via The Associated Press: Apple says iPad coming to more countries Friday.

Google Inc said its fleet of cars responsible for photographing streets around the world have for several years accidentally collected personal information that consumers send over wireless networks.

The company said on Friday that it is currently in touch with regulators in several countries, including the United States, Germany, France, Brazil and Hong Kong, about how to dispose of the data, which Google said it never used.

“It’s now clear that we have been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open (i.e. non-password-protected) WiFi networks,” Google Senior VP of Engineering and Research Alan Eustace said in a post on Google’s official blog on Friday.

Google, the world's largest Internet search engine, did not specify what kind of data it collected, but a security expert said that email content and passwords for many users, as well as general Web surfing activity, could easily have been caught in Google’s dragnet.

“The bottom line is a lot of personal content is definitely available in open WiFi hotspots,” said Steve Gibson, the president of Internet security services firm Gibson Research Corp.

via Whoops! Google says mistakenly got wireless data | Reuters.

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In January, the targets were Google, dozens of other companies, and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists. Following revelations about the incident, Google said it would stop censoring search results in China, a decision that led the company recently to redirect queries from mainland China to Google servers in Hong Kong.

This time, the targets are the Indian Ministry of Defense, the United Nations, and the Office of the Dalai Lama, among other organizations.

There's a noteworthy difference in the two attacks, however: The security experts who revealed the attacks managed to track the perpetrators over eight months.

As a consequence, the researchers were able to obtain copies of various sensitive and classified documents from the hackers. These documents included files taken from governments, businesses, academic institutions and other entities.

Some of the stolen data consisted of visa applications provided to Indian embassies, for example. Other data recovered included some 1,500 letters sent from the Dalai Lama's office between January 2009 and November 2009.

The researchers said they handled the sensitive files responsibly and notified affected organizations.

The report on the attack, published by Information Warfare Monitor — made up of Citizen Lab, part of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, and the SecDev Group — and the Shadowserver Foundation, is called Shadows in the Cloud: An investigation into Cyber Espionage 2.0.

The authors of the report contributed to a similar investigation last year called GhostNet that found circumstantial evidence pointing to attackers located in China.

via Data Stolen From India, UN, Dalai Lama Traced To China — InformationWeek.

Chinese culture is not the same as in the US, we all know that, but that does not mean that by learning a few words in Mandarin and showing off your Panda House chopstick skills, you will be able to simply overcome those differences.

There are specific measures and methods that you can use to protect your investments and your business in China, playing it safe and understanding the rules that govern China is a great start.

Arbitration can be a very effective tool in basically replacing litigation in China, while litigation has taken on a fairly negative connotation in China; Arbitration has avoided this label for some reason or another.

Arbitration is generally considered more efficient than litigation in many ways, it is usually cheaper and faster, but there are also other benefits.

Basically you are hiring a private judge or panel of judges to solve your dispute. As China’s court system is still in its infancy, there are many tendencies that Westerns find different, confusing or even downright disturbing; including but not limited to the competency of the courts, fairness of local judges and the amount of independence courts actually have.

Arbitration can offer a solution as it is structured to be neutral, more flexible, the results of arbitration are confidential and if you structure the agreement correctly an award is more easily enforced.

Most arbitration clauses between Chinese and foreign companies will agree to arbitrate in either Hong Kong or Singapore, as both of these locations have established themselves and dependable, mature legal systems and are usually the only seats that are trusted by both sides.

via Silk Road International Blog » Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in China.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.

In terms of Google's wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk. Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.

via Official Google Blog: A new approach to China: an update.

But with the country’s economic rise, the face of the China practice at international firms has grown increasingly … Chinese. Unlike their predecessors — who were mostly white males — New China Hands are largely of Chinese descent. Many, like Gao, left China to study abroad, joined top global firms, and are now heading back to take on leading roles at their firms’ Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong offices. They are joined by a new generation of expat lawyers with a far stronger mix of language and legal skills than their predecessors had.

“In five, seven years, there will [probably] be someone from mainland China sitting in this seat talking to you,” says William Barron, the decidedly non-Chinese senior partner in the Hong Kong office of Davis Polk & Wardwell. “And that’s as it should be. The group of Chinese lawyers we have in their 20s and 30s is just outstanding.”

via The New China Hands.

But not all of Asia is gloating. Missing altogether from Eversheds’ report is the city that’s most worried about losing ground to Shanghai: Hong Kong.

Obviously, such surveys are to be taken with a grain of salt; after all, over a tenth of Eversheds’ respondents predicted Dubai would emerge as the world’s preeminent financial center in decade’s time.

And Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China with a separate local government and legal system, has been booming recently. So far this year, its exchange is leading the world in initial public offerings, mostly on behalf of mainland Chinese companies. It remains the preferred regional base for global banks and, consequently, international law firms.

Still, Hong Kong has long had a complex about Shanghai, which was the region’s preeminent financial center before falling under communist rule in 1949. Now that that same communist government has embraced capitalism, fears abound that Shanghai will be promoted at Hong Kong’s expense.

That anxiety was reflected in a Reuters article last week, in which one Hong Kong banker fretted that his city would become a second city — a Boston or a Chicago to Shanghai’s New York.

via Will Shanghai Overtake Hong Kong as World Financial Center?.

The Australian Centre for Commercial International Arbitration (ACICA), the Institute of Arbitrators & Mediators Australia (IAMA) and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Australia (CIArb) have signed a memorandum of co-operation in which they plan to promote the use and education of arbitration in the Asia-Pacific region.

The agreement was struck following amendments to the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth) introduced into Parliament by Attorney General, the Hon Robert McClelland.

Australian Centre for Commercial International Arbitration president Douglas Jones told The New Lawyer the reform is long overdue.

He said new legislation would encourage both Australian and non-Australian parties to have their international arbitrations held in Australia.

“We as a country have got significant advantages I think, with a well developed legal system and very competent practitioners to take advantage of that,” he said.

“Arbitration is a multi-billion industry in other places – in SIngapore, Hong Kong, London, all of them see that it adds huge value to the local economy in a range of areas,” said Jones.

The global financial crisis has seen an increase of commercial disputes but because

international investors want to avoid the uncertainty of litigation in a foreign court

system, the ACICA said.

via Lawyers gear up for new rules on arbitration – The New Lawyer.

But the deal he hatched in Hong Kong that year — taking out a loan to acquire a publicly traded property development company, then paying back the loan with cash held by the acquired company — proved part of a long pattern of fraud and corruption. Zhou was arrested in Shanghai in 2003 and sentenced the following year to three years for illegally procuring property and loans. In November 2007 he was given another 16 years for bribery and tax fraud.

Here's the real caution flag for firms, though: Lawyers on the deal have now been in prison for over a year.

In September 2008, three Hong Kong lawyers who worked on Zhou's acquisition — Donald Koo and Vivien Fan of Paul, Hastings, Janofksy & Walker's Hong Kong office and Simon Lai of Hong Kong-based Deacons — were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to almost three years. Their crime: crafting disclosure documents concealing Zhou's plans from investors and regulators.

[continued] Paul Hastings Lawyers Jailed in Hong Kong for American-Style Practices.