As you may remember, Google said last week that "infected machines have been used both to spy on their owners as well as participate in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against blogs containing messages of political dissent."  Which seemed to imply that supporters of the Vietnamese government might have performed a little hacking.

But Google’s entirely incorrect, according to Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga.  As reported by Jason Folkmanis, she said in a statement, "The comments are groundless.  Vietnam law puts in place specific anti-virus and malware regulations and information security and confidentiality."

Those remarks appear to express an unusual degree of certainty and a certain measure of annoyance.  Much like China’s statements regarding Google’s decision to break Chinese laws/not censor search results, perhaps.

It should be interesting to see if Google pursues the matter and makes a habit of aggravating Asian governments.  In this latest dispute, neither side’s threatened any sort of action yet, at least.

The malware infected the computers of "potentially tens of thousands of users" who downloaded Vietnamese keyboard language software, Google Security Team member Neel Mehta wrote on the company’s security blog. The attacks targeted opposition to the mining of bauxite, an ore used to make aluminum.

"While the malware itself was not especially sophisticated, it has nonetheless been used for damaging purposes," Mehta wrote.

"These infected machines have been used both to spy on their owners as well as participate in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against blogs containing messages of political dissent. Specifically, these attacks have tried to squelch opposition to bauxite mining efforts in Vietnam, an important and emotionally charged issue in the country."

Google recommends users who believe they may have been exposed to malware to run regular anti-virus and anti-spyware scans from trusted vendors.
 

The crackdown comes as online journalists and bloggers independent reporting challenges Vietnam’s tightly censored state-run media’s monopoly on local news and opinion.

Bob Dietz, CPJ
Asia Program Coordinator

On August 28, police arrested journalist Pham Doan Trang, a reporter with the popular online news site VietnamNet. Trang had recently reported on sensitive land disputes between China and Vietnam. Access to a number of Trang’s articles on that topic were blocked after her arrest.

According to the Free Journalists Network of Vietnam (FJNV), an independent press freedom group, Trang had also shared sensitive information with bloggers and other journalists about a Chinese advisor for economic and trade issues who called on his Vietnamese counterparts to discipline certain local newspapers and journalists.

On August 27, police arrested political blogger Bui Thanh Hieu, also known by his blogger name, Nguoi Buon Gion, which means "Wind Trader." In recent posts, the 37-year old blogger wrote critically about competing territorial claims with China. The FJNV said police searched Hieu’s house after his arrest and confiscated two of his computers and other personal belongings. 

"We call on Vietnamese authorities to unconditionally and immediately release Pham Doan Trang and Bui Thanh Hieu," said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator.

"Vietnam is already one of the world’s worst violators of Internet freedom, and recent actions only underscore that reputation."

"The Wall is more than just 58,000 plus names. Many of these people were my friends," Vietnam veteran Richard Schroepfer says in a video on the site.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial
(Photo Credit: Footnote)

The site offers a link to the service records and casualty reports of those who died in the war. Visitors can pay tribute by adding photos, comments and stories about those who lost their lives.

"We know that there are many untold experiences represented on that Wall, and we hope that this interactive version of the memorial helps those affected by the war by sharing their stories," said Russell Wilding, CEO of Footnote.com.

Peter Krogh, a National Geographic photographer, photographed the entire Wall. To create the online version of the Wall nearly 1,500 individual photos were put together to create a single image. The process took over five months and resulted in an image that is close to five gigapixels in size.

Visitors to the site can search by name, enlistment type, service, hometown, home state, rank and years of birth and death.

"The records of the Vietnam War in the National Archives are essential resources for veterans to revisit their history and establish their rights," explains Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein.
 

Vietnam’s Communist government appears to be feeling that fear as its citizens take to the blogosphere. Officials there have said they intend to regulate blogs in their country, "to prevent the spread of subversive and sexually explicit content."

Though what’s sexually explicit is sometimes up to interpretation, you may reach a general consensus as to what that entails. But what counts as "subversive" material may not be as clear-cut. 

And it’s especially chilling, if you’ve grown up in a free society, to hear statements like this coming from a government official: "We should provide guidelines that help people know what type of information they can upload online."

Yikes. At least it appears (on the surface) that a fine serves as the penalty for blogging inappropriately, and not death or imprisonment.

But still.