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.

Comments

1984

[martinelli]

Big Brother is Watching You

A study I was a part of in college

[garcia]

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.

Re:So

[Phybersyk0]

Nope. 404-Not Found.

(Most Chinese people under 30 don't know about the Tianamen Square protests -- Those that do don't really hold the event in high regard, as the student protest leaders are rumored to have had passports/visa's and transportation to get out of the country after the protest was held.)

Americans like the idea of revolution, but when it happens for real, good people die.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolut ion/) The Chinese government knows this, and freedoms will come, but it's going to take time. Generations. Not weeks.

conflict with China

[drDugan]

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?

Re:conflict with China

[Grym]

While 130 nuclear warheads is not sufficient to carpet bomb a country the size of the USA, it is quite sufficient to take out large cities, industry, food production and central administration. The end result is likely massive death toll from starvation and plague, and collapse of the USA as a nation, or at the very least its removal from its world power status.

What you describe is entirely unlikely. You act as if the U.S. military would sit back passively while the Chinese spent hours fueling their 130 nuclear missiles. Why would we when we have the means to hit them before they even get off the ground (via Submarine-based ICBMs and Nuclear-armed cruise missiles)?

I suggest you look up the term Nuclear Primacy. Having nukes doesn't mean much if they would be obliterated before they can even be launched.

So no, no one dares attack China.

Perhaps not conventionally, but this is more for geopolitical reasons than military ones. Even in conventional warfare, the U.S. Navy is completely unmatched by anything China has to offer.

The funny thing is is how these facts shock even Americans. Should this really be that surprising? The United States spends more on its military than all the other countries in the world combined. You get what you pay for.

-Grym

Re:Bad Link

[Phybersyk0]

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).

I think you grossly understate things.

I've personally met more than a handful people in China who simply refuse to discuss the Cultural Revolution in any detail at all. They wont even document their experience in writing. It's still too painful for them.

Here's a question...

[Gordonjcp]

... 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?

Re:Is it really funny?

[Eivind]

The situation in China is, as you point out, still very bad.

I still think it's justified to say it's improving though. First, China is a lot more open than it used to be. Sure, there are draconian internet-filters and arbitrary shutdowns of in-china sites that the government doesn't like. But being on the internet at all is still, by itself, a huge step forward, as we all know a *LOT* of stuff leaks trough even the most paranoid of filters.

Chinese are now able to start and own businesses, which didn't use to be the case.

China has now put into its constitution that people have a rigth to have their human rigths respected. They don't live up to it, not even close, but still, including it in the constitution has to be seen as a step in the rigth direction.

Equal rigths are for women and men are improving. Over 35% of the officials in China are now female, which is a lot better than some years ago.

Death-penalty is now put under review by the supreme court. China claims the result is a 10% decline in its use, though I wouldn't trust the numbers really.

There's more. Much more.

Still, I agree that China isn't making even *close* to as much progress as we'd like. There are even areas where the situation is worsening, like how a lot of people in Tibet are being treated.

On the whole though, I think it's fair to say that the human-right-situation in China today is somewhat better than it was 10, or 20, or 30 years ago.

Mod parent up

[shadowbearer]

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