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China Locks in its Net-Citizenry

Posted by timothy on from the welcome-to-china dept.

DatedNews writes "China's registry CNNIC teamed up in March with registar i-DNS.net to provide "Internet domains completely in Chinese characters" to the Greater Chinese Internet community. What at first might look like a localization issue could potentially become a powerfull user lock-in and turn out to be a very effective addition to The Great Chinese Filtering."

3 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. tempest in a teapot by fliptout · · Score: 5, Informative

    I read tfa and saw nothing about locking in the chinese netizens.

    Look, English literacy is on the rise in China in a major way. With all the influx of foreign investments and foreigners into china, the chinese people are having more contact than ever with the western world. Filtering out everything but chinese characters, while a technical possibility, is simple improbable.

    I lived in china a few months last year, and I'm going back for the long haul soon- from what I have seen, the young, college educated Chinese like their access to information, albeit san porn, Taiwan, etc. To restrict their information flow even more would cause an outcry.

    --
    A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
  2. Re:Will this affect IPv9? by jerometremblay · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, because IP and DNS are not on the same network layer. IP is part of the Network Layer (3), while DNS is part of the Application Layer (7).

    A lower layer does not care about what's going on in an higher layer.

  3. Just tried to register a domain... by L0stb0Y · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ok, speaking pretty good Chinese, and for an experiment I just went through the process of registering a domain with these guys-

    Interesting things about the process:

    When you are registering, they state that the Chinese government has 30 days to reject your domain...maybe to keep domains they don't like the sound of from going live...

    They force you to a min of 2 years, and the cost is $125.00 - when you register a domain, they give you the domain plus the domain.cn as well (they call it a 'free gift')-

    After you register a domain they tell you that you have to install their software for your browser (no Mozilla, only IE)- With the plugin installed your new domain won't crap out when you type in characters (either GB or BIG5)-

    I'll post an update in my /. journal of the process - what happens, etc....

    Should be interesting at the very least to see what happens with this...

    --
    "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."