Green Dam Youth Escort: The Big Brother is Watching You.
That's what cyber-censorship is all about!
Posted on 01/16/2010 5:17:52 AM PST by myknowledge
Over the last year, China has made a major effort to protect adult Internet users from pornography, and children on the Internet from, well, everything. In that time, China has closed over 15,000 websites it considered pornographic. In doing this, over 1.5 million images, videos and other items were removed from the Internet. Over 5,000 people were arrested, and over 1,500 were prosecuted.
As for the children, well, last May, the government notified all companies selling computers in China that, as of July 1st, they had to install new filtering software (called "Green Dam Youth Escort"). This was mainly an effort to prevent Chinese, especially children, from having access to pornography, although Green Dam could be used to block anything. Green Dam basically controlled Internet access to the PC it was installed on. Green Dam checked with a government database (of banned web sites) before allowing the user to actually visit any site. This would make it more difficult to get around existing Internet censoring efforts. The government already does this via its Great Firewall of China (officially the "Golden Shield") system, that filters, and eavesdrops on, Internet traffic coming into, and leaving, China. Actually, Golden Shield is more about controlling what is said by Internet users inside China, than in controlling what they have access to outside China. This effort leads to unexpected abuses. For example, last year a senior official (Yu Bing) of the Golden Shield operation was arrested for taking over $5 million in bribes to help one anti-virus software company put a rival out of business. The rival fought back in the courts, and exposed the corruption within Golden Shield.
Green Dam was a different kind of corruption. Manufacturers protested that there was not sufficient time to install filtering software. There is apparently a lot more misbehavior going on with Chinese efforts to control the Internet, and the Green Dam project seems to be another example of this. That's because within a few weeks of the Green Dam announcement, an American software publisher, Solid Oak Software, accused the Chinese of theft. Turns out Green Dam is based on the Solid Oak product Cybersitter software, and there's plenty of incriminating evidence in the Green Dam code. This case continues, with recent accusations that the Chinese government has been using hackers to gain an edge in the litigation.
But wait, there's more. Many of the 300 million Chinese Internet users got uncharacteristically vocal about using Green Dam in an attempt to shut down access to pornography (and who knows what else.) The uproar was so great, that the government announced, four weeks after the initial Green Dam order went out, that it was all a misunderstanding. Green Dam could be turned off by the PC user, and the government just wanted to make sure everyone had access to it. The only objective here was to give parents a way to keep pornography from their kids. The government still insisted that all PCs shipped after July 1st would have Green Dam installed. The government backed off, but is still trying to get Green Dam installed in PCs used in schools or Internet Cafes.
The Green Dam project appears, to many Chinese, as yet another government attempt to control their lives. Two decades of rapid economic growth has left millions of Chinese willing to talk back to the communist police state that still rules the country. The government officials who created Green Dam are apparently surprised as the intensity of the public response, especially as it comes at the same time as the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital. This time, the protests are on the Internet, and the government doesn't know where to send the troops and tanks.
Green Dam Youth Escort: The Big Brother is Watching You.
That's what cyber-censorship is all about!
The Chinese people’s insistance on speaking ONLY Chinese, is their main problem.
I think it’s good that the ChiComs want to keep pornography our of China. Nothing good is derived from it. Stealing software is not the way to do it.
So you don’t mind if the Government here monitors the Internet?? All in the name of banning porn??
However, forcing it on citizens goes against everything a free thinking person believes in.
Giving government they keys to your house is a bad idea and will ultimately be abused in order to control you.
A lot of people thought that could never happen in America... well, now it's happening. We thought our constitution mattered and nobody in charge would ever trample it. Now, we have citizens being selectively taxed based on what organized group they belong to and where their political loyalty is founded.
We have American citizens being forced to buy a product based on political favoritism. We have senators selling their vote for financial favors at the expense of the majority.
No, it’s not really about pornography now, is it?
Abuse is a guarantee... and in China, it's default.
Got to love Linux. If a dissident wants to have an uncensored computer he can download a free Operating system. Not only that but perfectly good computers that can no longer run the latest version of Windows can be made to run on Linux so poor folks can get there hands on a computer too.
has closed over 15,000 websites it considered pornographic. In doing this, over 1.5 million images, videos and other items were removed from the Internet. Over 5,000 people were arrested, and over 1,500 were prosecuted.
new filtering software (called "Green Dam Youth Escort").
Great Firewall of China (officially the "Golden Shield")
Golden Shield is more about controlling what is said by Internet users inside China, than in controlling what they have access to outside China.
"Open Internet" is the left's latest marketing language for what they used to call "net neutrality."
The FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules rest on the fallacy that government action is needed to ensure a vibrant, innovative Internet. In reality, today’s Internet is as free and innovative as ever, while consumer choice among broadband providers is at an all time high. Net neutrality rules, announced late last year by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, would empower a heavily politicized federal agency to dictate the outcomes of otherwise-private disputes over network access and pricing, and will also likely extend to the content sectors now advocating the rules.
“Banning proprietary business models is just the opposite of true ‘openness,’” said Crews. “The FCC seems to be forgetting that not every network has been built yet, and tomorrow’s networks and business models need not resemble those that prevail today. The FCC is wrong to assume that today’s politicians and regulators know what’s best for companies not yet created, networks not yet deployed, and business plans not yet formulated.”
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=15994
Well said, FunkyZero.
We have to beware of the “camel’s nose”. Politicians want to lord it over their fellow man. However, this can be difficult to do through a bold frontal assault. It usually must be done secretly.
So, the politicians find some noble cause to fight for or some behavior to campaign against. Many, wanting to appear righteous, will then side with the government in its attempt to rid the word of some evil or, in some way, improve the condition of mankind. Of course this requires MONEY and CONTROL. At first the money is minimal and the control seems unobjectionable since it only effects ‘the other guy’ who is doing what he shouldn’t be doing anyway. However, once the camel’s nose is under the tent, guess what happens. The control spreads and the need for money increases. This is what’s happening with health care. The details of the health care package are not that important to the Democrats. That’s why they could all vote for it even though they really had no idea what was in it. All that mattered is getting the camel’s nose under the tent. (The details can and will be changed in the future no matter what they are to begin with.) Once that’s done they can control all of life in the name of health care. You’re too fat, you must pay a fee. You drink beer, you must pay a fee. You’re too old, you can not have a new hip, just take more aspirin. You must join a government approved health club and verify that you are following a fitness program, or pay a fee. Stand in this line with your had in your had. Fill out this form. Apply for this benefit. Policy requires that you do this and do that. There will be no end to it. They’ll NEVER stop. They’ll never have enough money or control until they have it ALL, and that’s their goal. Everything for them, nothing for you.
I sent an email to Mark Warner and Jim Webb asking them to tell me at what point they would agree that we have enough laws and the government has enough tax money. At what point would they stop taking and taking and taking and passing countless laws? Of course they would not engage me in a conversation like that and simply sent the standard ‘we are working hard for the people of Virginian’ form letter propaganda. I wish they would stop working so hard for me and my family and leave us the hell alone.
I won't debate the pluses and minuses of pornography, but obviously a lot of people want it or there wouldn't be so much of it on the internet. Anything that can be used to limit their right to obtain it can be used to limit your rights in other areas.
I will make a fearless prediction: within twenty years China will be a democratic state. For one thing the Chinese are too intelligent to let a small group of power-obsessed nuts control their country, and number two, it’s getting too hard for the commies i.e. fascists to control information. Two things deadly to authoritarians.
I don’t want the govt to monitor the internet. I just think porn is destructive all around.
With the govt-created shortage of single women in China, I would think that millions of angry, frustrated young men is the last thing the ChiComs would want. Porn is just virtual prostitution. It defiles everyone involved in it — those who make it and those who consume it. Ever heard of the concept of sublimation?
I agree, but the Government can’t do a thing about it..
Freedom of worship, freedom of speech, the right to keep and to bear arms, all are activities that preserve life. Your reasoning does not follow. Why put any limits on what is broadcast? Bestiality, kiddie porn, necrophilia, snuff films, cannibalism, it’s all good by your way of thinking.
The govt can go after those who produce porn in this country. It shouldn’t be normalized. A “sex worker” should not be seen as a career option.
“....I wish they would stop working so hard for me and my family and leave us the hell alone.”
at some point its worth paying each congresscritter and senator a few million bucks to just go away and quite legislatin’....
Yeah, sure.
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