percent of Dell's revenue comes from consumers. Gladden said a big hit has come from a decline in purchases by small and medium-size businesses and the federal government. Dell also reported weaknesses in Britain and southern Europe, and problems selling in China.

For more on Dell's market analysis:
- check out the New York Times article

China overtakes U.S. for total broadband subscribers

Paul Mah — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:51:23 -0400

After growing by 28 percent last year, China finished 2007 with 71.6 million broadband subscribers, placing it ahead of the United States by more than 1.4 million subscriber. These figures, by market research firm Dittberner Associates, effectively peg China as the largest fixed broadband market in the world. What's more, with just a mere household penetration of just 20 percent among other factors such as double-digit growths in the number of PC households, China is poised to not only maintain the lead, but to pull away from the United States.

In comparison, there are 355 million fixed broadband subscribers globally at the close of the first quarter 2008. The other top 10 subscriber bases are in the countries of Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Korea, Italy, Canada and Spain.

For more on broadband penetration:
- check out this Network World article

Another way to spot a hacker

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:59:58 -0400

It continues to be hard to spot security vultures, but McAfee's "Mapping the Mal Web Revisited' outlines data from 9.9 million websites to spot the biggest security threats.

The report said that nearly 20 percent of all Hong Kong websites present a security threat. The other most dangerous sites are registered in China (.cn) and the Philippines (.ph). With that kind of information in your hip pocket, it just might be easier to spot and block sites from those locales.

For more:
- see this InformationWeek.com article

China and U.S. tie as Internet attack source

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:59:59 -0400

A new report finds that China and the U.S. were home to the greatest percentage of Internet attacks during the first quarter of 2008. Akamai, which operates a global server network, said the most common attacks were associated with Microsoft Windows. The company also found many of the attacks came from "worms, viruses, and bots that spread across the Internet several years ago," and speculates that this might indicate that some of the attack traffic could be coming from "a large pool of Microsoft Windows-based systems that are insufficiently maintained, and remain unpatched.''

To read more:
- check out this cnet.com article

U.S., China largest originators of Internet attacks

Paul Mah — Fri, 30 May 2008 07:19:10 -0400

Akamai Technologies, which operates a global network of servers used to support the distribution of online media as well as large-scale websites and applications hosted online, has released its inaugural "State of the Internet" report. The hefty report extrapolates data gathered across Akamai's global network. It notes that while Internet-attack traffic is observed originating from 125 countries, the United States and China are the two largest sources of this traffic. Internet-attack traffic could involve denial of service and hacking attempts, as well as traffic from worms, viruses and bots. Almost 17 percent of this traffic comes from China, though the U.S. is a close second at 14 percent.

For more on Internet attacks:
- check out Network World article

Check out the top 100 IT companies

Tue, 27 May 2008 06:59:59 -0400

Business Week posted its top 100 Information Technology companies worldwide--companies that are in hot industries, and that have performed well in terms of shareholder return, revenue growth and other economic factors.

Amazon.com and Apple led the list, but there were just 33 U.S. companies making the top IT 100, compared with 43 in 2007. The reasons for this decline and a broader drop in U.S. dominance in the past few years: globalization, outsourcing, and the growing importance of emerging markets India and China.

To read the list:
- see this businessweek.com article

Firewire gets faster but not fast enough

Mehan Jayasuriya — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:29:43 -0400

USB may have won the battle against Firewire, but that doesn't mean a few enthusiasts still aren't keeping hope alive for the flagging standard. This week in China, a company called Symwave demonstrated what it calls Firewire S160, a standard that moves data at a speedy 1.6Gbps while maintaining backward compatibility with Firewire 400 and 800. While that's all well and good, you'll remember that USB 3.0 boasts speeds of up to 4.8Gbps and could start showing up in devices within the next year. Unless S160 beats USB 3.0 to the market, it could prove to be a tough sell. In other Firewire news, the standard hit a major milestone this week, as the 1394 Trade Association announced that there now are more than one billion Firewire ports in existence. Congratulations, Firewire!

For more on Firewire S160:
- see this PC World article