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shanghaiceltic

Shanghai Royalty

Joined: Sep 20, 2005
Posts: 8134
Location: Perth WA
Status: Offline

Posted: June 26, 2009 - 03:07 PM
Post subject: Green Dam

China's internet censors
Dammed if you do

Jun 25th 2009 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition
Protecting China’s innocents from smut, violence and the da1a¡ 1ama

Illustration by Claudio Munoz

THE internet is full of stuff of which China’s government disapproves. Yet there are 300m Chinese internet-users. Keeping the two apart has embroiled the Chinese authorities in a long cat-and-mouse struggle. Service-providers and internet cafés are closely supervised, and a wide array of filtering mechanisms already overlays the national internet architecture. A fresh initiative goes one step further. From July 1st every personal computer sold in China will have to come with new filtering software called Green Dam Youth Escort.

It has yet to be decided whether Green Dam must be pre-loaded, or left on a disk for users to install. But it has sparked an uproar. Chinese internet users have vented online their spleen at being nannied. Hackers are reported to have mounted repeated attacks on the website of Green Dam’s developer. It has also received more than 1,000 harassing phone-calls, including death threats.

An American firm, Solid Oak Software, claims Green Dam includes stolen copyrighted code from one of its products, and has launched legal action. Computer makers are understandably reluctant to abet a massive censorship scheme, or to anger their customers with unwelcome software. Moreover, independent experts at the University of Michigan found Green Dam to be riddled with outdated code and security flaws that would leave computers at risk.

America’s Commerce Department this week lodged a formal complaint with the Chinese government, asking it to rescind the new rule. The government stresses Green Dam’s role in protecting young people from “unhealthy” and “poisonous” pornographic and violent content. But the Michigan experts found that it is also scans text for “politically sensitive” phrases.

Whether to do with t¡bet, Taiwan, or F a lu n Go ng, a spiritual sect, there are plenty of these, leading to sites deemed “harmful” by China. In a year of harder economic times and sensitive political anniversaries, the authorities are especially edgy. The thin and cautious reporting in the press of events in Iran suggests they are also nervous about access to news of political prοtest elsewhere.

Despite the opposition, however, which includes a grassroots attempt to organise an internet boycott in China on July 1st, the government remains undaunted, promising that technical flaws will be fixed and that Green Dam will go forward. It has also opened a second front, lashing out at Google for including a feature in its Chinese service that automatically completes search-query terms—it complains that this can lead users to sites containing pornography.

Google has long struggled to reconcile its corporate credo (“Don’t be evil”) with the onerous demands of China’s internet regulators. It has promised to renew its efforts to keep in line with Chinese standards. But the company also has fair cause to wonder why it has been singled out. Its main Chinese competitor, Baidu, is just as good at finding smut.

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shanghaiceltic

Shanghai Royalty

Joined: Sep 20, 2005
Posts: 8134
Location: Perth WA
Status: Offline

Posted: July 01, 2009 - 11:43 AM

Good old back pedal....

China plan to censor all computers dropped
China has backed down from a plan to install censorship software on all computers sold on the mainland.

A law requiring computer manufacturers to include a program called Green Dam on every PC was "delayed" just hours before it was due to come into effect.

Green Dam filters the internet and blocks access both to pornography and to politically sensitive content.

Researchers also discovered that it is capable of sending reports about an individual's web use back to the authorities.

China retreated in the face of angry and sustained criticism not only from internet users but also from computer manufacturers and trade bodies. In addition, a US company called Solid Oak has filed a lawsuit against the makers of Green Dam, charging them with having stolen the software that makes up the program.

"China will delay the mandatory installation of the software on new computers," said Xinhua, the government newswire.

"The pre-installation was delayed as some computer producers said such massive installation demanded extra time," it added.

There was no statement on how long the delay would last, and some observers speculated that the government will not make Green Dam compulsory.

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ziccawei

Post Roaster

Joined: Sep 12, 2008
Posts: 4547
Location: Ziccawei
Status: Offline

Posted: July 01, 2009 - 12:28 PM

The reason they back-pedalled is because they probably got stress from Lenovo and other Chinese computer manufacturers. If they installed Green Dam there would be a huge rise in black market computers without Green Dam.

It's stupid, the average Chinese middle school kid is such an internet/computer geek he would know how to see stuff that the Chinese govt doesn't want him to see. He could do that, but instead spends every waking hour playing World of Warcraft.

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Rumpelstiltskin

PopStar

Joined: May 13, 2009
Posts: 1293

Status: Offline

Posted: July 01, 2009 - 02:03 PM

Quote:

If they installed Green Dam there would be a huge rise in black market computers without Green Dam.

UNLESS it would be a crime to be connected to the internet without it.

tihZ_hO
Post Roaster

Joined: Feb 17, 2004
Posts: 4231
Location: Shanghai / Jakarta

Posted: July 01, 2009 - 02:22 PM

Rumpelstiltskin wrote:

Quote:

If they installed Green Dam there would be a huge rise in black market computers without Green Dam.

UNLESS it would be a crime to be connected to the internet without it.

Of course strictly enforced as with all the other laws in China. Laughing

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jeffo

Ranter

Joined: Aug 27, 2008
Posts: 507

Status: Offline

Posted: July 01, 2009 - 05:01 PM

duh...what's the big plan here ? Even if you have a computer with this spyware, just format and reinstall...

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