China To Photograph All Internet Cafe Customers 223
Gwaihir the Windlord writes "Not only is the Great Firewall of China back up and running, but now if you visit an Internet cafe, your photo will be taken and your identity card scanned. And the friendly officers of the Cultural Law Enforcement Taskforce make those details, entered into a city-wide database, available at any other cafe. So much for the new levels of openness and transparency that the Olympics were supposed to usher in."
Industrial espionage (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems odd that other cafes are given this information. Is this so that cafe owners can track down lost customers, or find out who does the best Mocha? And the punters are leaving themselves open to all sorts of abuses. What do find in chinese cafes? China Mugs!
Re:Did you really believe the Olympics do anything (Score:2, Interesting)
Same in Europe (Score:2, Interesting)
This is, you'll be relieved to hear, to combat terrorism.
Re:Hardly a Chinese issue (Score:2, Interesting)
STOP SLASHDOT CENSORSHIP FIRST!! (Score:3, Interesting)
While we should damn China's censorship, we should definitely first stop /. from censoring contents it does not like. I have a track records of successful story submissions [slashdot.org]. Many of my submissions are related to China -- both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE. However, it couldn't help me to notice that SLAHSDOT would always put on hold and eventually reject any story that deems put a positive light on China's political and online freedom, even if the cited source is a rather conservative ones like The Economist. See my latest hanging submission (here is the original article [economist.com]) for example. The only "positive" stories the /. editor will post are those purely about technology -- like about their space development.
I hope that's only my illusion. But one can't stand on a moral high ground unless one acknowledges or at least open to all facts.