Mark Zuckerberg seems much more shameless than Sergey Brin or Larry Page could ever even imagine. Brin and Page genuinely seem like engineers tackling problems with engineering precision, though there are times when it is obvious that they need to be more understanding of why there are so many who fear that what seems like their good intentions is seen too much of an overreach into human privacy (think the rollout of Buzz which they believed was such a good idea that it didn’t need to be beta tested). I do not have the least sense that Zuckerberg is anyone who can be trusted as being unconsciously too earnest.  I had a Facebook account for several months, and though I enjoyed being in touch with many people I had not been in contact with for a very long time, I still never trusted it. When the last twisted batch of changes hit, I dutifully figured out what I had to do to try to minimize all the possible unwanted exposure. After that battery of changes was made I quit, since I realized I had no faith in the golden hoodie behind the product. I was unlikely to change my mind, even after the inevitable changes – that we knew had to come – finally came. At least for those of us who were paying attention. There seem to be a lot of folks who either don’t care or don’t have a clue about what’s been going on with Facebook, since they’re far too lost in their Facebook.

Commenting on Zuckerberg’s interview with AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid’s Mark Zuckerberg Talks (And Swerves Around) Facebook Privacy reports

Zuckerberg also brought up Facebook’s oft-repeated stat that over 50% of users have adjusted their privacy settings, citing it as evidence that users know what they’re doing (this doesn’t convince me in the slightest — that means nearly 250 million people haven’t touched them).

Wouldn’t you like to see the private video of the Facebook meeting where Mark “I have more money than a mule can shit” Zuckerberg is in the Big Chair surrounded by his minions when he says, “Listen if we keep it opt out only half of them will change their settings, which leaves us with 250 million dumb fucks to take to market.” I don’t have to stretch that far to get here, which is why I scuttled my account.

The next round of slippery changes are just around the corner. My feeling is “Why bother with it anymore?” The last thing I need is to be hooked on FB when they cut the product again.
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I’ve been having much trouble with the internet connection at our flat, which is where I work. It is there about 23 hours and 50 minutes a day, though it drops sometimes two/three times in 10 minutes. Sometimes I can get an an hour or two, but the chance of it holding on all day has been zero for the last four-and-half weeks. If I happen to be using a VPN the loss of connection will require a reboot, though if I am not on a VPN I can pick right up where I left off. My sense is that it is a problem in some “switching box” close to my home, though it has been very effective at being a total pain in the ass. As I write, it has been connected for 1:22:30, though I cannot imagine that it will hold out much longer. My fear is that it is a new strategy to disrupt GFW leaps, but I have no evidence that it is happening to anyone else. That said, here in Tianjin the speeds have been slower than they normally are, which means that the connection sometimes drops to late-90′s dial-up chugs. If there were someone to call, I’d call them. But it’s the Middle Kingdom, and no one wants to answer any questions. About anything.
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Yesterday it was reported that Wen Jiabao, while visiting Japan, went out for an early morning run through a Tokyo park, and at one point asked some of the locals, “Do you know who I am?” Perhaps this is one of those cross-cultural befuddlers, but I found the question a bit strange. This sort of question has the oddness you might pick up in a much younger princeling who, when caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar and faced with a reprimand or punishment, offers up loudly in a wholly threatening tone, “Do you know who my father is?”
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We will be moving at the end of the month to Beijing. Twelve years in its shadow is long enough. Tianjin has been fun, but the fun wore off for us a while ago, and my attempts to rekindle the spark have not been successful. So, we are looking forward to life in the capital city. Just in time to watch the rebuilding of the TVCC, the battered boot-shaped step-child of the CCTV Headquarters Building. And just in case you may have forgotten what it looks like, here’s a reminder:

May 23, 2010 - 6:05 PM

The next move seems to me to be in China’s court. If they end up restricting Google’s other business interests (R&D and sales) in China, then that, no doubt, will send a message that will reverberate globally. If China doesn’t end up booting Google in toto, I think we, the general public, will continue to remain in the dark as to the true nature of the evidence that Google has supposedly amassed implicating China in the originating cyber attacks, and which has forced them to take the action they’ve taken today. What all was hacked and stolen? How badly was Google damaged by the break-in? Will Google look foolish if the details come out? If Google goes public with the details will that put their other China interests in jeopardy? Is Google acting Googley or is it just a purely business decision?

Not too long ago we discovered that Google and China were barely even talking, other than a few words passed in Copenhagen (where China was being ultra-selective about who they would talk with) during the climate summit and perhaps a short meeting or two several links below the meaty top of the food chain. Though there are still lots of questions hanging in the air, don’t hold your breath waiting for any answers. It’s been more than two months since the highly public and publicized initial outrage and threat. I imagine it will be a lot longer before we learn much more.

Google’s not going to show their cards as long as there’s money still on the table. And I’d say that it’s a safe bet that China never will. I’d still advise everyone to restrain themselves from placing the White Hat on any Google heads. They got this whole thing rolling and then went substantively silent. There is more than an outside chance that Google got out ahead of themselves, and that their actions this morning were actually reactions, or, possibly, damage control to attempt to put the shine back on a tarnished image (let’s not forget Buzz), though this may not be the best way to do it. They haven’t done themselves any favors among their Chinese advocates and users. But then, maybe it was never really about them anyway. One guess, at this point, is  as good as another. With all the freedoms being thrown around – anti-censorship – Google owes it to everyone to let their tongues be a bit freer than they’ve been over the past two months. But then again, it may not really be about freedoms either. All we can do is keep guessing.

So when Mr. Shao (as usual, no first name given), dean of Lanxiang Vocational School in Jinan, one of the two schools reported to be at the possible eye of the Google hacking storm, said “It’s impossible for our students to hack Google and other U.S. companies. They are just high school graduates and not at an advanced level,” I thought, “Right Mr. Shao, how could it possibly be anyone from your school. After all, they probably don’t even have a certificate yet.”

On Thursday, January 28, 2010 on The Official Google Blog, the un-evil ones published Google’s Privacy Principles in support of International Data Privacy Day. Less than two weeks later Google launched Buzz, a unilateral action that flipped privacy advocates on their heads. Perhaps GOOG should have spent more time studying their privacy principles rather than just publishing them as a good faith “Praise God!” ejaculation of privacy support. Below is the bullet-pointed list, though for a more thorough explication of each point, follow this link.

• Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services.
• Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices.
• Make the collection of personal information transparent.
• Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy.
• Be a responsible steward of the information we hold.

It all sounds well and good, very high-minded, and it may have even floated a bit longer if the GOOGs hadn’t punched a hole in their own keel with Buzz. Then to make matters even worse, a few days ago Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt proclaimed that “nobody was harmed” by the dropping of the Buzz bomb, despite a litany of mea culpas issued by others from the Mountain View bunker. Growing pains? Empire building contradictions? Wishful thinking? Oedipal blindness? Maybe a bit of them all. Who can really say at this point. But I thought that it was worth posting the privacy principles, which were subsequently scuttled by Buzz. Though many long-term Google watchers have been issuing cautions for years, I think the ranks of the Google faithful have gotten a little thinner over the last week for some very good reasons. I, for one, have geared down by scaling back my Google account profile and installing the Firefox add-on Google Sharing. Paranoid? Nah. Just a juke.

In a bilingual discussion (h/t @stinson) on Buzz hosted by wierdchina one of the sentiments expressed was that it is not a question of if but when China will block Gmail, since it is now integrated with Buzz. Although there is a gmail.cn in China, it is not a Google product, so all gmail.com accounts in China are also Buzz-ed, just as they are throughout the world. What does this mean for both Google and China? Well, it means that Gmail acount holders in the PRC now have a social networking component that they can use with their Gmail accounts without, at this point, using a VPN to vault the Great Firewall (GFW), as they must do to use Twitter and Facebook (and Google’s YouTube, for that matter). While there are social networking services within China, they are closely monitored and self-censored by the services when discussions cross the fuzzy line that might bring down the wrath (and stiff fines) of the government. An externally controlled social networking service that is not under the influence of Chinese censors is the reason why the world’s most popular services are banned, and why they will remain banned until something changes – either China changes its restrictive policies and allows open discussions or the services provide versions of their products which are engineered to fit into the proverbial Chinese characteristics box. Google.cn’s search engine is Google with Chinese characteristics, a modifier that Google says they can no longer live with, and which is the ostensible topic of the month-long discussion that continues to this day.

Enter Buzz. In poker playing patois, this is the raise. Can China, as a major player at the big table, afford to toss Gmail out and be seen as even more intolerant than they already are? Could this be the reason why Google rushed this product without any external testing? As Todd Jackson, Buzz’s product manager noted,

“We’ve been testing Buzz internally at Google for a while. Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn’t quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild.”

It’s an oddly silent and huge-stakes game that Google and China are locked in, and this rush to market with Buzz – forced, myopic and misguided as it has been – might actually be seen in the light of Google’s ongoing struggle with China as a raising of the stakes, and the linking of Buzz with Gmail hardly a coincidence.

So, how do you really disable Buzz? Good question. I figured it out, but it wasn’t easy. Clicking on the link “turn off buzz” at the bottom of the Gmail page doesn’t do it. You still show up in followers Buzz displays, and can still be linked back to your email address, along with your name. You must go a few steps further. After I went through the steps I found this guide to disable it, from PC World’s How to Use Google Buzz

You can disable Buzz by scrolling down to the bottom of your Gmail page and clicking the tiny turn off buzz link, but that won’t get rid of it completely (my emphasis)–you’ll still have followers and connected sites, you just won’t see them from the Gmail page. (Logging in through the mobile Web app, for example, should still work fine.)

Before you eliminate Buzz entirely, you need to go through a few steps. From the main Buzz page, click the Following X People link and unfollow everyone; then click on the X followers link and block everyone. Next, you need to delete your Google Profile: Go to Google Profiles, select View My Profile, Edit profile, scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and select Delete profile.

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It is curious that Google rolled out their latest product while they are still claiming the moral high ground in the ongoing horn locking match with China, and amid the persistent rumors of their expanding relations with the National Security Agency (NSA). Frankly, it’s stinking more everyday.
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These two just showed up on Twitter this morning: @timothythompson:

• It’s just dawning on professionals who use GMail that Buzz may have violated their legal confidentiality requirements by naming clients.
• Google Buzz: note that the Electronic Privacy Information Center will file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission next week.

I assume that lawsuits are going to start flying. So, is there anyone out there who still believes the glassy-eyed “Don’t be evil” line. There comes a certain point when stupidity and power merge into exactly what Google claims not to be. I am still holding out hope that it’s still at the stupid level, but I can only hold my breath for so long. How Google handles this fiasco will determine what we are really dealing with here. So, which side does Sergey come down on in this one?

The following is from Molly Wood Google Buzz: Privacy nightmare:

When you visit Google Buzz, you’re invited to “Try Buzz in Gmail,” with “no setup needed.” But the no-setup thing isn’t the bonus you might be led to believe.

First, you automatically follow everyone in your Gmail contact list, and that information is publicly available in your profile, by default, to everyone who visits your profile. It’s available with helpful “follow” links too–wow, you can expand your Buzz network so fast by harvesting the personal contact lists of other people!

To hide the list of followers/followees from your profile page, you have to click Edit Profile and uncheck the box next to Display the list of people I’m following and people following me. Why that option isn’t obvious on the Buzz page itself–well, decide for yourself.

On top of that, let’s say you’ve customized your Google profile page with the vanity URL Google helpfully offers at the bottom of the page. Well, that’d be your e-mail handle. Anytime anyone does an @ reply to you, they’ve broadcast your e-mail address to the world.

The release of Buzz (which should have been named BuzzOff, incorporating all it’s various street connotations – think Walter Matthau and the Bad News Bees) in such a potentially compromising manner should earn Google a big red F, for what may lead to some uncomfortable and potentially harmful exposures of activists in countries where governments are more than happy to spend their time harvesting email lists of those they deem troublesome. This from Evgeny Morozov’s Wrong kind of buzz around Google Buzz

Nevertheless, I am extremely concerned about hundreds of activists in authoritarian countries who would never want to reveal a list of their interlocutors to the outside world. Why so much secrecy? Simply because, many of their contacts are other activists and often even various “democracy promoters” from Western governments and foundations. Many of those contacts would now inadvertently be made public.

If I were working for the Iranian or the Chinese government, I would immediately dispatch my Internet geeksquads to check on Google Buzz accounts for political activists and see if they have any connections that were previously unknown to the government. They can then spend months on end drawing complex social circles on the shiny blackboards inside secret police headquarters.

Despite the overwhelming numbers of email users in China, the level of technical sophistication of many of those users is low, especially in areas where minorities may be communicating in English as a third or fourth language, unsure of what to do in order to keep their list of contacts private. Email list mining by the Public Security Bureau has been given a great boost with the introduction of Buzz. Sergey Brin, who is supposed to be up on such things, should have his heels held to fire for this. The “Don’t be evil” silliness has just been scrapped. (Savvy Google has been in discussions for the last few weeks with China, and now they end up creating another ‘backdoor’ for the Party? And you wonder why I am having a ‘loss of faith’ crisis?) Unfortunately, this is what happens when you try to take over the web world: one day you’re this, and the next day you’re something else that suits your ever-shifting need to power. What we very well may be seeing (a fear that many have had for years) is that power/corruption, absolute power/absolute corruption axiom in Google’s actions. Is it evil? I’m not ready to go there yet, but I am willing to say that it is uncommonly boneheaded, since if I thought otherwise I’d be right back to evil. We’ll have to wait on the final evaluation until Google breaks it’s silence.

The ongoing Google-China debacle, which I have written about here, here and here, (and several places in-between) continues to loll about out of the public eye. What has actually happened over the past two months is still about as clear as mud. I suspect that Google still remains in discussions with China. Each day those two very proper nouns get bigger and less easy to define. I picture two boar hogs sharing separate wallows in the same rapidly drying sty. Will they decide to eventually share the sty, or will Google get shoved out the chute? We’re getting tired of asking the same question over and over, though, intentionally or not, it appears that Google with their rollout of Buzz has just given China a big, thick information hongbao*.

*hongbao: the red envelope full of money given as a gift @ Chinese New Year

What I see at this point as possibly the most important aspect in this digital horn-locking battle is the fog surrounding “the ostensible reason for Google’s change of posture.” It is not clear what really happened and why things have unfolded as they have. Here in China it is being spun as a timing issue: Google going public to whip up world sentiment and support in the lead-up to SecState’s Clinton’s ‘”internet freedom” speech, and now she is being portrayed, in effect, as Google’s Foreign Minister. There were interactions between Google and State before Google went public, which is being seen as collusive. What those discussions were in regard to is unclear and open for a variety of interpretations.

Was the hack a national security concern or was it a private company vs a foreign government issue? If it was the former, then it’s a whole different ball game than the latter. As I’ve pointed out before, at the New America Foundation Authority, Meet Technology: Will China’s Great Firewall Hold?, the day before SecState Clinton’s “internet freedom” speech, State Dept. Senior Advisor for Innovation and one of the architect’s the speech, Alec Ross, claimed that they were dealing with the Google/China dispute as a private company vs foreign government problem, which seems to say that it was not a national security issue. He also said that the State Department was not Google’s foreign policy wing, or something to that effect. Not only do I find that line unconvincing, but I am also not willing to go the “my country right or wrong” route on this one (or any issue, really, since I believe that the level of controls China holds on its internet China is one that that the Bush/Cheney administration would have been quite happy with), which is to say that I think Ross’ veracity is suspect, hardly the first time I’ve questioned the statements of a public official. There is a lot of slippery slope stuff going on here, and everyone’s trying their best to not let anything spill for fear that the whole mountainside may slide off into the sea.

But who are the parties at the table? Well, Google and China, obviously, but what about the State Department? I think it’s fair to assume that they are chin-deep in the thick of it all. The US Embassy has had at least two sessions with bloggers at the Embassy: one the day before Clinton’s speech, for foreign bloggers (and no, they didn’t invite me), and another the day after the speech with Chinese bloggers. They are quite obviously trying their best to get the right spin on this pitch – especially in the wake of the speech – to get this one over the plate. Knuckleball? Too soon to tell.

There is much at stake here that goes far beyond the immediate flare-up, which obviously makes this more than a private company vs foreign country clash. If there were not, as Ross implied, a national security component to the murky hack, then why do they appear  to be so deep in the middle of this? Well, for a variety of reasons, one of them clearly being national security, which makes them major stakeholders in the outcome. This is fundamentally a clash between dueling ‘capitalisms’, with the U.S. becoming more open and aggressive aligning with and protecting corporate interests (privacy information and intellectual property), since national security is, has been, or may possibly be compromised by aggressive states, i.e, China, engaging in cyber attacks on private companies that do business with the federal government. Google is one of those companies. Let’s also not forget that a lot of state-run companies in China are owned by the military, since the military is part of the “get rich is glorious” free market system scheme. Many of the Chinese businessmen who sit at the dealing tables around the world have strings that reach back to people who also happen to command armies. This is about a lot more than blocked internet sites. Amazingly China is still spinning it as a pornography issue on local radios, which speaks to the utter bottomlessness of their domestic deceit.

Until we know more, it is not possible to make an informed decision, which is quite ironic, since the argument is about information freedom, though neither side is forthcoming with any. The Chinese authorities have a history of being uninformative, so at least they are remaining consistent. Google, on the other hand, has staked out a moral high ground based on the open access ideal (which is not as open as they are currently permitted to be in China), but they have done nothing but tease in this issue while remaining silent and “in discussions” with Chinese authorities. And where is the State Dept. in all of this, if it is, as Ross insinuated, not their business? What really happened in the last two months, and what is currently happening? Good questions. It would be nice to be informed. It seems to me that each day of silence works against Google, especially if they come out of it staying in the Chinese market in any form or neo-evolution.

There is so very much that is still unclear, and I have the feeling that it will remain so, at least for as long as the parties are talking. And possibly a lot longer if they reach some sort of deal. But the onus will be on Google to cough up the facts, since they are the ones claiming the high ground mandate. I cannot imagine that there will be any settlement that China will sign off on that doesn’t include some sort of non-disclosure clause. Will Google be able to live with that in the wider international community? My guess is that they will not. That would be seen as “being evil” and they have a lot invested in the “Don’t be evil” mantra. So, if there is a favorable settlement, you can bet that Google will be on the hot seat, as well they should be. There is more than a fair chance that Google may come out of this smelling like the proverbial south end of a northbound mule. In my opinion each day that goes by without any news coming from behind the closed doors, is another day that Google takes a negative hit.

When Google came to China they hopped in bed with a partner who knows quite well how to work all the positions between the sheets. There are varying opinions on their 2006 move into China. Some see it as a move from “don’t be evil” to “don’t be too evil if it makes a lot of money.” Though I won’t go that far, I do believe that they knew what they were getting into. And if they didn’t, they should have. The Google person to watch in the coming weeks is Sergey Brin, who was opposed to the move into China. If there is any compromising crack in Google’s shiny armor in their negotiations with the Chinese government I suspect that there would be some sort of action or movement from Brin. And you can bet that China knows this. If anything, their “5,000 years” has honed their skills at “divide and conquer,” which I would imagine is what they are trying to do here. A few days ago a re-tweet of an original GE_Anderson tweet showed up on my Twitter page: “China loves the concept of win-win: it means they get to win twice.” Indeed it does.
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Update: January 25, 920 AM (+8 UTC)
I recommend that you have a look at this from CNN (h/t @evgenymorozov on Twitter): U.S. enables Chinese hacking of Google. “In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access.” It’s beginning to sound like a little more than just a private company vs. foreign government fluff-up. Maybe it’s even a national security issue. A secret entrance created by Google to assist info mining of Google users by US security agencies. I’m … abashed! And which also allowed Chinese hackers – or any hackers for that matter – to gain access to sensitive data, the very sort of data that Google says was hacked? If this is actually the case, Google’s going to have to change their unofficial motto to “Let’s try not to be too stupid.”

In the aftermath of Google’s announcement, some members of Congress are reviving a bill banning U.S. tech companies from working with governments that digitally spy on their citizens. Presumably, those legislators don’t understand that their own government is on the list.

This might explain the continuing silence coming from who knows how many camps. Could it be as simple as Google leaving a side door open thinking that it would remain a secret?

This is looking more like the whining child in the backseat on long, long trip scenario:
“Are we there yet, Papa?”
“No, kid, but we’re getting closer.”
“How much loooonger?”
“Pretty soon, kid. Pretty soon.”

Evgeny Morozov, Contributing Editor, Foreign Policy Magazine
Yahoo! Fellow, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University

Rebecca MacKinnon, Fellow, Open Society Institute
Co-Founder, Global Voices Online

Tim Wu, Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation
Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Contributing Writer, Slate

There was too much presented for me to comment on here, so I have focused on one issue: the government’s assessment of the Google/China blow-up as an aspect (but only one aspect) of the upcoming Clinton speech as presented by Mr. Ross, and Evgeny Morozov’s take on the same issue as a national security question. I have transcribed two exchanges between each of them and Fallows. It would have been fortuitous if Mr. Ross had stayed to address the wider national security implications of the Chinese cyberattack, but perhaps that would have been too much of a hot seat for him to sit comfortably in on the eve of his boss’ speech.
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Fallows (10:28): Can you describe the thinking that goes into … in the moment of … when there is a very highly publicized standoff between an American-based company and a foreign government, what is the thinking about the role the U.S. government should or should not play in addressing that dispute?

Ross: That’s a very good question. I think it is important to emphasize the private nature of some of this. This is principally … ummm, you know … this is primarily an issue between Google and 30+ other private entities and the Chinese government, but we have responded with what I think is justifiable concern. We’ve asked for an explanation; we have had conversations over the years where we have made clear our opinions both about the freedom of expression, as well as cybersecurity. So we are taking this very seriously. But all of that said, the State Department is not the foreign policy arm of Google. Ummm… so, while we will look to the Chinese for an explanation, ummm … you know, we do need to … ummm … engage in this appropriately recognizing the primacy of the roll of the private sector actors within this.

Fallows: Right. The other question is, and thank you for that, you mentioned there are centuries’ old values in the United States, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, those are two particular freedoms that another major government in the world explicitly denies. The Chinese government policy does not believe particularly in the freedom of assembly or the freedom of speech. In what way does the Secretary address that conflict between our values and the values of other major nations? How do you deal with this?

Ross: So, I am not going … I will answer that by principally by saying, tune in tomorrow at 9:30.
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In speaking of the wider topic of international internet freedom, Mr Ross states (13:29), “Tomorrow’s speech is not a speech about China.”
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Fallows (32:12): Tell us what is significant in the whole hacking aspect of this, as you’ve written about a number of times.

Evgeny Morozov (32:20): Well actually, I didn’t find the hacking aspects as fascinating as this has been presented in the media. I mean the truth is that most companies operating in China do experience cyberattacks of some kind, they do experience theft of intellectual property, and I think the most interesting thing about Google in China is that the cyberattacks are likely to continue even if Google decides to shut down the office and leave it altogether, simply because it does contain a lot of valuable information about Chinese human rights activity. People will still continue having their email inboxes hosted by Google, because you know, if Google can be hacked, it means any other service can be hacked probably even more easily. So, my difficulty was in understanding how exactly the cyberattacks, which Google decided to publicize, how they actually related to its decision to stop censoring the results and adopt a different stance, because it didn’t seem like it’s going to protect them any more.

Fallows: No, they weren’t logically related.

Morozov: They weren’t. Sure

Fallows: It was just a sign of exasperation. They’d had too much.

Morozov: Sure, but on the other hand now I see that the cyberattacks actually are making it possible to present it almost as a national security issue, because I doubt that any … well, most media in the United States would make such a fuss out of Google’s decision were it not framed as an attack by Chinese hackers on U.S. companies, stealing data and no one is secure. And if it became a completely different issue, which, of course played into Google’s hands, but I don’t think we should make something extraordinary out of that. Cyberattacks happen which is veryunfortunate, and they will continue happening whether Google is in China or is not in China. As long as it does host this data it’s still a target.
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There are a host of issues surrounding cyberattacks, not the least of which is a territoriality: how does the government view an electronic intrusion, committed by a foreign governement, of a private company’s computer system hosted within its borders? Is it a national security issue, and what is a private company’s legal responsibility to report it? Is it a national security issue or is it legally handled in the same way it would be if the attack were from foreign private hackers? Mr. Ross seems to be saying that it is a private company’s problem.

Perhaps I am being a bit jaundiced here, but my sense is that the Obama administration, via Sec. of State Clinton, will be taking a soft approach to the recent Chinese hacking job. I believe this is unfortunate. After one year in office this administration seems unable to forcefully take the hard positions it needs to be able to take in order to be seen in a positive leadership light. (Full disclosure: I have been a supporter of the Obama team, but I am losing both faith and hope as they appear to be playing more for the 2010 midterms and 2012 general election than for the wider public good. See James Fallows cover piece in the Atlantic How America Can Rise Again for an assessment of the wider broken polity mess that the U.S. seems hopelessly mired in.) If Clinton delivers more governmental boilerplate I think that we’ll be able to see which way this wind is really blowing. And so, I might add, will China. It would be a major mistake to allow China off the hook on this one, since this will empower them more. I understand the argument that the way to most effectively deal with China is via the quiet backdoor, but this is an issue that needs to be out in the public eye.  That said, I am not hopeful of anything but ‘more of the same,’ but I also hope I am very wrong. If I am, I am quite willing to say so here tomorrow.

How will the China-Google skirmish shake out? What lessons or cautionary tales does China’s experience offer repressive governments and their tech-savvy opponents in places like Iran and Cuba? What, if anything, should the Obama administration do to keep the Web free, worldwide? On Thursday, Jan. 21, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to outline the administration’s plans in a major address on Internet freedom.

On the eve of Clinton’s speech, Open Society Institute fellow Rebecca MacKinnon, Foreign Policy contributing editor Evgeny Morozov, Columbia Law School professor and Slate contributor Tim Wu, and Clinton’s senior adviser for innovation, Alec Ross, will discuss the issues. Atlantic Monthly correspondent and New America board member James Fallows will moderate.

In China this will be streamed at 10:30 PM tonight (Wednesday) here. Should be a lively discussion. I am hoping that the connection speed here in Tianjin will be enough to tune in live, though I am not hopeful.

I also hope that someone will address the possibility of a confrontational U.S. pavilion at the upcoming Shanghai World Expo.