Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo! Allegedly Helps Beijing Arrest a Third Reporter
reporter writes "According to a damning press release from Reporters without Borders, Yahoo has
helped Beijing to locate, arrest, and imprison a 3rd reporter.
This latest incident occurs about 2 months after Yahoo testified,
under oath in front of Congress, that the company regrets being
'forced' to help Beijing." From the article: "'We hope this Internet giant will not, as it has each time it has been challenged previously, hide behind its local partner, Alibaba, to justify its behaviour. Whatever contract it has with this partner, the email service is marketed as Yahoo !' the organisation said. According to the verdict, Yahoo! Holdings (Hong Kong) confirmed that the email account ZYMZd2002 had been used jointly by Jiang Lijun and another pro-democracy activist, Li Yibing."
Because these 'safeguards' will work both ways. They protect you but they also identify you by your access information (and worse) machine IP address stored in server logs. "Federal Regulations" here in the states means your identity should be protected (but we've all seen that start to ebb) while in China it probably means just the opposite. There, the government is a government 'of the people' which means it has a right to all information and property of the people. Without arguing against too much Marx & Engels here, I'm just going to say that it's not aligned too closely with my beliefs of a government's limitations.
As Reporters without Borders states, the solution is obvious: move your servers to a country where "federal regulations" protects rather than ousts the end user. Yes, it's going to be slightly more expensive for Yahoo to host it out of the United States and there will be more network load for the internet. This would most certainly be a slap in the face to the Chinese government, however. Not as bad as moving the servers to Taiwan but still bad. I think that we should all watch this quite closely. If Yahoo moves the servers, then they are concerned about the Chinese citizens who want better human rights. If they leave them there and continue to allow the Chinese government to mine their servers
Honestly, the Yahoo! logo is colored red. It's missing a star or maybe a hammer and sickle
Have search engines become government whipping boys? Will Google kneel before the Bush administration while Yahoo! raises the population of the gulags?
My work here is dung.
See the difference?
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Why is it that every time this issue comes up someone pops up with a supposed 'realistic worldview' defense of these companies?
Everytime I read through another instance of China putting the kibosh on freedom and liberty, people here start picking up the "businesses make money, China has money, therefore businesses will screw anyone and everyone to make money" line of reasoning? Businesses aren't some unnatural entity that sprang forth, they are a collection of man-power, and resources, working towards a common goal. There is a *person* somewhere, saying "Toss the guy to the Chinese authority."
The more people blindly accept the justification that "that's just how it is, I can't change anything," the less you ACTUALLY can change things. Don't give your power away to multi-national corporations, don't give it away to the goverment.
I guess I just don't see what your policy advocacy says. Do we let Yahoo! off the hook for hosing people? Are you saying this just isn't newsworthy? That too much of your valuable time has been wasted or learning that Yahoo! is pulling some shady deals in China? Just let them get away with it, and stop talking about it because we're wasting our breath?
Can't people speak out against a perceived injustice and have it mean more than a wasted breath? Sheesh, usually I'm considered the cynically one, but next to the average Slashdotter, I'm dancing in the land of fairies and make-believe and butterflies and rainbows.
Quit shrugging your shoulders about a problem as fundamentally restrictive as this. The more people speak, the more can be done.
Yeah, only China has us by the economic balls. If push comes to shove China will start to cash in some of the trillions of US debt that it is sitting on, the dollar will plummet and the economy will generally do some very bad things.
The only possible responses are to sit there and take it, or launch a military counter strike, Does anyone really think there is an invasion plan for China that doesn't involve nuclear wepons?
The US is in no position to push China around, in spite of the massive superiority complex we've been cultivating for the past 175 years.
Yahoo! is never notified by the Chinese government regarding the nature of crimes of the subpoenaed account. In any country the criminal law states that the organization (be it commercial, government or non-profit) has to provide the required documents if a court-issued subpoena comes in.
When Chinese authorities come and ask for personal information on an account suspected of criminal activity, Yahoo! doesn't know whether the suspect:
1) raped kids and made profit from child pornography
2) disagreed with the Communist Party of China
3) was a serial killer who concentrated on women and cute puppies
Believe it or not, Chinese government doesn't actually clarify what they want the data for and how it will be used.