University hits back at Google hacking allegations

The Chinese university linked to the hacking attacks on Google has claimed it’s “shocked and indignant” about the reports.

Shanghai Jiaotong University was named as the source of the attacks by the New York Times, but the university has dismissed the reports as baseless.

“We were shocked and indignant to hear these baseless allegations which may harm the university’s reputation,” said a university spokesperson.

“The report of the New York Times was based simply on an IP address. Given the highly developed network technology today, such a report is neither objective nor balanced.”

We were shocked and indignant to hear these baseless allegations which may harm the university’s reputation

The Communist party boss at Lanxiang Vocational School, the other institution accused in the report, also denied any role. “Investigation in the staff found no trace the attacks originated from our school,” said Li Zixiang, party chief at the school in coastal Shandong Province.

According to The New York Times, Lanxiang was established with support from the Chinese military to train computer scientists, but Li claimed there was no relationship with the military.

He also disputed the statement that investigators suspected a link to a computer science class taught by a Ukrainian professor. “There is no Ukrainian teacher in the school and we have never employed any foreign staff,” said Li. “The report was unfounded. Please show the evidence.”

Google announced in January that it had faced a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” in mid-December, allegedly from inside China, and declared that it was no longer willing to censor search results in the country as required by Beijing.