Activists Worry About a New "Green Dam" In Vietnam 59
alphadogg writes "Human rights activists are worried that new software mandated by Vietnamese authorities may lead to an Internet clampdown in the country's largest city. In April, local officials issued new regulations covering Internet cafes and service providers in Hanoi, ostensibly designed to crack down on hacking and other service abuses. Buried in the regulations is a mandate that service providers must add special software to their domain servers, used to authenticate systems on the network. Nobody quite knows what the software is, but activists in the US worry that it may be used to clamp down on Internet usage in a country that has seen more and more grassroots information-sharing on social networks over the past year. Last year China tried to force PC makers to ship Green Dam censorware with all computers sold in the country, saying the software would help crack down on online pornography. But Chinese authorities — already known for their notorious Great Firewall — eventually backed off from their plans after critics raised a host of privacy, security and system stability concerns, and Chinese Internet users showed no interest in installing the program."
Re:Jump to conclusions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because perfectly innocuous software needs a legal mandate requiring universal adoption.
People are drawing conclusions from what is known.
Re:Jump to conclusions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because perfectly innocuous software needs a legal mandate requiring universal adoption.
Universal adoption? It applies to ISPs, not every computer in the country. It could be something to impliment a HIPPA-like data retention and protection plan, or to secure financial data, or provide more robust encryption between DNS servers to thwart hijacking attempts. Or it could be a complete spy package.
It's never good to make assumptions -- you have to work with what you know. The moment you step away from that, you're in the land of conspiracy theories and what-if logic.
Re:Jump to conclusions? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's never good to make assumptions -- you have to work with what you know. The moment you step away from that, you're in the land of conspiracy theories and what-if logic.
True. I'm sure that secret software mandated by a communist government to be installed at their ISP is entirely in the best interests of their population.
Re:Jump to conclusions? (Score:0, Insightful)
I'll ask the obvious question you're aiming at :
Hey "democrats" ! Why don't countries that the US "imperialist" military abandons (like North Korea and Vietnam) become free worker's paradises ?
Re:Jump to conclusions? (Score:4, Insightful)
What does communism have to with this?
Crack a book some time. The fact that communist countries have the worst track record in oppressing religion and free expression isn't new, or even controversial. As fucked up as the laws are in the USA and Europe, they don't even compare to the restrictions that the former USSR, China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba have instituted over the years.
Go ahead, pick any communist country, and show us how they are less oppressive than the US, Australia or any EU country. I won't hold my breath.
Re:Help yourself before helping others. (Score:2, Insightful)
Because there are those in power who never want them to figure it out.
let them ask for help when they need to
Well if we don't raise the issue then the ones in power will work to ensure they cannot. See Iran and their crackdown a year ago.
At which point it's obvious the government gives not a damn for its people and instead exists only for itself and whatever broken ideology it follows.
Re:Jump to conclusions? (Score:4, Insightful)
And there no other oppressive regimes other than communist ones?
No, but pretty much all the communist ones have been oppressive, so one might be correct in assuming all existing communist regimes are oppressive regimes.
And if that is the case, its better to be accurate as opposed to ambiguous - since not all Oppressive regimes are communist, calling a communist regime an oppressive regime when it is a communist regime (which implies oppressive) would be silly.
Following along?
Re:Jump to conclusions? (Score:3, Insightful)