Chinese military experts and educators refutes link to cyber attack on Google

Chinese military experts and educators refutes link to cyber attack on GoogleReports suggesting that the military was in any way involved in cyber attacks on Internet search giant Google were today dismissed by senior Chinese military experts and educators.

Two Chinese educational institutions - Lanxiang Vocational School based in Jinan, Shandong province and Shanghai Jiaotong University were linked to the online attacks that also targeted American corporations, by a report of The New York Times (NYT).

The newspaper also cited Lanxiang''s ties with the Chinese military and Baidu, the major Chinese online search engine and Google competitor.

The Google attacks "had nothing to do with the Chinese government and military", said Pan Zheng, a senior expert in US strategy at National Defense University.

"Even if the hacking location was confirmed to be inside China, it is still different from saying the attacks are backed by China," said Pan, saying that the search engine''s accusation is inadequate.

"If supported by further investigation, the findings raise as many questions as they answer, including the possibility that some of the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources" the NYT report also had said.

Major General Luo Yuan, who is with the Academy of Military Sciences, said that allegations linking the attacks with the Chinese government and military are irresponsible.

Luo further said," China has on many occasions reiterated that it opposes hackings of any form and such activities are strictly prohibited by law. Its military would not go against the rules."

A leading professor from the school of information security engineering in Shanghai Jiaotong University told the NYT in a phone interview that the findings were not surprising as students

hacking into overseas websites is usual. (With Input from Agencies)