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Comments: 189 +- Your Rights Online: Chinese Government To Mandate PC Censorware on Monday June 08 2009, @07:13AM
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An anonymous reader writes "The Chinese government has sponsored the development of a censorware package called 'Green Dam Youth Escort'; basically a PC-resident IP blocker that gets regular updates of banned sites from a central government site. There are now plans afoot to mandate that all new PCs sold in China be shipped with this software. The rationale behind this is to 'stop the poisoning of children's minds.'"
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Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:5, Informative)
basically a PC-resident IP blocker that gets regular updates of banned sites from a central government site.
That's not what I read in the article, I read that the founder of Jinhui Computer System Engineering (Mr. Zhang) said:
Mr Zhang said his company now compiles and maintains the list of blocked sites, which he says is currently limited to pornography sites. But the software makes it possible to restrict other sites.
So the company seems to be maintaining that list of sites ... if it's coming from the government why wouldn't they say? China hasn't been too shy of saying it's in control of other things. Why that level of abstraction unless the Chinese government just wants all computers to have the option of being green?
Interesting to note that might be blown out of proportion as it's unclear how this software works or if it's activated by default. The reason I say that is this line from the article:
the Green Dam software can be turned off if parents want to access blocked sites, and that the program can be uninstalled. Users who want to remove it need a password that they set when the software is installed, a precaution he said is aimed at preventing children from disabling the software.
And also:
The notice says the software must either be preinstalled on the hard drive or enclosed on a compact disc.
So it's ok if I burn this to a compact disc and include it with a netbook that has no compact disc drive? And I am not required to install that on the computer?
It seems that there are ways around this for both the producers and consumers and that this is just the trend of China being Nanny State China.
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You said;
It seems that there are ways around this for both the producers and consumers and that this is just the trend of China being Nanny State China.
This is a very major problem. I don't know why you used the word just. This is a very disturbing trend that started with the Great Firewall of China.
It's sad and pathetic that foreign governments don't mind this censorship as long as it coincides with their own politically correct tastes:
...says a foreign industry official familiar with the plan. "I don't think anyone would oppose the (government's) stated objective" of blocking pornographic and violent content, "but people are really concerned about the way it's being implemented," he said.
Like the article you posted earlier on "rape-ware" games, it appears that people are more than willing to censor if there are scape-goat exceptions in the witch-hunting memes of their censorship. Of course all of
Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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Right. The term he wants is "state socialism".
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"The state controls commerce and corporations" is not the core idea of socialism. The core idea is "power to the people"; state control just inevitably follows from such ideals.
On the other hand, socialist ideals dictate that the state and the people should be as near the same thing as they can reasonably get, which hasn't really ever been properly implemented in any country loudly proclaiming itself socialist.
Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:5, Insightful)
Socialism is state owned "means of production" - the state owns the industry.
Communism is the next logical step - everything is communally owned.
"Power to the people" is not exclusive to Marxism. It's also in most humanist systems. Democracy is "political power to the people", and it predates Marx by quite a few years. Epicurus and a number of other Greeks had some thoughts on it as well. Lots of Renaissance thinkers, Luther (who broke away from the Catholic church, in part to bring religious power to the people), and quite a few others.
Libertarians and Ayn Randists will also declare that their goal is "power to the people", and they aren't communists by any stretch of the imagination.
"Power to the people through the common ownership of economic assets" is communism. But of course, everyone wants to take the moral high ground and say they are the only one standing up for the little man. "Power to Big Brother" is never a popular meme (unless Big Brother is portrayed as the lessor of two evils).
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Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:4, Insightful)
Their "power to the people" is just a demagogic smokescreen to hide the fact that, like any right-wing political party, they really mean " power to the more powerful people/croporations ", which has been the norm for unevolved societies throughout History.
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Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:5, Informative)
You understand what communism in any form is, right?
The state controls commerce and corporations.
You don't understand what communism is. What you describe is socialism.
Communism is where the means of production are owned by the state. In socialism, the means of production are controlled (regulated) by the state. What China has is not actually communism, it's socialism.
Capitalism is where the free market regulates itself, with limited controls by the government.
Most industrial societies, China, the U.S. and the E.U. included, are actually hybrids between capitalism and socialism, the main differences revolving around how much the system leans towards capitalism vs. socialism.
BTW, the U.S. hasn't had true capitalism since the 1930s.
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Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:5, Interesting)
The only true examples of Marx's Communism I can think of are certain tribes of Native Americans. And I never said the US has true capitalism, nor that China is true Communism.
People here jump at the opportunity to tell someone how simplified their argument is, instead of actually considering the content of the argument itself. I guess that's common among all us nerds though.
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It seems people here can't understand the difference between reality and sophism.
Slashdot != Reality
People here jump at the opportunity to tell someone how simplified their argument is, instead of actually considering the content of the argument itself. I guess that's common among all us nerds though.
It's just more fun being contradictory. Where's the sport in simply agreeing with what you're saying?
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Well I don't agree with that.
;)
(Is praying for the +1 Funny mods.... )
Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:5, Informative)
You understand what communism in any form is, right? The state controls commerce and corporations.
Actually, no. Marx's Communism is an economic model that gives workers control over their "labor value"; rather than allow capitalists to buy labor (via wages) and make a profit on the difference between inputs costs and output revenue. Central control is not a necessary tenant for that; a commune would be a more realistic model for a Marxian society.
Amongst communism's many failings was that it was used as a guise to assert state control over a population. Political leaders repalced capitalists as the decision making body.
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More detailed:
In capitalism, worker is basically supplier company with contract that gives it certain privileges. Wage is just payment for his services.
In communism, worker owns share in company and invests to it with his work. His wage is share of profit.
Pretty much anyone who owns shares of company he works in can be considered communist :)
Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually if I remember my high-school classes on History right, what's practiced in the so called Communist countries is not actually communism (which is an idealistic utopia where everybody is equal) but instead the "dictatorship of the proletariat" when by force the proletariat (basically, the workers) take over the means of production as a step towards communism.
This was the way to achieve communism which was defended by Marx (and Lenin).
The other way (Socialism), which was defended by Engels involves using methods such as higher taxes for the rich to move toward a society where everybody is equal (e.g. communism).
All of the so called Communist countries were the product of revolutions by workers (the proletariat), with the stated (by the leaders) aim of establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat and creating a communist state. Without exception they all became communist in name only, remained in the dictatorship stage and create a new elite (same shit, different flies) where the interests of the proletariat where replaced by the interests of the communist part as the main guideline.
Interestingly enough, things like progressive taxation and social protections (the so called "social net" such as unemployment benefits and free health-care) which come from the Socialist ideals live on in most of Western Europe (even though Socialist parties in Europe have long ditched the aim of going towards a communist state).
Parent
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Under communism, the state owns "the means of production". According to Marx, one of the four "means of production" is Labour - the people. Thus, under communism, the state owns the people. Owning people is called "slavery".
I am A Marxist of the Groucho faction
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Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:5, Insightful)
Communism doesn't exist in China, nor did it ever exist in any of the communist-controlled states past or present. What you called communism is actually authoritarianism [wikipedia.org]. And this is not the merits of communism that are discussed, it is in fact the actual circumstances.
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Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:5, Insightful)
I am making a factual observation, not a value judgement.
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Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:4, Interesting)
There are people who mistake their beliefs for who they are. This is, in my view, understandable when those beliefs surround an ethical system that they act on, but sorely mistaken when it's something to do with something they have nothing to do with, e.g., who is going to win the Stanley Cup or the World Cup, or the state of the political system in a country they don't belong to, nevermind participate in. There's no "objective" anything to these folks, don't waste your time.
Then there are just trolls. These people like telling you things on the internet that they'd never say to you in person. They probably got beat up on the playground a lot. Don't feed them.
This has been a public service announcement, paid for by ... hell, I wish I was getting paid for this. *sigh*
Parent
Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:5, Insightful)
No private corporation in China does anything without the express blessing of the Chinese government.
This is quite different from the system in the US, in which the government does nothing without the express blessing of a private corporation.
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Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State (Score:4, Insightful)
This is quite different from the system in the US, in which the government does nothing without the express blessing of a private corporation.
This is neither Insightful or clever. It is lazy, anti-historical nonsense.
The Roman Catholic Church reaches the voter - and the politician - on more elemental level than GM.
But over the years the church has lost substantial - hard-fought - debates over divorce, birth control, abortion, end-of-life and - in some states - on marriage for homosexuals.
The system is designed to make very difficult for any one individual or institution to control all the levers of power.
Parent
Chinese hackers to mandate leet speak (Score:2)
Re:Chinese hackers to mandate leet speak (Score:4, Informative)
It figures that chinese dissidents will still be able to get around censorship filters for a while before the communist regime learns how most basic filters can be dodged with search terms like "pr0n" and "1337 h4xx0rz".
No. Chinese "dissidents" looking to remove this filter need only uninstall it or disable it with the password they set when the software is installed.
I don't think you understand how this software works in even the most basic sense, it bans IPs. It doesn't ban searches for terms spelled correctly or incorrectly, it bans IPs. The hackers can call their sites whatever they want. They will just be added to the list of numbers sooner or later anyway. The best thing they could do to avoid being on the list is just continually change their IP addresses.
I wouldn't be surprised, however, to learn of Chinese kids implementing proxies on machines without the software to access whatever they want.
Parent
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Or the chinese government could just mandate TPM and make it technologically impossible to bypass...
They probably already make it a serious offense to disable it anyway.
Old news (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Old news (Score:4, Interesting)
My school has a website blocking system and interestingly enough they have blocked the wikipedia page on 1984 (Both the year and the novel). The IT technician apparently hadn't read the book so he rather missed the situation when we mentioned it.
Parent
Can't be expected to change much (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine things will stay pretty much the same as they always have, even if the censorship is moving from the Great Firewall of China to the PC. Before, if you were an expat or a clued-up local, you would just install Tor on your PC. Now you would just wipe the hard drive and install your OS of choice from a trustworthy CD. The Chinese government can be happy that the vast majority of people will not seek to get around the blocks, and the intelligentsia will find it easy to get the information they want. It seems like a win for both sides.
I would caution, however, against vilifying China too much in this regard. Even much of the Chinese intelligentsia believes that their country needs a brutal government to avoid total chaos. Often the very Chinese you think would be rebelling against measures like this--people who read foreign news and travel or even reside abroad--think it necessary for the health of their country. Moments like this do lead one to question if American notions of freedom are truly applicable to every country.
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This is just more bullshit "orders from the top" that won't affect anything.
I bought a laptop from a large, reputable chain and after handing over the cash they still whipped out the white-label CDR with sharpie written "Windows XP Chinese edition".
Had to decline because it would have been a serious waste of 45 min.
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Moments like this do lead one to question if American notions of freedom are truly applicable to every country.
The following is from a book called Understanding This Chinese Generation, by Nan Huaijin, a very famous Confucian scholar and Buddhist master in China. Not only does it discuss this subject of American-style democracy being wrong for Chinese culture, but it also exposes a keen understanding of the U.S. government's inseparable ties to powerful economic forces. Intelligent and educated Chinese actually have a very sober view of the American system that is difficult to get from within it. This book was writt
But does it run on Linux (Score:2, Funny)
...or that means Linux is officially banned in China
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Ever heard of Red Flag Linux? I'd expect them to they eventually made it compatible, or even have it pre-installed.
'stop the poisoning of children's minds' (Score:2)
There's only one way to do that, and installing censorware on every PC in the country *isn't* it.
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Cleaning up their Industry might help.
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More propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it's just me but it seems like there is around-the-clock negative news coverage of China from western media outlets. When was the last time you read a positive news article about China? I think we feed our people just as much propaganda as the Chinese government does, if not more.
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Yes, it's just you. You are not pointing out factual errors in the article, just complaining that there is a report of something you apparently agree is rather negative. How about complaining that the unelected politicians over there commit to this behavior?
Exactly why are you trying to compare China with the free(er) world? They are entirely different situations when it comes to control of information. The very fact that you can say "wow, this is all propaganda" without fearing that knock on your door alre
Kind of disturbing... (Score:5, Interesting)
China is the country that the USA keeps borrowing money from...wonder how long it will be before we start noticing some policy changes to our internet? What would the US government do if the Chinese government demanded we censor our internet the same way they are, or they won't let us borrow anymore money?
A slippery slope, indeed.
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What would the US government do if the Chinese government demanded we censor our internet the same way they are, or they won't let us borrow anymore money?
A slippery slope, indeed.
If they don't let the US borrow more money then the US won't be able to pay interest for the existing debts, so that's a double edged sword.
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China is the country that the USA keeps borrowing money from...wonder how long it will be before we start noticing some policy changes to our internet? What would the US government do if the Chinese government demanded we censor our internet the same way they are, or they won't let us borrow anymore money?
A slippery slope, indeed.
In the end, the political calculus is:
Which side is willing to endure the most pain?
The US could just as easily refuse to honor the Chinese debt; or massively devalue the dollar and wipe it out. Not good options, but both sides have power in this situation.
Doesn't quite work like that (Score:5, Informative)
You have to understand that at the level of nations, money doesn't work the same way as it does on an individual level. A more accurate statement is that the US is selling securities to China, not that China is lending money to the US. While there are similarities, there are differences too.
One difference is that the US will sell securities to anyone interested, they are sold on an open market. It isn't a case of them going to China and saying "Please buy our treasury notes." Rather the notes are offered for sale, and anyone who wants them can buy them.
So, what happens if China stops buying? Well then the government is going to have to raise interest rates on their securities to keep them moving. The higher the interest the, well higher the amount of interested parties. That would mean the US would have to pay out more money ultimately, but it isn't as though it isn't a legit option. China isn't the only buyer out there, they aren't even the biggest buyer (the US government itself holds the most government debt almost 50%, US mutual funds follow after that is China). So while the loss of China as a buyer would necessitate either selling less (meaning cutting spending or raising taxes) or increasing the yield, it wouldn't lead to the securities stopping.
Then you have the other factor that these securities only have value because the US government says they do. They are a promise to pay sort of thing. The specifics vary (like if they pay periodic interest or a lump sum) but the general idea is it is just the government saying "We promise to pay you this many US dollars at a given time." That also means the government has the power to not pay. Now doing so arbitrarily would have severe repercussions, however in the event of China attempting to directly force changes in US law, well then it might not. Basically if the US can find a justification that makes the rest of its large note holders (like Japan, who is right after China) happy, then maybe they can freeze or null China's holdings. China attempts to force the US to adopt unconstitutional laws, threatening economic attack, the US responds in kind with an economic attack.
Thus China can't just take the "You do as I say or I screw you," attitude, because the US has the ability to screw them too. Those securities are good only so long as the US government decides they are.
Finally there's always the possibility of large scale, possibly hyper, inflation. All the US securities are payable in US dollars. So, the US lacks the dollars to pay? Well they just print more dollars. That again has consequences, see Zimbabwe for what extreme hyperinflation does. However, it is an option if backed in to a corner and more so in the US since the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. This would also screw China over since as there are more dollars out there, each is worth less thus their securities are worth less. If you have a note that pays 5% per year for 10 years, and there's 20% per year inflation for those 10 years, you lost a lot of money on that instrument.
What I'm getting at is that it isn't a simple situation. It isn't like you walking to the bank and asking for a loan. The US doesn't go to China begging for cash. China buys US debt for various reasons, not the least of which that so far it has been an extremely safe investment (the US has never defaulted on payment). They might stop buying as much, or buying any, if they feel it doesn't make economic sense, but trying to use it to threaten political change would be a really bad idea. They could easily find themselves with a bunch of worthless paper on their hands.
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It could be a good thing (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, isn't easier to create this filter on ISP level? Like a security package that you can choose.
Of course the devil is in the details, but there is no reason to start bashing China for this type of approach.
AS IF!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in China. This will not happen.
The very idea that you must even sell each computer with said software on it is a non-starter. The rule of law here is very thin; if you don't annoy the govt. you can pretty much do what you like.
I bought a computer today from the flea market that is Harbin's main computer store (the infamous downstairs section, for those of you living here). This is a zero-regulated place where the very idea of mandating computer software is laughable.
It's like a few weeks ago when there was an article about mandating Red Flag Linux in cybercafes. This place is very capitalist and such measures simply won't even be enacted, let alone enforced.
Even the Chinese government know this. From TFA:
"The software must either be preinstalled on the hard drive or enclosed on a compact disc"
So at the very best, it'll be a CD thrown away when new machines are purchased.
Same thing here in USA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Count down to a hack around it in... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I wrote in another comment here, I suspect the Chinese people are generally in favour of censorship. Though people in the West may want to paint the Chinese masses as a suffering people yearning to break free of the yoke of oppressive government, such a portrayal may not stand up to facts. Indeed, just last week in the International Herald Tribune (the international version of the New York Times) there was an article about how Chinese students nowadays think Tiananmen-square style civic commitment needs to be nipped in the bud, because it would threaten China's economic development that is making them very happy.
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Re:Count down to a hack around it in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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The Chinese government has long since figured out that it doesn't matter if a tiny number of geeks can get around their censorship as long as they can impose it on most of the population. And they can and do.
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Plus, despite what you might think, even the Chinese people who h