100 Million Online in China 260
Colin Smith writes "Rising levels of personal wealth in the nation of China means that the country now has over 100 million internet users, and the authorities are discovering just how difficult it is to place a dam against information in the digital age." From the article: "Only last week, the authorities threatened to shut down websites and blogs that failed to register with regulators in a new campaign to tighten controls on what the public can see online. The so-called Great Firewall of China is constantly being breached as citizens and the authorities play a cat and mouse game with the flow of information."
Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are different cultures and different ideals. Just because someone feels differently than you doesn't make them unethical. Also if someone helps that person who thinks differently than you, the person helping isn't nessesarily unethical.
I know "your either with us or against us", "you either do stuff like we do or your evil" sentiments are pretty popular in the US, but different is not wrong.
Re:Freedom of Information an Inalienable human rig (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Freedom of Information an Inalienable human rig (Score:2)
Have you ever spoken with an atheist? Tried to get to know one? Or did you just decide that you can know what atheists are like without actually having to learn about us?
Re:Freedom of Information an Inalienable human rig (Score:2)
Re:Freedom of Information an Inalienable human rig (Score:2)
Atheism isn't a religion any more than baldness is a hair color.
Re:Freedom of Information an Inalienable human rig (Score:2)
It depends. The ones who lack religion tend to be on the agnostic side: they assert no faith. However, some Atheists do assert a strong faith about the nature of deity. The ones of this type have "hair" in your example. Once someone starts asserting "facts" about these things....
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
Not the same, but just as bad.
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft and others are not to make ethical decisions about whether a particular gov't is good or bad, or whether to support a particular gov't edict. They are to obey the rules in whatever market they do business in. I don't want my pharmacy to stop selling a birth control pills and condoms because the owner is Catholic. I don't want bus
Obfuscation I say! (Score:2)
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
There we go, all fixed. You can't just leave them off the list to try and increase knee-jerk-ism by listing MS. Lets try and be honest with our application of business ethic
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
Grow up and use a little critical thinking!!!! Iraq used to be a great friend of the US when Saddam was in charge. A little time passed and the US decided the relationship wasn't working out so well anymore so they start shouting "WMD! WMD! WMD! WMD!". until enough idiots believe it so they can go have a little war. Then or course there weren't any WMD so they started shouting "oppresive dictatorship! oppresi
"ARMY" is such a deceptive name. (Score:2)
Imagine that....someone signs up for the ARMY and ends up having to engage in combat! The utter injustice. Something needs to be done. The names "ARMY" and "NAVY" and "MARINES" are so deceptive. No reasonable person could join any of them and think that the organizations had anything to do with military operati
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:3, Insightful)
If by "dire straits" you mean not driving the latest Lexus, then you are correct. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you are talking about. Free health care, free education, one of the better medical/pharmaceutical industries in the world. Also, Cuba is getting along pretty well now all on thier own. They have a VERY strong tourist industry (from everywhere except the states) and also very strong medical/pharmaceutical exports to name a fe
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is denied if you act up politically. The health care system has also included prison sentences for the "Crime" of merely being infested with HIV.
"On my trips there, the #1 thing people their are upset about is the US embargo. They don't have any major problems with thier government"
Of course. That is Castro's line, and his government has proven willing to kill and imprison those who express other beliefs.
" That is currently thier biggest beef with the Cuban government, the ban on smoking!"
Yeah, they can complain about that. But let them speak up about the unaccountable monarch that has been foisted on them for several decades? A monarch who has a death penalty imposed for Internet access? A monarch who forces Cubans to live in abject poverty (even taking hotel workers 90%) while he continues to amass a multi-billion dollar personal fortune?
Cuba is not getting along well "on its own". They are still governed by a colonial governor put in place by the Soviets. There is no democracy or sovereignty there.
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
Actually, they started the revolution with the intent of annexing Cuba to the Soviets, which they did. Che Guevara? He had a merry old time managing the slaughter of thousands of political prisoners when Castro seized power. Remember, Che is the one who said that the Soviets were not brutal enough. A mass-murdering maniac who thinks Stalin was a softie is a great guy to have to shap
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
Dude!!!! Are you fucking stoned?!?!?!?!? Fidel cozying up with the Soviets is why Che left!!!! Che fraking hated them. That was not part of the inital plan, to just hand over Cuba to the Soviets you bloody retard!!! That is ALL the US's doing there buddy. After the revolution there were constant US backed attempts to take back the island and/or kill the new leaders. The only chance they had was to j
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
The "selling Cuba to the USSR" part was entirely Castro's doing. He even announced himself as a Leninist in the 1950s.
"Castro/Che's Marxist doctrine fit well enough"
At least you admit he was already a Stalinist, with an ideology based on brutal oppression.
"...after the revolution....The only chance they had was to join with a more powerful country"
Yet, Castro did this long before he took over.
"The outlaw George Washington had a merry old time managi
Castro punishing AIDS victims. (Score:2)
The source is the LA Times:
http://www.aegis.com/news/lt/1988/LT881104.html [aegis.com]
See how the "crime" of being HIV infected has had the result of a lifetime prison sentence. Note the lack of the 'usual suspects' in the source (no right-wing media, no pro-democracy activists in Florida...nothing until you get to a Republican proposing legislation at the end).
This type of oppression goes even beyond the dreams of P
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
I wonder who the zealot is. The one who insists that totalitarian "president for life" dictators are a good thing?
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
Just because they didn't bow to the mighty US during the cold war is no reason to continue punishing these good people! Neither is a strong Cuban exile lobby!
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
I think that might be a good idea if it was part of a deal where the Cubans get something out of it, such as a significantly greater ability to manage their own economic affairs. What good is lifting it when the economy and law are structured to mandate poverty for everyone except for the guy who owns everything?
"Stop trying to force democracy on people"
Perhaps the real force here is used by those who deny this and oth
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
even taking hotel workers 90%
OK again, I'd be interested to know where get your numbers! I don't personally know any cuban hotel workers, but my friends who are nurses keep nearly 50%, labourers who come to Cayamn to work also get to keep 50%. Those are facts I know. Hotel workers perhaps are competely different for some reason, but its much more likely you are just full of shit or repeating stuff from someone else who is full of shit!
Th
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
As for the hotel tax, the fees are collected directly from t
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:2)
Yes, certainly they are happy, it is the law there. Those who express unhappiness with the regime are killed and/or imprisoned. Makes for a very happy populace.
Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. Business should ignore minimum age requirements to work in factories. Cause, dammit, working is good for the kids. Six year olds working on the assembly line builds character.
Yes. Business should ignore your "Do Not Resucitate" wishes. Because, life is precious, and despite what you say, we love you and want you to keep living.
Think I'm off base? Well guess wha
Slashdot in China? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:3, Informative)
No, they don't block ports, they block hosts and IP addresses. So they'd keep you from SSHing to a forbidden server, but SSH in general is acceptable. It's just like using HTTP or any other protocol.
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
Something I do for wireless networks is set up an SSH tunnel to a proxy server at home, and browse through that. If China lets people SSH out, it's trivial to bounce connections off of an outside computer.
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
I imagine there's people that know how over there, but I can imagine that they wouldn't want to go around telling everyone.
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
Slashdot has a fanatical hatered and subversive attitude towards Microsoft, not Communism.
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
Thats actually due to the 100 million Chinese residents that are required to post flames about capitalist societies on slashdot in order to keep their computer license.
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
Because posting your opinion on Slashdot is such a great way to reach the world...
Re:Slashdot in China? (Score:2)
There goes the internet (Score:2)
There goes about 80% or more of internet content.
It sounds like the Chinese are pretty much limited to looking at propaganda sites and maybe a few for online businesses, and other sites run from within China.
Re:There goes the internet (Score:2)
makes you kind of wonder why China even allows people to connect to the rest of the worlds internet at all.
Re:There goes the internet (Score:2, Insightful)
There goes about 80% or more of internet content.
Yeah, that sounds about right. 80% or more of the internet is pornographic material.
Closed network? (Score:2)
Re:Closed network? (Score:2)
Re:Closed network? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Closed network? (Score:2)
Geeze... (Score:2, Insightful)
Difficult, but... (Score:2, Redundant)
However, let's not get complacent. What the network giveth, the network can taketh away, with enough tweaks and censors, from all but the most skilled computer users.
Also, the chilling effect of government censorship-- that if you post things the Chinese government does not approve of, your post may go away (at best) is hard to quantify.
Re:Difficult, but... (Score:2, Funny)
No, no, no - they've already banned TCP/IP. In China, their internet is entirely HTML-based.
China is Also a Copyright-Free Zone (Score:4, Insightful)
What's going to be extremely interesting is watching a closed society like China start talking one-on-one to the rest of the world. I'd give it twenty years before public opinion changes in China. I can't see them sharing information freely and being as nationalistic as they currently are. If you want to stop a future war with China, help them talk to each other all you can. My two cents.
Brains! Brains! Give me Brains! [whattofix.com]
Re:China is Also a Copyright-Free Zone (Score:2, Interesting)
Because of this, MGM et al decided to license VCD copies of their movies to be produced and distributed at a
Is it so? (Score:2)
If you divide the 100 Million by the percent of the internet that gets though the Great Firewall of China, what's the real number?
Re:Is it so? (Score:3, Funny)
Breaking past the "Great Firewall" (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, if they can't *view* certain websites, what's keeping them from using a proxy (possibly an open proxy list [google.com]) within their web browser to circumvent China's methods of blocking?
One would think that they can only block items for so long until their methods are circumvented. After all, where there's a will, there's always a way. Sounds like a huge cat and mouse game indeed.
Re:Breaking past the "Great Firewall" (Score:2)
Because they also actively block the proxy servers maybe?
Re:Breaking past the "Great Firewall" (Score:2)
This is definitally a good strategy, and works well. The proxy technology isn't the problem, it is the education of the Chinese internet surfers that is the problem. Here are a couple of issues:
1) I would venture a guess that 95% of all proxy websites that either list proxy IPs or offer Proxy services are in English. Since
Oh oh (Score:3, Funny)
Either way, I've got my bank account ready
Cultural exports are the key. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Soviets could regulate so many aspects of their citizenry's daily life, but what they couldn't manage to get a hold on was what they thought was cool. It might be an overly simplistic view, but part of me thinks that it was Coca-Cola and Levi's jeans that brought communism to its knees in the soviet bloc. (and of course, coca-cola and levis is not much to base a government on, which is why so many countries have struggled with the concept of democracy)
I think something similar could easily happen in China.
I don't presume to think that the Chinese would try, or even want to be like the US, but I think there's a certain sense of freedom and independence embodied in American culture, and that freedom is alluring and infectious. The more the Chinese people have access to something as stupid as Slashdot or Wikipedia or...anything, the more they're going to crave more content. The more content they crave, the more content must be censored until something has to break.
Re:Cultural exports are the key. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cultural exports are the key. (Score:2)
>> in American culture, and that freedom is alluring and infectious."
>
Bullshit.
The Patriot Act might unnecessarily narrow a few freedoms. For that it is a bad law. But it did not eliminate the "sense of freedom and independence embodied in American culture." Now maybe you will say that people in the US are not as involved in government as they should be or can't
Re:Cultural exports are the key. (Score:2, Insightful)
China's economy improving... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:China's economy improving... (Score:2)
Look at how people suffered under the greatness of "communism" lead by Mao. 40 million people dead due to the inability of socialism to control the economy (which no government can).
As consumers have more rights as well as producers you see the level of production and freedom rise. They won't be able to keep the lid on capitalism now that it is out of the bag.
But there are bigger problems for China ahe
Re: (Score:2)
Re:China's economy improving... (Score:2)
Actually, what's going to make it even worse is a very large number of the "single child policy" kids aren't wanting to have any childern (mainly because they are spoiled brats), or if they do have childern, they'll only have one (because they -- and most other people around them --have no idea how to care for qty > 2)
Naive (Score:2)
Re:Naive (Score:2)
If you believe that the unions stop such juvenile harassment of workers, just visit a picket line and see how the union strikers treat the workers.
...But Percentage-Wise? (Score:2, Insightful)
When will China become the standard? (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone know if China is adopting/promoting DRM (perhaps for content control), open standards (to avoid U.S.-centric Microsoft technology), IPv6, or other internet-affecting standards.
But they only come up to your knees (Score:2, Funny)
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they're always friendly, and they're ready to please.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They come from a long way overseas,
But they're cute and they're cuddly, and they're ready to please.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Ni hao ma; ni hao ma; ni hao ma; zaijien!
Free flow of information (Score:2, Insightful)
deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
-- Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri
So true, so v
How idiotic! (Score:3, Interesting)
Damn it folks! You can not stop progress! You can only impede it but never stop it! Get over it! You should either reform or perish! Do the Chinese Party commissars have to take history lessons anymore?
Re:How idiotic! (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chatting with People in China (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Chatting with People in China (Score:2)
Information Wants to be Free (Score:2)
Chinese Government wants to maintain full control.
I'm placing my bets on Information.
They could learn from our government (Score:5, Insightful)
Soon the Chinese government will learn from modern democratic governments and sophisticated corporations that trying to control the flow of information is the wrong way to go about it.
It's far easier and more effective to control the public's interpretation and prioritization of information than to limit the information itself.
in order to get beyond... (Score:2)
Like herding feral cats (Score:2)
100 million of anything is hard to monitor. If what you're trying to monitor is a bunch of people who are as smart as you are, it could make for a long day.
Freedom appears to be an innate yearning in the heart of people everywhere. It does no good to suppress the yearning; that just makes it stronger.
When people learn that conditions elsewhere are more free than they have, they will eventually either move themselves to where the conditions are free or they will change the conditions where they are.
Maybe they'll eventually get the message (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, over in Denmark in the 1970s they dropped most restrictions regarding pornography. After 30 years, the nation did NOT turn into a gang of rapists. They probably mentally filter out billboards featuring naked people just like they filter out any other uninteresting advertising. So, where is the evidence to support Chinese government (or any other government) claims of bad things associated with pornography? It's in the unnecessary restrictions! Forcing it underground just makes it more interesting ("I want to see what they don't want me to see, to find out why they don't want me to see it!"). Exposing it takes away that incentive, and people tend to ignore what not's immediately relevant. A curb of freedom is ALWAYS immediately relevant!
Now, you CAN influence what people do with what they know. Does the Chinese Constitution have any mechanism whereby it might be Amended, like the U.S. (and other) Constitutions? If not, then whatever curbs of freedom built into the Chinese Constitution will eventually and inevitably boil over into an ugly revolution. The leadership over there is going to find out, one way or another, just what The People can do. So, they can either plan on an England-like open system (which started with the Magna Charta), or they can keep a France-like repressive system (which ended with beheadings).
Re:Maybe they'll eventually get the message (Score:2)
The USSR and the older socialist bloc did a pretty good job of this for decades. Even now, in the Middle East, the often rabid antisemitism is fueled by religious leaders constantly bashing Jews. You can find plenty of other examples elsewhere and even in the US.
Really now... (Score:2)
Does the USA censor any internet content? (Score:2)
It's a race between weapons and armor... (Score:2)
That's a race between weapons and armor. In such a race the weapons eventually always win.
Re:Soooo.....? (Score:2)
Stop internet gambling? Perhaps not stop it, but by closing down internet cafes that allow it (or have been found to be lax in stopping it) and by tracking down anyone gambling online from home and prosecuting them to the full extent of the law (chains, manacles and the like - not to mention unmentionables), you could seriously cur
Re:Soooo.....? (Score:2)
You'll never stop it all but if you make the consequences unpleasant enough then many people will stop doing things. Just in case.
Re:Soooo.....? (Score:2)
Re:Great to hear (Score:3, Funny)
And half a brain is what you might have after the bomb goes off.
For those wanting to experiment you will find many delights [leeds.ac.uk] on my site.
Debt? (Score:2)
Are you saying that Americans are ordering these Chinese flags and fireworks and are not paying for them? Are they using credit cards?
Making people happy (Score:2)
I don't think they have made the Tibetans very happy. They are not making the Taiwanese very happy, either, by threatening to destroy them merely for stating the obvious: that Taiwan is an independent nation.
"People are generally play by the big corporate companies and the government as they have the "power" to control what we see"
What country are you in? There is no such control in the US.