Evaluating Argument
Look at the article from NYtimes below and read my evaluation of the argument provided in the article.
(The article is in courtesy to the authors and the original link is provided)
Google Says Chinese Hackers Stole Gmail Passwords
By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: June 1, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO — Google said Wednesday that some users of Gmail, its e-mail service, had been the targets of a clandestine campaign originating in China that was aimed at stealing passwords and monitoring e-mail accounts.
In a blog post, the company said that the campaign appeared to originate from the city of Jinan, China, and that the attackers had hijacked the personal Gmail accounts of senior government officials in the United States, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries, military personnel and journalists.
It is the second time that Google has pointed to China as the source of an intrusion. Last year it said it had traced a sophisticated attack on its systems to China-based perpetrators. The accusation led to a rupture of the company’s relationship with China and a decision by Google not to cooperate with censorship demands that the Chinese government placed upon its search engine. As a result, Google decided to base its Chinese search engine in Hong Kong.
Jinan, a provincial capital in eastern China, is home to an important military installation and the Lanxiang Vocational School, which was founded with military support. Last year investigators looking into the attack on Google’s systems said they had traced some of the hacking activity back to the school. Government and school officials strongly denied any connection with the attack, and China’s foreign ministry said linking the Chinese authorities to such attacks was “baseless, highly irresponsible and hype with ulterior motives.” Government press officials were not immediately available to comment on Google’s latest announcement.
A 2009 study of China’s online warfare program by the defense contractor Northrop Grumman identified six regions in China that had military efforts in this field. Jinan was one of them.
Google said that the goal of the latest effort appeared to be to monitor users’ e-mails. Once the intruders logged into the accounts with the stolen passwords, they could change mail forwarding settings so that copies of messages would be sent to another address. The company said it had disrupted the campaign and had notified the victims. Google also said it had told government officials about the intrusions.
Google executives declined comment beyond the statement posted on its blog. The company recommended that Gmail users take additional security steps, including adding a Google service known as two-step verification, to make it more difficult to compromise their e-mail accounts. But it emphasized that the password thefts were not the result of a general security problem with Gmail.
Earlier this year, Google said access to Gmail had been disrupted in China and suggested that the Chinese government was behind the problem. Google said the interference began around the time there were calls in China for political demonstrations like those in North Africa and the Middle East.
This year the Chinese government has stepped up its controls over the Internet, with increased scrutiny of news and blog sites. The government has also apparently crippled some virtual private network services, or VPNs, which have been used by Chinese and expatriates to access corporate e-mail or get around controls that block many Web sites from being accessed in China, like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/technology/02google.html?ref=global-home
Evaluating Argument
Too often, we read newspaper and accept the information provided as it is. We are not aware that our belief and action are shaped by the information they received and information can be misleading. For example: based on the article above, we can be led to believe that we do not like China and it may influence decision makers in companies to be oversuspicious of their trade business with China apart from its economical values. Thus, as a reader, we should constantly use critical thinking in evaluating information.
This writing aims to show step-by-step of evaluating argument as a practice for a subject called Critical Thinking and Personal Development at Monash’ Business and Economics Department. This writing does not go deeper to prove whether the news is accurate or not, but the purpose is to show what a reader should do as a response to the news and to think that there is an alternative point of view of the issue given. Thus, we should not accept information at its face value without evaluating the argument of the author.
If we read the article above, even I, the first impression we likely to receive is
“Chinese Government must be behind the cyber attack”
And that is what the authors implicitly imply to the readers. The authors do not state straight forwardly their position, but it can be inferred that they are structuring their arguments towards that point. Below is the breakdown of the argument components:
Contention : It is suggested that Chinese Government is behind the current cyber attack on many Google email accounts.
Reasons :
1. It is the second time that Google has pointed to China as the source of an intrusion
2. Jinan, a provincial capital in eastern China, is home to an important military installation and the Lanxiang Vocational School, which was founded with military support. Last year investigators looking into the attack on Google’s systems said they had traced some of the hacking activity back to the school
3. A 2009 study of China’s online warfare program by the defense contractor Northrop Grumman identified six regions in China that had military efforts in this field. Jinan was one of them.
4. Earlier this year, Google said access to Gmail had been disrupted in China and suggested that the Chinese government was behind the problem. Google said the interference began around the time there were calls in China for political demonstrations like those in North Africa and the Middle East.
5. The government has also apparently crippled some virtual private network services, or VPNs, which have been used by Chinese and expatriates to access corporate e-mail or get around controls that block many Web sites from being accessed in China, like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Argument Evaluation
The assumption made is attacks on government officials of the US, Chinese political activists, officials of some Asian countries, military personnel and journalists must be coming from the interests of the Chinese government. Is this assumption true? It requires further research to determine its accuracy, but identifying the assumption will help us evaluate the logics of the argument.
In term of evidence, they use an evidence from Google itself, which has the record of the intrusion into their system and this source can be verified. This type of evidence is strong. However, we should be aware that it is a necessary evidence, but may be not sufficient to prove that the Chinese government is behind the scene. In fact, no one has a proof that the Chinese government has sponsored these cyber attacks. A proof from a CIA report can be a stronger evidence in this case.
Moreover, they do not provide the opposing point of views, so that the readers have no chance to evaluate the strength of their argument. They only provide that the Chinese Government has denied any involvement on the attack, without further details and evaluation.
Thus, we, as readers, should probe further the accuracy of the information by gathering more information on the subjects (Lan Xiang Vocational School, Northrop Gummran), and here what I found on another national newspaper website, the Australian,
“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.”
The university said it would fully co-operate with investigators.
An IP, or Internet Protocol, address is a string of numbers assigned to each computer or mobile device connected to the internet, but these can be hijacked by sophisticated third parties wanting to disguise their identities.
[…]
The US report pointed to the Lanxiang Vocational School as a military recruitment centre, but the school yesterday said that, since 2006, 38 of its students had joined the military on the basis of their skills in car maintenance, cooking and welding.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/chinese-deny-cyber-attacks-on-google/story-e6frg6so-1225832734808
I believe that further research is necessary to find the accuracy of the argument. Due to the time limitation, this writing only aims to raise our awareness as news readers about the importance of critical thinking in processing information on daily basis.
Note: that I am using a deflective word ‘we’ to create an impression that as a critical reader, this is what you should do. If you aren’t critical, you would not be doing this, even though it might not be true. The use of ‘we’ indicates as if you are in my side :-)
Critics and comments are welcome
