China Plans Surveillance System for Internet Cafes

nasty writes "According to Interfax China, China will install a special surveillance system in order to prevent 'unhealthy information and websites'. All internet cafes in China will have installed the new system by the end of 2004. This according to China's Ministry of Culture (MOC). The system requires the customers personal information, such as name, age, and their national citizen identification number, before they are allowed to log onto the Internet." Reader Dr.Hair submits another blurb about the system.

Comments

Eventual failure

[rbanzai]

No matter what they try to do they will eventually fail to contain the information they are frightened of.

Re:Eventual failure

[blamblamblam]

I don't think policy makers in China actually believe they can fully contain the spread of information. But what they can do is limit how quickly news and ideas get around as a way of putting the brakes on potentially disruptive issues. And so you're right in one sense--they can't contain it absolutely. You've got a billion people with radios and TVs and internet and the ability to fly in and out of the country, so strictly speaking it's impossible to limit what specific individuals can and can't know. But in terms of bogging down the spread of information and keeping a handle on the party line, it seems like they've actually been pretty successful. I think their grip on the primary media is pretty firm and insitutionally grounded, and I'm not sure how far grassroots activism or technical wizardry can go to circumvent that.

Re:Eventual failure

[ninti]

I set up an encrypted proxy for my father who is working in U.A.E., so he could get around their national firewall. After he used it once, they found it and banned my IP in less than a day. The belief that no censorship can work on the Internet is a common one here, but basically a wrong one.

Re:Eventual failure

[YankeeInExile]

I am somewhat amazed to see how little /. readers can full comprehend the world outside of first world, mostly-free countries

This should be a wake-up call to the "chilling effect" of government intervention. It is not necessary to have a 100% effective technological solution against the dissemination of "unhealthy" information.

As long as they can keep on top of the "troublemakers" when they are few and far between, and make them "disappear", the deterrent effect will be strong enough to keep others from even trying to evade their control.

The Chinese government is not the RIAA. They don't mail you a friendly summons to a lawsuit. They drag you out in the dead of night for "re-education" or a date with a firing squad.

Human Rights / Trade Agreements

[normal_guy]

I'm stumped as to why we're so eager to deregulate trade with China when such basic human rights as "Freedom to Worship" and "Freedom of Speech" are suppressed.

Perhaps an anonymous proxy could be set up and funded by the US, as it has in Iran.

Re:Human Rights / Trade Agreements

[grub]

Because business dictates foreign policy.

Consider that China has far worse human rights violations than Cuba yet Cuba suffers through US embargos while diplomats fly to China to kiss ass for trade favours.

Censorship will drive...

[Chalybeous]

... innovation.
It seems that a lot of people around the globe have worked hard to design proxies that get around existing systems which governments use to restrict their citizens' access to information on the internet.
IMHO, this new piece of software will just lead to a new breed of web proxy, and until China either cuts off net use entirely or has a massive change in government policy, it's going to be a continuation of the government vs. infolibertarian game of "build the better mousetrap". Just now, instead of bypassing and improving filters, it'll be about tracking and masking data...

Impersonation

[mariox19]

Name, age, and national ID number?! Unless they have some kind of picture ID with a magnetic strip on the back which has to be inserted into a computer, after the photo has been checked by an official, how are they going to keep people who have somehow gotten hold of someone else's name, age, and ID number, from using that information when they log on?

Pity the poor bastard who has to explain to the chinese authorities that it wasn't he who was reading Slashdot at the local cafe, but an impostor.

Internet is a privliage privilege, not a right

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how us westerners get all uptight about China choice to sensor information from their population. Would you be shocked to discover that in the UK, you could get in big trouble trying to import comic books due to their laws on graphic violence. It is really so shocking that China considers some content on the net to be unacceptable?

While I'm not for censorship, is it really that shocking that a country with over 2 billion people is taking it upon it selfs to censor incomming information in the same way other countries have done with physical media for years?

Travelling Employees

[WwWonka]

Recently one of our finacial analysts went to China to report on an upcoming Chinese company that our company was looking to institutionally invest in.

Our super-prima-donna-annoying-user employee put in about thrity help desk requests due to not being able to email, surf the web, or VPN from her hotel room in China. We had to explain to her about the Communist's "Great Firewall of China" and how they block/inspect/proxy damn near everything.

So believe it or not this story is more of a suprise that this type of "surveillance" is NOT already in place.

S.E.P

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody Elses Problem, frankly.

I've been to China many times, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and HongKong (before and after it was given back)

I must say that for the most part they do things just like we do.
I mean, you can get a bottle of Corona at the bars in Beijing (except they put lemon it in rather that lime) you get can a big mac, kentucky fried chicking and starbucks.

One poster mentioned that people are conditioned to believe what they are told, I think this is a valid observation. I once was driven around by a girl from the office in Beijing, she took me to a bunch of government owned jade shops, in government owned taxi cabs. When I asked about the private owned cabs and jade shops, she told me bluntly that since they are not owned by the government they were lower quality.

This raised my eyebrows, as you can just can't equate a quality product with government.

The hotels mostly have internet access, high speed. There is a little note next to the hook up that warns you to be careful surfing the web and to stay away from material considered harmful by the goverment.

How would I fix it ?
I'm not sure anything is wrong. Actually, here in the US our websites are routinely blocked by agencies that are not even govermental (see Google, search pages removed due to DMCA requests).

I'm more worried that as a China Citizen you cannot leave the country (or go near the borders) without special permission. Everywhere you look there are little government officials in uniform asking questions. For the most part I ignore them, they generally leave foriengners well alone, but my buddies at the local office treat them as a layer of red tape.

One guy wanted to photocopy my passport, no way Jose ! And if you think that rustly ol' 38 scares me, let me tell you that this is not the first time someone pointed a gun at me. I was in india once and .... well, that's a different story.

Re:Already monitored

[Anonymous Coward]

China-bashing is the norm here on Slashdot; but is making up anti-China hysteria urban legend also the norm on /.?

The "story" of your friend is totally made up. Any body who are acutally faimilar with the structure of police in China will easily see through your bullshit.

Police force is divided into several tiers. Traffic cops, patrol cops, criminal cops, armed police. Traffic cops and patrol cops are not armed. Criminal cops have only pistols. Armed police have Type-81 rifle, which is not AK47.

To use Armed Police force for arrest, the city/county police department must file request to the Military Region; which composes of several provinces. The Armed Police is under control of Central Military Committee, NOT under the local civilian government.

When you exaggerate, you missed the little details. I assume that if the policemen are brutal, they would NOT have got into your friend's room without waking him up in the first place when banging on the door?

I have no problem with dictatorship bashing. But when you make up stories to prove your point, than how different are you from the propaganda department of China?

Re:Having lived there.

[aussersterne]

My Chinese father has lived in the west for decades; this hasn't changed his opinions about authority and respect. I can attest to the fact that Chinese culture is a patriarchal culture of not questioning.

There are clear lines of authority in Chinese culture, and to attempt to question these is to dishonor not your family (perhaps by extension), not your nation, but yourself.

There is nothing more shameful in Chinese culture than questioning the wisdom of elders. Elders are not only generational (i.e. grandfather -> father -> son) but also hierarchical (national government -> local government -> individual). To question authority is to show that you have no regard for your family, your citizenship, your fellow man... it is to show, in some sense, that you are a kind of sociopath.

Even in the west, even disagreeing with government policies in democratic nations, my father feels that it is embarrassing and dishonorable to complain too loudly about what government does, because government is, after all, government--the embodiment of the collective. Activism, for him, is certainly sociopathic behavior of the most base kind, disrespectful to fellow citizens.