Wired News: China's Cyberwall Nearly Concrete

And to think of all the U.S. cyber experts who pooh-poohed that the Chinese would or could ever be successful at cyber policing/censorship. Their apologias for the criminal enterprises in the U.S. which enabled these Chinese communists should be investigated for the complicity they represent. If only they could share in the punishment being visited on the poor chinese dissidents who make the mistake of assuming they are free of their communist yokes on the net...

Ping for what Xlinton's unfettered free trade has wrought.

Internet censorship is a joke not a yoke. If the Chinese government were at all interested in censorship they would cut the connection. But they are much more interested in finding out who the real dissidents are.

ping!!!

How can we exploit the Chinese cyberGestapo to hassle the Chinese ISPs who serve as a major conduit for spamming? Might was well have our Chinese enemies fighting each other.

The American companies are helping China to build censorship firewalls

When it happens here then you'll know why its called the net

Report: China shutters one in three Internet cafes

By Martyn Williams
IDG News Service, Tokyo Bureau
31-12-2002
TOKYO - A nationwide safety crackdown on Internet cafes in China has resulted in the temporary or permanent closure of one in three of them, a government official said last week, according to a report from the official Xinhua News Agency.
Of the roughly 45,000 establishments that were checked in the aftermath of a deadly blaze in a Beijing Internet cafe that killed 25 people, more than 3,300 were closed and almost 12,000 were temporarily shut for what Xinhua called "shape-up." The figures were delivered as part of a report on workplace safety during the National People's Congress last week by Li Rongrong, who heads the State Economic and Trade Commission, said Xinhua.
The Beijing fire ripped through an Internet cafe in the city's Haidian district, home to Beijing University and Tsinghua University, in the early hours of June 16 this year. Escape for many people was impossible because the cafe's only door was locked at the time and bars over the windows blocked that route of escape, according to reports at the time.
The most immediate effect of the blaze was a mayoral order for all of the capital's estimated 2,400 Internet cafes to close until they had been inspected. Nationwide inspections followed soon after.
The blaze was said to have been started by two teens who were angry at being refused admission. It was the latest in a string of deadly fires in China in recent years that have killed hundreds of people unable to escape burning buildings. One of the deadliest, a fire at a disco in Luoyang in 2000, killed more than 300 people.
With crackdowns like the one on Internet cafes, the government is hoping to reduce the number of such deaths. The report issued last week said the death toll from accidental fires was down 5.3 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2002, according to Xinhua.

We need to find out what, if any, US companies are providing them the software and equipment, and apply pressure there.

January 2001: Network Associates Technology, Symantec, and Trend Micro gain entry to the Chinese market by donating 300 live computer viruses to the Public Security Bureau -- China's state police -- raising Pentagon concerns about China's information warfare capabilities.

December 2001: A human rights activist accuses Nortel Networks of coperating with China's police by enhancing digital surveillance networks and transferring to the Chinese Ministry of State Security technology developed for the FBI.

February 2002: A former Yahoo China executive confirms that the company routinely censors its chat rooms and search functions. Several Chinese engineers claim that, in the late '90s, Cisco Systems fashioned a "special firewall box" for Chinese authorities to block Web sites.

For example, Yahoo recently agreed to certain Chinese government censorship requests, and U.S. manufacturers of Internet routers have also cooperated with Chinese officials to stay within their censorship parameters.

Corporate Partners in Oppression

The central communist government has willing partners in stomping on people like Huang. Western companies, lured by promises of big contracts, have been eager to obtain contracts in red China in order to help build its great "firewall."

U.S.-based Cisco Systems and Canadian-based Nortel Networks are working closely with the People's Armed Police developing oppressive and intrusive computer systems to monitor, track and prosecute illegal Internet web browsers.

Nortel has contracts with Datang Telecom, a Chinese firm that works closely with the Chinese Ministry of State Security. Nortel has provided its "Personal Internet" suite to the MSS, allowing authorities to monitor and track nearly half of China's individual Internet users.

Nortel is currently working with the communist authorities in Shanghai to build a "Shasta 5000" firewall. The firewall allows the red thought police to monitor and track subscribers who access Internet web sites judged inappropriate by the communist government.

Western companies are working closely with the red police to track every citizen in China, developing everything from smart-card IDs to phone-tapping equipment. For example, Nortel is currently working with Qinghua University on speech-recognition technology for automated tapping of telephone conversations.

Ironically, Nortel was a strong and early supporter of the U.S. FBI plans to develop a national telephone surveillance system. The Chinese division of Nortel manufactured the first electronic systems accepted by the FBI as the new standard for American phone taps in Guangdong.

Chinese Police Armed With U.S. Equipment

The Chinese People's Armed Police (PAP) is also well equipped with U.S.-made equipment to track, identify and quickly jail any dissidents. Sun Microsystems has a contract with the Public Security Bureau to make use of instant computer identification of fingerprints.

In 1995, the Clinton administration allowed the PAP to purchase $100 million in Motorola secure radios and cell phones. Documents obtained from the Ron Brown Commerce Department show that in June 1995, then-President Bill Clinton personally OK'd the export of Motorola secure radios and cell phones directly to the PAP with the stroke of his pen on a waiver.

Clearly, the Chinese security police might have some conversations to hide on its Motorola secure radio system. The PAP is the uniformed strong arm of the communist party. It is PAP's job to enforce the laws of the party, including the execution of dissidents, beating of the Falun Gong and the forced abortion of pregnant women who do not have a license to be pregnant.

In 1998, Harry Wu confirmed that PAP officers are currently equipped with Motorola radios. Wu was arrested and eventually deported from China. Wu reported that he was quickly identified by Chinese security police officers after they checked his records on an American-made computer system.

According to Wu, the Chinese police officials were in real-time contact with the main office's computers in Beijing, using an American-made satellite uplink. After his arrest, the officers escorted him to prison, taking their orders over American-made secure radios from Motorola.

Human Rights Are an Obstacle

Thanks for the heads up!

Joke, eh? Check this article out from Newsweek of all places. Finally some awareness is beginning to slip in that just maybe we were not pollyanish at all.