China Moving to Real Name Registrations for Blogs

dptalia writes "China is moving to require people to use their real names when blogging. The proposed solution, arrived at by the Internet Society of China (affiliated with the ministry of information) would allow bloggers to use a pseudonym when blogging as long as they used their real name when registering."

Comments

oblig

[Digitus1337]

I'm sure that there is a "Laung Wang" joke in there somewhere.

Re:oblig

[IcyNeko]

Are you kidding? Sum Yun Gai all the way.

Re:oblig

[Ironsides]

Nah, I'm willing to bet a lot of people will be "named"
Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, Xiang Zhongfa, Li Lisan, Wang Ming, Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong, Hua Guofeng, Hu Yaobang, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao. Pretty much the equivalent to someone in the US calling themselves George Washington, Abraham Lincold and so on.

Re:oblig

[CastrTroy]

But why not use the equivalent of John Smith, or John Doe? Even giving your real name, provided you don't give any other information doesn't really help to identify you that much. Depending on your name, it might be harder to identify you by your real name, than if you had used a pseudonym that nobody else uses.

Re:oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been reading a blog of one of their dissidents Sum Ting Wong.

Re:oblig

[Ironsides]

I would have posted the John Smith equivalent, but I don't know what that is. If you do, post it.

Re:oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Wun Leung Poo, or perhaps Wun Slung Lo.

Re:oblig

[bigdavesmith]

TFA doesn't give any details, but I'd be willing to bet that 'registering your real name' doesn't mean they just give you a box and you type in "Sandy O'Hoolahan". Considering China's record with internet regulation, there's probably going to be enough checks and controls so that once you register, if you blog something they don't like, they can find you.

Re:oblig

[Bing Tsher E]

I'm willing to bet nobody will have the guts to register as Liu Shiochi or Chou Enlai (sp?)

Re:oblig

[IHC Navistar]

"Everybody Wang Chung tonight!"

Re:oblig

[Robber Baron]

Where's Wun Hung Lo?

Re:oblig

[R2.0]

Nope.

Long Duk Dong.

AKA - The Donger

Re:oblig

[dangitman]

Abraham Lincold

The skateboarder? That guy rocks.

Re:oblig

[mikek3332002]

They don't need you to register that way to trace you. ie IP Address, ISP registration,DHCP leasing logs, etheral, Log Files, off line commincation bugs...
It is probably would be just a box where you can type what ever
That way they can charge you with making a false statement as well as treason/anti goverment actions.
Its just like Incoming USA flight, Passengers has to fill out a form and one of the questions tick a box if you are a terrorist or a member of a terrorist organisation.

Re:oblig

[stunt_penguin]

Isn't it about time some of the world governments started calling bullshit on these fucking American sons of bitches who brag about their hundreds years of "liberty", yet who treat their own people like criminals? Whenever they're criticized about their human rights records, they demand retractions so they can "save face" -- i.e. not be shown to have their panties bunched around their ankles. Or they call it "an internal matter". But when the NY Times calls them to answer up, they scream and holler and throw a hissy fit and demand their methods not be reveales and that they get apologies for the mere uncovering of the truth.

Re:oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering China's record with internet regulation, there's probably going to be enough checks and controls so that once you register, if you blog something they don't like, they can find you.

I doubt it. There's supposed to be a similar policy with mobile phone numbers, but I had no problem going into a store and picking up 2 prepaid sim cards without needing any proof of anything (I think they took my name, but they definitely didn't need to see any ID). The department responsible for telecoms is the same one that deals with the internet, so I'm expecting the same sort of policy - something that makes people feel safer but doesn't put too big a burden on the MII to enforce it.

Re:oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

there are a number of ways you can prevent the chinese government or any other government from finding out who you are, using anonet is one way to make sure. its fast with full ip stack and anonymous and even connect to 3rd party services like tor - these people really do push the anonymity part along with technology, its not for everyone but it is an amazing group of people with a massive amount of information. the laws MII are putting into place are there to benifit only 2 areas: government for identifying people and corporations, and they leave these laws so undefined that pretty much anything will fall under it if they so say.

my 2anobucks

Re:oblig

[pedalman]

So, what would the Chinese equivalents of "Harry Cox" and "Mike Hunt" be?

Fat men in jumpsuits?

[Anonymous Coward]

So we can actually tell who is posting the star trek fanfics in their parents hut?

It's a different society.

[a55clown]

In the US, that sort of thing would be labeled fascist. What are their rights, anyway? Do they even have any?

And how do they expect to enforce this?

Re:It's a different society.

[Dr. Donuts]

Actually, this sort of thing would be labeled "fighting terrorism" in the US.

Re:It's a different society.

[Will_Malverson]

That sort of thing would be labeled fascist in China, too, except that any person who did so would promptly find him / herself in a work camp if lucky, and six feet under if not.

As for enforcing it, you just need to hire a few thousand people to work at the Ministry of Information, reading blogs and checking the registration of the blog. Check the IP address that the person blogs from and make sure it matches up with the registrant. If not, trace the IP. Pretty simple stuff, really.

Re:It's a different society.

[Mr. Underbridge]

In the US, that sort of thing would be labeled fascist. What are their rights, anyway? Do they even have any?

Damn it, that's not fascism. China does share some of the characteristics of a fascist state, but there are many non-fascist states that do not allow free speech. Different societies have different values, and in the growing homogenization of the West, that's lost sometimes.

Re:It's a different society.

[Pantero Blanco]

The same thing is in place for registering .us domain names, isn't it?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/31/01 4239&from=rss

Re:It's a different society.

[RappinTonyG]

The reason for domain name registration is so that a name is not consumed by an uncontactable individual. It's like owning a building to print/sell newspapers. If something happens to the property or you do something to it, they may need to contact you about it. What this is saying, however, is that you have to use a name that can be traced when blogging, which is an exclusivly speech activity. Basically it seems they require all journalists to be registered. This would be like the US government requiring all publications to discose who their authors are.

Re:It's a different society.

[bunions]

exactly. let's not get up on our moral high horse here. We americans still live in a country where all our phone calls and internet traffic are monitored.

Re:It's a different society.

[Bing Tsher E]

There is a substancial difference between registering a domain name and posting on a blog.

Re:It's a different society.

[realmolo]

"Different societies have different values"

Yeah, and any society that stifles free speech is a society that needs to change.

Let's not pretend that "to each his own" applies when we're talking about governments/religions/societies that restrict basica human freedoms. The reason that "Western culture" is taking over in most of the world is because it is a BETTER CULTURE in many, if not most, ways. Too many people mistakenly wax nostalgiac for the good old days of the Old World, and forget that the Old World was mostly a living hell for the vast majority of the non-ruling class.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, dumbass. We live in a country where they *can* be monitored. Just like every other fucking country in the world. With the exception of banking and flying, none of your data transactions are monitored unless there's a court order. If you're communicating with known or suspected terrorists (not just everyone in the middle east) then they could monitor your conversations. But, if you cared about the law, you'd have realized that was legal and had been for more then 20 years.

We will only remain free as long as the free press tells the truth.

Re:It's a different society.

[regular_gonzalez]

Not exactly. It is 100% legal and easy to bypass either. For phone calls, if you feel your personal line is insecure, buy a 'pay as you go' cell phone and register it with made up info. Online, there are darknets and proxies aplenty to keep you as anonymous as you choose. Both of these solutions are completely legal.

Re:It's a different society.

[Lumpy]

And dont forget, our political dissidents are put in prison as well, arrest of a citizen based on nothing but desire, etc...

America is not very far away from Communist china or North Korea.. At least our current leaders are hell bent to get us to what they have.

I'm waiting for us to be required to carry our papers, and have a passport for inter-state travel.

Think I am joking???? It's on it's way kids, to help save us from T E R R O R I S M !

Re:It's a different society.

[bunions]

> buy a 'pay as you go' cell phone and register it with made up info

I would be willing to bet that the NSA can infer the owner by matching up previous call patterns.

But yeah, I'm not claiming equivalency, I'm just cautioning against pride and hubris.

Re:It's a different society.

[xarium]

The "right to privacy" (heralded by many a culture from as far back as the Magna Carter) is read by many citizenry (in the West) as equivalent to "the right to not be seen" and/or "the right to remain anonymous".

Most legal systems (including the US, England and other "traditionally western" governments) actually recognise it more like a "right to be left alone". It is that description which better embodies the ideals or free speech, free religion & ultimately universal suffrage than any condition of anonymity. Any government should be within its rights to request identification of yourself (how else can an authority verify you are worthy of protection or assistance?) but it would be unjust that they harass you based on what you may say about them to others.

The "right to be anonymous" is a very different thing from the "right to be left alone".

Re:It's a different society.

[bunions]

Dear Lumpy,

Please don't be on my side.

Sincerely,

bunions

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

We probably learned it from them. The Democrats have been accepting campaign contributions from the Chinese government, as well as industrial ventures of the Chinese military for a number of years. I wouldn't doubt it if the Republicans had been as well.

Re:It's a different society.

[Asrynachs]

All this shit about having papers is due to political correctness. God forbid anybody would call it 'Islamic Terrorism' and just target.. the Islamists.. Oh well, this is the price you pay for living in a liberal society.

Re:It's a different society.

[operagost]

Not mine. You must live in a different dimension where Democratic party talking points are reality.

Re:It's a different society.

[roystgnr]

Different societies have different values

Yes, they do: specifically, Chinese society values free speech, which is why the Chinese government has to take extreme effort when they want to suppress it. If Chinese society didn't value free speech, as you seem to want to imply, there would be no need for laws limiting speech because Chinese citizens would restrict themselves.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

Prove that. Prove that although we can be monitored, we aren't. Because I can prove otherwise: I worked for a company called ClientLogic that does customer service and Tech Support for Earthlink in Albuquerque, NM. Every single message you send out through Webmail is kept on a server, whether or not you delete it at home. We even had the option of reading your mail and then checking a box to Mark them as "Unread". Because you are such a compliant citizen, it makes no difference to you, I'm sure, but all servers do that. If we didn't like what we read, we were trained to report it anonymously at work or simply to call DHS on our own.
And just like I'm sure in China they will be scanning large amounts of date for keywords, the same thing is done here. Noone is sitting there reading everything but certain sites and certain keywords or phrases activate surveillance on you. Google Total Information Awareness and Ecehelon...

Re:It's a different society.

[Extide]

You know -- I have wondered about this. Why does the government want to monitor everything?
China -- no free speech, the govt wants to be able to match an anti govt blog with an actual person.
US -- free speech is part of the basis of this country. The only other thing they could do it use it for anti criminal activity.. I mean this entire country would CRUMBLE immediatly if free speech were taken away so thats never going to happen.

Let me make a disclaimer and say that I do NOT support bush, and am not a fan of any of this terrorism bs, I was just thinking about this and honestly not that sure...

Re:It's a different society.

[aplusjimages]

I don't know about that. I go to a forum that requires the use of real names. I don't mind. It's for a product that I use, and there seems to be less idiots on the board. I think it is enforced by only allowing people who have bought their product to actually register.

Now I don't think I would want to do this for my user account at my LOST forums or Halo forums.

Re:It's a different society.

[McFadden]

none of your data transactions are monitored unless there's a court order

Funny - I thought it was exactly the fact that they weren't obtaining the necessary court order that has brought the Bush administration so much criticism recently.

Re:It's a different society.

[bunions]

apparently someone forgot to never forget Oklahoma City, the anthrax mailings, and all the other acts of non-islamic terrism lately.

4/19, nevar forget.

Re:It's a different society.

[Surt]

how else can an authority verify you are worthy of protection or assistance?

I'm sorry, but if your government thinks it's ok for authority to only protect or assist certain classes of people, your government is far down the wrong path already.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

In China the cell phone users, which is in bigger number than in the US, are 90% pay-as-you-go types. No social security number required when purchasing anything. Don't you have to give SSN now to get on of those from Circuit City?

Re:It's a different society.

[bunions]

and you must live in denial.

Re:It's a different society.

[bunions]

Naw. You can pay cash for a phone and register it with any throwaway email address. At least, that's how Boost works.

Re:It's a different society.

[Jackmn]

We even had the option of reading your mail and then checking a box to Mark them as "Unread". Because you are such a compliant citizen, it makes no difference to you, I'm sure, but all servers do that.

Nobody intelligent should expect plain-text communication over the internet to be private.

If you want privacy, you use encryption.

Re:It's a different society.

[theos07]

Who would bother keeping track of it anyway? If you had something so earthshaterring why post it a blog anyway :)

Re:It's a different society.

[Jackmn]

Yeah, and any society that stifles free speech is a society that needs to change.

Why? There is no universal law of nature that states freedom of speech is right or good.

Re:It's a different society.

[xiaoguang]

China is a country ruled by supreme power of government. And it has a system to govern its people withouth being test by its citizens. Actually, in a long time, chinese have develope sorts of method to get rid of the government surveillance. This act won't work.

Re:It's a different society.

[Bing Tsher E]

I don't send anything out through 'webmail.' Typing secure communications into a webform that isn't even on an HTTPS server is just lunacy.

Now, are you scanning all traffic going through your mail server(s)? Not so handy, is it?

Re:It's a different society.

[Unordained]

To reinforce the parent's point -- consider the concept of "social contract", particularly with the clause that a lack of effective resistance is tantamount to consent: the people of China silently agree to let themselves be governed this way, in exchange for the (possibly unequal in value) "benefit" of knowing that most of their fellow citizens are mostly equally deprived of those rights, forming a more homogenous, calm society -- and it's worth it to them not to revolt en masse. You can sign away some of your rights in contracts, you can also imply away your supposed basic human rights to your government. So long a nobody's willing to fight for it, it's not really a basic right -- just the empty declarations of a piece of paper.

Re:It's a different society.

[dubonbacon]

OK, then shut up or they'll be trouble. What, is there a problem?

Re:It's a different society.

[iamacat]

You do need ID for interstate travel. A driver license is needed to fly, obviously drive, check into a hotel, get a credit card, apply for a job or rent an apartment. Sure, you can hitchhike, live in a barrack with a dozen of illegal Mexicans and take cash jobs as a gardener. Kind of like those North Korean refugees in China. But how many political dissidents, which tend to be intellectual types, are cut out for such a lifestyle?

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

As for enforcing it, you just need to hire a few thousand people to work at the Ministry of Information, reading blogs and checking the registration of the blog.

No need -- China has a long history of propagandizing its own people to rat each other out. They were very successful in having the old women in the village spy on the others and report back anything the local police wanted to keep track of -- notably young women who had unauthorized pregnancies.

Remember, this is an authoritarian society where people will do whatever it takes to make sure the child who is allowed to be born is a male.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they want you to believe! _

Re:It's a different society.

[thule]

And just how does the military (NSA) bring a warrant request to a civilian court? This is why the NSA monitors known terrorist numbers (the target) and reports them to the FBI when there is a possible connection to a US Person/Citizen (not the target of monitoring). The FBI then has to get a FISA warrant. It has been reported in the Washington Post that FISA judges will not issue a warrant to the FBI solely based on a NSA lead. The FBI must first provide some further reason/evidence for a warrant.

This is similar to a situation where you called a known criminal that had their number tapped. You are not the target of the tap, but they will listen in on your call to/from the target of the warrant.

The change that happened after 9/11 was that the Bush administration felt that the NSA should pass intelligence data to the FBI legally. Nothing has changed as far as what calls were monitored by the NSA. What changed is that they could tell someone about it.

Re:It's a different society.

[xarium]

So you're saying that I, as an Australian citizen, qualify for U.S Social Security?

A Government identifying its citizenry isn't immediately "discrimination". Think next time.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

Being required to carry ID, and being requested to produce ID before being handed money are two very different things. To date, in the US, it's been considered okay for the government to require identification of a person requiring something of the government. Driver's licence, financial aid of any kind, etc. But if your walking around the police can ask you for ID randomly, but you do not have to produce it if you don't have it (oddly enough, I believe that you do have to if you do have it, this I could consider a problem actually). Admitadly it is difficult to function without a state ID, but it's theoretically possible, and quite feasable on a temporary basis (say... on one's way to a protest?).

Possibly you should think a bit more as well.

Re:It's a different society.

[TubeSteak]

Let's not pretend that "to each his own" applies when we're talking about governments/religions/societies that restrict basic human freedoms.

You seem to think that the right to bitch and moan aka freedom of speech is more important than truly basic human rights

Here's the short list of "basic human rights":
The right to adequate food
The right to potable water
The right to shelter
The right to health care

How do you think people who are diseased, sick, starving, homeless and/or abjectly poor feel about freedom of speech?

Hint: Hamas (a religious fundamentalist organization) did a great job of taking care of the basic human rights I mentioned and can you guess what their reward was? Yep, they won the popular vote & took over the Gov't of Palestine.

Re:It's a different society.

[shoemilk]

Also, one needs to remember that it was never illegal to have more than one child, it was just finanically and socially impractical. Also, said sanctions have been lifted. As ungood as China is, it's never quite reached the Orwellian 1984 levels, which I think is double plus good, don't you commrad?

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually... I claim that there is such a law.
A government exists for one reason only, for the people. The people tolerate a ruling body for the purpose of some gain, as pointed out earlier. Without the right to free speech, there is no possible way to even discuss the possability that the government is not supplying what the people want/need. Basically the right to free speech is a control that the people must require of a government to ensure that they can make sure the government does it's job (yes, I meant that 2 layers deep). The question of who will watch the waters is simple... the watched of course, that is the job of the people to make sure the government does what is good for them, and rise up if it doesn't.

Basically all enforcing free speech does is allow an oportunity to figure out if what you have is what you want, and keep it that way if it is, or possibly organize against it if it isn't. It does allow for a bit of civil unrest as well, a certain dynamism of thaught. But change in thaught is how we grow as a species and society, whether the thaughts scientific or purely philosophical. I think it's fair to say that at least one those two ends lie somewhere in any societies goals, if only to discover what our goals should be.

So, I supose it's not a univeral law in the same sense as gravity, but certainly in the same sense as Thermodynamics... that is, just the way things work simply due to the rest of the system.

Re:It's a different society.

[Firehed]

Well, if they're going to find you, you might as well, at the very least, make it a pain in the ass for them to do so.

Re:It's a different society.

[hunterx11]

Different societies have different values, and in the growing homogenization of the West, that's lost sometimes.

Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you think people who are diseased, sick, starving, homeless and/or abjectly poor feel about freedom of speech?

Well, if they arent allowed to say .. who's to know? History is full of heroes who were willing to give those up for liberty.

Actually, and ironically enough .. those privileges you cited are not "rights". Those are the privileges that must be earned. Why? Because one person shouldnt be forced to provide health care etc. to another. If they were, how many humans would work if someone is is forced to provide food/housing and other things to them. I doubt many. So then your society will have to institute USSR style forced labor to prevent total breakdown. Which would violate the principle that "food" etc. is a human right (since rights by definition are privileges that someone MUST be provided). I will say though that the act of obstructing someone from getting something they earned or were given is a violation of inate rights.

Re:It's a different society.

[shutdown -p now]

A government exists for one reason only, for the people.

Yet another "law" produced from thin air. No, the government exists, because in the absence of one, it is natural for it to form (simply put, in a sufficiently large group of people, there is always going to be someone at the top). Whether it is in the interest of people or not is a different story.

Re:It's a different society.

[rs79]

"The same thing is in place for registering .us domain names"

You must give verifiable (in theory) information for ALL domain names in the ICANN/US Government controlled root. Proof your identity is bogus is grounds for losing the domain.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you must think you live in a dimension where pedophilia is legal...

Re:It's a different society.

[houghi]

The reason that "Western culture" is taking over in most of the world is because it is a BETTER CULTURE in many, if not most, ways.

You actually belive that? The culture is not better, it is the one with the least resistance in the short term. In the long term it will kill off society as we know it, but don't bother, because in the short term we can all watch a TV and some TV-dinners to go with it to see the end of the world live.

and forget that the Old World was mostly a living hell for the vast majority of the non-ruling class.

Oh, and the New-world is a wonderfull place for all? The non-ruling class still has a living hell, yet they just tend to be somewhere where you can't see them. There is a whole continent that tries to become a "Western culture" and by doing so needs a lot of money and is being destroyed.

Re:It's a different society.

[johanw]

Standard neocon bullshit. In most states in Europe, people who cant work or can't find a job get money from the state to buy food, shelter and healthcare (essentially the same as providing them for free). Indefinitely if needed, not only for a short period like in the USA. We prefer not to have our people starving or without healthcare if they can't find a job for whatever reason. And guess what: most people still want to work, because they prefer to have more money than the state provides them with. A few don't, but since they are mostly low educated and there is a shortage of jobs for lowly educated people anyway, most people don't really care: it gives more opportunities for those who do want to such work.

Re:It's a different society.

[Sillygates]

let's not get up on our moral high horse here. We americans still live in a country where all our phone calls and internet traffic are monitored.

The only difference is that our government already knows who we are...screw the registration.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? There is no universal law of nature that states freedom of speech is right or good.

Oh come on. You might as well say that there's no universal law of nature that says that slavery is bad. Or rape. Or murder.

Re:It's a different society.

[db32]

"Western Culture" has largley sprung up from imperialism. Romans, British, American... Take what you can when you can however you can. The distaste for "Western Culture" tends to come from the nations that suffered under Roman/British rule...you know...like America did...then as the Iranian president that we overthrew to put the Shah in power said "We should be natural allies, we have both thrown off the shackles of British Imperialism". Unfortunately our little experiement in freedom has been rushing back towards the Imperialistic control of outside resources. So now America is exerting its force to bring "Western Culture" aka "Western Control" to other parts of the world. Even if you talk smaller picture about our culture it really is the same thing, take what you can, when you can, however you can. Look at our business practices, look at our trends in love life (72hr celebrity marriages and the like, tons of divorce, single parents all over), look at how we treat eachother as strangers on the street. Our "western culture" is not better in most ways, it has a few points that are nice ideals, such as freedom of speech and the like, but the majority of our "culture" is filth and greed, and we just manage to put alot of nice window dressing on it...the same way British oppressors were civilized and the people they oppressed were savages.

I don't know you, but the typical response I get from the "we're #1" crowd is how arab nations are SOO much more savage and oppressed. When you have been there, and talked to the people, and been in their shops and see how they conduct business and treat perfect strangers you can discuss this with me again. I was there as another face in a sea of uniforms, and I refused to call them "hajis" or "towel heads" or whatever, and I talked to the few that were around the base...they were are terribly polite and educated people, put in a horrible position by insane dictators. Insane dictators that "Western Culture" supported for various political/economic reasons.

Re:It's a different society.

[krell]

"Standard neocon bullshit"

How did the statement you referred to have anything to do with neoconservativism?

Re:It's a different society.

[Asrynachs]

There's a BIG difference between the Oklahoma bombers and the Islamic terrorists. Mainly that the Oklahoma bombers weren't part of a global netork of maniacs blowing up buildings and trains all over the world, for a common evil purpose.

Re:It's a different society.

[PriceIke]

Yes indeed, we live in a country where you're modded +5 Insightful for being moonbat-paranoid. Wewt.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

A driver license is needed to fly

Wrong.

obviously drive,

One for two, but only because you're Captain Obvious.

check into a hotel,

Wrong.

get a credit card,

Wrong.

apply for a job

Wrong.

or rent an apartment.

Wrong.

My wife who didn't have a license when I met her, because you don't need one in the city, had all of those things already. She was living on her own, working with good credit. She also flew to meet me and stayed in a hotel the first time she visited.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Liberal", "conservative". "socialist", "communist", etc. have very different meanings in European and US political culture. "Neo-conservative" in the European sense would somewhat make sense to describe the original statement.

Re:It's a different society.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say, part of this round of internet control was due to what US do in so call "anti terorists". Government in China would have another execuse that our counterpart, US, do that as well. We are not the only authority doing evil. It seems the presidents of China and US just doing what NK did to their poor people. Maybe they should send out some "expertise" to learn how to do it properly.

Re:It's a different society.

[iamacat]

Ok, if not license, state ID card, passport, SSN card or something of the kind. Stop talking in puzzles and tell us when you met (I also stayed in hotels cash-only 10 years ago) and how she managed to fly without a form of ID.

Re:It's a different society.

[msobkow]

There are also government departments and staff in the US and Canada whose job is to surf, looking for problems ranging from child pornographers to media and software piracy. Add in all the corporations doing the same to protect their concept of IP, the ease with which data traffic (especially email) can be sniffed, filtered and archived, and the limit to what can be done is not really technical any more.

It's just a matter of distributing the workload, maybe installing a government server at each ISP that sniffs POP3/SMTP traffic on their internal backbone without even touching the actual ISP servers.

Only the law stops such activities, but when the leadership of a government declares the constitution a "piece of paper" and blatantly ignores it's regulations, then who is to say what is and is not actually being done?

The constitution of a nation defines what the nation is, so if the constitution is ignored then the nation no longer has a stable definition on the international stage and becomes an unpredictable threat to other nations.

Re:It's a different society.

[operagost]

Nope. Don't like Egypt much, frankly.

Re:It's a different society.

[tgrigsby]

The change that happened after 9/11 was that the Bush administration felt that the NSA should pass intelligence data to the FBI legally.

That's sweet. And completely wrong.

What changed was that the Bush administration felt that the NSA should be able to tap your phones without oversight. Period, end of story. FISA already provided an after-the-fact warrant process that protected national security. The FBI+NSA link, if that's another excuse floated by Bush, is a non-sequitor.

So the question becomes, what was gained? Certainly not speed. The FISA court has to be notified within 72 hours *after* the tap occurred. Certainly not security. The FISA court especially constructed to ensure that secret investigations stay secret. No, the only advantage is the avoidance of oversight. Nothing else makes sense.

The Constitution protects our privacy against search and seizure without a warrant, and Bush violated that. For that reason if no other -- and there are quite a few others -- he should have been impeached already.

But then, let's see how things progress after November 7th, shall we?

sizzle...

[Anonymous Coward]

the worst part of being branded is that burnt skin smell. gross.

How long?

[PixieDust]

With the way things are going many other places (especially given recent court battles here in the US about children online and privacy and protection), How long until we see tactics like this on THIS side of the Pacific?

Additionally, tactics like this in China, I can't help but wonder, will this in some way allow US Intelligence to decide exactly who is responsible for attacks against US Cyber Targets? If people are required to use their REAL names when registering (let's say on Yahoo just for an example), and there is a Yahoo group comprised of mostly Chinese users, which post all kinds of anti-American things, or organizing these attacks, what's to stop US Intelligence from forcing Yahoo to turn over the names of those registered?

Furthermore, what if the US decides to expand the "Patrio" Act, to include requirements like this (Hell they've already forced ISPs and phone companies into turning over ludicrous amounts of information).

Maybe I'm wearing a tin-foil hat and not realizing it, but is anyone else troubled by the recent trend in online privacy intrusions? That is one thing that is nice about the internet, it affords you a certain amount of anonymity. Could we be witnessing the end of that?

Also, just how much REAL difference is there in the US's privacy invasion crimes, and China's? Could it be that China is just more blatant about it?

Re:How long?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

With the way things are going many other places (especially given recent court battles here in the US about children online and privacy and protection), How long until we see tactics like this on THIS side of the Pacific?

With the COPA in the works? Well, I'd say in about 3..2..1..

Seriously though, I'd say you're not being too tinfoil-hattish. The internet is still a privacy haven, and wherever there is privacy, there will always be the potential for those doing or planning something nefarious. As far as the OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!! crowd are concerned, this is a serious hole in society.

It would be tinfoil-hattish to say that this will turn us into a police state.

Re:How long?

[TastyCakes]

I'm just trying to figure out how you turned this into a criticism of america... that was smooth man, I got to the end and had to remind myself that I don't have to register a blog in my real name..

Re:How long?

[tony1343]

You may have some points on some of your questions. A ban of anonymous political speech would almost definitely be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court though.

Re:How long?

[aussie_a]

I'm just trying to figure out how you turned this into a criticism of america... that was smooth man, I got to the end and had to remind myself that I don't have to register a blog in my real name..

yet.

Re:How long?

[TubeSteak]

I got to the end and had to remind myself that I don't have to register a blog in my real name..

yet.

Look, if all else fails, you pay [Anonyous Proxy Registrar] to incorporate a limited liability company (LLC) which you use to register the blog.

You 'own' however much/little of the company so that your name does not have to be disclosed.

The primary contact, etc etc is the LLC you've just made, whose contact info goes back to [Anonyous Proxy Registrar].

^The above^ is the next step beyond a proxy registrar. If rich people & companies can play shell games, so can the common man.

Re:How long?

[Mike89]

If rich people & companies can play shell games, so can the common man.

Why should they have to though?

Re:How long?

[dangitman]

Look, if all else fails, you pay [Anonyous Proxy Registrar] to incorporate a limited liability company (LLC) which you use to register the blog.

Simple! Convenient. Just incorporate a company so you can write a blog.

Re:How long?

[Anonymous Coward]

...because protecting your freedom is always simple and privacy is always convenient.

Re:How long?

[dangitman]

That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm pointing out that this is still a loss of freedom, while the GP post seemed to use this as an excuse

Besides, it's not just about convenience. Many people simply cannot afford to form their own company and set up proxy servers. Freedom only for the rich?

Re:How long?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until we see tactics like this

Tactics? Let's not beat around the bush. The correct term for an attack on human rights (i.e. the fundmental rights to voluntary association and self-ownership) is oppression.

Unless, of course, you meant "tactics" as in tactics of oppression (i.e. expansion of government power).

Re:How long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you actually know how much it costs to setup a company?
In some states it is as low as $25 & in others it is as high as $500.

It varies by state.
http://www.mycorporation.com/llcnow.htm

Re:How long?

[dangitman]

That's just a registration fee. There are also going to be many other costs involved in doing this. But just the registration fee puts it out of reach of many of the poor.

China -- thanks for the perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a perfect example of why we need to preserve the possibility of anonymity on the net.

It's fine to authenticate financial transactions and what not, but there is no complete freedom of speech without the ability to be anonymous at times.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[bunions]

> there is no complete freedom of speech without the ability to be anonymous at times.

I think you mean "there is no complete freedom from the repercussions of your speech without the ability to be anonymous at times."

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[RobotRunAmok]

there is no complete freedom of speech without the ability to be anonymous

Sure there is. There is just no *comfortable* freedom of speech without anonymity.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[From A Far Away Land]

Anonymous, like a Slashdot coward, is the way to go ;-)

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[Surt]

Freedom of speech assumes that you cannot be stopped from speaking, which becomes impossible as soon as they duct tape your mouth shut.
Anonymity is required to stop the duct tapers in many situations.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

But anonymity is something that has only recently been invented--along with the internet. All throughout history, if you wanted to say something, you'd have to say it directly to people. And they'd obviously know who you were.

Anyway, there's no such thing as true anonymity. If an authoritative organization were so inclined, they could locate you just from your single Anonymous Coward post on Slashdot. There's always logs of your activities in cyberspace, no matter how careful you are. It's just a false sense of comfort that we like to think is protecting us and our ability to speak out mind without fear of punishment.

Really, this is all silly. There was never anonymity before, and there won't be any time soon. Just be careful that what you're saying really is covered by the right of free speech.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[ricree]

I think you mean "there is no complete freedom from the repercussions of your speech without the ability to be anonymous at times."

Which is also known as freedom of speach. People have pretty much always been able to say whatever they want, that part is nothing new. However, it really doesn't mean much when you can be punished just because someone didn't like what you were saying. Free speach isn't truly free unless it means freedom from repercussions.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[bunions]

No one is free from repercussions of their speech. If I say that I think Windows XP is super-secure and Vista is going to be completely awesome, the likely repercussions are that a horde of people on slashdot will assume I'm an idiot.

'Repercussions' is not synonymous with 'jail time.' And speech free from the kind of repercussions you're talking about does not require anonymity.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were an American you'd know that Benjamin Franklin wrote under the alias "Poor Richard". Everybody knew Poor Richard even if they didn't know the face behind the writing.

I'm willing to bet there's probably an example or two like Poor Richard from Chinese history, maybe even thousands of years back. No, anonymity isn't "new".

Really, from your couch with your bag of Doritos and cable TV free speech might seem silly. But somewhere in the world right this minute someone has electrodes clipped to their balls.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The Supreme Court agrees with you (as did the Founding Fathers who published the Federalist Papers under a pseudonym).

McIntyre vs. Ohio Elections Commission (514 U.S. 334 (1995)) ended with the Supreme Court deciding "an author's decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment." Talley vs. California was decided with the comment "[p]ersecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all."

Nor is fear of persecution the only issue. The Supreme Court also noted "On occasion, quite apart from any threat of persecution, an advocate may believe her ideas will be more persuasive if her readers are unaware of her identity. Anonymity thereby provides a way for a writer who may be personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge her message simply because they do not like its proponent."

Anyway, I don't envy the Chinese authorities investigating a blogger and having to walk through the country going "Is there a Chang here? We're looking for Chang."

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[ricree]

No one is free from repercussions of their speech. If I say that I think Windows XP is super-secure and Vista is going to be completely awesome, the likely repercussions are that a horde of people on slashdot will assume I'm an idiot. 'Repercussions' is not synonymous with 'jail time.'

Agreed, I was overzealous in tying repercussions to freedom And speech free from the kind of repercussions you're talking about does not require anonymity. I disagree with you here. While ideally people would live in a society where free speach is respected, that is not always the case. Anonymity is one of the last safeguards of free speech. Even if one lives in an area where "unacceptable" speach is punished, if a person can keep themselves anonymous they are free to express their viewpoint. So while ideally anonymity is not required, it is an important safeguard to free speech and it would be a bad idea to allow it to erode lightly.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[ricree]

No one is free from repercussions of their speech. If I say that I think Windows XP is super-secure and Vista is going to be completely awesome, the likely repercussions are that a horde of people on slashdot will assume I'm an idiot. 'Repercussions' is not synonymous with 'jail time.'

Agreed, I was overzealous in tying repercussions to freedom

And speech free from the kind of repercussions you're talking about does not require anonymity

I disagree with you here. While ideally people would live in a society where free speach is respected, that is not always the case. Anonymity is one of the last safeguards of free speech. Even if one lives in an area where "unacceptable" speach is punished, if a person can keep themselves anonymous they are free to express their viewpoint. So while ideally anonymity is not required, it is an important safeguard to free speech and it would be a bad idea to allow it to erode lightly.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[BoberFett]

See for example, laws shielding journalist's sources. Without those protections, sources have little reason to risk their necks to expose some things to the press.

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[Anonymous Coward]

Ducking the repercussions of your speech is cowardice. Saying what you want is freedom. Getting arrested for expressing an opposing view is censorship.

In China, you will find massive resources devoted to censorship. Anonymity makes it possible for opposing views to be expressed without being arrested, but the writings and the speech may still be censored. Disagreeing with the government is a crime.

How, exactly, can this be compared to America without conveniently ignoring certain facts? It simply cannot. In China, the government is engaged in protecting ITSELF. In America, the government is trying to find international criminals (a.k.a. terrorists).

Re:China -- thanks for the perfect example

[honor, not armor]

I fail to see the distinction.

yeah, the name's zhang

[Anonymous Coward]

that really narrows it down.

tagged

[Anonymous Coward]

tagged as commiebastards

How will that apply to laowai

[ihatewinXP]

As a foreigner in China this is distressing.

While you may enjoy some courtesies in day to day life and doing business The Law is generally not to be messed with. As is distributing dissent in whatever medium you may choose no matter where you come from. I wonder very much how this will affect western news agencies as well. I had heard of thes laws coming ont he books when I arrived but this is the first I have really heard since.

Honestly though I dont think it will change too much for ordinary Chinese. The culture of "not talking about it and just getting along" with more daily freedoms and a prosperous country seems to do them quite well - if you ask me or them.

Re:How will that apply to laowai

[cunina]

The culture of "not talking about it and just getting along"

Tick, tick, tick...

Re:How will that apply to laowai

[Anonymous Coward]

What, just because you're a Westerner, you deserve "get outta jail" cards for free?

Re:How will that apply to laowai

[ihatewinXP]

"What, just because you're a Westerner, you deserve "get outta jail" cards for free?"

--------------

No, of course not - but too often it is the case in practice.

Yes it keeps foreigners coming in and spending their money whether it be investment dollars or tourism - but it also created A LOT of resentment from the people. A double edged sword at best.

A small practical example: when I moved here (Beijing) I was told that you are allowed to walk down the street with open containers of alcohol, so I did. Looking around over time however, I noticed that it was really only foreigners who did so. So although I have now learned that you cant - by law - walk down the street with an open beer since I know in practice that I can - and I still do.

Its the same with so many other things big and small - unless you are violent or really causing trouble any conversation you have with a policeman here is going to be him telling you in the universal language to fuck off.

A local friend told me that "In the west the law is a line and you are on side or the other; here the law is a circle and we are on the line itself."

I didnt really understand it - but he did, and that is the cultural difference ;)

From the ... dept

[wik]

Is it too much to ask for a little professionalism with an article's "from the ... dept"?

Re:From the ... dept

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

Re:From the ... dept

[SenatorTreason]

Yeah, I'd have to agree. I was a bit surprised and disappointed. While I'm not particularly against "fuckwad", I would like think that a Slashdot editor could do a bit better.

Re:From the ... dept

[JimBobJoe]

It's spelled correctly.

As a friend of mine in Jersey once said under similar circumstances: "How much fucking professionalism you want anyway?"

(It's not the lack of professionalism that's bothering me, it's the fact that the "from the...dept" doesn't make any sense here.)

Re:From the ... dept

[nine-times]

Interesting theory, but it makes me wonder, what about you and me, Mr. AC? You're an anonymous coward, and it would take a little bit of work for anyone here to get my real name. So why aren't we yelling "shitcock" at each other?

Are we allowed to divide our "Normal People" into "real normal people" and "closet fuckwads"?

Re:From the ... dept

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, the creator of penny arcade is a well known authoritarian fucktard.

if I had a buck for every rightwing authoritarian blogger that demanded that anonymous commenters state their name and serial numbers....

so he can choke on my cock.

Re:From the ... dept

[RLiegh]

>if I had a buck for every rightwing authoritarian blogger that demanded that anonymous commenters state their name and serial numbers....

I'd be glad to send you one! name and SS#, please...?

So say me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Any effort that ends up curbing "blogging" activities is a GO in my book.

Said the AC.

apples and oranges

[bcrowell]

OK, this is a total apples and oranges comparison, but...

Generally, in a society with freedom of speech, it's a good thing to have people use their real names in online forums. As an example, I participate in one usenet group where there's a person who has made a bunch of very bitter enemies (not including me), who want to plonk her. But she changes her handle frequently, so they can't. Regardless of the merits of the actual disputes involved (which I couldn't be less interested in), it would be a big plus for the group if she would allow these people to plonk her, because they simply don't want to read her posts.

Another good example is a web site I run (see my sig) where I catalog free books, and accept user-submitted reviews. My policy is to require reviewers to give their real names, and one of the points of this policy is to keep people from reviewing their own books. You'd think that my policy would be impossible to enforce, and therefore pointless, but actually most people have compunctions about out-and-out lying about their identity, even if they don't see any moral issue in reviewing their own book under a fanciful login name. It's psychology, it doesn't have to make sense! Amazon.com has similar issues (although the books they deal with and the books I deal with are basically disjoint sets), and recently I noticed that when I tried to review a book on amazon, I couldn't, because I've never bought anything from them. They've made a new requirement that you have to have bought something from them in order to write a review, and I think the idea is simply to keep people from making sock puppet accounts.

None of this means that I'd like a government (any government, mine, China's, or whatever) to start regulating speech on the internet, or forbidding anonymous use of the internet. Obviously the Chinese are simply doing it for purposes of political repression. Anonymous use of the internet is a good thing sometimes, and we need to be suspicious of anything that would make it easier for Big Brother (*cough* Homeland Security) to forbid anonymity. But that doesn't mean that it's always a good thing that the design of the internet makes it so hard to maintain and prove a consistent online identity, even when you want to.

Re:apples and oranges

[Anonymous Coward]

You should try living in the U.K. - you can get SEVEN YEARS in prison for 'incitement to religious hatred' - which is (not very good) code for 'criticising Islam' - you know - the religion of 'peace'....
SEVEN YEARS for simply typing the truth into a website. (Anything true about Islam is normally negative and puts it in a bad light - a shame that...)

Mountains Out Of Molehills

[thelifter]

I feel bad for the Chinese government. I mean with all the free trade and stuff they're barely even communist anymore. You may call stunts like this "repression". I call it China staying in touch with it's roots. Remember the chairman. (A single tear falls)

Annoying, yes, but...

[808140]

Names are by no means unique identifiers in China -- there are only a hundred or so family names in common use and the characters used in people's names are often recycled. With the population of China being as large as it is, even if you use your real name there could easily be 50 people in your area who have exactly the same name.

Now if they were requiring that a person register with their ID number -- everyone in China has one -- that would be something. It surprises me, actually, that they're not doing that. I wonder why?

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[xSquaredAdmin]

The society, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Information Industry, said no decision had been made but that a 'real name system' was inevitable.

Judging by that quote, I get the impression that they aren't necessarily going by real names, but some sort of identifier which would allow them to determine which individual posted content, which could very well be the ID number that you speak of.

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

according to my understanding of the term, it's better translated to 'real identity'. normally it means you physically go to some government agency, provide ID, home address, work place etc. oh and registration fee(which is probably the major motive).

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[MSittig]

http://tech.qq.com/a/20061019/000169.htm:

----()

So, they are considering requiring bloggers to register their surname, ID (national ID, work ID or passport), e-mail and phone number. Sounds like they want a quick way to contact you in case anything "dangerous" appears on your weblog. This is getting a lot of press in China, especially online. You can join in the discussion in Chinese on the QQ BBS (QQ is the top website in China by some counts; an ICQ-era relic, but still going strong), which set up a special feature page with news, and editorial viewpoints for and against the measures under discussion: http://tech.qq.com/zt/2006/blog/

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[WML MUNSON]

Now if they were requiring that a person register with their ID number -- everyone in China has one -- that would be something. It surprises me, actually, that they're not doing that. I wonder why?

My first guess would be security reasons. The VAST majority of people that live in China access the internet via huge internet cafes for ~5RMB/hr. Who the hell knows what keylogging software and other crap is on those machines?

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

5 RMB/hour.. wow, so expensive... Most places I've been it's 1 rmb/hour in the evening and 0.5 rmb/hour otherwise. then again I live in Yunnan where everything is cheap.

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[kabocox]

Names are by no means unique identifiers in China -- there are only a hundred or so family names in common use and the characters used in people's names are often recycled. With the population of China being as large as it is, even if you use your real name there could easily be 50 people in your area who have exactly the same name.

Now if they were requiring that a person register with their ID number -- everyone in China has one -- that would be something. It surprises me, actually, that they're not doing that. I wonder why?

Social pressure. Don't underestimate the impact of Chang's mom's out there if they get an e-mail from the Chinese government that their child/teenager has been logged using more than recommended online video games or browsing porn or other content that Chang's mom may not like. Here is the good part. Only one Chang either used alot of video game time, browsed for porn, or actually posted some mild radical content. They e-mail out the offical e-mail to all 50-100 Chang's moms in the given area. The plan would be never to actually do anything, but let the mom's or whomever is encharge of those names know that one of them was miss behaving. Unlike the US where we'd want to find the exact person and punish just them, the Chinese will let social pressure work as some one has dishonored the name of Chang so all Changs will have to be extremely better behaved to regain their personal honor and will keep an eye out for others with a similar name that may be acting up. That doesn't work if you have some one that really doesn't care if they dishonor their name, but the Chinese as a group have social means of keeping every one walking in step on the same path.

I'd expect the next big wave of social networking software to come from China or India.

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[808140]

Even in Beijing, more than 3 yuan/per minute is uncommon and 2 yuan per minute is more standard, with 1 yuan per minute common on the outskirts of town (I used to live near Wen Quan in northern Hai Dian district, and it was dirt cheap out there.)

Maybe the grandparent is going to one of those internet cafes designed for tourists? Typically those have English, Korean or Japanese Windows installed on their machines, depending on the demographic they're marketing to. That might drive up the price a bit.

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[808140]

I seriously doubt they would do anything of the sort, that's a very un-Chinese solution. The Chinese may punish people for things we westerners think don't deserve punishment, but I very much doubt that they would punish someone they thought or knew was innocent of the crime. In Chinese culture, embarassing someone is a special no-no, and they would feel very bad about the collateral damage from a policy like the one you describe.

Also, for the record, "Chang" is not a Chinese surname. I've never understood why so many Westerners latch on to this particular word.

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[808140]

Another thing: legally, internet cafes are supposed to require and record ID numbers from all persons that use their facilities (that's Shenfenzheng number for locals, passport number for foreigners). Of course, economic pressures mean that the vast majority of internet cafes don't do this -- despite there being a law, apparently, that Chinese nationals and resident foreigners always have ID on their persons, the vast majority of Chinese people don't bother as the law is completely unenforcable -- too large a population with too few policemen. So requiring that clients have ID to use the computers effectively means turing away a lot of people, which the privately owned internet cafes aren't eager to do, as their margins are narrow enough as it is what with cutthroat competition and all.

In practice, this means that unless the government is having a "crack down", you don't need ID to use the computers. But the fact that ID is required sort of throws your security argument out the window.

Crack downs, incidentally, are always pretty temporary (a week or maybe two is typical, perhaps once every 6 or 8 months) because they're extremely unpopular. Most Chinese will not start carrying ID just to use computers. The result is that, unless the government wants to forego tax revenue from a thriving industry, they will never keep the crackdown going for too long, as the internet cafes wouldn't survive a long-term decrease in revenue. It's the same with pirated DVDs and VCDs -- they have a crackdown for a month, the stores hide their pirated material for the period, and then the crackdown "ends" and everything goes back to normal.

China may not be a democracy, but with its population, you can't use force to get the people to do what you want, you have to convince them that it's in their best interest. Propaganda, in other words. So they run TV programs talking about how people are using internet cafes to commit computer crimes (real ones, like vandalizing web pages or cracking corporate systems) and that the unwillingness of internet cafe owners to check for ID is making matters worse, etc. It doesn't really fool anyone, as far as I can tell.

I hate to say it, but, in the four years I lived in China, not counting customs-related ID checks, I was asked for ID less frequently than I was in the US in the first two weeks after coming home. In China, I can own and operate a cellphone without ever presenting ID or having a credit or background check, I can buy alcohol without some twit asking for my ID, and the times when I have been asked for ID, "I don't have it on me" has been a perfectly acceptable answer. I keep hearing that China is totalitarian and that the US is the land of the free.

Sometimes, it really doesn't feel like it. But at least I'm free to choose between two leaders I don't like here.

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[WML MUNSON]

The price I quoted was roughly (~) 5RMB/hr. Most decent sized internet establishments residing in populated areas in China (this is as of a month ago) charge 3-5RMB/hr. Rarely more than that, unless you end up at a very touristy place. That price is charged to westerners AND locals all the same. These places are PACKED 24/7 with Chinese people. Not westerners.

The general observation I made is that the further northeast you go, the more expensive the internet gets. Beijing is, of course, on the "rape" end of the scale. Especially anywhere near Mao's box.

In the rural areas my internet access was much cheaper, but also much harder to come by. Also it needs to be said that most of the rural population pays nothing for what little internet they use, if any. If you're friendly with someone or you are part of the community, the internet is generally free along with a lot of other things.

My experiences may have differed from yours across the board. I've only spent time in Hong Kong, Yangshuo, Guilin, Chongqing, Chengdu, Kangding, Danba, Luding, Ya`an, Leshan, Juizhaigou, Songpan, Xian, Pingyao, Taiyuan, Datong, Beijing, and a LOT of the surrounding area of each. A lot of those places have tourist destinations, some of them don't. However, having spent a respectible amount of time at each one, I feel ~5RMB/hr is a reasonable estimate to give someone when asked about what people generally pay for internet in a cafe in China.

Maybe you have information that I don't that leads you to believe that the vast majority of internet users in China pay less than 3/hr. Perhaps prices across the board have gone up since you've been there. How long ago was it?

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[WML MUNSON]

I agree with a lot of what you've said here. Let me first explore the security issue.

At the one internet cafe out of thirty I was required to present ID for, I told them I didn't carry it on me, and then just wrote down "Billy Bob Trousers" for my name and put in some random number for my passport on their log sheet. At the same internet cafe I noticed that Chinese people paying in cash were not asked to present ID, and that most of the people coming in had cards they used instead of paying cash. I assume it's an internet cafe credit/debit card. Let's safely assume that in order to get that card they had to present ID and give their ID number which is stored in a potentially vulnerable computer.

So yeah, I think you're probably on to something there. I would guess, however, that there is a better chance of having your ID stolen, or other input logged, on a user-machine that everyone uses vs. the one central machine they use for registering people.

Let me also say that I completely agree with your last paragraph. Sometimes I'm not so sure that I don't feel more free "walking down the street" in China. I'm betting China will eventually be consumed by the same shit we did as far as rules and regulations go. Societies seem to evolve like that. Hopefully they can learn from our mistakes. Doubtful though.

But I just touched on what I really think the difference is between the two countries regarding how I feel being a resident in each. Don't get me wrong, I do value having the opportunity to grow up in a country that gave me the ability to see more than one side of things. In the United States, we have too many common laws that try to protect us from ourselves. In China, not so much.

Perhaps a stupid example: On my first flight back home on United Airlines(Yeah, yeah, I know.) the first thing I asked for was two beers. I figured I would save the woman a trip. This female flight attendant looked at me with an "I hate my life" expression on her face and said none too nicely "How about one at a time, sir." The second she gave me the first beer, I poked a hole in it and shotgunned it in five seconds. I turned and looked at her as she was about to walk away and said "Ma'am, about that one at a time thing."

In China, nobody fucking tells you "one at a time, sir." It's up to you to police yourself.

Maybe after spending more time there my views will change, but that's the feeling I have so far.

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[808140]

I lived there for 4 years, speak fluent Mandarin, and just got back to the states last month. If you were travelling, and you don't speak Chinese, it's entirely possible that you were charged more.

As for internet cafes near tourist attractions, they will of course be far more expensive -- but again, it's because of tourists.

Re:Annoying, yes, but...

[808140]

I agree with your assessment 100%. :)

Same Name?

[clragon]

there are certain popular names in China. Just as an example, many people with the family name "Lu" like to give their son the name of "Shuan". If I were still living in China, I probably wouldn't want to share the same name as another person who is posting things in blogs that would be offending to the Chinese government...

fascist?

[krell]

Fascists who quote Marx tend to be called socialists or communists. The difference is really very superficial.

Re:fascist?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Fascists who quote Marx tend to be called socialists or communists. The difference is really very superficial.

Given that "NAZI" was coined as a derisive abbreviation for Hitler's NASDP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = National Socialist German Workers' party), that's hardly surprising.

Re:fascist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brandon M

Just an FYI, Hitler used the "socialist" moniker for his party in an attempt to decieve the mass public, it was a strategic decision that had nothing to do with actually being a socialist at all.

Thousands of people make this routine mistaken assumption.

thanks!

Re:fascist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Democracy, monarchy, tyranny, or local warlord -- all forms of government share one fundamental prerequisite: a special "right" to employ coercion (initiate force) as their means. The real measure of freedom is simply the size of government, measured both in revenue and power over the people. The larger the government, the less freedom. Conversely, the smaller the government, the more freedom. Sure, there are details and differences between governments, but history shows that the general rule always holds.

When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.

-- Thomas Jefferson

This famous quote illustrates the relationship between size of government and individual freedom. In Jefferson's time, the government was small enough that it feared the people. Today, of course, the government is big enough to simply laugh in our faces.

my thoughts

[ThorGod]

FUCK YOU CHINA!

And by China I mean "Chinese government". Seems appropriate as the rest of the world mistakes US for US government!

Re:my thoughts

[Kagura]

I like this guy, but I ran out of mod points too soon.

Re:my thoughts

[the_humeister]

Yes. Meanwhile our government here in the USA wants to spy on our phone conversations and look into our bank transactions.

Re:my thoughts

[LordLucless]

Seems appropriate as the rest of the world mistakes US for US government!

Which isn't entirely unreasonable, seeing as the US votes in the US government, unlike China.

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but US is supposed to be a "democracy" - you know, you (actually we) pick our own assholes, so the US gov is the US. Supposed to be, anyways.

Re:my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

at least they don've have a say in theirs. we chose ours. so who is it more accurate to get confused about?

Re:my thoughts

[Threni]

> Seems appropriate as the rest of the world mistakes US for US government!

In my experience it's more usually an American that does that ("Michael Moore hates America" etc.).

Re:my thoughts

[Dumbush]

So two wrongs make a right? Justice or stupidity?

Re:my thoughts

[r_newman]

FUCK YOU CHINA!

And by China I mean "Chinese government". Seems appropriate as the rest of the world mistakes US for US government!

Um. No. The "rest of the world" that you refer to might just be holding the entire population of the US responsible for the actions of the politicians they voted for.

Think about it, instead of becoming one of those "the-rest-of-the-world-is-wrong" merchants.

Thanks for your time.

Why you ask ?

[MasterPoof]

Because we all know that it will be a hell of a lot easier to find dissidents if they need to use their real name...

Anonymity is different than privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Privacy needs to be defended to the death, I think there's some balance to be played with anonymity. Think of it like caller id. If someone calls you, you can see who it is before you answer. You can even block anybody who tries to call you that blocks their number, so nobody can call you anonymously.

If this can be done for email, spam is dead.

Obviously, this would be bad for slashdot, as we would not get some info that we would have otherwise, but if you want to talk directly to me, email me, chat with me, I want to at least know your real name.

Posting AC because I don't have an account. No need to be ironic.

Real Name

[PenGun]

Oh yeah that made me think. I have so many identities that some times I'm not sure who I am. I'm sure there are others here with that problem ;).

    PenGun
  Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

What has more Chens than a Chinese phonebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor Wu Chen won't be any more anonymous than me, John Smith.

Ingenious

[MBCook]

This is simply ingenious. Someone deserves a promotion. This is so good, I thought it was a good idea. It took me a couple of minutes to realize the insidiousness of this.

This isn't a problem or that much of a burden at all for all those people who want to blog about the same random stuff. What they did today, their fights with their friends, etc. While annoying, it's a definite step up from no blogging at all. This will probably make a great many teens happy (if they are anything like the people on blogger/myspace/etc). They can even write poetry and stories and such anonymously.

At the same time, this gives the government an exact name and address to go "talk to" if someone writes something "inappropriate." I suppose you'd better be careful what those poems and stories you write are about, huh?

It seems like a win at first glance, but it's worse than no blogs at all (without all the teens who want to write about their day, a bug chunk of people who would want less restricted 'net access is much smaller).

I bet Machiavelli would be proud.

PS: How cool is it that Safari knows how to spell Machiavelli's name? I wonder if that means anything...

Re:Ingenious

[MarkusQ]

But it could just as well be ingenious in the opposite direction as well. I note that it says nothing about addresses being required. In a country with well over a billion people, what are the chances of anyone having a unique name?

As always with this sort of thing, the devil will be in the details. It may be as bad as you think, but it might be a clever sap for the PHBs with no teeth what so ever. Sort of a "Who is Wen Chen and why is he saying these horrible things about me?" situation.

--MarkusQ

Good luck with that

[opencity]

Reminds me of The Stainless Steel Rat. When the blogging gets tough, so do the remaining bloggers.
When I was in China in the 90s they had blocked cnn.com but only the front page.

Re:Good luck with that

[interval1066]

If you didn't like the news today go out and make some of your own. Ok. The problem with this is: if "your" Govmt blocks it, why write it? Whta good does it fdo to make your own when ther means of production is really owned by the people who are not "the people"? If a select group of people can control what you say, are you really free? What the hell, exactly, are you talking about?

Re:Good luck with that

[opencity]

> If you didn't like the news today go out and make some of your own.

Is my sig - not the comment - though it is probably somewhat on topic.

It was the sign off from a radio news show in the 70s - The Last News Show - Skoop Nisker. As I didn't understand the rest of your question I'll leave it at that.

I, for one...

[vga_init]

I actually think that this is a good idea (sort of). I think that when it comes to publications (not private data), anonymity is one of the Internets weak points. There would be less people mucking things up if they were personally identified.

I don't see personal identification as a problem in places like the US where there are laws that protect their right to speech and whatnot, but in China I have a feeling that this will get a lot of people in prison.

Sometimes people need to know who you are so that you will watch how you behave. You could argue that this is an infringement upon personal freedom, but successful societies do rely on certain levels of moderation (neither too loose or too tight). Not all information should be kept private, right?

Re:I, for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes people need to know who you are so that you will watch how you behave. You could argue that this is an infringement upon personal freedom, but successful societies do rely on certain levels of moderation (neither too loose or too tight). Not all information should be kept private, right?

We're talking about blogs here (like /.). Do you really think it's essential to know who I am? Or the identity of ScuttleMonkey?

Re:I, for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a shame we don't moderation for "-1 Dangerously Stupid"

Re:I, for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

sure, until someone decides to muck up the internet at your expense and you spend the next 8 years in prison.

Juridiction

[DrYak]

what's to stop US Intelligence from forcing Yahoo to turn over the names of those registered?

Simply because the server of the China branch of Yahoo who are legally forced to hold this information will probably be on chinese territory and thus, clearly outside the juridiction of FBI.
Simetricaly, China's police won't be able to force any information out of the american branch of Yahoo... ...at least unless AOL manages to buy Yahoo and decides to publish study...

At the top-level, multinationnal mega corp are only bound by internationnal laws.
The actual different branches have only to comply with local laws.
That's how goods producers are able to hire underpaid employee in 3rd world country to do cheap labor : such salary should be illegal in headquarter's host country, but the workers are employed by a foreign branch, which must comply to local law which in turn don't forbid such low income.

Re:Juridiction

[Anonymous Coward]

China can threaten to kick out Yahoo's servers, and revoke their rights to cross the Great Wall without monitoring (I.E. at half reasonable bandwidth). This would slow their systems to a crawl in china, causing Yahoo to lose china as a viable market. So China actually has quite a bit of power over Yahoo. In the US we can threaten to shut down company as a US corporation, or even shut down all their commerce in the US, causing them to offshore which will mean a HUGE drop in the US stock market, again not a minor threat. If your a multinational corporation laws aren't the problem, money is.

This should be done in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

..to clean up all the racist, nazi and zionist trash. Would be interesting to see the lamebrains without the cover of anonymity!

But then again, 100% of USA internet and telecom traffic is already monitored round the clock anyway, so there's no real need for that.

Re:This should be done in the US

[Marcos Eliziario]

I wonder if the GP has any idea of how nazi his/ser comment sounds. "Clean up... Something that I classify as trash" DISCLAIMER: I am not a racist, nazi or any of those things, but acting like a nazi against nazis makes you a nazi also. I am for the law, only the law, not hate.

Re:This should be done in the US

[Benaiah]

I like the way you slipped zionist in their with racists and nazis. That wasnt very nice. If you want to be antisemitic just say clean up racists, nazis and the jews! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism Zionism is not something to compared with racism and nazism.

Re:This should be done in the US

[ricree]

I really hope that this is sarcasm, but unfortunately if it is sarcasm, I'm missing it. As a reminder, free speach doesn't just mean the freedom to say things that you happen to like. The answer to ignorance is truth, not repression.

Re:This should be done in the US

[johanw]

Not all Jews are zionists (and not all zionists are Jews either).

How can they tell if a registered name is real?

[Orion Blastar]

I mean do they have software that can detect a real name from a fake one? Most of the web sites and blogs I have registered with have no idea that Orion Blastar is not my real name. I even get postal mail addressed to Orion Blastar from my web registations (I used my real postal address with my pen-name) and even the junk mail and credit card companies think that Orion Blastar is for real, despite not having a SSN tied to the name at any of the credit reporting companies. With the USA having more advanced technology than China, how can China enforce that sort of thing?

How long before the USA and other nations adopt the same policy of blogging with real names. Oh the horrors and 1984 references. Better register all the nicknames and pen-names we will use for our lifetime now, before they start checking so they can all be grandfathered in before those laws get passed.

Re:How can they tell if a registered name is real?

[puracc]

No, they cannot. I'm from China. Just to show you some facts: One of my bank account (which is used for ebay) is under a fake name (the Chinese equivalence of John Smith). The name on my ISP account is fake. My utility bill is always send to a person died 1182 AD. And the name on my cellphone bill is, guess what, fake. None of these involve any underground or high-tech work, and all I did was to lie when being asked.

Knowing these, do you still think real name mean real name?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe many people will be sent to prison because of this, but it won't take long for Chinese people to figure out how to lie.

PS, In U.S., cellphone, credit card, ISP, and pretty much everything else require real name (worse than that actually: SSN), but somehow people did not care at all.

Re:How can they tell if a registered name is real?

[Aquila Deus]

They can't, but this gives them one more legal right to remove the bloggers they dont like.

Re:How can they tell if a registered name is real?

[taozhuo]

That's easy to tell if a name is real or not, by requiring you enter the corresponding ID number. They wont let you go through until name and the ID number match in the dababase.

Re:How can they tell if a registered name is real?

[puracc]

Which database then? How can each small website access such a database, if exist at all. And what about personal blog, running on personal server? It just seems technically not yet possible, unless all small/personal website are going to be banned.

Re:How can they tell if a registered name is real?

[taozhuo]

Yes, you're right. I think they will focus on major portal like "blog.sina.com.cn". Most people they aim at have only knowledge in blogging in such websites.

Different society?

[krell]

"but there are many non-fascist states that do not allow free speech"

That's not a matter of "different values". It is a matter of government tyranny. In fact, such suppression of speech is one of the important "foundation stones" of fascism.

ugh....

[krell]

"Better register all the nicknames and pen-names we will use for our lifetime now"

Better hope the domain squatters are not reading this. You know.... the guys who register just about every available alphanumeric combination .net .com, etc and then put a useless search site to "hold the place".

Next thing you know, you'll go to register your blog under the name "ZapgunKing13" (out of your big interest in videogames) and then you find out that you have to pay some Hong Kong front company $39 in order to pry it out of their clutches.

Oh no...

[Anonymous Coward]

they'll find out who I am.

Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. I live in China. Why is this a big deal?

Actually, lets get up on our moral high horse

[patio11]

"All our phone calls and Internet traffic are monitored" is just. not. true, and even if it were true there is a rather distinctive lack of getting shot in the back of the head for saying something against the government. I mean, if the American government "monitored" anti-Bush diatribes on Slashdot like China "monitors" discussions of Falun Gong we'd be down 20% of our user base before you could say "In Soviet Russia..."

Re:Actually, lets get up on our moral high horse

[bunions]

> "All our phone calls and Internet traffic are monitored" is just. not. true,

uh, yeah, it is. calls are tracked and callgraphs are produced using software from this company: http://www.cogitoinc.com/

I didn't think this was even up for debate any more.

Re:Actually, lets get up on our moral high horse

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Ru#$*^&^No Carrier

Re:Actually, lets get up on our moral high horse

[Bing Tsher E]

Not in the circles you keep, it seems.

It would be so expensive to 'monitor all calls' that the government would go broke overnight.

That form of repression is just too expensive in an open society.

But have fun in your fantasy world.

Re:Actually, lets get up on our moral high horse

[bunions]

> That form of repression is just too expensive in an open society.

what repression? I'm talking about call monitoring. The NSA has titanic datasets describing the origin and destination of every call made in the US. Do they have recordings of those calls? I seriously doubt it. But the call graphs are there.

> It would be so expensive to 'monitor all calls' that the government would go broke overnight.

I'll agree that recording the audio seems infeasible. But the records of who called who are definitely there.

Re:Actually, lets get up on our moral high horse

[megaditto]

It would be so expensive to 'monitor all calls' that the government would go broke overnight.

Thank you for a good laugh. This just made my day.

Re:Actually, lets get up on our moral high horse

[Bing Tsher E]

Don't laugh too loudly. You'll draw attention to yourself. Then it's all over. You'll have to go hide out in a shack in Montana.

Re:Actually, lets get up on our moral high horse

[megaditto]

I am not planning to blow up any abortion clinic since Roe v. Wade will be overturned anyday now, so no need to hide.

Life is great! My party is in control, my taxes are down, my property values are up, my salary has doubled, and my children are safe. What else do I need?

And your statement was funny on so many levels...
"It would be so expensive to 'monitor all calls' that the government would go broke overnight."

Let us not forget

[PixieDust]

That Congress has REPEATEDLY attempted to suspend Habeas Corpus.

Feel free to check here and run a search for Habeas Corpus. Look around. Congress has tried repeatedly to suspend it, to get rid of it, to void it, etc. The Supreme Court has ruled SEVERAL times that they can't do this.

It KEEPS happening. Criticism? Maybe. But it's WARRANTED criticism. What's absurd is that there isn't MORE outrage concerning all of this. Because of that, I am forced to ask the question "How Long?".

Would I want to live anywhere else? Well, lately Canada and Australia are looking more attractive, but for the moment, I shall keep my faith in the system (however broken and abused it may be at current) and in the American people to one day wake up, and realize we've lost something very dear.

Every day I watch rights that I stood up to defend, that I sacrificed my blood, sweat, and tears for, that I now draw a VA Disability check because of, disappear, by greedy and abusive politicians.

Wait, there's someone knocking on my door. Hmm that's funny, you look an awful lot like someone from that movie Men In Black. What's that? Yes I post on slashdot. Yes I'm PixieDust. Hmm? Talk you say? Alright.

In other news, neighbors of a disabled Veteran were shocked today to learn that the cute girl down the hall had mysteriously disappeared last night...

Oh, before I forget...
/tinfoilhat off

Re:Let us not forget

[Anonymous Coward]

> for the moment, I shall keep my faith in the system (however broken and abused it may be at current) and in the American people to one day wake up, and realize we've lost something very dear.

Thanks for serving. Sucker.

/glad both of his grandfathers died around 10 years ago, so they lived long enough to see the demise of the Nazis and the Soviets, but they doesn't have to see this shit.

Re:Let us not forget

[drsj]

Let me rephrase for the "brave" AC... Thank you, Ma'am, for your service to our country. Some of us do truly appreciate our warriors and defenders.

a refutation

[foreverdisillusioned]

A famous, funny, and somewhat insightful joke to be sure, but I'd have to say that the vast majority of insightful, inspiring, bullshit-cutting dialog I've ever witness (or partaken in) has been on the internet. Check out the top of that blackboard--the comic was inspired by Unreal Tournament 2004, not +5 Insightful comments on slashdot. For all of the bullshit and flame wars out there, I think that anonymity inspires honesty and frankness that, while holding the potential to inspire personal attacks and general disruption, also holds the potential for real, unhindered communication in a way that most real-world communication sadly lacks. If a friend or coworker or member of my family says something stupid and shortsighted about (for instance) Iraq, most of the time I let it slide because it isn't worth the potential long-term consequences if they decide to take offense or otherwise become bothered by my response. Even less-divisive topics can be troublesome. I remember one time a somewhat-ditzy coworker of mine starting ranting about how sucralose (Splenda) was soooo unhealthy because she heard it contained chlorine, and I was like, "ummmmmmm...., so?" "Chlorine is bad for you!" "Well, chlorine bound up in a molecule isn't *inherently* harmful. In fact, you get far more chlorine from eating salt!" and somehow she took offense (ok, so maybe I laughed at her just a *little*. Couldn't help it.) Put a stopper on the entire conversation, and for a weeks afterwards she wasn't as friendly with me. Oh yeah, and I've probably alienated at least a dozen other coworkers with simple, non-confrontational, matter-of-fact statements regarding my (dis)belief in God and religion in general. (I'm not a completely insensative person, but I happened to be working with a ton of highly religious people and they kept asking me about my church and my prayers and stuff. And when I said "I don't believe in God" they usually asked why. So I told them.)

Anyway, you just don't have to worry about this kind of shit online. At any time you can walk away and find another forum (or hell, sometimes just another username) and never talk to those people ever again without any undesirable long-term consequences. Yeah, you can swing too far in the other direction and devolve into vicious, pointless flaming (safe in the knowledge that you don't personally know anyone involved) but on the whole I think there's more rational discussion on the net than in polite-and-politically-correct real life.

Re:a refutation

[Anonymous Coward]

Paragraphs, man. Paragraphs. It's not that hard, is iet?

Re:a refutation

[Anonymous Coward]

A famous, funny, and somewhat insightful joke to be sure, but I'd have to say that the vast majority of insightful, inspiring, bullshit-cutting dialog I've ever witness (or partaken in) has been on the internet.

The Wolf: Well, let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet.

-- Pulp Fiction, Act II, sc. iii

Where did the US government come from?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Sure, you can say that Bush did not get the majority of the votes, but he got well over 40%. So while you might not individually be responsible for the government there are enough people in the US that are.

Re:Where did the US government come from?

[Bing Tsher E]

I voted for Bush. Twice. Voted for Clinton twice, too. (I know, I know. Dumb fuck four times over....)

So I am now 'personally responsible' for something??

Re:Where did the US government come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

I voted for Bush. Twice. Voted for Clinton twice, too. (I know, I know. Dumb fuck four times over....)

So I am now 'personally responsible' for something??

I sure hope not. Cuz you are one confused puppy.

Re:Where did the US government come from?

[Digitalwingx]

I don't know. If nobody thinks their votes count towards some level of responsibility, the vote system is pretty screwed up.

Re:Where did the US government come from?

[Bing Tsher E]

Confused? I voted for mediocre candidates in all four instances who didn't deliver on their promises.

I am disappointed, but not confused.

And I don't think my voting practices are that unusual. I, um, just voted for the 'winner' in all four races. Which I'm not particularly proud of, but there it is.

Re:Where did the US government come from?

[cr0sh]

You are only "dumb" if you voted for them because they were "most popular" or "most likely to win" - if you voted your conscience each and every time, then you did your job as a voter properly.

Furthermore, I don't think voting for Clinton was necessarily a "dumb" thing - we have had (and currently do, IMHO) far worse examples of men "leading" the country. Say what you will about Clinton, but his actions felt like they have far less impact on my day-to-day life than the current shmuck (although I think he was wrong on "don't ask, don't tell" and the passage of the DMCA). One could argue that "he balanced the budget and left a surplus", but a lot of this also happenned in the second term, with a Republican -controlled Congress (so, maybe we can also argue that the Republican-controlled Congress had an idea what was going to happen in the near future, and they "balanced" the budget and built a "surplus" to "pay" for the future - our present - "war").

Myself - I voted third-party in the last two presidential elections (though I would've voted for Dean had he not been shafted by the media circus). Not because I thought either had a chance in hell of becoming president, but because I felt that each represented my viewpoints and ideas of how the country should be run. Whether they lost or won, I knew I had made the right choice, and could stand by it regardless. I typically do the same thing for state representatives and other local government, unless the choice, for lack of a better word, "sucks" - then I just vote for the guy who isn't in office (unless he is such a dimwit or extremist I can't even stomach it), just to maybe stir things up. Otherwise, it is a write-in (depending on how I feel, it is myself, something stupid, or the original guy, even if he isn't running!).

On a final note, this year I plan to vote "no" to every proposition on the ballot. A proposition is nothing more than a new law or a change to an existing law. The way I figure it, they want to muck with everything each and every year, I think "we the people" need to stop giving them the chance! If "we-the-people" can't figure out how to operate within the convoluted mess of legal code we already have, then tough darts! We need to work with the system we have for a while, and honestly study the process and where it fails and why (I swear, if there is one institution that could go for some hard-core top-to-bottom process-mapping ala "six sigma and similar approaches", it is our government).

Probably not related

[IHaveNothingToSay]

but I read TFA and googled 'free anonymous blogs'. The first result was from the EFF which mentioned invisiblog.com, which is down but doesn't state why. Again, probably not related, but curious all the same. Not looked into anon blogging before because I don't blog - not even sure if it's a search result the chinese will ever see....

What the Dalai Lama Doesn't Want you to See

[dorpus]

If Tibet became "free" by Chinese withdrawal, would the Dalai Lama want you to see these images? He is holding the hand of Shoko Asahara, the cult leader who gassed a bunch of people on the Tokyo subway with sarin. http://www.angelfire.com/ego/sinzinrui/photo4/rama 2.jpg http://www.angelfire.com/ego/sinz inrui/photo4/rama3.jpg

Re:What the Dalai Lama Doesn't Want you to See

[BeardsmoreA]

Er - What?

Interesting Gibran quote that came to mind...

[1053r]

And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."

And he answered:

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

(you can read the rest here)

Say it isn't so!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the web sites and blogs I have registered with have no idea that Orion Blastar is not my real name

But you said you *loved* me Orion. What am I going to do about our children?

Re:Say it isn't so!

[Orion Blastar]

It is over You've been stalking me for a long time. The DNA tests proved that I am not the father. You did sleep around with a lot of men anyway, which is why I had to end the relationship. Please stop following me around the Internet, calling my phone numbers, and sending me email. The TRO says that you have to stop trying to contact me.

Ministry of Information?

[heanol]

Surely you mean Ministry of Truth..

It's a different forum.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yeah, and any society that stifles free speech is a society that needs to change."*

Oh no! Please don't moderate me down to a (-1: it sucks to be you)!

*And for those saying I'm abusing the word "stifles"? No one "forced" you to read my post.

on sensorship

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to share some American who lives in China wrote:

--- In xxx_xxx@yahoogroups.com, xxxx@xxxx wrote:
>
>
> you are right. It was wrong of me to fight a stereotype with another
stereotype.
> I don't give a sh*t if some idiot stereotypes me in a bar to his
small
> group of friends. I get FURIOUS when that idiot uses mass media to
> stereotype me. Mass media is a powerful tool that can imprint ideas
to
> a large group of people. We are all suseptible to being brain wash.
> I am brainwashed. I try real hard to not let stereotype effect my
> relationship with people and reserve my judgement until I know the
> person as an individual better.
>
> I've met many local Chinese asking about life in the US, about the
> people, culture, life style, etc... One thing that shocked me was
> their negative perception of black people even though they have never
> even met one. Witness the power of mass media.... with that kind of
> power who needs nuclear weapons. US media has probaly the largest
> distribution channels on the planet and it does not portray black
> people in a nice way. No wonder the local Chinese who have never
even
> met a black person have such a negative perception of them. I don't
> blame the Chinese government censoring sh*t coming from the US. /end of quote

It's easier for people not to believe the media when they knew it was sensored; it is much harder for people to tell the truth when the media is "free" but control by few.

When pseudonyms are outlawed...

[Debug0x2a]

...only outlaws will have pseudonyms Good luck to anyone trying to track down every Chinese blogger who decided they didn't want to use their real name for fear of being arrested as a result of the content posted. Only way I can see this being enforced is by keeping a guard stationed by every single bloggers computer.

Internet development and anonymity

[Digitalwingx]

If you ask me anonymity is eroding as more people are using online products (emails, online chat, messengers, forums, personal website, blogs and etc.). How hard is it now to get a hold of your personal information by just your online ID and email address? Things like what you posted on certain forums, where you have been, your real name, your address, mobile phone numbers, a nice image of your house can be gathered by just knowing your ID sometimes. Of cause, you may very well argue that you aren't one of those who give up / disclose that much of information online, but my point is getting personal information has been increasingly easy. For example, with the integration of Hotmail and myspace, it's possible to know what a person talks on his/her blog by just knowing his email address. True story I found out some of my friends actually blog on myspace after I joined Windows Live Mail (by accidentally clicked the wrong button - "I'm willing to participate Live Mail Beta" - I know, that was stupid).

That wasn't very deceptive

[krell]

"Just an FYI, Hitler used the "socialist" moniker for his party in an attempt to decieve the mass public"

That was actually a matter of honest labelling. The Nazis were rather socialist (i.e. wanting government control of the economy), and have only superficial differences with other socialist movements.

Re:That wasn't very deceptive

[tehcyder]

The Nazis were rather socialist (i.e. wanting government control of the economy), and have only superficial differences with other socialist movements.

Yes, that's right, the socialist government elected in Britain after WWII was practically indistinguishable from the Nazis.

You are an utter fucking twat.

Re:That wasn't very deceptive

[krell]

"Yes, that's right, the socialist government elected in Britain after WWII was practically indistinguishable from the Nazis."

The difference was only in degree. The UK government after WW2 was only mildly socialist (even if it was more socialist than what was before it).

"You are an utter fucking twat."

What you lack in knowledge of history, you make up with in erudite insults.

so

[jaimz22]

really... who cares! I mean is it that much of a suprize that china is still governing their series of tubes with an iron fist? everytime you hear something about china + internet it's all just one more thing about how china isn't down with the free trade of information.

Will this reduce the number of blogs?

[tehcyder]

If so, well, sometimes the ends justify the means.

I'd like to take a moment to thank...

[Hobart]

Phil Zimmermann. ...All /. readers owe it to themselves to become familiar with US vs. Zimmermann.

--
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!

Standard Maoist Strategy

[leoPetr]

1. "Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend." - Mao Zedong

2. Critics come out of the woodwork and start publishing their opinions.

3. A year or two later, there is a crackdown and critics disappear.

A bit of a duh at this point, methinks.

Little Red Herring: China Bloggers Still Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/blog/littleredblog/0, 39056119,61962490,00.htm