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

The Rest Is Classified

Goalhanger

History

4.6 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"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 the coal mine for the world of Chinese cyber attacks and espionage we know today. Join Gordon and David as they tell the story of how an act of cyber espionage descended into a debate about the complex equations between money and freedom of speech for Western companies operating in China. ------------------- Join The Declassified Club: Start your free trial at ⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠⁠ - go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, quarterly livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. To sign up to the free newsletter, go to: ⁠⁠https://mailchi.mp/goalhanger.com/tric-free-newsletter-sign-up⁠ ⁠ ------------------- Order a signed edition of Gordon's latest book, The Spy in the Archive, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠via this link.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Order a signed edition of David's latest book, The Seventh Floor, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠via this link. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ------------------- Email: [email protected] Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@triclassified⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Social Producer: Emma Jackson Producer: Becki Hills Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series,
0:09.0	first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books,
0:13.1	join the Declassified Club at the rest is classified.com.
0:17.3	Music Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis.
0:30.6	In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure,
0:36.6	originating from China that resulted
0:38.7	in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at
0:43.3	first appeared to be solely a security incident, albeit a significant one, was something quite
0:48.6	different. We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad
0:53.2	audience, not just because
0:54.6	of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this
0:58.7	information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech.
1:04.6	Well, welcome to the rest is classified. I am David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera.
1:09.1	And that was a statement, not by a spy, Gordon, or an intelligence officer, but by Google's chief legal officer issued on the 12th of January 2010. And that statement is about a hack, a cyber attack conducted by China against Google. It's come to be known as Aurora. It's
1:32.5	a story about cyber espionage that sort of plays into a bigger battle about the world's biggest country
1:40.1	and one of America's biggest corporations. Yeah, that's right.
1:44.7	I mean, the idea of states like China, North Korea, Russia, hacking companies isn't such a
1:50.4	big surprise these days, but in many ways this is the origin story.
1:55.2	This is where it all began, the idea of states versus companies.
1:59.6	It's also the first big cybersecurity story about a hack
2:04.4	that I remember making the evening news because it was a big deal because it escalated into
2:10.2	the world of politics. It was the first time, you know, a big company admitted it had been
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