88. China vs Google: When Beijing Took on Silicon Valley (Ep 1)

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"Like many other well-known organisations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis." This was the striking public statement from Google's chief legal officer in January 2010. What began as a major security incident - a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure, originating from China" and resulting in the theft of intellectual property - quickly escalated into a much larger geopolitical crisis. This episode is the origin story of state-sponsored cyber espionage. It's the moment Google was hacked by a foreign state, and for the first time, publicly pointed the finger at who they believed was responsible: China. The attack was a canary in…