Tech

News to know: Google-China, CTIA, Pwn2Own

The aftermath of Google-China, CTIA showdowns and a hacking contest are the key themes of the day. You can get the day’s rolling posts via Twitter, RSS, or email.

Written by Sam Diaz, Inactive March 24, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. PT

The aftermath of Google-China, CTIA showdowns and a hacking contest are the key themes of the day. You can get the day’s rolling postsvia Twitter,RSS, oremail.

Among the key themes for the Thursday, March 25, 2010:

Google took a bold step when it decided to stand up against the Chinese government. As the dust settles, the ripple effects are starting to become more evident. Close to home, a Congressional panel today praised Googleand criticized Microsoft for their respective positions in China. Also getting some of that Congressional love was GoDaddy.com, which said today it would stop registering domain names in China because of new rules about applicant being demanded by the Chinese governmment.

On the other side of the globe, however, China Unicom has dumped Google from Android phones being added to its lineup, noting that the company is "willing to work with any company that abides by Chinese law... we don't have any co-operation with Google currently." (Did anyone tell them that Android is Google's mobile OS? Sssssh. We'll just keep it between us.)

Convinced that China only needs a taste of its own medicine to hear the message about a free Internet, Tom Foremski proposes that all U.S.-based Web sites pick a date - July 6 is out there now - to block their sites coming in from China, a quick and easy task, he said. Any takers?

Podcast: Google's exit: Is China just a money pit?

At the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas, there was plenty of Android devices on-hand, which raises the question: Is Apple a One-Trick Pony? Android vs. iPhone is only one of the mobile wars going on these days. are wars brewing out there in the mobile industry. The other biggie: WiMax vs. LTE. The days kicked off with the CEOs of Sprint and Clearwire on stage, talking about being first to deploy 4G in the form of WiMax. Not to be deterred, Verizon held its own press conference to talk up what's on the roadmap for LTE and an ecosystem built on it. As the battles heatup, Larry Dignan asks: What's the shelf life for WiMax?

Other themes from CTIA:

In Vancouver, at the CanSecWest conference, the iPhone took a beating in the Pwn2Own hacking contest. Ryan Naraine reports that a fully-patched iPhone was broken into and the entire SMS database, including text messages that had already been deleted, was hijacked. If that wasn't bad enough for Apple, a Macbook was also attacked by way of a Safari vulnerability. Still, when it came time to declare a contest winner, it was all Windows. Dutch hacker Peter Vreugdenhil was declared the winner for hacking into a fully patched 64-bit Windows 7 machine using a pair of Internet Explorer 8 vulnerabilities.

More security news:

Other Headlines:

Red Hat reports solid fourth quarter earnings.