Posted on 06/08/2009 12:13:00 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
There comes a time when despite the allure of the market, Western industry should band together and turn its back on China. A time when the computer and Internet industry realizes that the censorship-and-repression tax the government is intent on levying is too high a price to pay.
Is this, at long last, that moment? Well, it’s doubtful. But it should be.
Starting July 1, computers sold in China must include government-provided spyware that blocks pornography and political dissent from Chinese citizens’ view, The New York Times reports, following up a Wall Street Journal report.
Called “Green Dam” — green being a foil to the yellow smut of pornography — the software is designed to filter out sexually explicit images and words, according to the company that designed it. Computer experts, however, warn that once installed, the software could be directed to block all manner of content or allow the government to monitor Internet use and collect personal information.
PC makers are said to be irritated with the new rules but presumably not enough to buck the government. The major irritation seems to be that July 1 isn’t enough time to add the software to massive production lines.
(Excerpt) Read more at government.zdnet.com ...
fyi
As if I needed more reasons to never, ever visit China.
> I wonder if you could install a virtual machine to bypass the spyware while leaving it intact and functioning so the authorities can’t catch you.
If I lived in China I’d just decline to upgrade my hardware. I still got a 386 upstairs doing e-mail and basic stuff with 1994-vintage software. Works fine.
or better yet, write a program(virus), that would disable the spyware, and allow the Chinese user to bypass these restrictions. China's a huge market, think of the money to made. The trick would be to get the program on the Chinese market, under the noses of their Commie overlords.
The school has blocking software so I can’t log on to find out when the local rock hunting club meets at the church. Apparently, “rock” is tagged as porn. Talk about some hard core cleavage pics there!
Hackers will disable the spyware in no time and it’ll spread like spyware.
Proxies will get you around most blocks. There are a ton of free proxies out there.
Easy - just run down to the local software copy shop (you know, where you also get your knock-off Rolexes, switchblades, and DVDs), pick up that pirated copy of Windows, and re-install a clean version of the OS. “Green Dam” gone...
“Rock” is probably blocked as a drug reference.
I turned my back on China years ago. If more patriots did the same thing, they’d still be a harmless commie hellhole instaed of a dangerous commie hellhole.
This is GREAT news for business such as mine that have been victims of Chinese piracy and copyright infringement. Now all we have to do is place meta tags such as “Free Tibet” and “Tianmen Square massacre” on our websites to keep Chinese companies from viewing our products.
If the spyware is software, you could reformat and reinstall. But this sounds like it will be embedded in firmware. So VM wouldn’t matter.
Or re-format and load your own OS.
Actually, it's even more painless than that. For a few bucks, a tech at the local computer mall will wipe the hard drive and re-install Windows for you. Besides, there are literally tens of thousands of mom-and-pop PC operations. I suspect this regulation is only an issue for the big boys like Lenovo, Dell, HP and IBM. Who the heck is going to police Ah Qiang's PC outlet?
ROFL!
I would presume that it would be illegal to do that.
The Linux movement will snuff that out...
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The only way that they could enforce this is if they can somehow monitor traffic on the Internet/Web and block traffic coming from machines that don't have the software installed (doesn't ping or call home)...
I don't see why they would need spyware if they can just control the server connections and block offensive/politically unfavorable sites *unless* they want to be able to activate your webcam without your knowledge to spy on you.
I imagine all the other suggestions would be also.
And probably any computer found on the net that doesn’t give a ping back from the spyware will get the owner a stint in a reeducation camp.
Good point.
Just about anything the government doesn't explicitly permit is illegal in China. Enforcement, however, is lax - to say the least. If they enforced every law on their books, they'd probably have an armed revolt on their hands.
You'd sell exactly one copy of it. After that, it'd explode across the pirate/reverse engineering gray market there. The Chinese will find ways around this nonsense.
You're on the right track but not thinking widely enough. What they want is for "The Authorities" to be able to access your system to perform a host of surreptitious activities that include little things like poisoning users hosts file to steer them away from proxies, keylog login codes to ... well anything but I imagine counter-government websites would be of particular interest, scan documents for frequent occurances of interesting phrases such as "Free Tibet" "Dalai lama" especially in proximity to "Demonstration", and bigger things such as installing root level worms to further enhance their capabilities. Having the capability to install software surreptitiously for instance means that they could set up a nationwide bot-net that would be staggering in its DDoS capability. I mean we're talking serious weapon-grade capability here.
The possibilities of what they can do are by and large limited only by the government's imagination.
Coming to a formerly-free nation near you.
If I lived in China I’d just decline to upgrade my hardware. I still got a 386 upstairs doing e-mail and basic stuff with 1994-vintage software. Works fine.
Exactly. Whatever they want to stop, the upstream end of the ISP connection would be a much better choice. OTOH, if tyrant commies are technical retards, that's not such a bad thing.
Ooh, here's a scary thought: What if this is all just cover for Dell, HP, etc, to start putting this crap on all OUR machines "so they won't have to make two versions"? Not that they don't already (Windows).
They'd better have start planning to override the electrical tape, then.
Precisely! I swear, the Chinese government does this just to “make a good show”; if anyone should know about the level of software counterfeiting, it should be the Chinese government!
I bet you can get the OS wiped and re-installed even at the neighborhood Suning store!
My experience with Chinese consumer electronics stores is that they're about as knowledgeable as the sales people in Best Buy or the late Circuit City - i.e. they're clueless. To do an OS install, I suspect the local PC mall or computer repair store is the best bet.
All your PC's are monitored by thousands of worker ants at Chinese state security organizations.
Oh, how soft....the pearly luster....the cleavage.....
Don't forget the twinning.
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