US start-up accused of hacking private information from top Chinese friend finde
US start-up accused of hacking private information from top Chinese friend finder site
By Chris Gill
Shanghai. January 6. INTERFAX-CHINA- A US start-up company has run into a storm of controversy in China during its first month of operation. The company Ucloo Online Inc., which runs www.ucloo.com, a friendfinder type site, has been accused of hacking and stealing database information from China's top alumni site www.5460.net, a subsidiary of Hunan Telecom.
5460.net, which has been in operation for 7 years, is a Chinese site very similar to www.friendsreunited.com, allowing classmates to meet up and view each others information online, and charges no fees for this service. In an announcement on its site 5460.net claims ucloo.com has somehow penetrated its system and taken information that is only supposed to be viewable to users in the same school class, and users on Ucloo are charged RMB 1 to view each listing.
A screen shot of the Ucloo site
"We list a lot of information, from different websites, including their website. All the information we obtained was information anyone could have found, we don't charge for domestic (China) searches, though it was in our original business plan," Steve Billing Ucloo's marketing manager told Interfax. According to Billing Ucloo.com collects information from the Internet via an algorithm, and search results on his site are a collation of these search results "from various sites."
Billing said Ucloo is a small start up, with less than 10 staff, registered in Seattle. The company CEO is Steve Wu, a US citizen.
Chinese media have widely published the claims made by www.5460.net, and claimed Ucloo representatives or further company details cannot be found. 5460.net plans to take legal action according to local media reports and has posted a special email address on its site to ask Ucloo to contact them. A search of the whois database gives an address in Seattle and the registrant name for Ucloo. Billing said the site is registered in the name of one of the company's programmers, and the company was recently registered in Seattle.
The attention has garnered some positive results for Ucloo.com Billing said. The site has seen increased user traffic and registrants. The story has been covered by various local media, such as the Youth Daily, Shanghai Daily, Xinhua and CCTV.
Billing said that as China has no public phone directories listing individuals his firm should have good business in China. But as Chinese citizens are very sensitive to having their personal information widely available Billing said this could partly account for the current criticism of the site. The site only charges for international searches, Billing said revenues will mostly "come from advertising."
Billing was unable to give his company's current Shanghai address, and said "our lawyer is dealing with this," in response to 5460.net's charges. There is no specific law in China dealing with this kind of case, protection of personal information is a very gray legal area.
Hosted in the US Ucloo.com has "not received any political pressure," Billing said.
After repeated calls to 5460.net a spokesperson surnamed Luo said the case had been transferred to the news center of Hunan Telecom. The news center is not listed in the Hunan Telecom site and the company's 114 directory service was not working when called by Interfax.
Ucloo says it has 90 mln listings of personal information, which include mobile phone numbers, MSN and other IM numbers, email and snail mail addresses.
By Chris Gill
Shanghai. January 6. INTERFAX-CHINA- A US start-up company has run into a storm of controversy in China during its first month of operation. The company Ucloo Online Inc., which runs www.ucloo.com, a friendfinder type site, has been accused of hacking and stealing database information from China's top alumni site www.5460.net, a subsidiary of Hunan Telecom.
5460.net, which has been in operation for 7 years, is a Chinese site very similar to www.friendsreunited.com, allowing classmates to meet up and view each others information online, and charges no fees for this service. In an announcement on its site 5460.net claims ucloo.com has somehow penetrated its system and taken information that is only supposed to be viewable to users in the same school class, and users on Ucloo are charged RMB 1 to view each listing.
A screen shot of the Ucloo site
"We list a lot of information, from different websites, including their website. All the information we obtained was information anyone could have found, we don't charge for domestic (China) searches, though it was in our original business plan," Steve Billing Ucloo's marketing manager told Interfax. According to Billing Ucloo.com collects information from the Internet via an algorithm, and search results on his site are a collation of these search results "from various sites."
Billing said Ucloo is a small start up, with less than 10 staff, registered in Seattle. The company CEO is Steve Wu, a US citizen.
Chinese media have widely published the claims made by www.5460.net, and claimed Ucloo representatives or further company details cannot be found. 5460.net plans to take legal action according to local media reports and has posted a special email address on its site to ask Ucloo to contact them. A search of the whois database gives an address in Seattle and the registrant name for Ucloo. Billing said the site is registered in the name of one of the company's programmers, and the company was recently registered in Seattle.
The attention has garnered some positive results for Ucloo.com Billing said. The site has seen increased user traffic and registrants. The story has been covered by various local media, such as the Youth Daily, Shanghai Daily, Xinhua and CCTV.
Billing said that as China has no public phone directories listing individuals his firm should have good business in China. But as Chinese citizens are very sensitive to having their personal information widely available Billing said this could partly account for the current criticism of the site. The site only charges for international searches, Billing said revenues will mostly "come from advertising."
Billing was unable to give his company's current Shanghai address, and said "our lawyer is dealing with this," in response to 5460.net's charges. There is no specific law in China dealing with this kind of case, protection of personal information is a very gray legal area.
Hosted in the US Ucloo.com has "not received any political pressure," Billing said.
After repeated calls to 5460.net a spokesperson surnamed Luo said the case had been transferred to the news center of Hunan Telecom. The news center is not listed in the Hunan Telecom site and the company's 114 directory service was not working when called by Interfax.
Ucloo says it has 90 mln listings of personal information, which include mobile phone numbers, MSN and other IM numbers, email and snail mail addresses.
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- US start-up accused of hacking private information from top Chinese friend finde
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- 2006-01-06 15:42
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