China intends to "severely punish" those found responsible for a January cyberattack on Google and other U.S. businesses, officials said this weekend.

However, Chinese leaders maintain they have yet to receive an official complaint about the incident from the U.S.-based search giant, which has threatened to cease all business in China following the widespread security breach, Reuters reported on Monday.

"If Google has had evidence that the attacks came from China, the Chinese government will welcome them to provide the information and will severely punish the offenders according to the law," Miao Wei, China's vice minister of Industry and Information Technology, told state-run news media this weekend.

"We never support hacking attacks because China also falls victim to hacking attacks," he added.

Google and China have been at odds for weeks now, after Google discovered its servers had been compromised by hackers believed to be working out of two Chinese schools -- one of which Google said had clear ties to the state's military.

According to the search giant, the primary targets were human rights activists using Google's Gmail system, as well a series of businesses in the United States.

But Chinese officials have denied any involvement in that breach, and the two schools to which Google has traced the attack also maintain no wrongdoing occurred on their campuses.

Still, Google has promised it will stop censoring its search results in China, though company executives have declined to stipulate a hard deadline for that monumental policy shift. The search giant has also threatened to cease all business operations in China if the cyberattacks continue.

But Chinese officials told reporters this weekend that Google had never actually issued them that ultimatum. However, Wei did say China would respect Google's decision to leave if it so chooses.

"If Google decides to continue its business in China and abides by China's laws, it's welcome to stay," he said. "If the company chooses to withdraw from the Chinese market, it must go through certain procedures according to the law and regulations and deal with customers' problems that may arise."

Boston Logan International and Chicago O'Hare will be among the next 11 airports to implement full-body screening technology, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Friday.

A portion of the Transportation Security Administration's $1 billion in stimulus funds will pay for the installation of that  equipment, the agency explained in a statement.

TSA officials hope to deploy those devices by the end of this summer, with more to come in "the near future," the DHS explained. The agency ultimately hopes to install a total of 450 of those units by the end of 2010, officials said.

“By accelerating the deployment of this technology, we are enhancing our capability to detect and disrupt threats of terrorism across the nation,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano explained in a statement on Friday. “These 11 airports will be the first of many to receive this enhanced technology as a result of the Recovery Act.”

The TSA's move to install full-body scanners at airports nationwide arrives in direct response to the Flight 253 terror attempt on Christmas Day.

Some security experts at the time said those advanced-imaging tools could have helped airport screeners catch suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he boarded his plane bound for Detroit.

But a smattering of privacy groups, congressional lawmakers and political pundits have since hammered the TSA for its new approach, claiming the scanners could facilitate gross personal privacy violations.

Those criticisms could grow more vocal, considering officials are paying for the latest round of full-body scanners using stimulus cash.

Still, DHS officials repeated in their release Friday they would take extra care to ensure the confidentiality of those images.

"TSA ensures passenger privacy through the anonymity of AIT images—a privacy filter is applied to blur all images; images are permanently deleted immediately once viewed and are never stored, transmitted or printed; and the officer viewing the image is stationed in a remote location so as not to come into contact with passengers being screened," according to the department.

The Treasury Department announced Monday that instant messaging and blogging tools could now be exported to Iran, Sudan and Cuba.

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Comcast and NBC will be the subjects of a fourth congressional hearing this year when the Senate Commerce Committee takes up their proposed merger on Thursday.

It is not immediately clear who might testify before the panel's lawmakers, some of whom have expressed serious concerns about the deal. But many of the committee's Democrats, including Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), are likely to cite their concerns about the merger's cost to consumers as reason for more regulation over such deals. When: Thursday, March 11, 10 a.m.; Where: Russell 253.

The Senate Commerce Committee will also convene on Wednesday afternoon for another hearing on "American innovation and competitiveness," according to the panel. When: Wed., March 10, 2:30 p.m.; Where: Russell 253.

Also on Wednesday: The House Committee on Science and Technology will consider the president's 2011 budget request for the National Science Foundation. Offering testimony will be Dr. Arden Bement, the director of the NSF, and Dr. Steven Beering, chairman of the 
National Science Board. When: Wednesday, March 10, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.; Where: Rayburn 2318

A Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing could also include some tech talk, when Bill Gates testifies on behalf of his foundation about global health initiative. When: Wed., 10 a.m.; Where: Dirksen 419

NASA's Brookhaven National Laboratory is under scrutiny following complaints that its forthcoming $1.75 million experiment on monkeys violates laws protecting animals from cruelty.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) on Monday filed an official complaint against the space agency, which approved a grant for the experiment last year to understand the effects of long-term radiation exposure on the human body in space.

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Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) has big plans this year. He wants to reform the nearly $8 billion-a-year fund to subsidize internet services. He also wants to enact the first online privacy legislation. That's not all--he also wants to push the Spectrum Inventory Act through the House and hold a number of oversight hearings on the FCC's National Broadband Plan.

All the while, Boucher will be campaigning against a Republican challenger for his seat. As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, he has a lot to accomplish in Washington while also defending the seat he has held for 28 years.

He is the 10th most powerful member of the House, but he faces a tough race in southern Virginia. Republicans have attacked him for his support of cap-and-trade legislation, despite his district's roots in coal-mining. And critics say he has been in Washington so long he has lost touch with his constituency.

Hillicon Valley sat down with him last week to hear about his upcoming agenda and his campaign.

What's on your agenda this year?

First is reforming the Universal Service Fund (USF). I'm putting comprehensive legislative reform together. We've put out a disussion draft and now we're modifiying it based on feedback (from the last hearing). We hope to have that bill ready for mark-up in the subcomittee certainly with in the month.

I am also working with the Republican members of the committee on a bill to provide the first set of privacy safeguards for internet users. That will follow behind USF. Those two legislative items you can expect to be in the subcommittee this year.

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New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) is imploring Disney and Cablevision to stop using consumers as "pawns" and resolve their longstanding differences immediately.

In a letter to both companies on Sunday, Lautenberg said he was "exceedingly disappointed and troubled" that Cablevision subscribers are without ABC channels, following the prior company's refusal to pay Disney another $40 million in annual fees.

That standoff meant ABC channels went dark for millions in the greater New York area early Sunday morning, and the feed is unlikely to be restored in time for the Oscars.

Lautenberg, however, implored both companies to work together to remedy that situation in the coming days -- not just so that viewers can watch the award show, but so that families can tune into "programming they have come to rely on for news, education, and entertainment."

“New Jersey families should not be used as pawns in this battle between two large corporations,” Lautenberg in a statement. “Disney should not cut off access to the Oscars and critical news programming for so many New Jersey families. Both sides need to get back to the negotiating table and work this out immediately.”   

The senator also promised "additional action from Congress," in the event both companies failed to resolve their differences, though he provided no details of what those consequences might include.

"Your businesses depend on these hard-working consumers, and they do not deserve to be held hostage in your contract dispute," Lautenberg said. "I urge both parties to get back to the negotiating table now and put the interests of New Jersey consumers at the forefront of your agenda."

President Barack Obama will join space experts at a conference in Florida next month to discuss the administration's "new vision" for NASA, the White House announced Sunday.

The April 15 meeting will focus on NASA's "next steps, and the new technologies, new jobs, and new industries it will create," according to the administration.

But the White House's latest forum arrives after weeks of intense scrutiny of the president's proposed 2011 space budget, which would expand some of NASA's research programs while severely curtailing its manned-spaceflight plans.

While the White House did propose an additional $8 billion for NASA as part of its new budget, some lawmakers are apoplectic that the boost comes at the expense of NASA's Constellation program -- a project commissioned in 2005 by former President George W. Bush, who tasked the agency with plotting a second trip to the Moon.

An independent review found that program "fundamentally un-executable," according to the White House, in part because of technological constraints and funding limits. The Obama administration thus decided to shift NASA money elsewhere, primarily to focus more on short-term projects in research and development, officials have said.

But a number of lawmakers who represent states that house NASA bases -- including Sens. David Vitter (R-La.), Bill Nelson (D-Fl.) and Kay Baily Hutchison (R-Tx.) -- have since charged it is the White House, not NASA, that lacks a clear mission.

"Our greatest accomplishment in human space flight were gained because President Kennedy said we will land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of this decade," Vitter said of the president's "radical" NASA budget during a hearing last month.

"President Kennedy didn't say, 'We're going to spend a few billion dollars on some really unique research and development,'" he said.

Consequently, the fallout has put the Obama administration on the defensive, even as its top space advisers insist manned space travel is still NASA's ultimate, albeit long-term, goal.

NASA's conference in Florida this April will reinforce that point, according to the White House's release on Sunday.

"A foundational element of this new strategy is to invest in the development of a targeted set of inter-related technologies and capabilities that can help us travel from the Earth’s cradle to our nearby Solar System neighborhood in a more effective and affordable way, thus laying the foundation to support journeys to the Moon, asteroids, and eventually to Mars," according to the announcement.

Stalled negotiations mean millions of Cablevision subscribers in the New York area are unlikely to catch the Oscars tonight.

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