China Delays "Green Dam" Internet Filter 86
Posted
by
kdawson
from the step-too-far dept.
from the step-too-far dept.
SailorSpork sends in a BBC report that "China is delaying a controversial plan requiring all new computers sold in the country to be equipped with an Internet filtering software, state media says. The filter, called Green Dam Youth Escort, was to have been required from Wednesday, but the ministry of industry said computer makers needed more time." The submitter adds: "Except of course for Sony, who as reported earlier lacked the moral fiber to hold off installing the spyware, which reportedly is ridden with security holes and uses stolen code. Sony actually managed to ship ahead of the schedule."
Transcends "Filter" Status (Score:3, Informative)
The filter, called Green Dam Youth Escort
Filters are censorship. But, if implemented correctly, they're one of the most innocuous forms of censorship. I was initially lead to believe that Green Dam Youth Escort [wikipedia.org] was community driven:
In 2008, under instructions from political leaders, the MIIT implemented a "community-oriented green open Internet filtering software project" with the support of the Central Civilisation Office and the Ministry of Finance. Its aim was to build a "green, healthy network environment, to protect the healthy growth of young people".
Trials commenced in Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Lanzhou, and Xi'an in October 2008 after the ministry negotiated with the software suppliers and 50 web portals to make the software publicly available without charge, and more than 2,000 installations took place. Trials rolled out to 10 more cities, including Chengdu, Shenyang, Harbin, and Qingdao. The ministry claimed that by December 2008, the software had been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and 3 million times since the end of March 2009. Five leading PC vendors in mainland China, Founder, Lenovo, Tongfang, Great Wall and HEDY, also participated in trial installations.
Ok, no biggie. We've got Spamhaus, right? That's a community censorship project against something we don't want--spam! And I love it. But Green Dam Youth Escort seems to be passing the boundaries of what a "filter" does:
According to the Epoch Times [theepochtimes.com], hackers in China had accessed the keyword library and administrative codes, revealing only 2,700 keywords relating to pornography, and over 6,500 politically sensitive keywords which included '4 June', 'Tibet' and 'Falun Gong'. Chinese users of the software have apparently found that it injects a DLL file into Internet Explorer that prohibits the usage of FreeGate, one of the programs commonly used to bypass the Golden Shield Project.
Alright, swapping out a dynamically linked library is transcending a "filter" ... or any label we've invented so far. I must have missed the reports on that but that's pretty shocking to me. If I had to dub this anything it'd be 1984ware.
NOT installed (Score:2, Informative)
According to all reports that I've read Sony did not install the program, merely placed the executable on the computer to meet the governments requirements. Sounds like a smart compromise to me.