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How Chinese Evade Government's Web Controls
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "China is moving to 'centralize all China-based Web news and opinion under a state regulator,' the Wall Street Journal reports, but determined citizens have found a way out of previous restrictions in what has become a cat-and-mouse game: 'Many Chinese Internet users, dismissing what they call government scare tactics, find ways around censorship. The government requires users of cybercafs to register with their state-issued ID cards on each visit, but some users avoid cybercaf registration by paying off owners. In response, the government has installed video cameras in some cafs and shut others. ... While certain words such as "democracy" are banned in online chat rooms, China's Web users sometimes transmit sensitive information as images, or simply speak in code, inserting special characters such as underscoring into typing.' Also noteworthy is that major portals seem to be cooperating with authorities' restrictions: 'Insiders who work for the big portal sites say they are already in regular contact with authorities about forbidden topics, such as the outlawed Falun Gong religious group, which their teams of Web editors pull off bulletin boards.'"
I hope they are using something like TOR(http://tor.eff.org/) so that they can effectively browse how and when they want.
Not only is this not funny, it's wrong. The Chinese have no problem pronouncing the letter 'L'. LAO Tze, Bruce LI, etc.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
You mean the "arrest" that was foretold with a E-Mail for the press to attend and watch
n dex.php
t ails_pop.aspx?iid=55773165&cdi=0
the arrest?
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/130422/i
And also included these fine heifers?
http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/de
I recently spent a month in China with my wife who is Chinese.
From what we gather from locals (city dwellers) the average income is about 1000 yuan per month. Which is about $125 US.
Food is really cheap in China; but things like clothes have huge variants in pricing. Like a Golf type shirt for example can be found in a street shop for as low as 40 yuan (app. 5$ US). In the mall the golf shirts range from the sale rack 600 yuan on up to 1100yuan. I'd estimate 750 yuan median though. Still that's nearly $100 US. I'm not talking about one of the upitee malls either. Just the Kaiyuan (sp?) mall in the center of Xi'an. Electronics seem to cost a good deal more than in US.
Of the middle class people that I visited, they all seemed to have at least one TV.
I guess my point is that things are better than you might think in some ways in China and worse than you might think in other ways.
Chinese like to remind me too often that my country only has 200 years history.
Eventually I got annoyed by this and said "What are you talking about? Your country has only been around for about 50yrs? (people's republic of china)"
Let's see what else...
Political conversations came up frequently during my trip. From what I gathered from the people I talked to, China seems to be moving further away from communist ideals and towards that of capitalism. This kind of news discourages me though.
I heard people say openly that the rule #1 of the classroom rules for elementry schools should be changed to have the Communist Party part removed. It says something like "I will love my country and the communist party.".
The people didn't seem scared to talk about it at all.
It was a month trip. I have lots to tell, but I'll stop there.
All except Cindy Sheehan, who was arrested for protesting in Washington yesterday.
YM "wanted to be arrested" HTH.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
One philosphical thought I had that may not have been covered in the 19th century western thinking (because its an Eastern concept) is the fact that in a competitive market, what helps the perceived interest of one entity will often harm the perceived interest of another. Help and harm here being entirely subjective, unless you apply the crude metric of next quarter's short-term profits.
If we accept the fact that any action or communication with potency will help some and harm others, then forbid harmful communication, we have to forbid all communication that has any potency or effect of any kind.
What are you talking about?
Reference on unemployment.
We may not be the best, but were pretty well off. And of those impoverished people in New Orleans, how many of them didn't have a cell phone? How many didn't have a TV? I will agree that they may not have had the financial resources to flee the area, but that doesn't mean they lived in a box. We are not discussing the same thing. Get off the scemantics. Illiteracy and innumeracy are problems, but lots of people who are afflicted with those issues still have freaking cell phones. It's a matter of priorities.
Yeah...Sheehan found that out today.
No permit, asked to move 3 times. Publicity stunt. Notice the within reason part? Across the street would have been completely acceptable.
No...to many of you believe FOX and your president.
You're an idiot, you just disagreed with someone who agrees with you. Quit with the knee jerk reaction and think. We are too busy stuffing our faces. Check it out.
Here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US, we recently had a law passed prohibiting the purchase of products containing pseudoephedrine without forking over personal information into a log book every time, and verifying that information with your government-issued identification.
I went down to the store yesterday with itchy eyes and a runny nose, looking to get some allergy medication. I went to the counter where the medications are locked up, and forked over my ID then signing the log book. I asked a lawyer friend about it later on: Are my medical issues supposed to be public record? After all, it is illegal for any government employee to ask what illness/disorder an individual with a handicapped parking permit suffers from.
My lawyer friend explained to me that the government here had passed laws similar to that quoted above. If it is in the city's best interest to keep a log book of all people who suffer allergies, then it's perfectly legal, despite the violation of my constitutional rights.
We need to make some big changes to the way the law works in this country. Since when is it okay to violate constitutional rights for the government's best interest?
What the hell's a "gewie?"
I just haven't heard of anyone's rights being limited. I still see war protests happening. I still see people speaking freely about whatever political views they have. ... I still see people getting due process
... the ignored pleas of a woman whose handcuffs were on way too tight. You could see that it was cutting off her circulation but the pleasant cops didn't let that detract them from their job.
I think I got all of those covered right here:
http://www.2600.com/rnc2004/
Read the whole thing, and you'll see:
The march was then diverted onto 16th Street.....
At the intersection of 16th and Irving Place, I saw what the police had done. They had cleverly parked all of their Vespas across the street so that nobody could get by. Of course, a rampaging mob would have had no trouble at all tossing those little Italian scooters to the ground and continuing on their way. But this was a slow moving, orderly procession. They simply turned around and started to head back towards the park. That's when the realization of what had just happened hit. The road had been blocked on both ends. Everyone was now trapped.
I think trapping people and not letting them go is a Violation of their Right to Peacably Assemble.
I heard a cop nearby saying that press could leave. I decided to go for it. "Back in," he growled before I could even show him any press ID. "You're not press," he said conclusively. I wondered what gave it away - the recorder, the video camera, maybe the hair? I had all kinds of witty retorts in mind but I chose instead to go to someone who seemed a little less pissed off with the world. I said I was with the press and he asked who I worked for. I told him: WBAI and Indymedia, both of which I had identification from. "Do you have an NYPD press card?" he asked. "No," I said, incredulously. NYPD press cards are only given to corporate media types, full time reporters who have beats and retirement plans. You also have to have a proven need to get behind police lines, which I didn't have any interest in doing. And what I was covering here wasn't even behind a police line. It was in the middle of a police circle. "Sorry," he said. I was apparently out of luck because I wasn't a full time, paid reporter at a big media outlet. Since I was a part time volunteer with a non commercial station who could never qualify for that magic NYPD card, I was now going to be treated as a criminal.
Denying the Freedom of the Press.
As my tape ran out in the remaining half hour or so of sitting on the street, I was able to capture
Cruel and Unusual Punishment?
As for "Due Process", check out the part where the cops hold them for over 33 hours before releasing them, a clear violation of the law, which says they can only hold you for 24 hours.
I'll leave off with a quote from the article:
I'm not one of these people who believe we live in a fascist regime. I think that's an insult to the many millions who have suffered under true oppression and horrors that we can only imagine. That said, the technology and mindset that I was witnessing being implemented all around us would be such an asset to any society where freedom was the enemy.
All except Cindy Sheehan, who was arrested for protesting in Washington yesterday.
Bullshit. She was arrested for sitting down on the sidewalk, knowing full well that in DC, picketers have to keep moving. That applies to all protestors, right or left.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
we save nothing (1%) and lose rights
The fact that Americans save only 1% of their incomes is not entirely indicative of an unwillingness to save, but rather it is more often the result of a system that is designed to reward the spender and punish the saver. The tax laws and fiscal policies of this nation make saving relatively unattractive for even the most determined savers among us, who wants to save their money at 3% when you could get employee pricing and no interest financing on your big screen HDTV for the next year? The fed turned on the money spigot full force after 2001 and is only now beginning to roll it back with modest interest rate hikes. The problem is that every time the interest rates increase, which helps savers, all of the spenders scream that they cannot afford their finance charges, mortgage payments, and the fed eases off the rate hikes for political reasons. The US economy now is mostly geared towards enabling consumer spending (what do we actually produce anymore anyway?) to achieve growth and as long is that is the case saving will be a tough haul in this country (BTW. The currency manipulators of the world..ehhmm CHINA ehmmm...are not helping matters).
The official U.S. unemployment number is NOT the number of people collecting unemployment benefits, it is the result of a survey called "the household survey" that involves tens of thousands of telephone interviews per month. This measures the number of people who are looking for work but who cannot find a job. Because it rigorously surveys the actual populace, it is considered an accurate measure of unemployment, and is the official measure in the U.S.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.