Chinese search engine Baidu was down for a bit last week, and they’re blaming it on blocked access due to hackers. Users were instead sent to a site where the group “Iranian Cyber Army” was claiming responsibility. Despite the name, there’s no evidence the group has actual ties based in Iran.
Now, Baidu is suing U.S.-based domain name registry, Register.com in the matter. Register.com, of course, says the suit has no merit.
The timing is curious. The suit comes a week after Google threatened to pull out of China if it could not serve up uncensored search results. They also said the GMail accounts of human rights activists were being hacked, and implied that the hacks were conducted by the Chinese government.
Now, we have a Chinese search engine accusing a U.S. company of negligence that lead to hacking. Additionally, Baidu has lost two key executives in past weeks – their CTO and their COO.
Maybe something fishy is going on. Maybe it’s completely coincidental. The China v U.S. wars are heating up and I’m not sure anyone comes out a winner.
via SF Gate