Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Censorship Privacy The Internet Your Rights Online

China Plans Surveillance System for Internet Cafes 298

Posted by michael from the papers-please dept.
nasty writes "According to Interfax China, China will install a special surveillance system in order to prevent 'unhealthy information and websites'. All internet cafes in China will have installed the new system by the end of 2004. This according to China's Ministry of Culture (MOC). The system requires the customers personal information, such as name, age, and their national citizen identification number, before they are allowed to log onto the Internet." Reader Dr.Hair submits another blurb about the system.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

China Plans Surveillance System for Internet Cafes More

China Plans Surveillance System for Internet Cafes

Comments Filter:

  • Eventual failure (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rbanzai ( 596355 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:56PM (#9022660)
    No matter what they try to do they will eventually fail to contain the information they are frightened of.
    • True, though that won't stop them from trying. That is the ultimate in "big brother". How will they prevent someone from using Google to view a page ala proxy, or from using proxy servers all together? -nB
      • They can prevent their citizens from using Google altogether. They already have in the past.
        China blocking Google [bbc.co.uk] [september 2002]

      • Re:Eventual failure (Score:5, Insightful)

        by trentblase ( 717954 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:12PM (#9022831)
        Well they can just filter on keywords so no unencrypted proxy will work. Something using SSL, however.... If they have control over the machines (which they do) they can disable SSL in the browsers. You can't do an SSH tunnel cause you don't have any privelages on the computer. And if you're smart enough to bypass any of that, you probably already know what they're trying to hide from you.

      • Re:Eventual failure (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ninti ( 610358 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:35PM (#9023029)
        I set up an encrypted proxy for my father who is working in U.A.E., so he could get around their national firewall. After he used it once, they found it and banned my IP in less than a day. The belief that no censorship can work on the Internet is a common one here, but basically a wrong one.

        • I set up an encrypted proxy for my father who is working in U.A.E., so he could get around their national firewall. After he used it once, they found it and banned my IP in less than a day.

          The UAE is a small, rich country. China is a massive, poor country. Do you think this might be relevant?

      • This is interesting in a horrible way. Will freedom win out or will technology allow the ultimate in repressive dictatorship? The existence of earlier communication tech like copiers was a big part of the russian people winning the cold war on behalf of all of us. Martin Luthor could challange a very powerfull church largely because of the printing press. Computer networks are fundamentally different in that they allow the possibility of central monitering and control. If those russian copiers also pri

    • Re:Eventual failure (Score:5, Interesting)

      by blamblamblam ( 610567 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:07PM (#9022784) Homepage
      I don't think policy makers in China actually believe they can fully contain the spread of information. But what they can do is limit how quickly news and ideas get around as a way of putting the brakes on potentially disruptive issues. And so you're right in one sense--they can't contain it absolutely. You've got a billion people with radios and TVs and internet and the ability to fly in and out of the country, so strictly speaking it's impossible to limit what specific individuals can and can't know. But in terms of bogging down the spread of information and keeping a handle on the party line, it seems like they've actually been pretty successful. I think their grip on the primary media is pretty firm and insitutionally grounded, and I'm not sure how far grassroots activism or technical wizardry can go to circumvent that.
      • Kinda like they did with SARS.

      • Re:Eventual failure (Score:3, Informative)

        by VertigoAce ( 257771 )
        I don't think there are a billion people in China who have the ability to fly in and out of the country. It's my understanding that the government places a lot of restrictions on travel. I visited China for a few weeks with a group of students. We had one tour guide that followed us throughout the country and other local guides for each city. But when we got to Guangzhou (Canton) our main guide had to stay behind. He wasn't allowed to take the train from there to Hong Kong. Our guide in Hong Kong elaborated

      • Re:Eventual failure (Score:5, Insightful)

        by YankeeInExile ( 577704 ) * on Friday April 30, 2004 @08:02PM (#9024378) Homepage Journal

        I am somewhat amazed to see how little /. readers can full comprehend the world outside of first world, mostly-free countries

        This should be a wake-up call to the "chilling effect" of government intervention. It is not necessary to have a 100% effective technological solution against the dissemination of "unhealthy" information.

        As long as they can keep on top of the "troublemakers" when they are few and far between, and make them "disappear", the deterrent effect will be strong enough to keep others from even trying to evade their control.

        The Chinese government is not the RIAA. They don't mail you a friendly summons to a lawsuit. They drag you out in the dead of night for "re-education" or a date with a firing squad.

    • Re:Eventual failure (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rodentia ( 102779 )

      This is a glib and unsupported assertion and purely conventional thinking. I think an informed and reasonable person must admit that the current state of the network enables the suppression of dissent far more effectively than ever before. A political broadsheet, passed hand-to-hand is effectively untraceable. What's on the other end of your wire, friend? While an informed few may be better connected, the vast majority will be more easily outed.

      And let's remember that it is thanks to American firms li
    • I don't think they are trying to completely prevent the information from getting through. I think they know that's a lost cause. What they're probably trying for is to DETECT, rather than prevent, the tendency of some people to keep trying to visit certain sites. "Hey, this guy's been visiting the WRONG sites a lot, I think it's time we pay SPECIAL attention to him..."

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:57PM (#9022669)
    The RIAA and MPAA have suggested the same be done in the US to save starving movie and music artists from piracy..

  • One good use. (Score:5, Funny)

    by methangel ( 191461 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:57PM (#9022676)
    No more Chinese/Korean kids dying while playing Counterstrike.

  • Human Rights / Trade Agreements (Score:5, Insightful)

    by normal_guy ( 676813 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:58PM (#9022680)
    I'm stumped as to why we're so eager to deregulate trade with China when such basic human rights as "Freedom to Worship" and "Freedom of Speech" are suppressed.

    Perhaps an anonymous proxy could be set up and funded by the US, as it has in Iran [theregister.co.uk].

    • Re:Human Rights / Trade Agreements (Score:5, Interesting)

      by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:01PM (#9022720) Homepage Journal

      Because business dictates foreign policy.

      Consider that China has far worse human rights violations than Cuba yet Cuba suffers through US embargos while diplomats fly to China to kiss ass for trade favours.

      • Re:Human Rights / Trade Agreements (Score:5, Informative)

        by RatBastard ( 949 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:14PM (#9022854) Homepage
        The embargo against Cuba has nothing to do with himan rights. It is based on two factors:

        1: Cuba is the only Communist state in the western hemisphere that America failed to overthrow.

        2: There is a huge population of former Cubans in Florida that keep riding the governments ass about ending Castro's reign. Not that most of these people would ever move back to Cuba to save their lives.
      • As somebody pointed out already, it's the business community.

        It goes to explain Cuba too - imagine the catastrophe that would befall the Hawaiian tourist industry the day Cuba opens up to Americans, a quickie 45-minute flight from Miami. Without billions at stake over in Aloha-land, I can guarantee you some of those people have flown in to Washington to "take care" of a few things.
      • Isolating Cuba is critically important. That's why we have five times as many treasury agents enforcing the embargo against Cuba as we have enforcing the ban against financing terrorism Associated Press [salon.com].

    • Cheap labor to build all those gadgets we want. It's all about money. Our current president has already sold our future down the toilet for money. He'd probably sell his own mother to a meat packing plant if they offered him enough money.
      • While you're basically right, the previous administration was DEEPLY in bed with the Chinese.

        As things are right now, try to imagine the effect of revoking MFN status for China. They'd cut us off at the knees economically. We've abandoned most of the manufacturing capability that we depend on them for.

        I'm not very happy about having to buy so much stuff that originated in China, but nowdays, one would be hard pressed to find a reasonably priced consumer item that isn't related in some way to China.

    • Re:Human Rights / Trade Agreements (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LordKazan ( 558383 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:02PM (#9022742) Homepage Journal
      Are you kidding? The bush administration is completely against BOTH of those freedoms. Bush and all his chronies are Neoconservatives - AKA the Christian Right (Christian Taliban).

      It is clear through his actions, and the actions of his cabinant, and party - that they are trying to push christianity on everyone in this country. Furthermore the attitude of "You're a traitor if you don't agree with Bush" that Schrubya is pushing is evidence of the fact that they don't respect Freedom of Speech.

      These are but two of the hundreds of violations the bush administration has commited/would like to commit.

      • Re:Human Rights / Trade Agreements (Score:5, Interesting)

        by foidulus ( 743482 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:33PM (#9023010)
        Actually, part of the neo-con philosphy is a hardline stance against dictators, especially China. However, this is probably the only part of the hard line neo-con philosophy that Bush has not adopted. And he has actually received criticism from other neo-cons about it. One of the reasons why he hasn't had a hard line stance is because a large part of our budget deficit(which was brought on by tax cuts and expensive wars) is funded by China. Also a reason why the US has only recently brought up it's first suit against China in the WTO.

        Now that I am done with the factual part of my post, I'll do a little rant: I really don't think building up such a massive debt to China is good for the US in the long run. After they have bought enough bonds they can always threaten the US with a massive selloff which would push interest rates through the roof, severly hurting the US(and global) economy. Doesn't anyone else thing this is a bad idea?!
      • Succintly put.

        Bravo.
    • Several proxy networks exist already to provide uncensored Internet access to Chinese people. Of course at the same time, some organizations outside China have started to block traffic originating from chinese IP blocks, because of all the spam they receive that transits through China.

      As for the will to deregulate trade with China despite the violation human rights : the Chinese market means access to over a billion consumers, and to access that market, capitalistic and "free" countries are willing to cl
    • China outsources [infoworld.com] alot of its technical censorship solutions to America. We're talking about Chinese rights, and there's profits to be had. Liberty and Justice for Us.
    • They won't drop trade with China because money talks and human rights walk. If Iran made more $ for US companies I'm sure we'd be selling them weapons right now.

      I'm sure China's actions burn up the Feds...with jealousy.

  • Unhealthy Information... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Finally! The end of MSG.com!

  • Censorship will drive... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chalybeous ( 728116 ) <chalybeous@@@yahoo...co...uk> on Friday April 30, 2004 @04:59PM (#9022701) Homepage Journal
    ... innovation.
    It seems that a lot of people around the globe have worked hard to design proxies that get around existing systems which governments use to restrict their citizens' access to information on the internet.
    IMHO, this new piece of software will just lead to a new breed of web proxy, and until China either cuts off net use entirely or has a massive change in government policy, it's going to be a continuation of the government vs. infolibertarian game of "build the better mousetrap". Just now, instead of bypassing and improving filters, it'll be about tracking and masking data...
    • I don't think proxy would help. The system will probaly work like this : customer should show ID to cafe owner, and owner should check that customer logging his ID. Random inspection to check if owners comply. Whenever user use proxy it will show on his log. Though user can use hacked browser, which can falsify log, but that could be not so easy...

    • Re:Censorship will drive... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by foidulus ( 743482 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:21PM (#9022902)
      I don't really think so. The systems are probably designed to scare more than anything else. Other posters have commented about the culture of the Chinese, which catches most of them. The cameras might not even be that effective(seems kind of difficult to monitor, and they already have police officers who walk around and look at what people are viewing), but my bet is people don't know that. They will be very afraid of what might happen if they get caught. Safety seems more important than freedom to a large section of the population, just look at the US.

  • US version (Score:3, Insightful)

    by phyl0x ( 656298 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:00PM (#9022705)
    US officals say plan is "another evil of communism"...they went on to defend a similar measure to for Americans called Ashcr-o-ware that would weed out terrorists (ie file sharers and pot dealers)... wouldnt surpise me, Orwell was only 20 years off.

  • What's anonymous in the US? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Thinkit4 ( 745166 ) * on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:00PM (#9022706)
    I think at Kinko's (office services chain), you can just pay cash and get online. Some libraries are like that as well. An option (even if it's pay) for totally anonymous internet is important if one values privacy.
    • I remember this post [slashdot.org] where the /. crowd was really happy about monitored cafes that caught a serial spammer. Just thinking that maybe we should be consistent with our knee-jerk reactions... Myself, I'm not convinced that anonymous access is the treasured right it's being made out to be.

      Here's my scorecard...

      The use of this information by the chinese goverment to persecute genuine freedoms... bad.

      Anonymous access to child porn, terrorism planning, and theft of my credit card numbers... also bad.

  • no surprise.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zasos ( 688522 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:00PM (#9022711) Homepage Journal
    What do you expect from a totalitarian government?
    I am surprised that they haven't done that before...
    what I also don't understand is why 'democratic' world has such a great trade relations with totalitarian China?...
    then again two party system is only one step to totalitarism

    somewhat irrelevant but interesting quote from today NYTimes editorial: "we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." That's from George Orwell's 1946 essay "In Front of Your Nose."
    • I am surprised that they haven't done that before...

      The old geezers had to figure out how to power a computer first, then they were shocked by all the nekkidness and stripping geishas. aaaahNO!

    • what I also don't understand is why 'democratic' world has such a great trade relations with totalitarian China?

      Well, look at all the good isolation did to Iraq and take a wild guess..
      Trade means that they also get information and impressions from the outside whether they like it or not, which in turn leads to enlightenment. And an informed and enlightened population will most likely not put up with tyranny for too long, but still be able hopefully to revolutionize to democracy in a peaceful manner.

      I
    • probably the same reason why we have oil deals with saudi arabia, despite the fact that most of the 9/11 terrorists were from there. i'm sure not every country agrees with what the usa is doing but still trades with us. we all tend to overlook certain "deficiencies" when there are greater "benefits".

    • what I also don't understand is why 'democratic' world has such a great trade relations with totalitarian China?...

      This sentiment is frequently expressed whenever China is mentioned, especially here on Slashdot (as you can see from other peoples' posts already.) I think it is rooted in either an ignorance of or an unwillingness to believe that our Great Democratic Country(tm) would *gasp* trade with a country like China because of money outweighing our precious values.

      When it comes right down to it, d

    • What do you expect from a totalitarian government?

      What makes this interesting is that China is taking small steps away from totalitarianism as it begins to allow (limited) free markets and some small steps towards freedom of religion and political thought. Sure it has a long way to go, but it isn't anymore the totalitarian state it was 20 or even 10 years ago. That's why these attempts to allow some freedom (at least there are internet cafes) while also attempting to maintain political control is so fas

  • What kind of system? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Guildencrantz ( 234779 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:01PM (#9022714)
    Are camaras going to be involved? Sure, log user info and then log the pages they visit. Have some government agency sit there and randomly check sites visited. Develop two lists "acceptable" to shorten the list of sites checked and "unacceptable" to automatically flag users visiting known unacceptable sites. Is this what they are talking about?

    Don't get me wrong, the idea scares the heck out of me, I'm just curious exactly how they plan on implementing the system.

    ~~Guildencranz

  • One simple question: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Henrik S. Hansen ( 775975 ) <hsh@member.fsf.org> on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:01PM (#9022718) Homepage
    As most of us know, this is not an incident unique to China. Increasing surveillance is happening on a global scale. And most people seem not to care, which is actually the most scary part.

    How long until we get telescreens?

  • Impersonation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mariox19 ( 632969 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:01PM (#9022721)

    Name, age, and national ID number?! Unless they have some kind of picture ID with a magnetic strip on the back which has to be inserted into a computer, after the photo has been checked by an official, how are they going to keep people who have somehow gotten hold of someone else's name, age, and ID number, from using that information when they log on?

    Pity the poor bastard who has to explain to the chinese authorities that it wasn't he who was reading Slashdot at the local cafe, but an impostor.

    • Re:Impersonation (Score:2, Informative)

      by (ana!)a ( 769730 )
      They're supposed to all have smard digital id cards soon (search google for 'national id china').

    • Re:Impersonation (Score:3, Informative)

      by coastwalker ( 307620 )
      wake up and smell the coffee

      Biometric identification

      The new uk national id card will have biometric id built in.

      The question is how long it will take before all ISP's will be obliged to collect internet usage data linked to the biometric id of the user.

      Great for catching terroists

      Great for controlling political activists as China proves

      Total and absolute ending of freedom of thought.

      Remember information is power, you can throw your guns, votes and education into the trash. The end of an anarchic gold

  • I'm in 1984! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JawFunk ( 722169 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:01PM (#9022723)
    Isn't it ironic that China's Ministry of Culture has the purpose of restricting culture? Like Orwell's Ministry of Truth, which had the sole purpose of changing history.

    • Re:I'm in 1984! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Just like PATRIOT Act is very unpatriotic, or the No Child Left Behind Act has left more children with a poorer education.

      It's easier to make the public swallow something bad when it hides behind a happy name.

    • Re:I'm in 1984! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:32PM (#9023003)
      > Isn't it ironic that China's Ministry of Culture has the purpose of restricting culture? Like Orwell's Ministry of Truth, which had the sole purpose of changing history.

      I don't know about you, but I'm damn grateful that I live here, and not in China.

      For the amount of tax dollars I'm paying, I want the the full working version, not the crappy beta!

  • Hmmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by brutus_007 ( 769774 )
    It's probably not just me, but doesn't it seems to me that the Ministry of Culture should probably be called the Ministry of Truth (or MiniTruth for short)???

  • Everything can be cracked (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MonkeyCookie ( 657433 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:05PM (#9022768)
    My first reaction to this was pure disgust. Then I thought of all the censorship software that China has employed in the past and the net nanny software installed in American libraries. People have always found a way around it.

    I'm sure that some clever individuals will find a way to get around this Orwellian nonsense in no time.

    Also, with the millions and millions of people using the Internet in China, that's a lot of data being generated on what people are doing. How would they parse data of this magnitude? Look for the names of "naughty" websites? Doesn't the Great Firewall already block those?

    Maybe they are not really monitoring people very much, but just trying to inspire fear and obedience with the "Big Brother is watching" bit.

    Information tends to be easily spread, and tends to leak from even the most secure of places. This might slow down the spread of undesirable information, but won't stop it.

    • Then I thought of all the censorship software that China has employed in the past and the net nanny software installed in American libraries. People have always found a way around it.

      Bit of a difference: bypassing NetNanny at a US library may get you tossed out of the building. In China you may well be imprisoned for your subversive behaviour.

  • Already monitored (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MightyPez ( 734706 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:06PM (#9022774)
    A friend went to China about 2 years ago to teach English as a seond language to Chinese students. It was a nice little gig, he had to pay for airfare and food, but got free accomodations. It was also a program designed for people that don't speak Chinese. The idea was to teach kids who already knew a bulk of english how to use pronunciation.

    Anyway, he kept in touch with me and other people through the use of internet cafes, so we talked fairly often. Then a few days went by where he wasn't logging on. It turns out government monitors had flagged his usage because he had been visitng a lot of American web sites. He told me he woke up one moring with AK-47's pointed at his face and was taken to a local precinct.

    A rep from the agency he was working for had explained the sitation to the police, but from there on he was forced to fill out paperwork outlining his planned usage activities on the terminals.

    And for a funny tidbit, he didn't realize the massage parlors in the city he worked were of the "full release" variety.
    • I guess that gets right at the heart of the issue: Who needs cultural freedom when you get full release?

      Actually, I'm surprised neo-conservatives haven't latched on to this idea: if you really want to keep a population from caring about its freedoms, make it easier for them to have sex. Hell, we probably wouldn't have a democrat left in office if the republicans made Free Love one of their campaign platforms in the 60s.

    • Re:Already monitored (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:31PM (#9022989)
      China-bashing is the norm here on Slashdot; but is making up anti-China hysteria urban legend also the norm on /.?

      The "story" of your friend is totally made up. Any body who are acutally faimilar with the structure of police in China will easily see through your bullshit.

      Police force is divided into several tiers. Traffic cops, patrol cops, criminal cops, armed police. Traffic cops and patrol cops are not armed. Criminal cops have only pistols. Armed police have Type-81 rifle, which is not AK47.

      To use Armed Police force for arrest, the city/county police department must file request to the Military Region; which composes of several provinces. The Armed Police is under control of Central Military Committee, NOT under the local civilian government.

      When you exaggerate, you missed the little details. I assume that if the policemen are brutal, they would NOT have got into your friend's room without waking him up in the first place when banging on the door?

      I have no problem with dictatorship bashing. But when you make up stories to prove your point, than how different are you from the propaganda department of China?

      • Who's bashing China? I'm bashing the Party. I don't get my undies in a wad when people bad-mouth the Bush Administration, and not just because I agree with them.

  • Internet is a privliage privilege, not a right (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:06PM (#9022775)
    It's funny how us westerners get all uptight about China choice to sensor information from their population. Would you be shocked to discover that in the UK, you could get in big trouble trying to import comic books due to their laws on graphic violence. It is really so shocking that China considers some content on the net to be unacceptable?

    While I'm not for censorship, is it really that shocking that a country with over 2 billion people is taking it upon it selfs to censor incomming information in the same way other countries have done with physical media for years?

    • But free speech *is* a right...in the US (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kphrak ( 230261 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @06:23PM (#9023483) Homepage

      I'm surprised this one hasn't got modded Troll yet. Oh well, I'll bite...

      No, it's not shocking at all. Unfortunately, this is what we can fully expect from an oppressive, non-democratic government. It also tells us Westerners the kinds of things to watch out for in our own governments -- there but for the grace of God, and all. It seems outrageous to us now, but liberty has to be continually guarded and fought for, again and again, because we can be assured of the continued existance of dictators and wannabe dictators on both ends of the political spectrum. Someday in the near future, that news article could be about us.

      The UK is more restrictive in many ways than the US (no right to bear arms, and a scant two centuries ago insulting the king could cost you your head, if I remember correctly). However, it had a strong concept of freedom and independence which was inherited by the first American colonists, who "fixed" many of the abuses of the English system that existed at the time, in the Constitution. Hence the Bill of Rights, separation of Church and State, division of power among three major bodies...lack of a king...etc.

  • Travelling Employees (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WwWonka ( 545303 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:07PM (#9022783)
    Recently one of our finacial analysts went to China to report on an upcoming Chinese company that our company was looking to institutionally invest in.

    Our super-prima-donna-annoying-user employee put in about thrity help desk requests due to not being able to email, surf the web, or VPN from her hotel room in China. We had to explain to her about the Communist's "Great Firewall of China" and how they block/inspect/proxy damn near everything.

    So believe it or not this story is more of a suprise that this type of "surveillance" is NOT already in place.

    • Re:Travelling Employees (Score:4, Informative)

      by FlexAgain ( 26958 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:45PM (#9023118)
      ...We had to explain to her about the Communist's "Great Firewall of China" and how they block/inspect/proxy damn near everything.

      I've heard this a lot, but personally when I've been in China I've found only one web site which I couldn't get to, BBC News [bbc.co.uk]. I found I could get to many other sites which I half expected not to be able to get to, including the rest of the BBCs [bbc.co.uk] site, CNN [cnn.com], NYTimes [nytimes.com], and many others. Why they choose to block some sites, whilst leaving many others which you might reasonably expect to be blocked for similar reasons is beyond me.

      Even these blocks didn't stop me, I just tunneled anything I wanted to access over SSH (which I was using heavily to access our servers anyway).

      Not a very effective great firewall as far as I could see.

  • Knoppix (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PineHall ( 206441 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:16PM (#9022865)
    A live Linux CDs, like Knoppix, will become popular in China. Opps the computer rebooted.

  • If only. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kabocox ( 199019 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:18PM (#9022882)
    Customers personal information, such as name, age, and their national citizen identification number, before they are allowed to log onto the Internet.

    If only, we could have that here. Hold on. I have to pay for internet access. They usually want my name and some other identifying infomation such as address. I don't tend to use internet cafes though. I'm speaking of home internet. Why shouldn't they be required to write their name, age, and drivers license number here? What if the FBI came knocking on the door with printouts and said we know the guy that was here 2 nights ago at this IP and computer name is planning a bombing we need all the info. you have on him, now! It would be useful if you could provide a Name and Address.

    I don't think that it should be required myself. I do believe that it will be required in libraries to "prevent minors" from viewing "adult content."

    If Ashcroft thinks along those lines, a regulation here or there in licensing could bring it about with out any troublesome laws.

    Remember, you only have to think around those pesky laws if you don't argee with them.
    • What if the FBI came knocking on the door with printouts and said we know the guy that was here 2 nights ago at this IP and computer name is planning a bombing we need all the info. you have on him, now! It would be useful if you could provide a Name and Address.

      That's the very thing we should be wary of. It would be best if you COULDN'T supply a name and address. It would be best if the FBI didn't come by to harass you to begin with. The more our civil liberties are infringed and as our ability to private

      • What if the FBI came knocking on the door with printouts and said we know the guy that was here 2 nights ago at this IP and computer name is planning a bombing we need all the info. you have on him, now! It would be useful if you could provide a Name and Address.

        That's the very thing we should be wary of. It would be best if you COULDN'T supply a name and address. It would be best if the FBI didn't come by to harass you to begin with.

        So if the FBI was actually doing its job and found out about a terroris
  • In Communist China, the Web browses you.

  • Their pols snoop on them, our pols snoop on us (Score:5, Interesting)

    by njdj ( 458173 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:19PM (#9022889)
    Politicians in China snoop on, and try to control, the citizens more than politicians in the West do.

    But the difference is decreasing. Politicians everywhere want power over ordinary people. That's why they became politicians.


    This story is no big deal. It's up to the Chinese to fight for their own freedom. We've proved in the last few years that we can't even preserve our own freedoms. We should fight for those before pointing the finger at China.


  • Or rather than monitor their citizens' Net activity, the Chinese government could take a cue from the Sinclair Broadcast Group and simply shut off the flow of all that "unhealthy" information [cnn.com].

  • S.E.P (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:23PM (#9022915)
    Somebody Elses Problem, frankly.

    I've been to China many times, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and HongKong (before and after it was given back)

    I must say that for the most part they do things just like we do.
    I mean, you can get a bottle of Corona at the bars in Beijing (except they put lemon it in rather that lime) you get can a big mac, kentucky fried chicking and starbucks.

    One poster mentioned that people are conditioned to believe what they are told, I think this is a valid observation. I once was driven around by a girl from the office in Beijing, she took me to a bunch of government owned jade shops, in government owned taxi cabs. When I asked about the private owned cabs and jade shops, she told me bluntly that since they are not owned by the government they were lower quality.

    This raised my eyebrows, as you can just can't equate a quality product with government.

    The hotels mostly have internet access, high speed. There is a little note next to the hook up that warns you to be careful surfing the web and to stay away from material considered harmful by the goverment.

    How would I fix it ?
    I'm not sure anything is wrong. Actually, here in the US our websites are routinely blocked by agencies that are not even govermental (see Google, search pages removed due to DMCA requests).

    I'm more worried that as a China Citizen you cannot leave the country (or go near the borders) without special permission. Everywhere you look there are little government officials in uniform asking questions. For the most part I ignore them, they generally leave foriengners well alone, but my buddies at the local office treat them as a layer of red tape.

    One guy wanted to photocopy my passport, no way Jose ! And if you think that rustly ol' 38 scares me, let me tell you that this is not the first time someone pointed a gun at me. I was in india once and .... well, that's a different story.

  • This is not really news (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grainofsand ( 548591 ) <grainofsand@@@gmail...com> on Friday April 30, 2004 @05:47PM (#9023138)
    Providing your National ID card number and name has been required in mainland China internet cafes since at least 1998.

    That you can buy a new ID card for about RMB 100 (about US$ 12) means that many Chinese have no qualms about handing over their ID numbers!

  • Are there any US companies involved in this? Weren't there some companies in an article last year who were helping the Chinese develop software to aid in censorship over the Internet?

    SELECT (*) FROM PRISONERS
    WHERE "TORTURE" = YES AND
    "DEADYET" = NO AND
    "PAINLEVELBEFOREPASSINGOUT" > 7

  • So ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by value_added ( 719364 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @06:00PM (#9023295)

    ... in China, where there are no guaranteed freedoms, surveillance will be in situ, but here in the Land of the Free we guarantee the freedom of access but encourage surreptitious [librarian.net] surveillance?

    Not sure which is more unhealthy, but I can tell which is more honest.

  • What I really wonder is what the government is looking for. I doubt that they're looking for the guy on MSN who says "[insert government member here] suxors!" so much as the activists actually looking to strongly undermine the government. Those spreading news that the government doesn't want public (failures such as in the SARS case, human rights issues) are probably also under scrutiny.

    How about ethical issues. Do they care if you view pr0n? Do they care if you post to slashdot? What sets the radar off?

  • Primedius anonymous surfing software (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What if they used anonymous surfing software like Primedius [primedius.com], or Anonymizer [anonymizer.com], could they still be tracked?

  • Patriot Act (Score:3, Funny)

    by Esion Modnar ( 632431 ) on Friday April 30, 2004 @07:34PM (#9024144)
    Somebody needs to tell China that the Patriot Act does not actually apply to them, so they may carry on as normal.

Slashdot Top Deals

Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"

Close