Slashdot Mirror
Americans And Chinese Internet Censorship
chowbok writes: "The Weekly Standard writes that despite expectations, the Chinese Government has been very successful in suppressing free internet access for their citizens. Key to this success was the assistance of Cisco, who built a giant firewall tailored to the state's needs, Yahoo (who helpfully censors search results and monitors online chats), and other Western companies."
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/2/18/11162/1298
It always amazed me why China connected to the public internet anyways if they are going to censor everything except the stuff _they_ want their citizens to see. Wouldn't it have been much more efficient to build the network and not connect it to the public internet? All they would have to do then is place information on their network they want their citizens to see. In any even, it's pretty screwed up.
Global One, Sprint-France Telecom-Deutsche Telekom joint venture
Reminds me of The Onion's Omnicorp...
If these firewalls are so good why do I get so much porn and get-rich-quick spam through Chinese open relays? If nothing else, the spam would be a good channel for steganographic messages to and from dissidents.
I had a discussion with a (less technically minded) friend the other day. Her contention was that "someone" (ISP's, presumably) should be in control of all the porn content online. This way, the ISP would be able to offer two services: (1) all the internet in its pr0n glory and, (2) the "friendly" internet without the pr0n.
The discussion went back and forth, her perspective mainly being, "it doesn't matter how technically infeasible it is. I am a consumer. I'll pay big bucks for it." I was arguing against the idea from a technical feasibility standpoint -- the scale of filtering would be massive, and automated filtering would produce all sorts of errors (false positives and negatives).
But, the great firewall of China is an interesting argument for the other side of the coin. If something this massive has actually been successful, isn't the great pr0n filter a feasible idea, too?
Think of the commercial implications!
There was a very insightful (and long) article that I came across on the Atlantic Monthly's site a while back. Called 'Was Democracy Just a Moment', its central point was that economic development and a strong middle class needs to develop in a country before democracy can succeed. The article predicts that democracy, were it to 'break out' today in China, would at the very least cause a split of the country:
"Under its authoritarian system China has dramatically improved the quality of life for hundreds of millions of its people. My point, hard as it may be for Americans to accept, is that Russia may be failing in part because it is a democracy and China may be succeeding in part because it is not. Having traveled through much of western China, where Muslim Turkic Uighurs (who despise the Chinese) often predominate, I find it hard to imagine a truly democratic China without at least a partial breakup of the country. Such a breakup would lead to chaos in western China, because the Uighurs are poorer and less educated than most Chinese and have a terrible historical record of governing themselves. Had the student demonstrations in 1989 in Tiananmen Square led to democracy, would the astoundingly high economic growth rates of the 1990s still obtain? I am not certain, because democracy in China would have ignited turmoil not just in the Muslim west of the country but elsewhere, too; order would have decreased but corruption would not have. The social and economic breakdowns under democratic rule in Albania and Bulgaria, where the tradition of pre-communist bourgeois life is weak or nonexistent (as in China), contrasted with more-successful democratic venues like Hungary and the Czech Republic, which have had well-established bourgeoisie, constitute further proof that our belief in democracy regardless of local conditions amounts to cultural hubris."
Heady stuff, and something that really made my head spin -- wasn't democracy good in all situations and all cases? The author would probably assert that censorship will continue to occur in China until a stable economy and strong middle class break open China to democracy, at which point it will end.
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
Of all the rhetoric in this very disturbing piece of how western companies are helping censorship overseas, I found this comment most interesting:
"We don't care about the [Chinese government's] rules. It's none of Cisco's business."
Similar to how Mercedes or BMW didn't care much for what those giant ovens were used for in NAZI Germany, because it was none of their business. Oh how the ashes fall.
Disgusting. I can say I will never think of Cisco the same way again. What if the US decided they needed to "monitor" citizen Internet communications? Would Cisco step up with one of their enterprise level solutions?
Right next to Oracle with bids for a national ID card...
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
Well, eventually Yertle the Turtle will fall in Beijing and some people will remember who helped keep him there. As it is, the chinese are working hard to displace the U.S. as #1 in many fields and they'll probably suceed in a few, just out of shear determination. Maybe it's the fear of that which makes the U.S. foreign policy the conumdrum that it is with regard to China.
Any chinese slashdotters?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Almost 1/3 of the SPAM sourcees I've encountered recently have been chinese. My ids LOGS regular ping sweeps and other probes coming from chinese held IP addresses. Chinese alerts account for about 24% of the IDS alerts. Some of these sweeps even originate in chinese government offices (since blocked because I'm tired of HUGE ping packets in my network from the beaurearu of statistics)
Considering the crap thats been spewing out of Chinese controlled IP space, I wouldn't be adverse to some reverse censorship. i.e. no chinsese IP's allowed in my network. The Chinese may not like what the NET has to offer their people, but they sure seem to dish out pretty silly stuff for the rest of us (My penis is much to big NOW, no more PLEASE).
I wonder if there was an easy way to blackhole all of mainland China? I wonder if the Chinese would consider THAT censorship?
I'm not saying that anyone should do this mind you, I'm just saying what goes around eventually comes around.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Wasn't it Joseph Stalin who said (paraphrasing here), "If you want to hang a capitalist, you can easily find another capitalist willing to sell you the rope."
Thanks a lot, Cisco.
I dont know. Why did you?
--aiee
Picture.exe virus to grab your PGP keys?
Pretty damn scary stuff if the Chinese goverment is releasing this stuff into the wild. (But really no different than the FBI's key logger)
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
I can see where the Chinese government is coming from here. They don't want anyone to get any bright ideas or fall for other countries' propaganda. Perfectly logical. However, the evil of the plan comes out when you see that the Chinese are terribly oppressed, and that the censorship cloud covers everything that the government doesn't like. Which would be a lot of things. Maybe the U.S. is trying to see if it works well, so they could possibly instate a similar system in the future...
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Read this site /. post, a while ago, but but googled turned up the
It was mentioned first in an
link, and not the post itself.
This is just how capitalism works; if they rejected
to take the contract, they could have been sued
by their share holders.
But now, the guilt (if any) is spread, and every
one shares the profit.
--
Is the PRC trying to block out ALL offensive traffic, or MOST offensive traffic? What about the use of techniques like steganography to encrypt data into seemingly "harmless" pictures, mp3's, etc.?
If I were a government, I'd never want to try to get into this sort of "information freedom" cold war. It's companies like Cisco, Yahoo and the Chinese government vs. 1,273,111,290 Chinese people, some of whom have had the benefit of an American graduate education in computer science and mathematics. I'd say the odds are slanted toward the people...
The researcher that is cited as developing the anonymizer Triangle Boy in this article is working for the company SafeWeb which is supposed to be:
1. A CIA front
2. A company that produces software that they won't bug fix and yet is supposed to ensure anonymity.
Tchah! The only thing governments and their spook-agencies are good at doing is fscking things up.
I doubt you would be able to get many people onboard for your "blackhole the chinese".
:P)
Yeh, spam is annoying, and I take mesures to keep my address out of the hands of spiders. But getting a couple ping packets isn't going to make me keep my selection of fine pornographic links from chinese citizens. (if they arn't blocked already, I doubt the CCP really cares about a 1k impression/day site run from a dorm room
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There's an opportunity for a left-right coalition in the U.S. on this. The Right doesn't like China because they're Commies, and the Left doesn't like censorship.
With regards of technical equipment I do not know why we tolerate China's oppression of its people. Maybe the explanation that free-trade will make them more liberal may hold true. I don't know. If any other country behaved like that toward its people they would be widely critisised by the US and the EU. Austria voted in a [far] right wing administration and had sanctions imposed overnight and Robert Mugabe of Zimbagwe forced the EU, why not China? It's all about the ca$h . That or starving them of outside funding/equipment would make the situation worse.
Falung-gong, you're gone!
e4 e5
The market doesn't solve all problems, despite what Wall St. and industry associations would like us to believe, there is still a role for government (non-Enronized that is) in the 21st century.
From the CliqueNet FAQ:
How do DC nets work ?
CliqueNet is based on Dining-Cryptographer networks, or DC-nets, originally suggested by Chaum in [C88]. DC-nets propagate a bit of information in the following way: suppose we have two participants, Alice and Bob, one of whom (e.g. Bob) would like to communicate a one-bit message to Charlie, but Alice and Bob want to hide the identity of the message originator. They first toss a coin in secret. Alice sends the truthful result of the coin flip to Charlie. Bob, on the other hand, reports the true result of the coin toss only if he wants to transmit a 0. If he wants to transmit a 1, Bob lies about the coin flip. Charlie deciphers the message by XOR?ing the values sent by Alice and Bob. If they both call out heads or tails, they are both telling the truth and the one-bit message is a zero; otherwise, one of them is lying, and the one-bit message is a one. Since Charlie does not know if it was Alice or Bob who lied about the coin toss, he can never determine who sent the message. This security guarantee is strong and information-theoretic: no amount of computational power can help Charlie determine that it was Bob who sent the message.
Basically, DC-nets guarantee anonymity no matter how much information you have about the network.
If you'll kindly put down the crackpipe, you may notice that there is more independant self motivated content producers on the internet than anywhere else. Drudgereport.com, hartleyx.com, and our own slashdot.org just to name a few. I hardly even bother with C|Net, CNN, and their ilk anymore.
I can view almost all internet sites from China. I'm posting this from Beijing right now from a major Chinese University. I can access most websites except for a few free content sites (geocities) and some news sites (cnn.com). Its strange, they block CNN but not New York Times, which, IMHO, is more critical of the Chinese government. Notice that Slashdot isn't blocked and its critical of almost everyone! So there filtering is not very consistent. They could get rid of the firewall tommorow and I think it would hardly change things.
I don't know about Chinese sites, I can only care about sites in English. As for spam, surely this is just b/c the networks in China are just not that well managed yet (e.g., like @Home networks once were...).
As for Cisco and Yahoo, they are doing business in China, and they are following Chinese laws. So what is the problem? Idealism and making money are mostly incompatible.
According to the Chinese engineer, Cisco came through, developing a router device, integrator, and firewall box specially designed for the government's telecom monopoly. At approximately $20,000 a box, China Telecom "bought many thousands" and IBM arranged for the "high-end" financing. Michael confirms: "Cisco made a killing. They are everywhere."
Humm, guess its time to Boycott Cisco and IBM.
David Zhou, a systems engineer manager at Cisco, Beijing, told me flat out, "We don't care about the [Chinese government's] rules. It's none of Cisco's business." I replied that he has a point: It's not the gun but the way it's used...
But this is like selling guns to criminals, wheres the background check?
-
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. - Soren Kierkegaard
Not by charging people to see it, but by charging the Chinese government so thay can't see it.
Pure genius!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
This is scary. Given the propensity of the "law enforcement" community in the US to jump on any excuse to deny human rights while looking for ways to invade privacy, it strikes me that there is very little in place right now to prevent the US government from doing this right now. I'm not normally so paranoid, but it is obvious that near-total central control of the internet is now technically possible (thanks a whole fucking lot, Cisco). The thing to ask is, how do we stop this cancer before it spreads?
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
The leadership recognises that to compete in the world the China must interact with the rest of it, but to preserve their positions in power the leaders restrict it. Keep in mind that there are conservative elements in the Beijing goverment who are opposed to many of these advances. Once the government loses more of these people and they're replaced with leaders from the new middle and upper classes, well, things should change.
On another note... I wonder if any chinese leaders have mod points on slashdot?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Carnivore and Magic Lantern, Great Firewall of China is just a child-play. Btw, they will eventually catch-up with this(especially in this area).
I am Chinese, and frankly, you don't make a lot of sense. To further extend your argument, when China becomes "free", Chinese citizens will blame the Russians for selling them tanks and warplanes that fill the arsenal of the People's army, blame the Chinese newspaper editors for writing articles that spread Communist Party ideology and blame the Chinese factory workers that manufactured the bullets that shot the democracy protesters at Tianenmen Square.
I may have grown up in a foreign culture, but I can spot someone with an axe to grind when I see one. Your disgust at "Big Business" and "Big Government" has nothing to do with the rights or attitudes of the Chinese people, but rather with you wanting to blame the what's wrong with the world on those that you don't agree with.
The Chinese nation will sort themselves out over a long time, and probably peacefully, too - that's the Chinese way, to take the long, nonconfrontational view. The best thing that Clinton and Bush have done, and what you seem so opposed to, is to allow US businesses to continue to invest in China, further stimulating the economy and slowly raising living standards for the Chinese people. With increased living standards, more power to the middle class and greater education, the people of China will ask for more freedom and representation incrementally, and the government of China will grant the inevitable.
The average Chinese citizen does not want your revolution. They want orderly, nonviolent change. The US companies are just doing business, no more and no less, and that business helps along that change.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
First of all, yes, I can luckily read Slashdot from my office & home here in Beijing. I've been living in different cities in China for two-and-a-half years now & I've seen many (kinds of) blocks come and go.
Sure, CNN.com is blocked & so is BBC.co.uk. No, NYT.com & BBCWORLD.com aren't blocked. So yes, I also don't understand the logic behind the specific blocks themselves. What I do understand, however, is that the blocks unfortunately are not the real issue.
The real issue is that the majority of people (in this case, internet users) themselves are not interested to actually access this information. If you have a peek into one of the many internet cafes around, the majority of users are merely playing games.
If they are on the internet, they are always either on Chinese news sites or chatting with each other. If I talk to my colleagues in the office, and ask them why they're not interested in information from a different perspective, they tell me that they simply don't care too much about international opinions. If they do visit international sites they'd rather visit other kinds of sites, mostly of expensive brands like BMW, Gucci & Rolf Benz, just to check out the latest styles. They are also interested in international universities, how to get their MBA & required visas.
Please remember that this applies to the *majority* of users in China. Obviously there is a group of users that is interested in the information, but I believe people on Slashdot are realistic enough to know that if you want to access the information, there is *always* a way.
For those of you in China who want to access CNN, simply go to http://robots.cnn.com
Why should a gov't be able to do that? I know I live in a free place, (though the whole 51% Canadian Content thing is good for some things, not for others) but I find it hard to beleive that SO much censorship is taking place in such a technologically advanced world. BOO TO THAT.
You can't have it both ways. Pick one.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
I have at least 10 Chinese people on my LICQ contact list. I've already turned 5 of them. So what if Beijing contracted Cisco to make a giant firewall. If the only way they could allow access was to put restrictions in place, they still screwed up by allowing access. You can't censor the whole internet, and freedom is contagious. Get this folks: Cisco enabled information acces to 1 billion otherwise oppressed and ignorant people who would have no informational resource outside of what Beijing prints on posters and pastes on walls.
If anyone out there thinks that the Chinese couldn't have done this on their own, that only Americans can build routers... Well, the seriously need to reevaluate their assumptions.
China could have done this without outside help, China should have free speech. They don't. Not building firewalls for them isn't going to open their society.
Since Mao died, the living standards of the average Chinese person has skyrocketed. Deng Xiao Peng created a lot of reforms, economically (saying "It's not bad, to be rich"), and even in terms of free speech and political expression. After Tiananmen they clamped back down. I don't really know if you can blame them either, if you just lived through the cultural revolution, you would probably be very afraid as well. Mid-century China was a veritable case study in how 'harmless' politics and mass youth movements can cause huge problems.
Maybe Tiananmen was do soon, and the students really blew it. They should have stuck with Op-Ed pages, and built support that way, protesting only set them back, a lot. China today doesn't allow anywhere near the political expression that existed in the 1980s.
But that said, people who's lives are getting better and better every year are not going to really want to revolt.
And keep in mind that democracy and freedom of speech is an exception in all of human history. Maybe someday, but don't think it will happen anytime soon. Happy citizens don't revolt.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It really angers me to see US companies aiding and abetting the suppression of human rights. Its always happened, IBM helped the Nazi's catalog the Jews. But this is the 21st century. Freedom should be a top priority along with peace. Capitalism has its place, but when its used to destroy the the freedom of others, its just plain sick.
Is the money that important to these people?
Those "Western Companies" should be ashamed of themselves. When they get oppressed by any government anywhere, I hope that no one helps them.
Land of the Free. Home of the Almightly Dollar. Freedom for them is convenient, but they don't really care about it.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Cisco: an example of why corporations should not have the rights of humans.
They have no morals.
Seriously, they sealed a billion people behind a wall. This is... is... sick. There should be no payment sufficient to build such a filthy thing. It's like building the Berlin wall in the '40's, or creating well-designed torture chambers for some hellish country's prison. What greed!!
It's enough to make ya turn communist, I swear.
I'm really surprised the Chinese Government hasn't shut down freaking china-net. Does anyone have any evidence of any sort of steganography being used by the Chinese?
I'm even more surprised that all the users of this site haven't put together some decent specs for a smarter email server. There are a couple of halfway solutions out there but we need something good. I guess I'll have to do it myself.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Seriously, this is reaching a point where the corporate profit motive is starting to get in the way of pesky things like morals and human rights, etc.
I remember some Canadian professor going into this in great detail. Basically, the lack on morality in the pure profit motive is going to screw with the log term prospects of the planet
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
thi
In between the pledge breaks this weekend there was a talk about China on WPR http://www.wpr.org/uoa/index.cfm
The guest said somthing about a booklet being sold explaining how to bypass the government controls. It went along with his view that China is a disorganized police state. Which was an improvement over the older organized police state of twenty years ago.
It's a different country. Get used to the idea
that other countries treat their citizens differently than the united states.
Jesus, people. There are no "inalienable rights" being violated here. It's not like chinese citizens are born with ethernet cables hanging out of their asses and require an hour of net access a day in order to survive. It's not like we in the rest of the world have any "rights" to *any* data at all in china.
(posted anonymously for obvious reasons)
A friend of mine spends a large amount of time on business in China (5+ months a year) and has found the sources for world news there woefully inadequate. I decided to help him out by mirroring the largest news stories from CNN on my web site, then protecting it with htaccess. I know it is not completely secure, but at this point he is still able to access it. The password protection at least prevents search engine spiders from indexing the news I post and adding it to a banned list or whatever the Chinese government uses.
My point is that censorship will never be 100% effective in a country that has such international significance. Neither my friend nor I are Chinese citizens, and because of this, we have little to fear as far as government retaliation goes. As long as the the benefits outweight the risks, people will do what they can to make information free.
This was posted to kuro5hin as well, not too long ago.
OK, I'm done link-whoring, go about your business...
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
Who cares that American Coporations are helping an oppressor? Are they bound to our higher ideals? Do they not owe it to their shareholders to meet the needs of these customers?
Why should I be troubled by this?
- Dan I.
Large western corporations willing to suppress or eliminate any freedom under the sun to boost earnings a bit? Nooo.... that could never happen.
Capitalism aiding Stalinism. A weird new way to fuel a new corporate feudalistic society. Granted, no one is promised internet connectivity, but there is the undeniable human right to free speech and free information.
The US could, by legislation, prohibit U.S. companies from assisting with censorship in selected countries. There's an analogy to the Arab boycott of Israel [us-israel.org], which led to lobbying by Israel for U.S. laws prohibiting American companies from cooperating with the Arab boycott.
You are absolutely right. Legislation should quickly pass the law to cease the operation of immoral companies whom allow keylogging software from spying citizens' activities. Also, American companies should also join the boycott of the oppressive Government who creates a big database monitoring citizens' emails.
Oh wait.
simple enough ;) they're useless now.
What do you think they'd be like as a beowulf cluster?
And I'll probably get modded down -1 flamebait. But anyway: what is the problem with this? In the democratic world at large we have many standard freedoms including chosing who we do business with.
I cringe when I read these posts that say "how the hell can they do this?" and "this is just another example of big business...".
Frankly that is the result of allowing all people to act as they wish. This is not a thought socialist state: you cannot command someone to act a certain way with their freedoms. Cisco and Yahoo seem to think there is nothing wrong with the People's govt of China.
And what is wrong with this? I saw someone comparing these companies to BMW et al during the Nazi years in Germany. Um, as far as I know Cisco isn't using "subhumans" as slavelabor here.
Personally there are many things about the Chinese government that I don't like and I'm kind of sad that these companies helped them out. But with or without their help the same paranoia state regime will still be in charge.
Heck probably the "revolution" that everyone asks for will happen without any one of us knowing. The Chinese middle class will expand, they will wish for a) more leisure and b) more freedom to spend their money. And the government will comply to them because they are the sweet tax center. Hell, that's how all of the US Terrorism law got passed.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I've been meaning to read IBM and the Holocaust. It basically talks about how IBM's punch card machines that they created customly for hitler were "indispensable in rounding up prisoners, keeping the trains fully packed and on time, tallying the deaths, and organizing the entire war effort."
I should say that although all of this is sad, I don't think there is any malicious intent on any of the companies. Its almost as though the whole takes actions that none of the individuals would.
What amazes me, is that the censorship is very content selective and seems to ease over time. For example, in the October releaase of Harpers Index there is one statement about China. The article was blocked the instant it was published, and for the full month Harpers was blocked in China. When the November index came out, one could access the October index and Harpers!
During the APEC meetings here late last year, when all President Bush and other big wigs were in town, CNN, BBC, and other news sites all became miraculasly available! Of course, they were all immediately blocked after APEC had ended.
Will /. get blocked while running this subject?
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Is The Great Wall of China on fire ?
> That's why corporations need to be regulated.
Bah, I still like to pretend this (US) is a free country. We don't need more rules, more regulation. Granted, some restrictions on big business are needed (like environmental and anti-trust, etc), but I like to leave the rest to social movement theory. I feel like there are so many rules in this country as it is.
If a sizeable amount of society can't agree on such a movement, is it really what we as a society want?
Call me a rule utilitarian, but I don't think Cisco did anything wrong since it was not illegal. If society doesn't like it they need to elect and petition politicians to change the law.
"We don't care about the [Chinese government's] rules. It's none of Cisco's business."
"We are not a content creator, just a medium, a selective medium."
It's got to eat at your guts to make statements like those above.
China is the critical test of our ability to survive overpopulation and environmental degredation. With a population of 1.6 billion (?), with long stretches of it's rivers dead and the Three Gorges Dam looking like a doomed project it may not be the worst evil to have a government in place that keeps a tight lid on. The saddest aspect, for me, by far is that a country faced with overpopulation and environmental damage on an as yet unimagined scale is seen by business as the world's greatest potential mass market.
Too many Two Twos: 20:02, 20/02, 2002
heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
state's needs
/. icafe story that I'm too lazy to find.)
The news that China is a state comes as a surprise to me, perhaps more surprising than the censorship that's taken place that we've known about for ages (ref.
--joshua
And will we see these products for controlling access marketed for similar purposes in the "free world"? Maybe restricting employee Internet access? Blocking objectionable sites from public library terminals? Maybe even monitoring sites with "terrorist" connections and the folks viewing them?
Is the PRC a giant test market (in effect) for some things that will come home to roost back home?
I don't mean this in the most literal paranoid sense, more that "jee we developed all this for them. Maybe we can sell it into other markets"
Ironically, some of those with unclean hands got off without so much as a slap on the wrist because of the immediate cold war and need to build up Germany in the face of the Soviet threat.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Most modern states employ a much more effective filter than anything Cisco could come up with:
People don't want to criticize their own govt's, or take responsibility for what their leaders do.
In fact, the "Great Firewall" China is using is a sign of the leadership's political naivete.
A system in which dissenting views are allowed (limited) exposure -- only to be swamped out by flag-waving and soundbytes -- gives people the illusion that they are living in an open society and participating in an open debate. But as long as vast swathes of history and unpopular facts are not widely known, critics will seem as though they are coming from left field and will be generally ignored, if not hated. Ironically, this small amount of openness serves to "immunize" the populace from taking opposing views seriously.
Ralph Reed said it best:
"In public policy, it matters less who has the best arguments and more who gets heard -- and by whom."
IMNSHO, if the Chinese leadership does a good enough job in K-12 education of instilling patriotism and belief in the fundamental justness of the regime, as well as making sure that the govt. view dominates most "respectable" news outlets and debate forums, then those rare voices arguing for, say, a withdrawal from Tibet will seem like traitorous whackos. Further, pride from allowing dissenting voices to be heard will even further reinforce the fundamental belief that they are the "good guys" in every conflict.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
I don't know if I've missed it, but how could noone have yet made a "Great Fire Wall of China" pun?
Come on people! Pick up your game!
But for what it's worth it:
In the long run this wall's probably gonna prove as useful at keeping things (ie. information) out as the last one was.
I did my best.
:)
I'm also in Shanghai. Truly cnn.com is banned, but not most other news sites. It just make English learners like myself have less to read.
Strangely *.sourceforge.net are banned at 210.52.130.126 --- seems to be the last gateway before the Pacific optic fiber. So these `firewalls' aren't doing their jobs all the time.
Frankly I don't care about politics or censorship, but I really do not want to be banned from really innocent information like software info in *.sourceforge.net, or unix humor in geocities.com. What's more, all these can be accessed from google's cache. Nothing is truly banned --- they are just making them inconvenient to access.
Does anyone know about the Chinese government's ability to monitor SSL-encrypted content? I'm involved with an organization that might want to get some info in and out of China on an SSL connection that the gov't would not like. How is their cracking capability? Do they monitor this? Do they care?
Sorry for the AC posting, just trying to stay secure.
TIA
Folks,
Seems like people are sure getting wound up over this one, but not too many people are coming to a consensus. Most of the comments look like they're still modded' to 1.
At any rate, I would submit that we've got no more right pushing our system of beliefs on the Chineese (I know someone has already said this) than China has to pressure us to blow up France. The only advantage China has is that it is the sovergn power over its people and so its got the right to make those decisions. That's where this whole damn war is going - to convert the entire world into a Democracy. People are too stupid to rule themselves, hell, pay attention in America where people just sit back and let the government ream them. They're either too lazy or too stupid to do anything about it. URGH!
Jon Green Cheyenne
internet companies and sites from linking
to China. The Chinese government wants to
keep people from reading a few internet sites. So I say the logically thing to do
is to get mad at the companies that are
helping China build the internet so that the
whole country is cut off from all sites!!!!!
That will show them!!!! Let's force the
internet companies to stick up for freedom!!!! By demanding the the Chinese
government get rid of all censorship immediately, we'll have the Chinese government kick them all out, and then China
will have no internet and so there will be no more articles on Chinese internet censorship.
Who cares about the fact that 98% of the stuff gets through and most of the blocks are
laughibly ineffective!!!! We're talking moral prinicple here. It's better that the
Chinese have no internet at all than to have government censored internet!!!! If the Chinese government won't put up with 100% uncensored internet, it's better that they have no internet at all!!!!
And while we're at it, lets cut off all economic ties with China until they have a
government that is 100% good!!!!! We want the Chinese poor with no interest in maintaining good business relationships with the United States!!!! After all, if they are isolated they'll be poor and angry with no interest in cooperation with the United States and no way to communicate with the outside world!!! And if they are poor, isolated, and angry, they won't worry about trying to get really rich, and instead will have plenty of time to listen to people with kooky religious ideas!!! And the United States can completely ignore China just like it ignored Afghanistan two years ago!!!!
What a great idea!!!!!
Note to the sarcasm impaired: The preceding was sacarism.
It's silly to blame Cisco for supplying the firewall to China
Ethics aside, it's certainly not silly to give a company bad p.r. because of its actions.
Cisco spends millions every year testifying to it's goodness. It sponsors athletic competitions, art groups, etc. It fosters a corporate image, and that corporate brand justifies a portion of the mark up on Cisco products. If you don't believe this, then ask yourself why p.r. departments exist, or why a company which sells routers would air tv commercials at all.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Late 20th century: Democracy versus Communism.
Early 21st century: Democracy versus... Capitalism?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I'm in China. I hate the Chinese government. I post a message saying so on slashdot. Cisco's system lets the Chinese track down who I am, and they execute me.
Are Cisco's sins still so minor?
The Chinese firewall sucks. You can get at anything you want with very little technical know-how, and many do, which is why they are constantly shutting down internet cafes.
I can't remember the last time I was blocked from a site I wanted in China.
$45 per U Colocation Special
I was in China in early September. At first it
was frustrating. I couldn't get washpost, nytimes, etc. but I could get Drudge Report and Fox News. Go figure. The band Liberal Media Establishment but let right wing nut through. I could piece enough information from the outside world. The International Herald Tribune and USA Today were only available at 5 star hotels. I wasn't staying in 5 start hotels; but I could bribe the Maitre D' at them to get copies. Surprising, they lifted the band on some news sources after the Sept. 11 tragedies. The government also banned https traffic; so I couldn't get to travelocity to change my air reservations (I was headed to the Middle East).
That's what really pissed me off. The definitely have a different way of doing things. On the other hand; I was able to conduct fairly free and open discussions with people about politics. As long as the government keeps providing 10% annual growth rates; the people are going to put up with restrictions on the press. They have bigger problems with pollution, poverty and economic relocation. On the other hand, dog-eat-dog capitalism is alive and well. There's a McDonald's, starbucks, and KFC on every corner in the big cities. You can buy a coke anywhere.
I guess it's pretty easy for fat, rich Americans to get pissed about the government in China; but let's face it, we have corruption here and our own government willfully disregards public opinion. We gunned down protesting students at Kent State. It's not all that different than Tien An Men Square when you get right down to it. At least we have McDonalds', Starbucks and KFC on every corner.
I am one of the webmasters for the University of Michigan and my servers have been blocked from China for over a year. First they blocked just the IP addresses of our main servers (http://www.umich.edu/ & http://www-personal.umich.edu/) but when we moved our hosts to other IPs they blocked at least the entire subnet we use for public web servers. We get frantic e-mail from Chinese students all the time looking for access to our site so they can come here to study.
I hope triangle boy will help with this, but does anyone know of anything more proactive *I* could be doing?
Yahoo (who helpfully censors search results and monitors online chats)
You sure about this? You would be amazed (or maybe you wouldn't...)at the amount of underage sexual activity, including child porn, easily flowing on Yahoo Chat. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of spam occurred on Yahoo's servers. Yahoo seems to have little, if any, direct moderation of their online chats and, subsequently, probably has little monitoring going on.
Yes, and that nation full of people wants a firewall. If the nation doesn't represent the people in this issue, it's the people's responsibility to do something about it -- but as an internal issue, not your problem or mine, and certainly not Cisco's.
Those who look for profit over medium term or longer (as opposed to a quick buck) are obligated to adopt certain priorities -- honesty and quality among them. Those corporations which seek immediate profit over the long-term benefits provided by these attitudes tend to either shape up (eventually) or be outlived by their more farsighted (and moral) bretheren. Eventually shortsighted behaviour tends to backfire -- see the Ford Pinto for an example of the same; while it may not kill a company, such an event serves as a warning to both that corporation and others, and tends to put other (more moral) companies ahead in the market.
Yes, it's a slow process -- but humanity has been around quite a while, and will likely be around some time to come. Smile; be happy; 'twill all come out in the wash.
But the US happens to have its own obsessions of what is permissible. US obsessions are about disparaging foods, certain kinds of pornography, cryptography, and anything that might step on the toes of big media companies. And in the US, the means of enforcing those restrictions are oddball restrictions on any kind of hardware that plays audio and video, throwing people in jail, sending FBI agents to foreign countries to "help" them, trade sanctions, and prohibiting certain goods from being imported.
Yes, China has different obsessions (although there seems to be some overlap with US obsessions). But both governments are throwing their considerable weight around to prohibit access from the kind of content they consider harmful. When the US abandons restrictions like the DMCA, software patents, baroque rules on pornography, and the various export restrictions on cryptography, the US position on criticizing China would get a lot stronger. Until then, one can only conclude that both countries have haphazard and serious restrictions on speech.
Good point. The Chinese are a peacful as much as George W Bush is fighting for freedom.
Afterall, Communist China has had wars with Vietnam, Tibet, India, exchanged fire with the USSR, is constantly threatening Taiwan.
The Chinese Communist elite are just as much an elite as the American "freedom loving" corporate elite.
Same thing, just a different excuse for abuse
* * Always question "the National Interest" - 9 times out of 10 it is a cover for evil
Before we become all bent out of shape about what some American companies are doing in China,
a cy/index.html )
5 /11/story/0 000035539 )
1 /story/0 000043316 )
we should look closely at what the Chinese, Chinese companies, and Chinese in the USA
are doing to support mainland China. Allow me to list several facts that have escaped the
radar of good-hearted but naive Americans.
1. Most Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. A CNN/Time
survey showed, in fact, that 60% of the Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong
to mainland China. (reference: "Poll: Hong Kong residents optimistic" http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9706/26/hong.kong.democr
While East Timorese fought and died for independence from the oppressive
Indonesian government, the Chinese in Hong Kong cheered the mainland Chinese government.
2. The constitution of the Chinese living in Taiwan supports the integration of both Tibet
and Mongolia into mainland China. While Tibetans suffer and die at the hands of the Chinese
People's Liberation Army, the Chinese in Taiwan support integrating Tibet into "One China".
3. The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son
of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai.
(reference: "Sons of prominent Chinese team up on chip venture",
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/0
4. Senior Chinese military officials retired from the Taiwanese military have gone to mainland China
and given military secrets about the American F-16 fighter jet to the Beijing government.
(reference: "Military secrets on sale to China"
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/07/1
5. Most Chinese, including those living in the United States of America, support the territorial
ambitions of mainland China. Most Chinese support integrating Tibet into mainland China.
Most Chinese support integrating the Spratleys into mainland China. Most Chinese support
integrating the Senkaku islands into mainland China.
6. Most Chinese support Beijing's attempt to use torture and murder to crush the Falun Gong.
Indeed, the Beijing government has funded anti-Falun-Gong meetings within the United States
itself. These meetings within the United States are attended by the very same Chinese who fight
with tooth and nail to stay permanently in the United States of America.
7. The Chinese from "poor, little, scared" Taiwan have invested more than $50 billion into more than
50,000 businesses in mainland China. How did this phenomenon happen? Immediately, after the
Tienanman Square incident back in June 4, 1989, the American government and businesses curtailed
investments in mainland China. The Taiwanese (and the other Chinese in Hong Kong) seized this window
of opportunity and accelerated investments into mainland China. The rate of investments from
Taiwan into China has skyrocketed to the present levels; investments continue to grow at
double-digit rates.
8. These observations are not an exaggeration of any kind. At your university, attend your local
meeting of Amnesty International. The engineering and business schools will have plenty of Chinese
people, but there will be virtually _NO_ Chinese faces in a meeting of Amnesty International. Chinese
(and other Orientals) are over-represented in engineering and business schools, but they are
under-represented in meetings of Amnesty International. Why?
So few Americans really know anything about Chinese society. We Americans are kind-hearted
and naive. We simply assume that the Chinese are "just like us" and that the Chinese are simply
(financially) poorer versions of ourselves. In reality, the Chinese are not like us. They are poor, but
they are _NOT_ like us.
I am always willing to be told I'm not cynical enough, but I have to wonder who's doing the polls.
Personally, I get so much Chinese (and also Korean) spam --- and essentially zero legit mail from either country --- that I use a dnsbl service that blocks those entire countries (http://www.five-ten-sg.com/blackhole.php).
However, I can't help feeling that I'm playing into the hands of the Chinese censors by doing this. It doesn't take very much imagination to guess that the Chinese government would be perfectly happy if most of the world blocked email from China --- and not much more to wonder if they tacitly encourage spamming to help the cause along. Who needs anything so crude as an overt block, if you can get other people to do it for you?
Not that I'm going to stop blocking China. There is too friggin' much spam coming out of there.
Yes the US has done bad things, they sanctoned the killing of indians, they ignored the horrors of slavery, the put japaneese Americans in concentration camps, and even belw up a religous compound killing dozens of women and children in the name of protecting us in Waco TX, and today the US government is trying to censor us in the name of protecting copyrights, and spy on us in the name of protecting us from terrorisim.
However, US law has accountbilities built in like voteing, the right to bear arms, freedom of speech, press etc... Where are these accountabilities in China? Answer: there are none other than us rideing their butt about human rights and Tiwan. I honestly don't really want to be involved in China's affairs, but we half to be, otherwise it will eventually blow up in our faces like Hitler did, not something I want to find out the hard way.
I think the point being made was that another society full of people are being supressed by a minority that just happens to be in control. Why was it that China was not allowed into the WTO until recently? Human rights records? I have no idea where you got the idea that this discussion was about imposing American values on China or trying to change China to become more American. The discussion was about American companies willingly submitting to the Chinese government's demands that their people not be allowed to access any form of "dissident" knowledge. We are discussing the liberation of a people controlled by a Communist government that seemingly won't die. The Chinese people don't like their situation, they are just powerless to do anything about it. So by your own words, why are you trying to impose your values on me by forcing me to mind my own business? I'm trying to liberate. You're trying to control.
What are you talking about man? In the 1980's the press was almost as free as in the US. Today, well, it isn't. Yeh, protesters staring down tanks make for great photos and propaganda -- outside of china -- But it won't do shit inside. If the protesters would have waited, and moved for slow reforms rather then 'revolution' China might be a free society now. But they were impatient.
Yeh, democracy is nice, but there was no pressing need to have a revolution at the time.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Sure, CNN.com is blocked & so is BBC.co.uk. No, NYT.com & BBCWORLD.com aren't blocked. So yes, I also don't understand the logic behind the specific blocks themselves
That's just another ironic thing. The Chinese Communist Party already looks more like Captalist Party. Bear in mind, the Great Firewall of China is a dual purpose technology: stop people from accessing information. But, at the same time, stop conservatives from finding excuse to block the internet altogether.
The real issue is that the majority of people (in this case, internet users) themselves are not interested to actually access this information.
That isn't too surprising to me. Put that this way, how often does an American (or British or French or Japanese or whoever), will read news (newspaper or website) originated outside his/her own home country?
The censorship nowadays is not really that bad. Their official news broadcast (usually) covers most the important world headlines. Of course, the emphasize is different. I don't think you will be too interested in whether the Chinese will get a medal in Winter Olympic, or vice versa. No worries, people know where to get information whenever they need. (It was quite clear that they got US-Sino military plane collision event well before official broadcast. Guess what had happened.)
Ok, I don't really have a problem with big-business per-se, but in the US many businesses are artificially big because of US regulations and tax laws that are hard to comply with unless your rather big in addition to artifical US govt granted monopolies like patents and copyrights that help lock out smaller competitors. These all go a long way to making sure large companies replace ethical accountabilities with bureauocratic accountabilities (eg we have no personal responsibility for the quality of this meat because it's FDA approved)
Now I don't know if this would have an effect on what's going on in China right now, but I agree with you that the more we accept people doing what they wish the more successfull we will be at promoting freedom everywhere.
for western companies to be helping a state to violate human rights is sick... Whoever's responsible should answer for these crimes.
Its okay for them to follow Chinese Laws and filter, but not okay for them to follow French laws.
Interesting hypocrisy isn't it ?
Steve
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
GTE helped lay a ring of fiber betworks around the country about 8 years ago. A circle of fiber where every communications in or out of China passed through that fiber ring. The concept was to 'modernize' their infrastructure. As a GTE employee and stock holder, I pointed out in emails to GTE officials that it was actually to do this very thing, to supress the free flow of communications for the Chinese citizens. I also pointed out that it was a way to improve communications links for the PLA on the frontiers to use. The Chinese citizens are paying dearly for the "help" we gave them.
Cisco and Yahoo etc. are doing a good thing here!
If every related company would tell the chinese govt. "No, we will not do such blocking system. It's impossible/immoral/bad/[insert your favourite reason here].", what do you think chinese govt. would do? It would decide that they cannot control the internet, so they won't allow any internet traffic in/out of the country. They are control freaks, so they need to have the warm and fuzzy feeling of 'controlling' the net.
Cisco & friends are providing them (at an immense cost, mind ya) a 'filtering system' that gives them that warm & fuzzy feeling that they are 'controlling' their citizen's internet access. It's an illusion at best, but they seem to want it, and are willing to pay for it. You know - the saying about fool and their money... :)
We all know that there are ways around such blocks. This is nothing but your average broken censorware application with goverment approved blocklist, built into bunch of high end routers. Having somewhat crippled internet connection to the world is by far a better option than no internet at all. You can always work around the blocks, and get what you need, if you really want it.
Longer those chinese leaders are happily smiling in their ivory towers and thinking 'the citizens have their internet, but only those parts we want - we are in control', the better.
The question raised by this article is not whether China will ever
become "free." The interesting question is : does government control
business? or does business control government?
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
While what you say is more or less true, let's not forget that in the hands of bad people, the US system is not as happy and carefree as you suggest. The classic example of this is President Nixon.
Now I know Nixon is a big conservative hero, but the reality is that he used his power, both political and military, to opress political opposition to further his own ends.
The best example of this is probably not the whole Whitewater scandal, but rather the Pentagon Papers. For those not in the know, this was a book written by the Pentagon designed to be a report of the US involvement in Vietnam. When a newspaper (NY Times) got a hold on it and started printing it, Nixon arranged to have the first order against a newspaper printing a story in the history of the US issued.
Now mind you, this wasn't a list of current battle strategies or logistics, but a history of the war that had been going on for 7 or 8 years at this point. The newspaper was vindicated in the end, but not before suffering attacks and threats.
This isn't liberal innuendo, it's the facts.
We Americans must understand that most Chinese support the anti-human-rights policies of the Chinese government. Many Chinese have come onto this message board to criticize our support of human rights in China. On the issue of nationalism and human rights, most Chinese agree with the Beijing government. Most Chinese think and act in this way.
Do you remember the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Serbia? At most 3 people were killed. Hordes of Chinese at major American universities came out of the woodwork to hold demonstrations and to condemn American society. Nonetheless, these Chinese are totally silent on brutal torture of Tibetans. Most Chinese think and
act in this way.
These same Chinese, while condemning American society, fight with tooth and nail to stay in the United States of America (USA).
Another interesting fact about these Chinese in the USA is that many of them are the sons and daughters of officials in the Chinese Communist Party. They siphoned off large sums of money from mainland China and put that money in American banks. They live the good life here in the USA. They fight with tooth and nail to stay in the USA -- to enjoy the human rights that we have -- while they fully support the brutal nationalistic policies of the Chinese government.
My point is that we should not be condemning American companies for wanting to do business with mainland China. If American companies avoid China, then the Taiwanese (the bunch of Chinese on Taiwan) will swoop into China to steal marketshare from us. The Taiwanese exploited our good intentions back in 1989. After the Chinese government committed the Tienanmen Square incident, the American government and its businesses froze or pulled investments out of China. The Taiwanese seized this window of opportunity. They and the Chinese in Hong Kong flooded China with investments. Today, the Taiwanese have invested more than $50 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China. The Taiwanese have manipulated Americans into losing business and marketshare in China. We should not be fools. We should terminate our relationship with Taiwan.
So, how do we deal with China? We enact a law that prohibits any son or daughter of an official (or party member) in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from entering the USA. For example, if Zhu Rongji has a son in the USA, then we kick him out. If he sneaks into the country on
false papers, then we arrest him and deport him to mainland China. We can take advantage of the new office (and tools and funding) of homeland security to enact this policy. This policy will apply to both the highest ranking member of the CCP and the lowest ranking member of the CCP. We Americans will seize (i. e. not return) any funds that such Chinese transfer from mainland China to the USA.
This law should not be lifted until the Chinese grant self-autonomy to the Tibetans and support human rights in all of China. If you want China to change, you "_HIT_ and _BEAT_" the Chinese. Leave the American companies alone; they are not responsible for the situation
in China. The Chinese are solely responsible for the putrid crap that exists in China.
Further, Taiwanese wishing to enter the USA must obtain a passport from Beijing. The Taiwanese constitution supports the nationalistic territorial ambitions of Beijing. That constitution claims that Tibet, Mongolia, and Taiwan are all part of "One China".
First off, who are you to impose your values on others? Maybe the chinese like their society, maybe they don't. But its not upto *you* to force your values on others.
Would care to explain how denouncing a brutally oppressive government for inhibiting communication is "forcing his values on others"?
Everytime china comes up every american spews their views on why China is inferior.
It's not so much a matter of China being inferior, it's a matter of China being under the thumb of a brutal gerontocracy. This isn't a mere matter of taste, you jackass. Weren't you paying attention when Deng ordered the massacre in Tienanmen square?
Got to www.tibet.org, and educate yourself.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yes, it does... The article does not talk about censorship only. One of the applications of the monitoring is persecution of people who seek freedom. The hairs on my neck stood on end when I read this.. this is _exactly_ the kind of application that IBM was helping with, when the Germans were using IBMs to count Jews. Whether it's by race or by belief, in both instances innocent people are persecuted. The Chinese don't outright kill the dissidents, but I am confident this is happening - the world for a long time was in denial of the use of western counting machines by the Germans. Nobody believed they were actually used to label people for extermination. The Chinese application is horrifyingly close if not exactly the same!
I used to live in a commie country. In such a regime, the government uses propaganda to spread some positive.. and beatiful message. This is invariably a sophism. In the Chinese case, the message is, "we are all for peaceful change." Killing and persecuting dissidents is NOT peaceful (as some earlier post pointed out). This message is an outright lie; it is easy to believe though..
Many Chinese believe it. What's even more dangerous is that people in the Western world believe it too. They are often idealists and really like to hear declarations of peaceful change and gradual way to freedom. And that they can help those poor people in China by helping with that change.
An example of similar such behaviour is how scientists on the Manhattan project during WWII helped the Russians obtain info on how to make the bomb. They believed no single country shoud have the bomb. They gave this secret to Stalin on account of his "socialism"... That was a mistake - as history now tells us, Stalin was a worse murderer than Hitler - if they gave the bomb to Hitler, fewer innocent people would have died (maybe I'm exaggerating, but my point is that it is possible).
Further, these intelligent people who like the "Chinese way" are placed very high in Western businesses. The guy from Cisco in the article no doubt wants the good of the Chinese people, but this is a fatal mistake on his part. On a large scale (as it is, unfortunately, happening) this behaviour will lead to a China ready to go to war with the west and win.
Few want to believe this. It is easy to put it out of your mind too. This is not the Chinese way.. right? Wrong. We are talking about China with a legacy of imperialism here - just look at the way they deal with internal problems.
Forget national ID card, most free countries in the world have them; forget about big evil Microsoft, their crimes are petty. The real threat is collecting its billion people strength on the other side of the globe. This is not too far to consider.
It is every free person's duty to help the Chinese people and NOT the Chinese government. By supplying the country (and thereby the ruling government) with money, the West is not helping the people. This way, the Chinese government has more and more reasources to continue being the way it is... And this is definitely not good, because as much as they talk about it, these guys do not want to change the balance of power over there.
So wake the @#$% up!
Damn, I never thought I would sound like a doomsayer or be one, but with stuff like this goig on, it's difficult not to be.
What the thugs in charge in China don't realize is that it's internal communication that's going to enable the Chinese people to throw off their yoke.
Back when Deng and his fellow gerontocrats murdered the protestors in Tienanmen square, they had to bring in soldiers from rural areas, who had no idea what was going on in Peking. The local garrison wouldn't have done it.
Ceacescu was overthrown when the lies broke down, and the Romanian army could see for themselves that the people on the other side of the barricades were their friends, families and neighbors. (Not a handful of evil counter-revolutionaries as state propaganda insisted.)
When the thug-in-charge ordered them to open fire on the protestors in Bucharest, the army decided that that wasn't what they'd signed up for, and opted instead to kill the bloodthirsty motherfucker.
When the Chinese are able to communicate widely and nearly instantaneously amongst themselves, it's going to be all over for the Party. I missed the demolition of the Berlin wall, but I sure hope to be in China when they start pulling down the statues of Mao.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Or where a gang of white police offers can be caught red handed on video tape beating a black man with billy clubs but they're set free to go.
A horrible incident of police abusing their power and authority took place on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in San Francisco. Numerous incidents of brutality, murder, and corruption go unpunished, overlooked, tacitly accepted by politicians and administrators.
And yes, the War on (Some) Drugs has led to most abrogations of the Constitution over the past century. An interesting study would be to determine how many laws that violate sone part of the Constitution and Bill of Rights were passed on anti-drug grounds. That "war" has also led to the creation of paramilitary police forces in North America, caused much of the aforementioned police corruption, and helped lay the groundwork for the establishment of an American fascist police state. This isn't scaremongering - take a look into the history of the Drug War, the innocent victims, the possible connnections to American foreign intelligence (ie, the CIA).
This shit has got to stop. Take the power back.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Under its authoritarian system China has dramatically improved the quality of life for hundreds of millions of its people. My point, hard as it may be for Americans to accept, is that Russia may be failing in part because it is a democracy and China may be succeeding in part because it is not.
The Chinese people have dramatically improved their quality of life over the last fifty years despite the interference of their corrupt, incompetent, brutal government.
Crediting the government that murdered tens of millions through a deliberate program of enforced starvation with "improving the quality of life" for the people they oppress is beyond absurd.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I can't help but see a picture of a screaming lefty with a leash on his neck leading up to the hand of a giant Bureaucrat screaming "Corporate Evil!"
And opposite him a screaming righty with a leash on his neck leading up to the hand of a giant Executive screaming "Government Evil!"
That's not really fair, of course, since most corporations don't have armies, police forces, jails, or the power to tax.
But it's close enough for the sake of this argument.
You're all on the game board, people, so get some Visex and clear your eyes, because people die by the millions in this game.
I admit sometimes I don't want to play, but I'm on the board and standing eyes shut with my hands over my ears won't protect me.
I don't know how much advice I can really give people on one issue or another. Would I cooperate with a foreign government to hide the truth from their people? No. Do I blame the Cisco salesguy who wants to pay off his wife's college debt and send his kid to school and pay those back taxes... No.
It's crappy, but most people try to play the moves they think are right for them. I try (and sometimes fail) to judge events as events and people as people. I try (and sometimes fail) not to see other people as enemies when they just want something different than I do.
But a few questions here come to mind that need answering:
1) Do you really want to spend your energy opposing this?
2) What can you do that might be productive?
3) Is it really any of your business?
I mean, heck, maybe we're mainly just venting. I know I am...
Now, I value my right to free speach as much as you, but I don't feel I have the right to critisize the Chinese way of doing things. After all, China is the oldest state in the world -- they must have been doing something right.
The interactive way to Go -- http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/en/
Let me start out by saying that I am about as capitalist as a human being can be. I love capitalism and think it's a great idea. I hold alot of respect for big business. I have a huge amount of respect for Bill Gates. I think anyone who can make $40B selling crap deserves a pat on the back. But I still use linux. Because I don't want to help him sell crap. And I won't help cisco build jails either. I'll vote with my dollars.
And as for the chinese people who posted to say "it's not so bad", it would be alot worse if you had any un-popular thoughts. The government of any country is formed by the people of said country. And all those peoples are responsible for the actions of the government. I don't know, I've never studied Chinese politics (I've got enough problems with my government), but when I read that, I've got to wonder "how many people were killed or imprisoned because they held un-popular beliefs? IIRC, I've read about at least one incident of a Chinese person being imprisoned for disagreeing with the governemt. One is far too many. But you don't care. You think it's "not that bad"?! That's a real person. Going through REAL SUFFERING! Sitting in a real jail, with bars and shitty food and not enough warmth. Dealing with real boredom and real loneliness. And you sit in your nice office with a hot cup of coffee saying "it's not that bad"!? It is that bad. I believe that compassion and empathy are a part of humanity. For you to sit there and not even care degrades us all. You can be apathetic, that's your opinion, here's mine: Not giving a damn about anothers suffering, and in fact helping it along, makes you scum. You are the lowest of the low. I hope you choose to disagree one day and rot in a cell for it.
Well, you might not care, but I damn well do.So I will now refrain from using cisco products, because I will not help them limit freedom. If I thought that I had in helped them find one more dissident to put in jail, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. If I bought a cisco catalyst, I would have problems sleeping. I'd be kept awake thinking "they spent my money to build a jail". They are capitalists, and I expect them to act in the interest of profit, But anyone who expects me not to act in the interest of freedom is insane. To that end, I will try and make their interest in profit and my interest in freedom coincide. By never using their products (and I was gonna be a CCNA).
We live in a capitalist society, and in a capitalist society money controls everything. That's good, because money doesn't discriminate, and if we want to make a change, all we have to do is with-hold our money. Fuck Cisco. Fuck their products. Let _them_ do it. I won't help. I'll boycott cisco. Will my change help anything? Maybe not, but it's a start. And 20 years from now, when we're all presenting our national ID's for minimal access to _our_ national cisco firewall, I'll look back and think " I tried". You can look back and think "I helped them do it."
"The system doesn't care because the system is you. Nothing ever changes because that's what _you_ choose." -- A//Political
Don't beg for the right to live - take it.
If they're so successful at restricting access to the Internet, why are 10% of the spam sources and 8% of the hacking attempts against my servers from .cn domains?
-a.e.mossberg
this cretin is a troll. Since when is the ability to talk with others or to read what they say, whatever the media, a privilege granted as an act of largesse by an indulgant state.
'nothing is being censored': so what exactly is the Chinese goverment doing when it prevents its citzens reading disident's web pages?
I would take the time to demolish the rest of your imbecilic arguments but there are so many fundamental logical and semantic flaws its hard to know where to start. It is frightening that half-wits like you roam the World unsedated and presumably with the voting franchise (assuming you are not a Chinese Government stooge).
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
"Stalin was a worse murderer than Hitler - if they gave the bomb to Hitler, fewer innocent people would have died (maybe I'm exaggerating, but my point is that it is possible)."
Whats funny about that statement is if they gave the bomb to Hitler he would have used it against Stalin.
So very true. All except one thing, you say they wouldnt outrigth kill disidents. They actually do this, China is the place in the world that has the second most executions after Texas, one of the way fill the ranks of comdemned is to execute anyone who speaks up against the govenment. It makes you wonder how Texas manages to kill more people than a country almost a 100 times bigger.
Estoy completamente de acuerdo contigo. Es necesario botar con el dinero para demostrarles a esa gente de CISCO lo que opinamos de sus acciones para destruir los derechos humanos en China. Y mas cosas.. igual que USA este gran pais, no permite que se exporten armas quimicas, no se deberia permitir que las compañias amaricanas exporten productos dedicados a LA REPRESION POLITICA de paises como China.
Ese dinero esta sucio, y ensuciara a todo aquel que lo toque. Y las consecuencias pueden ser peores de las que tu sospechas...
1 saludo
Tei
-Woof woof woof!
My favorite paragraph from the article:
But what is "normal" in China can be altered under duress. When Chinese authorities ordered Microsoft to surrender its software's underlying source codes--the keys to encryption--as the price of doing business there, Microsoft chose to fight, spearheading an unprecedented Beijing-based coalition of American, Japanese, and European Chambers of Commerce. Faced with being left behind technologically, the Chinese authorities dropped their demands. Theoretically, China's desire to be part of the Internet should have given the capitalists who wired it similar leverage. Instead, the leverage all seems to have remained with the government, as Western companies fell all over themselves bidding for its favor. AOL, Netscape Communications, and Sun Microsystems all helped disseminate government propaganda by backing the China Internet Corporation, an arm of the state-run Xinhua news agency.
So, let me get this straight: Microsoft leveraged their power for "good", while the others all fell down and capitulated to the Chinese government to get the easy money... what is that telling us...
Because the West relies on a democractic government and a capitalist market they are often seen as indivisible.
In reality they are very much seperate. Capitalism is a system in which the purpose of business is wealth creation. Businesses make decisions necessary to make cash for their owners, and we hope that a side-effect of this is innovation, employment and general welfare.
Democracy, on the other hand, is a system for managing society and government. At it's heart, democracy is the principle that all the people of a state should have a meaningful contribution to how it is governed. No more and no less.
It is quite possible to have a non-capitalist democracy and a capitalist dictatorship.
You cannot expect western businesses to defend democracy, when it is completely outside their purview. Very few of Cisco's customers are democracies, the vast majority are other corporations - about as undemocractic as you can get.
They have no reason to care, and that is how it should be. If you want China to become a democracy, then go tell the Chinese. Ultimately, it is up to them.
Nothing is wrong with this. Similarly however, nothing is wrong with posting opinions which are against company involvement in such projects. Same logic applies.
Cheers,
Ian
Thanks for the correction and all the sources.
It's interesting how many twists there are on the rope theme. That may be an indication it is indeed a fabricated quote that grew up around Lenin, just like the story about Washington and the cherry tree. Or, if the quote is real, it could be a matter of how different translators have interpreted the original Russian.
You can also find interesting quotes from Hitler that many of today's politicians would agree with, and quotes from our (USA) Founding Fathers they would condemn as radical propaganda.
What about Google? Is it blocked as well? Because you can see cached cnn.com or any inconvenient geocities content there.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
So is the Great Firewall of China visible from CyberSpace?
Sorry.
There are worse things going on in the world today than denying people freedom of information, the *19th* right of the UNs Human Rights Charter. That said, they're all so important that all men should have all of them, and it shouldn't even be a subject for discussion which are the more fundamental ones, but so it is.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You cannot expect western businesses to defend democracy, when it is completely outside their purview.
Who are you to tell me what I can expect of those I do business with? If I tell you I'm only going to buy your widgets if you dress up like a leprechaun, you damn well better be wearing green knickers and shoes with buckles next time I see you if you want to make the sale. I see you've defined capitalism and democracy nicely, but you seem to have forgotten that these ideas only apply to human societies. In a human society, such as we have here, we can influence each others behavior with a wide variety of subtle and not-so-subtle pressures, of which the law and the dollar are but two. For instance, if I see a tobacco company executive or a tobacco farmer on the street, I won't hesitate to let that person know what a worthless, parasitical waste of flesh that person is. I'd defend their right to grow and sell tobacco, but I'd think that they're scum for doing it.
They have no reason to care, and that is how it should be.
If only you were alone in this disturbing sentiment... Maybe someday you'll be in a position where you'll need help, but since I have no reason to care, why should I? Imagine yourself choking to death in a crowded restaurant, while everyone else goes about their "business", ignoring you. The chinese people are having their freedom to speak choked off, but why should western corps. care? Heck, it's a great opportunity to make a buck!
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
Did they really need to bring cisco in to block port 80?
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
Your damn right. Cisco has how many employees to think of? A nice, fat chinese government contract for some really heavy metal? I think they'd take it. If that's what China wants, that's what China gets. If you want to ban Cisco because they sold equipment to a government you don't like be my guest but I'll lay the blame where it belongs, with the Chinese for putting their purchase to poor use.
That's like blaming Red Hat for the skript kiddie who just fuct up your box.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
If you want to ban Cisco because they sold equipment to a government you don't like be my guest
Who said anything about banning anything? What the hell is it with you people? If someone gets a little criticism for putting their financial gain above their ethical obligations, a million libertarians come crawling out of the woodwork mewling about the holiness of property rights. It's like some kind of ridiculous cult!
Yes! China's government SUCKS! There, satisfied? If China's government didn't suck, this whole issue wouldn't exist. It's f*cking self-evident! Why do I have to spell it out?
CISCO, Yahoo, et al have the right to do business with whomever they choose. But if CISCO wants to help Al Qaeda cells pass encrypted messages to each other, are you going to say "Oh, you should blame Al Qaeda for being evil, CISCO is just trying to make an honest buck!". When you support institutions which are fundamentally opposed to your very right to exist, you're not only acting hypocritically, you're being STUPID.
The CP of China denies that CISCO has the right to exist. CISCO assist the CP of China in suppressing the speech of chinese citizens. This makes CISCO wealthier, but it also makes them stupid hypocrites. As such, they are worthy of derision, not banning!
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
Corporations exist to increase the wealth of shareholders, period. All other considerations are secondary. To increase shareholder wealth, new markets are constantly sought out and developed. Once they are exhausted or saturated the search begins again. I remember reading a quote in a college textbook from a CEO of a major multinational (it may have been GM), where he basically said his biggest wish was that his company could exist outside the boundaries of any sovereign government authority. The goal of these multinationals is to exist wholly as entities unto themselves. Their allegiance is to the bottom line, not to the greater good of the country where they happen to be headquartered in. To me that is amoral - not an inherently evil or bad thing, simply a moral vacuum that exists when the overarching goal isn't tethered to any motive other than profit. This story (a great one by the way) is a perfect example of this. Its hard to blame Cisco if you look at this from the corporate point of view. What is aggravating to me is the U.S. government's silent complicity - where was the outrage when Cisco and company decided to climb in bed with the Chinese leadership?
8 bit computing - It may be 2007 out there, but it's 1983 in here!!
If you see how the economy is growing in China, how more and more people become welthy, and how more and more people become happier, it's hard to believe that the government would do such a thing...
He's a person too, and have suffered too.
He didn't even get a fair trial.
Do I blame the Cisco salesguy who wants to pay off his wife's college debt and send his kid to school and pay those back taxes... No.
Why not? Why is his decision to help opress people above criticism. If he was ignorant, or they had a gun to his wife and kids heads maybe your argument would have some merit. But paying off college debt? Come one!
1) Do you really want to spend your energy opposing this?
Easy question. Yes.
2) What can you do that might be productive?
A much harder question. There is not much as an individual I can do. I can let these companies know that I think they are morally repugnant and refuse to do business with them. There was an age when even businessmen had a moral sense and sought to operate within (largely self-imposed) moral boundaries. In our free society those that didn't often faced only minor or even no legal penalties but the rest of the community felt free to make and to express a moral judgement that such businessment were beneath contempt. The weight of public opinion reinforcing the dictates of personal conscience can be a powerful motivator without involving the blunt coercive machinery of the state.
3) Is it really any of your business?
This ones easy. Yes.
I mean, heck, maybe we're mainly just venting. I know I am.
See my answer to question two. If "venting" is done not just on a board full of malcontents but expressed to the company concerned, if it rises to a level of universal scorn and moral repugnance, if it is accompanied by action, it is a valuable thing. We are all told in these days that moral judgements are "wrong" (ironically this is itself a moral judgement) Bullcrap, that salesman just trying to get along did so by helping to opress millions of people - and the curtailing of their freedoms of speech and communication is not done just for it's own sake - it is done because it facilitates much more concrete abuses. In any society with even the least commitment to human rights he and his corporation would be shunned and despised and rightly so.
> Our patriotic duty would be to support such actions as our contribution to the war.
This is perhaps what the instigators of this scenario would say, but they'd be wrong. In fact, it would be our patriotic duty to prevent such a plan from being implemented as it violates the Constitution. Besides, the one advantage of a money-controlled press is that they would never stand for such wholesale blocking of information flow.
Virg
I am a overseas student in US from China now. And I experienced the censorship of China the days in my country. And I can not log on www.washingtonpost.com etc. from Beijing. I really do not think this is a good thing. however, what we have to know is that China is changing. And it is better, more open, more dermostic every day.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
While this sounds great, it glosses over the hard part.
Alice and Bob need a shared secret, and they need some way to transmit that secret from Alice to Bob (or vice versa) without it being intercepted. If the secret is compromised, it is trivial to determine who said what.
So assuming that the government is monitoring all communications, in the absence of some out-of-band means of secure communication, Alice and Bob are still going to jail. It will be easy to determine who was responsible for the actual message, and the other party(ies) will likely be persecuted for attempting to facilitate the comunication.
The link you posted claims that the secret would be exchanged via the usual public key cryptographic means, but I am not sure that the average Chinese citizen can vouch for the security of his or her private keys. (Can most people?)
It's a great concept, but it seems like it would only be useful if there were outside participants (i.e. people who would never give their private keys up to the government). For intra-China communication, I wouldn't bet my life on it, unless what I had to say was important enough to me to risk the consequences of being caught saying it. Furthermore, I think the likelihood that the government might seed the network with cheater nodes that disclose their secrets is high.
The corporate officers at Cisco and Yahoo responsible for this abomination should be charged with crimes against humanity, brought to the Hague, and sentenced to death.
In the unlikely event that freedom wins the war for the Internet, perhaps there will be a Nuremburg trial for the people who, while enjoying the benefits of Western democracy, sell the Zyklon-B used to choke freedom from the Internet in oppressed nations.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
"Echelon is the most effective internet censor network in the world."
How is Echelon an internet *censor*? Maybe, as you say, it reads everything (although I doubt it), but that's an invasion of privacy, not censorship.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
Does anyone else find it ironic that the one company that didn't suck up to the Chinese was Microsoft?
-- Hobbits suck!
I would not call the basic internet access a 'right'. However, the suppression of other freedoms, like free-speech, is the real issue. Is free speech a human right? I would think so. The Internet, like newspapers, books, magazines, are mediums used to transmit speech. Censoring the Internet is like censoring newspapers, or banning books, and the like. Therefore, they are taking away a method of free speech. My $0.02. RWX
Coderz 4 Life
Cisco and Yahoo seem to think there is nothing wrong with the People's govt of China.
And what is wrong with this?
Imagine you own a gun store. Someone comes in and tells you "I want to buy a gun so I can shoot my wife and daughter."
No, you may thing there's nothing wrong with shooting wives and daughters. But that doesn't change the fact that if you sell this person a gun, you've done something immoral, unethical, and evil.
Cisco has chosen to help a totalitarian government which does things like lock people in jail for distributing Bibles and crush student protests under the treads of tanks. Cisco has chosen to help that government censor and control the flow of information.
How can you honestly not understand what's wrong with that?
"It's a sign of respect that someone sends you an electric business card. It means he wants you as a customer," said Zhao Peng, owner of a computer store in Hong Kong.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Whether a true quote or not, I have always seen the point of the quote being that Capitalists do not generally help each other, or help the cause of freedom. The quote is a warning that we need to think beyond "it's just business" or "it's not my business what they do with it." How does it help the cause of freedom if Cisco, or any other business in a democracy, is willing to provide the means of repression?
:-) As (I think) Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately."
Okay, I'll stick my neck out on another possible misquote.
>Yeh, protesters staring down tanks make for great photos and propaganda -- outside of china -- But it won't do shit inside.
:)
Yeah, but as long as the rest of the world knows that China is an opressive place, that's great in and of itself.
4 billion out of 5 billion ain't bad.
>If the protesters would have waited, and moved for slow reforms rather then 'revolution' China might be a free society now.
If Americans (for example) had done the same, do you think America would be as free as it is today?
Revolution needs to be swift, IMHO. Slow revolutions rarely happen... (well, as far as I can see, every government that has been thrown over in modern history had it happen pretty quickly, or it happened with a lot of bloodshed).
>Yeh, democracy is nice, but there was no pressing need to have a revolution at the time.
Any country that kills protestors with tanks has a pressing need for more freedom. I really don't care if its in the form of democracy or not, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to go out on the street and shout out your opinions (barring doing it at 3:00 am and waking up everyone
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
"It is every free person's duty to help the Chinese people and NOT the Chinese government. By supplying the country (and thereby the ruling government) with money, the West is not helping the people."
:) ), but not all countries that have such liberal speech laws also have that kind of manufacturing capability.
I don't disagree with this or your opinion that what Cisco and Yahoo are doing are bad. However what you're asking for is a form of interventionism. By choosing whether or not to do business with a country for non-business reasons is an effort to try to have an effect in the internal politics of that country and how it governs itself. While interpersonal intervention has been agreed upon and codified about as far back as Hamurabi, international intervention is not.
What if we turned the tables? What if some printer manufacturer in Hong Kong decided to agree with their government on speech limitations? And what if they looked at the US and saw how such hate groups as the KKK have the ability to say such horrible things about other people and get away with it? They might decide not to sell printers in the US because the US can't and won't guarantee those printers won't be used to print things they don't think should be printed. Sure, the US probably wouldn't miss the printers (as we could probably make our own
While I feel that what China is doing to its own people is wrong, I also know that people who would try to change our trade policy because of that opinion would play right into Beijing's cries of US hegemony. And I'm also personally frightened by the idea of "Pax Americana" (if for no other reason than our reluctance and ineptitude at dominating the world).
And what if Cisco and Yahoo decided not to play along with China? Beijing may not be able to set up the firewall they feel they need on their own, and they could very well blame these two companies for their own inability to allow internet access (much like how Baghdad blames the US for their inability to feed their own people). And those who support the decision would be seen as preventing the majority of Chinese from having any internet access (and the justification would likely be ignored).
Really, when you consider it, being hard on Beijing forces Beijing to be harder on the Chinese people. While Beijing may or may not be working towards peaceful change, it is true that the only other alternative is a bloody civil war/revolution (the name depends on who wins).
To be honest I don't think this was a particularly easy decision for either Cisco or Yahoo. Consider Cisco's entire existance relies on the free and unhindered flow of information, economically as well as philosophically (after all, if there are fewer internet sites to visit then there's no need to invest in the faster and more expensive routers). And also remember that this is the Yahoo that's thumbed their nose at Paris over auctions of Nazi memorabilia. They've decided to wash their hands of the cluster-fuck that is China (damned if they do, damned if they don't) and, while we may not agree with the decision, you can't really blame them for not wanting to indirectly start a war by not letting Beijing have what they want.
The only real solution to this is to codify intervention and standardize enforcement instead of requiring everybody to go through moral hand-wringing each and every time the situation comes up. And that's easier said than done when you also want to protect national sovereignty.
The difference between India and China is that Indians have a democracy with which to make their decisions between food and freedom. So far they aren't exactly forsaking either.
The Chinese have no chance to even make the choice. I don't mind if they prefer food, but I don't think we can say what's better for them based on what we think they would prefer. They have a right to self-determination, and if they choose to exercise it towards food rather than freedom, that's OK with me. But so far the exercise of this right has been throttled.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Aren't you implicitly admitting that chinese government is somewhat like U.S. one?
There were no "secrets' to the atomic bomb. The physics were well understood in the thirties. The mechanism to ignite fission was pure engineering. The only thing remotely secret was the method to refine the uranium, which was solved three ways. But any decent engineer could have come up with a solution.
The design of the H-bomb was also pretty straightforward. Fission ignites dueterium/tritium, bomb goes boom.
For fifty five years, the myth of the Secrets has been bandied around. Hell, a few years ago, some poor schmuch at Los Alamos was put into solitary for revealing "secrets" of our nuclear research, and also for being suspiciously Chinese-American. It was a complete crock. There were no secrets, he wasn't a spy, and it was all politically motivated, pretty much as it was in the Fifties.
Hrm. Actualy, it isn't confirmed that they killed anyone with tanks. Basicaly what they did was give everyone several minutes to leave (there were about 30 'full time' hunger strikers living on the square) And then they tanked over the tents and infrestructure. Anyone still there would have died, but, they had plenty of time to get up and go... and (if they were hunger striking anyway)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
We live in a capitalist society, and in a capitalist society money controls everything. That's good, because money doesn't discriminate, and if we want to make a change, all we have to do is with-hold our money.
So you think that money doesn't discriminate? If I've no money, there are no discrimination?
Or when a big corporation with a lot of money goes against someone who have a lot less money, no discrimination there too?
I believe that people's freedoms should stop when they begin to infringe on other people's freedoms.
In this case, Cisco and Yahoo's "freedom" to do business with China is taking away 1 billion other people's freedom to read cnn's website.
Like I said in another post -- it might not be illegal, but it's definitely immoral, at least by my standards.
Since Sept.11, I've been waiting for the rise of paranoid isolationism in the USA. Thankfully, yours is a lone voice in the public discourse.
Let us look at hard historical facts when we're talking about Imperialism.
For the past 300 years, China has been content to rule in the eastern corner of Asia. You might quibble about border disputes and annexation of tiny borders states. But by and large they have NOT been expansionsist.
This is in clear contrast to the romp of the European colonialists throughout the globe this same period. Now let's look around today. What country has military bases in almost all continents in the world? What country has the overwhelming ability to destroy all civilization on the planet? It is not China.
Let's be realistic here. We live in the age of Pax Americana. With the collapse of the USSR and Japan's economy in a slump, the next potential economic competitor for the USA is China! ( China is no where near a competitor in the military realm. ) So it is little wonder that some American feel China to be the next threat.
I find it indeed ironic that the champion of the free trade and free market system would be concerned about a new competitor who's just joining the game he set up in the first place.
Even if one agrees with your premise that money controls everything in a capitalist society, what makes you think withholding your purchase will have any effects?
Remember that there are business interests with much more money than you who can influence people's views and spending habits. They will have a much larger voice than you do.
Consider how withholding you money might stop a Pentagon who decides to plant false news items in the US (see NYT article 2/19) ? Are you going to stop paying taxes?
In other words, even in capitalism, there are extant social, legal, and politcal frameworks which conditions the choices that a nation makes. If you want your voice to be heard, you'd better get involved with a community, get involved with political actions.
China could learn a lot about effective censorship from the U.S.! America has its own form of censorship that operates without threats or legal constraints, yet is very powerful, I think.
For the last half-century at least, American press and public have remained free to air "mainstream" views all they wish.
Mainstream views also include direct disagreement with mainstream views, which allows for an apparent "freedom" to disagree.
But many other views exist, which may step back from the whole argument and try to see a larger pattern. No I'm not espousing any particular one of these. They often include conspiracy theories, right-wing militant anti-govt. theories, etc., and I'm not a nutcase.
But I think there's an interesting tacit agreement in place among the mainstream press not to give any airtime to anything flaky or paranoid, even if it seems like it might be right. If they do mention these ideas, it's always a single incident, quickly forgotten among the sensationalist news that nobody disagrees on. Misdirection and distraction.
You're looking for an example, right? Ok, but you won't like it. That's part of the process.
If, in the future, hypothetically, the president of the U.S. were to, say, have someone killed to protect his own reputation, and the circumstances surrounding that death were suspicious, what would happen?
Assuming that there was no obvious evidence connecting the president to the victim, the press would, I assume, all report the official story and forget about it.
Anyone using a public forum like the internet to suggest that the official story seemed fishy would be humored but considered paranoid, and ignored. The "independent press" might print something, the "mainstream press" would not, and people would be grateful for not having to think.
That's how Americans censor themselves. Just ask Ex-Enron exec Clifford Baxter.
I'm not saying this is true, but it's a nice example of self-censorship that nobody else has read articles like this... If it has even a 10% chance of being true, a truly free press would, I think, be pursuing it. But they won't.
Steve
Sure you can stand on the soap box and shout your lungs off but how likely are you to do this. You are not going to reach all that many people and whoever does hear you is hardly going to give a flying f*ck about what some nutcase on a soapbox is saying.
The information that average American pleb receives and bases their opinions on is controlled by mass media corporations which are controlled by a handfull of people. Government/mass media/military establishment manages public opinion in USA as much as it does in China, and any other country, except by slightly different means:
Thing happens in real world that is undesirable for average citizen to read about.
China: Jail/Shoot anybody who publishes it
USA: Don't publish, deny, cover up, put a favorable spin on it, fill the airtime with garbage non-news and relegate a softened version of it to back pages, discredit and ridicule the publisher
Different tactics for different circumstances.
Just look at the international news on CNN, from wars in Balkans, through coverage of Israels occupation of Palestine through patriotic hysteria of the current war(s). The purpose is to maintain public support for aggression of US foreign policy and of its allies.
For all those ranting about how great freedom and democracy are in America I have a big orange bridge here in San Francisco on sale, going cheap
It's common knowledge that anyone can get through the firewall, and now it has been posted on Slashdot. Its just that warm and fuzzy feeling spreading all over the place.
In reality, I'd imagine the block is effective in what they want it to do, make a show of power, assert some control, and deter the average user from accessing content they don't want that user to see. If someone is determined, they will see it, but if someone goes casually looking, they may be blocked, and regardless, people know the wall is there. How much press has this wall gotten China internationally, at least here in the US?
Really, what would be more ingenious than to throw together a few broken censorware blocks and call it The Great Firewall of China inspiring renewed respect for the government. The power it must take to control the viewing ability of a country that size!
As for Cisco and Yahoo, everyone is chomping at the bit because the big names snagged a big contract, instead of some smaller names who could of grown with something this size. Needless to say, it would of happened with or without Cisco or Yahoo and claiming moral superiority is something I wouldn't want to jump at, being a human being with moral defects of my own.
The Australian government's Department of Foreign Affairs website was blocked in China sometime in 1997. The story goes that the Australian Embassy in Beijing made repeated requests for the block to be lifted only to be told that it was the result of a "technical problem" and not deliberate blocking by the Chinese government. Finally in mid-2001, a representative of the Chinese government, based in either Canberra or Sydney, was called in to provide an explanation as to why the "technical problem" had not been resolved after some four years. Within hours of the meeting (I understand that it was 2-3 hours) the website was available for viewing in China. Having lived in China for a while now, I find that it is not the fact that some international news sources are blocked, but that the only source of Chinese language news comes from official sources. It is illegal, and rigorously monitored, to publish 'news' in China that does not originate from the official Xinhua News Agency (or one of its sister publications). This means that Chinese readers get the sort of view of China that an American would get if they only watched CNN.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
The author of the article states:
"The only practical solution to this puzzle is for the Bush administration to make Internet freedom in China a high priority".
That's just plain naive. All the Chinese people I know would take that as just another example of American arrogance. It's strange, the author sounds like he's never been to China... maybe he just never got out enough.
How about before making Internet freedom a priority in China, we try making it a priority in the US? Any one ever heard of the DMCA?...
golem1024
can't we all just get along?
yes.
why don't we?
...well?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Oversaturated pictures of people laying on the street!
That really doesn't seem like much evidence of a massacre to me, the only blood was on the pavement... and most of those people don't look like they were run over by tanks.
Photos without much context on a fundamentalist Christian website don't mean anything. How many people do you think died there? What resources do you have to back yourself up?
Revolutions can happen quickly, but you should make sure that you are actually strong enough to carry them out. Scaring the government shitless is not a good way to improve your freedom unless you can actually take them over. And winning sympathizers on the outside who don't fully understand the situation isn't going to help you if 90% of the population supports the government. And I can assure you that "four billion" people don't consider the Chinese government evil, the vast majority of people probably don't care.
And was what happened in Tiananmen really that worse then what happened in Seattle or Genoa, committed by capitalists?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I strongly believe anyone in the world is entitled to whatever they wish to purchase/aquire through legal means to benifit their cause (asside from weapons, which no one should have but hey, it's not a perfect world). A problem arrises when their CAUSE is one which is hurtful or degrading to humanity as a whole. Think of cisco, a nice fat chinese contract for the "great firewall" as it has been dubbed, yadda yadda yadda...
I'm sure china didn't send a list of "Sites that will be banned using your product to make life here isolated and controled". As well as I'm sure China has blocked things that really shouldn't be seen, like child pornography. But, they also blocked things that could be threatening to them, such as free speech sites and outside views on how their government conducts itself.
Is this banning of "threatening" materials a legit move by the Chinese government? No, by OUR standards. Are they isolating their own people from the absolute truth? CERTAINLY.
But, did Cisco have prior knowledge as to the injustice that was to occur? No, I seriously doubt it. What you do with a firewall/router/switch/whatever is what YOU do. The manufacturer cannot be blamed for a defect in the consumer, only the product. Cisco does not create facist governments, merely equipment.
And as for the comparison to Al Qaeda, they are obviously not out for anyone's good. China cares SOMEWHAT about their people, because they seem to be having at least some success (albeit under ridiculous amounts of control) with their country. All Al-Qaeda did was teach some nomads what guns are and that "Americans are bad". China can do things much more useful to humanity and that is why, even dispite the tension bewteen the US and China, we have more respect for them than the likes of Al-Qaeda. I'm sure Cisco wouldn't strike up a deal with a government they thought would use the equipment entirely for "evil", which China is certanly not (entirely).
As for banning Cisco, I misunderstood the intent of your original post and again for that I aplolgize. In this case. however, I am unsure they are worthy of the title "hypocrites"...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Ever hear of carnivore? The only difference is that the Chinese admit they eavesdrop and monitor internet activity. Which is better; monitored internet or spy internet? Why did those terrorists encrypt their e-mails? If they didn't they would have been found out, and not because they were under surveillance, if they had been, things would have turned out a whole lot differently. Before pointing fingers take a look around and think about what you see, not what you're fed.
hey who stole my nic?!?
Who are you to tell me what I can expect of those I do business with? If I tell you I'm only going to buy your widgets if you dress up like a leprechaun, you damn well better be wearing green knickers and shoes with buckles next time I see you if you want to make the sale. I see you've defined capitalism and democracy nicely, but you seem to have forgotten that these ideas only apply to human societies. In a human society, such as we have here, we can influence each others behavior with a wide variety of subtle and not-so-subtle pressures, of which the law and the dollar are but two. For instance, if I see a tobacco company executive or a tobacco farmer on the street, I won't hesitate to let that person know what a worthless, parasitical waste of flesh that person is. I'd defend their right to grow and sell tobacco, but I'd think that they're scum for doing it.
And so we have the method to fight Cisco and Yahoo and everyone's favorite Evil Empire, Microsoft: Boycott. Make it socially unacceptable to buy products from anyone who has dealings with the enemy (any country that restricts free expression) and the problem will disappear of its own accord. It will disappear without our government mimicing China's by regulating foreign trade, and that is the best victory.
Don't think boycott can work? Montgomery, Alabama (Hell, it's Black History Month!) in the 1960s saw an effective form of boycott and the busses hurt. The busses really hurt. Blacks could soon sit wherever they wanted to. India, 1940s, saw another boycott, this one on goods from a real Evil Empire: Great Britain. Gandhi's followers made salt in the sun to avoid paying British companies to support British domination. They had a homespun revolution.
The software industry is fiercely competitive even today. Nobody can claim a lock on anything, no matter how much the DoJ wants to pretend. A boycott would be insanely effective.
How can you use my intestines as a gift? -Actual Hong Kong subtitle.
Doesn't a society that allows this statement to go unquestioned, never mind be a mainstream viewpoint, strike anyone as strange?
:)
You must be new around here.
Governments (like Chinese govt, Bush administration) are evil because they suppress civil rights. Corporations (like Microsoft) are evil because they manipulate innocent citizens to take their money and bribe the governments. The world should be anarchy/libertarian where techies rule in a gift culture, governed by Linus Torvalds and protected by GNU and its free (as in speech, not as in beer) software.
At least, that's what they tell me on Slashdot.
Why not? Why is his decision to help opress people above criticism. If he was ignorant, or they had a gun to his wife and kids heads maybe your argument would have some merit. But paying off college debt? Come one!
Cisco is a common carrier. They don't oppress the Chinese people any more than Napster shares MP3s -- either both are responsible for what their customers do with the equipment (or software) they sell, or neither is.
Personally, I don't want my business to have to be involved in policing our customers. We make sure our own actions are morally correct; the morals of others aren't our responsibility (and the thought that they are is what leads to such things as the Christian Coalition trying to keep same-sex marriage illegal).