Google's journey in China has been complex, marked by strategic retreats and limited re-engagements. As of February 2025, while many of Google's consumer services remain inaccessible within mainland China, the company maintains a presence through specific business operations. However, Google's standing in China faces fresh challenges as the Chinese government recently launched an antitrust probe into the company's activities. This move comes amid rising tensions over trade and technology between China and the United States.Google's Current Business Presence in China1. Sales and AdvertisingGoog...

Incident OverviewSince 6 PM Beijing Time on December 4, 2024, “ghost repositories” have been appearing on GitHub. These repositories contain no code but include deceptive virus files. That same day, they became the fastest-growing repositories on GitHub in terms of stars. Over 180 fake zombie accounts were spreading the virus, waiting for victims to fall into their trap.A Chinese developer—myself—took notice of all this. After days of probing and searching, I identified the attacker.Incident DetailsInitially, I was developing an open-source program to identify early-sta...

In recent years, China's electric vehicle (EV) industry has seen a surge in innovation and growth. Companies like BYD, NIO, XPeng, and Xiaomi have become household names, not just in China but globally. These companies have been at the forefront of integrating cutting-edge technology into their vehicles, often promoting new features such as autonomous driving, advanced infotainment systems, and seamless connectivity. However, this rapid pace of innovation has raised concerns about whether these companies are placing enough emphasis on security.The Allure of New FeaturesChinese EV makers have b...

China witnessed the recent launch of a new IDE called CEC-IDE, which boldly claims to be the first IDE independently developed by Chinese developers. Initially, this release was anticipated to be a moment of pride for the country, as it marked the availability of a homegrown IDE. However, the situation quickly took an embarrassing turn, and the entire narrative soon became a subject of ridicule.It has come to light that the so-called independently developed IDE, CEC-IDE, is actually built upon the renowned VSCode IDE. The developers merely made superficial changes to the software, such as modi...

Microsoft's social platform LinkedIn announced on Wednesday, August 9th, that it would cease its operations in China, ending its nearly decade-long presence in the Chinese market. This move signifies the departure of a major Western social media platform from China.Currently, when accessing LinkedIn's domain within China, users are redirected to a page that provides services for corporate clients. The mobile app for "LinkedIn Workplace" displays a message stating, "Unable to load data."As one of the few successful social media platforms operated by a U.S. tech company in China, LinkedIn, as th...

The popular job searching site LinkedIn has come out a special version for China which is just offering job searching capabilities and messaging capabilities in the connections. The social media capability like news feeds and peoples activities are stripped out.Now if you are in China and open LinkedIn app, it will prompt you and ask you to download an app called LinkedIn Jobs.You will not be able to dismiss the dialog and you are forced to download the other app if you wanna continue to use LinkedIn services. It will not work even if you fake your location or use VPN. It is still unknown...

Chinese New Year is around the corner, every place in China and lots of places in the work have been in the CNY mode. People are rushing out to get all the stuff ready to welcome the New Year Eveand the Spring Festival. I also packed my stuff and flew back to my howntown in China to enjoy the great moment to stay with families and hang out with friends whom I have't been seeing for almost one year. I am exited...However, the first thing stunned me is not my friends but the mobile payment service seen at almost any corner I have been. It just makes nothing but sense to use the mobile payme...

On March 9, the China E-Commerce giant Alibaba held its first internal tech conference in its headquarter Hangzhou. During this conference, Jack Ma, Alibaba founder, announced a new program code named "NASA" which aims to build up technologies serving 2 billion people in next 20 years by forming independent and powerful R&D department. On March 13, Alibaba formerly announced this program to the public.The research area of this program would include machine learning, chips, IoT, operating system, biotech etc. There will be brand new teams built and new management strateg...