I believe this makes China the first, significant nation to mandate specific software on a personal computer...way to go!
Why do have an image of an old Chinese man in a Mao suit desperately plugging wholes in a dike with his fingers and toes, only to discover he doesn't have enough appendages?
BEIJING American computer makers say the Chinese government has not backed down from a requirement that Internet censorship software be preinstalled on all computers sold in China after July 1, despite reports this week that the rule had been relaxed.
In a further sign that Chinese officials are trying to assert more Internet control, the city of Beijing wants to recruit 10,000 volunteers by summers end to monitor online content, said an employee of the city governments Spiritual Civilization Office.
The plan was presented in a document submitted Tuesday by the Beijing Internet Administration Office during a meeting in which city officials discussed purifying social civilization, said the employee, who identified herself only by her surname, Guo. She said she had no further details on the plan.
Chinese authorities have also sought to assert control by directly warning some online services. On Thursday, for example, a government-supported Internet watchdog group criticized Googles Chinese-language Web site for linking to pornographic and vulgar sites. The group, the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center, said www.google.cn had already been criticized in January and April and that it must purge the offending links.
Chinas central and local governments use a vast array of programs and human monitors to block Internet content deemed pornographic or politically harmful to the Communist Party, like Web sites discussing Tibet or the Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement. The system of censorship is nicknamed the Great Firewall, and savvy computer users in China usually use software to circumvent it, thinking little of it. But the governments new rule that computer makers install censorship software on computers has inflamed antigovernment sentiment among Chinese computer users.
Many people say the software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, will be used to block Web sites with politically unacceptable content, even though officials insist that the software will be used primarily to censor pornography.
Computer experts also discovered severe weaknesses in the software that would let hackers hijack computers. Chinese officials say they have ordered the developers to fix these problems.
Trade groups representing major American computer makers, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell, which have significant market shares in China, have been asking the Chinese government to rescind the requirement that Green Dam be preinstalled on computers but have seen no change in the Chinese position.
Four trade groups based in the United States have sent a statement to the Chinese government asking it to reconsider implementing its new mandatory filtering software requirement.
On Wednesday, the major American computer makers said they had yet to hear anything concrete from China regarding the possibility of making installations of Green Dam optional.
Lenovo, the largest computer maker in China, did not respond to requests for comment.
Confusion was sown Monday when China Daily, the countrys official English-language newspaper, quoted an unnamed official in the software department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology saying that the government was requiring that the software be offered on a CD-ROM packaged with new computers or be placed on hard drives as setup files only.
Some people interpreted that as the government backing down from its rule that Green Dam be installed, but soon it became clear that the official was not speaking in an authoritative role. Employees at the ministrys software department, reached by telephone, refused to clarify the governments position. No government official has given any statement this week indicating that the policy has changed.
On May 19, the ministry issued a directive to computer makers that required the preinstallation of Green Dam on hard drives or a CD-ROM with installation software that usually is packaged with computers. The directive also requires that Green Dam be saved in backup files.
The directive makes clear that the government intends to ensure universal use of Green Dam on new computers in China.
The software and its two Chinese developers are coming under legal attack by Solid Oak Software, a company based in Santa Barbara, Calif., which is accusing the developers, Jinhui Computer System Engineering and Dazheng Human Language Technology, of stealing programming codes from software that Solid Oak developed.
Solid Oak said it had asked Hewlett-Packard and Dell to halt distribution of any computers with Green Dam software.
Edward Wong reported from Beijing, and Ashlee Vance from San Francisco. Huang Yuanxi contributed research from Beijing.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw
I know we are not perfect, but at least we are not causing 3000 civilian death a month in iraq at some point....Never seen the insignificant canadians complain about that....
...and the major protests back in 2003 and the opinion polls that show minority support for actions in Iraq. I am always amused by people who believe a democracy will speak with a single voice on any issue.
"Never seen the insignificant canadians complain about that...."
The Chinese FM (and therefore PM and government) appear to disagree with that assessment...
I am merely highlighting, in counterpoint to the numerous threads about Chinese technical leadership, that technical leadership is a distant second to the application of it in importance (the end as opposed to the means so to speak).
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw
I have tried the software personally. It is a good software for families that have kids. But it is not perfect.
First, let me clear China's policy on this software:
1. China requires PC makers to ship the software with the software package. No mandatory installation is required. It's up to user's choice for installation.
2. The fees for the first year license is paid by the gov.
3. Even after the installation, you can easily uninstall it cleanly ( I verified it).
My discovery of the software after my trial:
1. It have 3 kinds of website filters. Key words, websites and pic recognization.
There are political words in the Key words filter. But only porn sites in the website data ( People hack it and verified it. The information can be found on Chinese forums.), pic recognization is used to recognize the porn pics too.
2. There are setting of the three filters that user have the full rights to turn them on or off. when I turned all off, I can go to anywhere. If I turned off the key words filter, then only porn websites were blocked. I even could go to fa lun gong websites and Jun fourth webs without any problems.
3. It has logs for the websites the PC user accessed. This is very useful for parents.
4. But the software have some problem. At least the pic recognization part does not work well. Some very normal pics were considered as porn ones. This could cause some innocent websites blocked if the max number of porn pics allowed in one page is exceeded.
This message has been edited by oneman28 on Jun 30, 2009 7:20 AM This message has been edited by oneman28 on Jun 30, 2009 4:03 AM This message has been edited by oneman28 on Jun 30, 2009 3:47 AM
The software now is free and can be downloaded. If have kids who use PC and you don't have time to monitor them, this software is a very good solution. Unfortunately, there is only Chinese version today.
Most of Chinese is concerned of poosible corruption associated with the policy. Gov paid more than 40 million RMB for the unlimited use of the software, but no details about how this company is picked up is avaliable to public.
This message has been edited by oneman28 on Jun 30, 2009 3:49 AM
It shows just how fuked up and brainwashed and leftist Westerns are these days, that they pay more attention to how China fuks over its own citizens than to how it fuks over their own selves.
F.uck an eye for an eye. You take my eye, and I will kill you, and all those you care about. That is our policy.
Are you serious oneman? No one's gonna download that crap. First thing people are going to do is uninstall the filter from their new computer. There are lobbies in the US too that want filters installed on government computers using the "think of your kids" arguments. They also tend to be hypocrites or pedophiles lol.
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#1 way to ascertain that you've lost an argument: Resorting to personal attacks.
"First, let me clear China's policy on this software:
1. China requires PC makers to ship the software with the software package. No mandatory installation is required. It's up to user's choice for installation."
Thius statement from the article would seem to contradict that statement, however it may be merely be a matter of a poor translation of the directive.
"3. Even after the installation, you can easily uninstall it cleanly ( I verified it). ""
Are you experienced in detecting root kits on compromised machines?
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw
Nah, not curious enough to try it. It'll be a huge waste of money and failure. Most people won't install it, and small shops that sell custom built computers won't even mention it let alone include it.
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#1 way to ascertain that you've lost an argument: Resorting to personal attacks.
Are you experienced in detecting root kits on compromised machines?
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I did not notice any changes in system folders. I actively monitor those folders even I have McAfee enterprise installed. I also actively monitor tasks on my PC.
@coalde, oneman is right, manufacturers have to package the install disc, but the filter software is not pre-installed. Also, no root kits, otherwise people/hackers who have played around with it would have found it.
Honestly, Chinese government screwed up the public relations on this. It was purely an archaic move by the censors. It's easy to think the government is using these filters as trojans that report back to centralized servers intent on monitoring hundreds of millions of users, but that would require a lot of foresight and millions of stupid users not discovering it.
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#1 way to ascertain that you've lost an argument: Resorting to personal attacks.
So what reason would the capitalistic (economically speaking) Chinese government have for mandating a specific (Chinese made) piece of software over another (Chinese made) piece of software?
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw
Ahh, no changes in system folders...I'm sure you've scanned through your system32 folder pretty thoroughly then..lol.
I have McAfee enterprise installed.
Ooooh!!
I also actively monitor tasks on my PC.
And all they have to do is rename the file to something that resembles a browser and 99.9% of computer users would not even guess that they're being keylogged/watched or whatever. For example, I remember a particular spyware I had that somehow managed to attach itself to my firefox. Now whenever I booted win it would load at startup.
Checked Msconfig - nothing
Checked HKLM for startup services, again nothing
My anti virus didn't detect it
And it also blocked updating of anti spyware tools.
Hijackthis log mentioned firefox.exe so no one was able to recognise it.
Ended up having to sift through the registry deleting every key that started with StubPath. No normal PC user is going to go through this even if he knows that he's infected.
And that code was probably written by some guy sitting in his basement. A corporation can do whatever it wants with your pc.
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Tu dhoop hain jham se bikhar
Tu hai nadee o bekhabar
Beh chal kahin ud chal kahin
Dil khush jahan teri toh manzil hai wahin.
The government is delaying packaging the filter indefinitely. Not surprised at all. And the reason I suspect is not because of protests and more because other countries are threatening to challenge it as unfair trade practice in WTO lol. Money trumps all.
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#1 way to ascertain that you've lost an argument: Resorting to personal attacks.
"Every country sensors one way or another.....I personally think it's very stupid...."
Well I agree with you regarding the stupidity of keeping information from citizens, can you elaborate on Internet censorship practices that exist in North American or Western European nations?
Or are you just making the comment to make yourself feel better about the practices of the Chinese government?
My real concern is this statement in the article...
The directive makes clear that the government intends to ensure universal use of Green Dam on new computers in China.
Ensuring mandatory compliance would be a relatively trivial, from technical standpoint, assuming all Chinese based ISPs are forced to comply.
I suppose another first for China is that they have discovered the limits of centralized firewalls in packet based networks.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw
This message has been edited by coalde on Jul 1, 2009 5:39 AM
"can you elaborate on Internet censorship practices that exist in North American or Western European nations? "
Dude, either you are smart or stupid. I said censor, I didn't say internet censor....You should be perfectly aware of what kind of censor is practiced in the "free" world since you have "fair and balanced and free" press....
"Dude, either you are smart or stupid. I said censor, I didn't say internet censor....You should be perfectly aware of what kind of censor is practiced in the "free" world since you have "fair and balanced and free" press...."
My mistake, we are discussing the Internet here, however if I can get access to news and information from a number of sources (both domestic and international) any censorship is pointless and only serves to reduce the credibility of a source in my eyes. Sort of like that channel with fair and balanced reporting...which is mostly a comedy network in my eyes, just like the Colbert report and Chinese government reports on it's own behavior.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw
"I know we are not perfect, but at least we are not causing 3000 civilian death a month in iraq at some point....Never seen the insignificant canadians complain about that...."
No, you chinese just kill and imprison each other for disagreeing with you masters. China is enslaved. Not so different from NK really.
By the way, I have nothing against China, just noticed it in the news today and recalled this thread...they seemed made for each other. This combined with the bizarre behaviour surrounding the Rio Tinto guy makes me wonder if the hard liners are ascendant in the CCP. Isn't there a party Congress coming up?
Loved this comment...
"Digu and Zuosa, two Chinese websites that offer micro-blogging services similar to Twitter, were both shut down for maintenance, according to notices posted on their homepages. A Digu spokeswoman who would only give her surname, Zhang, said the site was offline so it could be movedto a new server. She said it would be down for at least a week."
I moved websites (both large/complex and small/simple) to new servers, most companies I worked for would fire people if the site were down for a week and there would be lawsuits/penalties...but I understand the spokespersons reasons for such a response.
Several Chinese Internet sites and parts of popular web portals went offline Tuesday amid tightening controls that have already left mainland Web users without access to Facebook, Twitter and other well-known social networking sites.
China stepped up its crackdown on social networking sites in March over online allegations surrounding the treatment of Tibetans, and the blockages continued through the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the recent ethnic riots in Xinjiang.
The harsh measures are also thought to be part of efforts to ensure social stability ahead of the 60th anniversary of communist rule on Oct. 1, when Beijing will mark 60 years of communist rule.
Digu and Zuosa, two Chinese websites that offer micro-blogging services similar to Twitter, were both shut down for maintenance, according to notices posted on their homepages. A Digu spokeswoman who would only give her surname, Zhang, said the site was offline so it could be moved to a new server. She said it would be down for at least a week.
It's a sensitive period, so we are not in a rush to re-open it, Ms. Zhang said, adding that some Digu users had recently tried to post politically sensitive material to the site and that the company was having to censor such content. She wouldn't give any specific examples.
Zuosa employees did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment about the sites' closure.
The technology channels of the popular Sina and Netease Web portals were also shut, apparently because they had posted news about a corruption probe without clearance from state censors.
China, with the world's largest population of Internet users at more than 298 million, has the world's most extensive system of Web monitoring and censorship and has issued numerous regulations in response to the rise of blogging and other trends.
While the government claims the main targets are pornography, online gambling, and other sites deemed harmful to society, critics say that often acts as cover for detecting and blocking sensitive political content.
The video site YouTube has been blocked in China since March apparently because it contained video depicting harsh treatment of Tibetans by Chinese security forces. Twitter and the photo-sharing Flickr service were made inaccessible in June, just ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations on Tiananmen Square.
Facebook and Fanfou, a Chinese site similar to Twitter, were cut off after deadly ethnic riots erupted in China's far western region of Xinjiang earlier this month.
Over the last few months in particular, news (in China) is being circulated through those Twitter-like sites or Facebook-like sites and instantly disseminated on a large scale, said Xiao Qiang, director of the Berkeley China Internet Project at the University of California-Berkeley.
It makes it very hard for the censors to block the news from circulating ... so they have stopped all these sites I guess while they figure out what to do.
The technology channels of China's leading Web portals, Sina and Netease, could not be opened for several hours after both sites posted news about a Namibian probe into corruption allegations against Nuctech, a Beijing company that makes scanning equipment. The articles were deleted and the channels were online again by late Tuesday afternoon.
Details of the probe had been reported by The Telegraph and The Australian newspapers. Both papers noted that until last year, Nuctech was overseen by President Hu Jintao's son.
The Sina and Netease articles, which were written in Chinese and cited unspecified foreign media reports, made no mention of Hu Haifeng, who is currently the Communist Party Secretary for the holding company that owns Nuctech.
The Telegraph on Monday quoted the director of Namibia's Anti-Corruption Commission, Paulus Noah, as saying Mr. Hu was not a suspect in the case.
Screenshots of the deleted Chinese articles have been posted on overseas blogs and circulated via Twitter and e-mail.
A Netease spokesman said the site's technology channel was down due to a technical problem. He refused to give his name or elaborate. A Sina spokeswoman said she was unaware that the portal's technology channel was down. She also refused to give her name or answer additional questions.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw
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