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Beijing Police To Launch Animated Web Patrols
Reader geoffrobinson notes an AP story on a new initiative by the police in Beijing to put a visible police presence on the screens of Chinese citizens. Starting Sept. 1, little animated cop figures will wander across the displays of users of a baker's dozen of Chinese Web portals. The program is set to expand by year's end to all sites "registered with Beijing servers," according to the report. The point of the anime-like figures seems to be to remind citizens that their Web usage is being monitored, not to actually implement any further monitoring themselves.
Bonzi Buddy got a new job!
What is next, an animated goatse reminding us of the horrors that are to be found on the internet?
I thought that they already figured out where in the world Carmen Sandiego was.
digitalhallucination... now phosphate free!!
If you google Tiananmen does a little animated tank come out and crush your cursor?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Were these made by the same people that brought you Clippy from Microsoft Word? I could swear they already have a police cop Office Assistant.
"Nothing to see here. Move along".
many people have no idea about security and monitoring.
Even in the US the average Joe wouldnt know if it was an animated charactor, or a real person spying on them through their webcam.
Pretty lame though...
But I thought Internet Safety Month was in June?
Big Brother is Watching You
During college I took a SOC or PSYC class (I forget which) and as part of the class you were required to "volunteer" as a subject in a study on campus. The one I was part of was doing data entry and every so often a little head would appear in the top corner that was to signify that a "supervisor" was watching what you did.
They wanted to see if your data entry slowed/sped up, if your errors increased/decreased, etc. While I don't know what the end result was, I was shown my results and found that when the "supervisor" was in the corner I was less attentive and my data entry slowed.
What if a majority of students/researchers in China are working on their Internet (yes, their) and the "virtua-cop" fucks up their work? I can't imagine that this will do anything but be ridiculous and annoying.
Waste your time on something else, seriously.
You look like you're trying to access the Real Internet! Would you like me to:
-block the sites you're trying to access
-uninstall your proxy software
-report you to the authorities for re-education
-subtly rewrite your search results
I am sure the NeoCons are drooling at a visual reminder "We are watching your every mouse click".
They will have the "Terror level" displayed on a flag carried by a little goose-stepping Uncle Sam.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
I am ashamed that a Government would shame itself by acting like the USA.
welcome our animated police overlords.
Just like the cops at home.
I am sure the NeoCons are drooling at a visual reminder "We are watching your every mouse click".
They will have the "Terror level" displayed on a flag carried by a little goose-stepping Uncle Sam.
They're doing enough of that in the media. They'd rather let you pretend you are supporting the "land of the free" with some sense of false freedom feeling.
Honestly, at least the Chinese know they're being watched at every step and don't have a government watching them closely but pretending they don't.
They got both a male and a female cop. And a police car.
So to continue your analogy, perhaps we can have the goatse guy and the tub girl, and meatspin as the police cruiser.
I must admit that I do slow down sometimes when I see a paper cut-out on the side of a highway.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
I assume that you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution. And it was not a revolution in the way that we normally understand it. From the article:
It was launched by the Communist Party of China's Chairman, Mao Zedong on May 16, 1966, officially as a campaign to rid China of its "liberal bourgeoisie" elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle. It is widely recognized, however, as a method to regain control of the party after the disastrous Great Leap Forward led to a significant loss of Mao's power to rivals Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and would eventually manifest into waves of power struggles between rival factions both nationally and locally.
Many people did die, but the net result was that some people who already had power got more, and some people that had power lost it (and frequently their lives).
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
I for one, welcome our new virtual anime motorcycling weblords!
Err.. no I don't! This sounds annoying and creepy as hell.
I've voluntarily installed screenmate software before and typically it doesn't last past the day. I can't imagine there won't be plenty of programs written to turn them off.
Been built in to *nix for ages!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You are sure now, are you?
Perhaps if you hate America so much, you could emigrate to China. Do a lecture circuit in China perhaps, about how the Imperialist freedoms suck and how Democracy oh-so-opressive; it'll be great! And if you are a female or have a spouse, remember to enquire about forced abortions on arrival (FREE while supplies last!).
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
In communist China, the internet surfs YOU!
Does it run on Linux? Firefox?
or is this just for Microsoft Windows & Internet Explorer?
Perhaps if you hate America so much, you could emigrate to China. Do a lecture circuit in China perhaps, about how the Imperialist freedoms suck and how Democracy oh-so-opressive; it'll be great! And if you are a female or have a spouse, remember to enquire about forced abortions on arrival (FREE while supplies last!).
With opening act, Megaditto the Yankee Doodle Boy. It'll be the toast of Shanghai. Then on to Mynmar.
This should streamline running Vista. Now whenever you are prompted for Allow/Deny the character will go ahead and choose Deny for you. Every time.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
In before George Orwell yaoi fanart.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Your paranoia's completely off base. The current administration has very obviously shied away from visible losses of freedom and displays thereof, which is integral to its "protecting your freedom" defenses. The only exception is airline security, where the public wanted them to take some freedom. You need to pay more attention.
ResidntGeek
Would you rike some help?
Maybe you should consider that a country can be fucked up even if it isn't the worst on Earth. Sure, we might be doing better than China based on some criteria, but that doesn't mean there aren't quite a few things seriously wrong. "If you don't like it, leave." No thanks. If I don't like it I'll do what I can to fix it. Pointing out what's wrong is the first step.
With the end of the cold war, I was hopeful that the ideological conflict between the west and the rest of the world was over. It looked like China was opening up.
It appears, with stories like this and many others, not to be the case. China is obviously acting in ways that are not good for people - as defined by Western standards of freedom. Unlike Russia, they do not appear to have the financial decay leading to an eventual collapse.
I've heard people argue that no one will go to war with China - the stakes are too high. Frankly, I'd rather see a massive 3rd world war than have the world societies slip silently into a death-like state like that the of Chinese government oppression.
Got oppression?
Perhaps if you hate America so much, you could emigrate to China. Do a lecture circuit in China perhaps, about how the Imperialist freedoms suck and how Democracy oh-so-opressive; it'll be great! And if you are a female or have a spouse, remember to enquire about forced abortions on arrival (FREE while supplies last!).
You're absolutely right, how could I ever have disparaged America?! Oh America, forgive me, you'll always be my number just-better-than-north-korea country!
Seriously, lay off whatever you're smoking that causes you to flip out whenever anyone points out what we're doing wrong, and put some of that effort towards fixing it.
i don't know where to begin, either you're a total idiot, or just another ditto-head, and frankly i can't tell the difference anymore. while your rights and liberties are being slowly^H^H^Hrapidly eroded, you sit back and say, "if you don't like it, leave." perhaps you'd care to comment on adequate controls in government as they apply to electronic communications by the executive branch staff? or even more so, on the number of executive orders made by the current administration?
foreigners, nationals of a country widely considered to be the most corrupt in the first world, have said to me, " its not that we're any more corrupt than you are, its just that you're professionals at it."
trust me, when it comes to electronic communications, you are every bit as monitored here as in china. why don't you google 'network packet monitor index'. the vendors returned by such a search will be those that contracted to the intelligence agencies years ago; the chinese use equipment cloned from such specifications.
and while you're on the subject of forced abortions, why don't you think about the possibly of forced pregnancy.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
Tell me, which government is in the business of rape?
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
With all this intimidation of web surfers, I am beginning to get suspicious the Chinese delegation must have had their fingers crossed when the promised to alleviate human rights abuses in their country in time for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Nah, I guess it is impossible to believe that with the eye of the world on their country, China would continue to hold the world's youngest political prisoner, the Panchen Lama, and kill prisoners so they can harvest their organs. They clearly wouldn't continue to block access to websites that hold views contrary to the wishes of their government either (even though the information is considered the truth by the rest of the world).
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
Clippy watched your keystrokes and has grown up into "desktop search". The little shields and popups made sure you were "safe". In the background, encrypted communications stream back to the mother ship. If that's not all obvious and continuing reminder that every stroke is monitored, I'm not sure what is.
Only community based free software will really give you privacy and dignity. Non free systems will sell you to the highest bidder.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Mao and his cronies called it a revolution, but it was really a purge. A revolution replaces the people in power, a purge helps to keep them in power.
The Chinese government knows this, and freedoms will come, but it's going to take time. Generations. Not weeks.Yea, when the last communist party official becomes a billionaire, but then how would they keep a democratically elected governement from taking all of their ill gotten booty? OK, they'll just stay in power until they get thrown out.
The Tianamen Square protests, were just protests, sure they came close to starting a revolution, but too little of China knew about it. It was a magical time, the Russian just 'gave up', the Berlin wall was fall, Rush was putting out a new album, change was in the air. Sure we in the west knew what was going on, but the average Chinese didn't. Not enough of them were able to make the choice for change. Next time, perhaps in weeks, months, years, but not decades, the ruling class of China will not be able to stop the news. The spark could be anything, perhaps an external like N. Korea opening up, or Cuba, maybe an internal crisis like a political scandal, or a large state sponsored disaster (dam collapse?), but the communication infrastructure that wasn't there in 1989, now exists. Once the street protests start the business interest will force the 'communists' (if you can still call them that) to give up power peacefully. Well, fairly peacefully, at least, as the 'communist billionaires' have too much to lose
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
They're so cute they just make me want to limit my searches to government approved propaganda and puppies.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Look, we all know that the Chinese government is going to be monitoring as much as it can. They're control freaks. I, for one, welcome any measures they take to remind the people that they're being watched - maybe such reminders will help the people of china think about what kind of society they live in and what kind of society they would like to live in, and encourage them to take action to try to shape their future.
I live in China, and I can tell you that it's certainly not in a "death-like state like that the of Chinese government oppression". Sure, censorship exists, the government is quite corrupt and abusive, especially on the lower levels, and it can be hard to find a good book. It drives me up the wall sometimes, just how flat the popular culture is- anything controversial gets dropped like a hot rock.
On the other hand, there are raunchy popular novels (printed by half-legal vanity presses) being sold right outside my door. There's tons of (bad) modern art expressing the pain of living in Chinese society, and (bad) rock 'n roll expressing the pain of being young and unloved. Although there are fewer than 100 movies released to theaters each year on the mainland, every film ever made is sporadically available on DVD, from Deep Throat to To Live to They Live. Chinese people can find every sort of approved and forbidden idea under the sun if they're curious, and they're mostly free to discuss it in private. Publishing is another thing, but the Cultural Revolution is over, and you can pretty much say whatever you want to your friends.
China is booming, and the authorities can barely keep it under control. I won't defend their actions (although cartoon cops are hardly the worst things they do....) but the notion that China in any way resembles 1984 is absurd. While the government is sliding from totalitarian Communism towards plutocracy, the people are getting away with everything they can, and it's a lot. I don't hold out a lot of hope that we'll have big D Democracy here anytime soon, but to imagine that this country, or the US, or anyone else would somehow be better off in a Massive 3rd World War is insane.
You are insane.
I can't see how such a trite post could get modded up to +5 Interesting. Okay, actually I can, but that involves either stupidity, or (not xor) something more sinister.
Frankly I hope you don't get your misguided wish. To quote Albert Einstein:
I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
...I see you are viewing a pornographic website. I'd like to remind you that viewing websites with one hand underneath your desk can cause damage to your keyboard.
Carry on and have a nice day.
Stung by criticism that it was utilizing unlicensed private investigators in order to track down alleged online copyright violators, the RIAA has admitted to "improperly obtaining" user data, and in an unusual near-apology, vowed to clean up its act. "It is time to face the music. We must stop the pursuit of personal destruction and the prying into private lives and get on with our national life. Our country has been distracted by this matter for too long, and I take my responsibility for my part in all of this. That is all I can do," said Mitch Bainwol, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA. Bainwole went on to say, "We have important work to do -- real pirated CDs to seize, real problems to solve, real security matters to face. I now ask you to turn away from the spectacle of the past eighteen months, to repair the fabric of our national discourse, and to return our attention to all the challenges and all the promise of upcoming American entertainment that will be brought to you by RIAA members.
On the same day, the RIAA also announced new software it would make available as a free download called riaaBuddy.
riaaBuddy is an on-screen "intelligent software agent" created by the RIAA, and based upon Microsoft Agent [wikipedia.org] technology. The goal of the program is to help users enrich their online musical experience as they discover digital music together with the included "riaaBuddy," which is an animated, purple Sheryl Crow. Users can interact with Sheryl by asking her questions, get recommendations on new music released by RIAA artist, as well as be politely informed when unapproved websites are loaded.
Other features include, an integrated download tracker, music-related themes, desktops, screen savers, and cute, animated emoticons, bearing a resemblance to top-selling RIAA artists. Also included is a desktop search utility that indexes a hard drive's contents in order to allow the user to easily perform searches.
While initial response to the program has been positive, a few early users complain that the program is buggy. The purple Sheryl Crow is said to only be able to sing the song Daisy Bell. "The program keeps changing my home page to a crappy RIAA home page," said one teenager who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of a RIAA-sponsored lawsuit. There have also been complaints of an increase in pop-up advertising.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Someone who hates America, or approves of how China is governed, would simply keep silent and let things go on as they have been.
Personally , I wanted an increase of freedom for airline security. I was hoping that anyone who had a concealed carry permit would be able to carry on a plane.
Grandparent expresses a concern that America is becoming like China in terms of civil liberties, and your response is "if you don't like it, go to China"? Do you honestly think that makes sense?
I see a Firefox extension in the making!
I dunno about the beijing version but this one is pretty awesome.
http://www.virtuagirl2.com/index.php/.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
It's ridiculous to equate the rights and liberties of people in USA or China. I too do not know where to begin, so just look at how we treat our enemies:
/. today about Yahoo China jailed blogger, and all the outrage that generated in America. All the monitoring is besides the point; what matters is why the Govt does it and what they do with it: and it's damn hard to jail people in United States, given our independant Judiciary, jury system, and open courts.
The worst of the worst terrorists are put up in an air-conditioned facility on a tropical island, with three square meals a day, and the bloody prayer time five days a week. Some abuses happened, now our military guys are in jail for it.
Compare that to China where they execute 10,000s people a year then bill the family for the bullet. Look up how well China does in Tibet, or whatever. Hell, there was an article earlier on
If you are still reading this, then let me tell you that your argument is crap: you fume a little in the beginning, throw in a few strawmen about wiretapping (which is being taken care of as we speak), then you quote your alien buddies, go back to how China is not as bad as the US re: wiretapping again. Then you finish off with a remark about rape...
I do not believe what your friends from Krapistan said about corruption in America (is s/he an expert of some sort?); but if YOU believe her then just ask which country s/he would chose to live in and get a family going...
Forced pregnancy? We took care of Saddam's rape rooms back in 2003.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
no.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Given that they'll do anything for the Holy Dollar (or Yuan Reminbi), even if it would violate our laws as well.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America
-- Bill Clinton
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
There's a lot of Chinese with broadband using webcams and VoIP has taken over - that's what those cheap phonecards are using. That is a lot of traffic. The stable door is open and the "great firewall" and things like this are ineffectual attempts to pretend there is some sort of control. It's security theatre like the face recognition silicon snakeoil at airports.
Algeria. One of the nastiest of our military allies at this point. It was also famously used as an intimidation tactic in Iraq in the 1990s and some western journalists saw plenty of evidence of that in the north. The difference with Algeria is that it is happening now.
Without reading the whole thread, I do know that the next step is formulating a coherent statement of what is wrong and why it is, in fact, wrong. The third step is proposing a solution that will not introduce more problems than it solves. The fourth is convincing enough of the right people that your solution has sufficient merit to be implemented.
One problem that the USA does not have that China does is that the above steps are impossible for a Chinese subject (I hesitate to use the word citizen) to complete. You normally don't make it past the first step before the government comes to explain why there isn't actually a problem to be solved.
There's a lot of wisdom in those four words. Freedom has nothing to do with comfort.
..don't panic
The Chinese communist government not only wants to detain Tibetans, monitor Internet useage, and do other nasty things typical of fascist states, but it now also wants to steal the precious screen real estate of its people. It must be ridiculous to live in a state that not only fscks up your rights but also forces you to put silly animated cops on YOUR computer's screen!
Can you get all hentai on that girl cop and "interact" with her using a tentacle cursor?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
... prompted by the word "Tianamen" - the Great Firewall of China blocks "objectionable content" based on keywords. Presumably it doesn't only work on port 80, otherwise people would be proxying web traffic through non-standard ports.
If I'm getting a lot of spam from China, would sticking words that trigger the firewall in my SMTP HELO response automatically block them?
Crippy: You rook for cat? I suggest try Szechuan style.
Yu: Do not want.
This was already done in Shenzhen last year. I don't understand why this is such a surprise.
Remind me again why I should give a shit about athletes who are going to China to help support this bunch of bastards?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I used to run a dashboard widget where John Ashcroft's face changed color along with the National Threat Advisory.
It depends on what your definition of "is" is...
-- Bill Clinton
Seriously, after everything you just said. Explain how the US governments enforcement of "Free Speech Zones" get 'these things out in public'?
Jaso
This has been done before, although for different reasons. It was called 'Tiny Elvis', and he stayed towards the bottom of your screen, occasionally saying things like 'Whoa, check out that icon. That sucker's huge!' They just put a cop uniform on it and took away the catchy phrases...
And they said zombies weren't real!
Apparently not anyone who identifies the problems and speaks up about them - you want to send them off to China.
So, if the people who recognize what's wrong need to step off, who's going to do the fixing?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
did you read 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood? have you looked at population growth rates in the western world? in germany the government sends you a check once a month depending on the number of children you have. personally, i don't have to stretch my mind too far to imagination it.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
Hopefully they give them the Flash-animated 36/24/36 blond haired blue eyed stiletto wearing temptress officer with a whip in tow on their desktops.
>
>-- Bill Clinton
No disrespect meant for Bill, but he was only picking up where an earlier opponent left off. (His wife, with "we're going to take things from you for the common good", not so much.)
"Government is not the solution to our problem. Government *is* the problem."
-- Ronald Reagan, first inaugural address, 1981.
Of course, even he had mellowed a bit by then... Back in the day, he used to be a little more explicit about what he stood for:
"If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."
- Ronald Reagan, A Time for Choosing, 1964
I'm just glad he didn't live to see the bad guys win, like Kruschev said, without firing a shot.
I hope my computer screen gets the naughty cop.
Do they have little speed cameras to catch people with fat pipes? :P
The real question is who will be the first to come up with a program allowing you to shoot the cop? and how much time will they spend in jail???
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
But, can someone give me a good reason why I should give 2 shits about this ?
Yao! (If you remember that Visa Card commercial....)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
How many points do you get for each cop you knock off?
Have gnu, will travel.
At least in China the government is honest about it's internet monitoring practices. Here in the US, the feds pretend that such a program doesn't exists, but we all know better.
Q: Is it true that there is freedom of speech in the Soviet Union the same as there is in the USA?
A: In principle, yes. In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, "Down with Reagan!", and you will not be punished. Just the same, you can stand in the Red Square in Moscow and yell, "Down with Reagan!", and you will not be punished.
Didn't Microsoft just ditch their digital mascot because it was so annoying? Let's hear it for Chinese politicians being at least a decade behind the tech curve.
"Despite the controls, nudity, profanity, illegal gambling and pirated music, books and film have proliferated on Chinese Internet servers."
Books and film have proliferated on Chinese Internet servers despite "the controls, nudity, profanity, illegal gambling and pirated music" ?
Well, Good! I say. Wait a minute...
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I suspect that many people who remember the old Soviet Union would recognize that technique as well.
;)
:)
Just as a general comment on this thread, not @ you asuffield, is that those of you who yammer on, constantly, about how much freedom we have in this country would be better off looking after it, rather than boasting about it. Especially because the boasting makes you looked pretty damned foolish to some people who have perhaps considered the issue a little more objectively and at least made an effort to learn some history. Start at least as early as the Greeks
Oh, and get off my lawn
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.