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China to Regulate Internet Map Publishing
hackingbear writes "After text, pictures, and videos, China starts regulating Internet map publishing (here is the google translation.) The government believes that Internet maps can represent the state's sovereignty and its political and diplomatic positions in the international community — and consequently, inaccurate maps could harm national interests and dignity, produce bad political influences, reveal national secrets and harm national security, in addition to harming consumer interests. So from now on, publishing maps would require approval and (yet another) license from the state survey bureau. That means Google, Yahoo, etc., need to remove China from the map; or maybe they just pay up some officials and their agents to acquire yet another license. And our newest 80Gbps DPI monsters need to be upgraded to identify maps together with porn."
priceless!
Can a country do this? Why are on-line maps different from printed maps? Seems a bit unlikely to me.
As Google maps are satellite based, how inaccurate can they be?
simon
Does Google need to pay to use the map that China produced, or to even show the country on a map that anyone produced? Are they licensing the map itself, or the representation of China's IP of the shape and layout of the country itself? If it's the latter, that's just... ill.
What happens if they just ignore their weirdo regulations and continue to publish the maps? How about just not in China?
maps could "reveal national secrete"?
One thing is for sure: Traffic James won't stand for this.
Now how am I supposed to get from my house to Shanghai? I need those directions dammit.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Ch1n@ m@pz
Map reveal ancient Chinee secret?
This has been happening for a while, but in different forms.
I would have to guess that they are talking about maps that are originating in China, and not maps served from outside of the country.
In the past, maps manufactured for a product such as a toy globe would need to pass similar scrutiny. So, you couldn't get the good exported if the cultural board didn't agree with the map that you were using.
Thanks to Mr Satellite, China cannot stop the world from mapping the Sino nation. It can, however, demand a lot of money and make the world think it can.
I wish I had tracked this a little more closely, but for a couple of decades ordinary maps of Kentucky in atlases like Rand McNally and Hammond did not indicate the existence of the city of Fort Knox, despite showing far smaller cities.
It was actually a little bit exciting to see the map in Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger, showing the United States Bullion Depository located at the intersection of Bullion Boulevard and Gold Vault Road. In those days before Wikipedia and Google Earth, this gave at least one reader frisson of forbidden information. I wondered whether Fleming would be the target of any mysterious reprisals for publishing it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It's nice to see that the Chinese Government have learned from their western counterparts that anything you do in the name of "protecting consumer interests" becomes allowable. Their next lesson: "think of the children".
Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but it looks to me like the intention of this is to prevent Chinese citizens from seeing any map that recognises Taiwan or Tibet. Any one remember Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri? - Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Sad, but unsurprising.
-- Note to Mods: There is a good reason there's no "-1 Disagree" option. --
If people get used to seeing "The Republic of Taiwan" instead of the "Shitty, Upstart Province of Formosa (or China's name for it) that Dares Act Independent," then that would give people the expectation that Taiwan is a sovereign country. If China goes to war, then it's not to reclaim a break-away province that has been acting like a renegade, but rather just another conquest like Iraq on Kuwait.
Maps do have real political value behind them. There are a lot of people in Mexico that would love to see the reconquista of the Southwest, and the Mexican government has said in the past that expanding its territory back into the original territory is its goal. That's actually why the map that Absolut did in their advertising campaign was so controversial in the U.S.
A much better option than going along with what China wants them to publish. Sometimes the best course is to let jackasses make jackasses of themselves.
rj
even more priceless! oh, learn to spell "secret" ya moron.
national sovereignty and religious superiority is an illusion. there is nothing unique about being russian, or chinese, or muslim, or christian, or american, or any nationality or religious identity. of course, blind nationalist pride and religious bigotry are founded on the bedrock concept of exclusivity, superiority
and what they reap form that falsehood is violence, hated, and war
this world is a long way from peace. to get there, billions more must die in the name of moronic tribal pride before people learn the price they pay simply for believing they are superior because of their nationality or religion
so go china go: you are inculcating your rise on the world stage in the same way germany and japan did, the same way the usa and the uk did. your neighbors should pay attention, and batten the hatches. when, not if, china experiences an economic downturn, i fully expect a demagogue to rise to power and reap the "benefits" of the rabid nationalism china breeds on purpose to deflect criticism away from china
mark these words: the sense of religious suepriority they breed in riyadh and the sense of nationalist superiority they breed in beijing does not fade away, and it demands a pound of flesh
the psychosis of pride. it is blind, and leads to violence. and it is inevitable
only bloodshed will come of chinese nationalism and arab religious bigotry
i am 100% certainty on that. it does not fade away on its own. it is venom that once made, must claim lives
until the nationalists and religious bigots lose their influence. and that only comes when the common chinese and the common arab see the price they pay for their blind pride in the damage they do to themselves and their neighbors for thinking themselves so superior
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Basically, they do not want any maps to be available on the Net to their own people (or anyone else, but that is impossible) which contain such counter-revolutionary ideas such as an independent Taiwan(even if only de facto).
OMG, Miss South Carolina was right. It wasn't an idiotic response, it was a prophecy.
We should pay attention. This bossy, little China is the model for the new Merka the Republicrats have in mind for us.
All the joys of capitalism without the pain of real competetion. Recipe for disaster it is.
illegitimii non ingravare
They are, after all, an INTERNET COMPANY.
But I guess that if they did this and moved to, say, sweden, then the US gov would just get one of the ministers in sweden to lean on their mate in the police force and raid their offices there.
And thereby show that the US IS as bad as china and that, yes, other countries DO tell other companies what to do with online maps.
They aren't doing it more, they're just being caught doing it more often.
CCTV's English language service ran this article a couple of months back: http://www.cctv.com/english/20080410/101774.shtml
They want to kinda wall themselves from the world but still be part of it.
If we had governments representing people, then the UN would would have told China to where to go a long time ago and China would have become something Cuba could laugh at.
But instead, we have governments representing corporations. (we elect them but the corps control them) To ignore china because of their fascist ways is not good for the corporate bottom line and the CEO's annual bonus. So the corps will bend and jump through hoops until they control China as well. When that happens, we will have become Star Trek's Ferengi race. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
A country can even shoot people for making maps disapproved by the ruling regime (if they can obtain jurisdiction). That's sovereignty for you! How far will Google go in its quest for the almighty dollar (or yuan, or whatever)?
remove them from all globes too, have them made in China
This doesn't stop an American map maker from including China on the map.
What it does do, is to stop anyone publishing such a map in China.
This link has more info: http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2008-03-25/21362099485.shtml
Google licensed PRC geographic data from Beijing United Map Technology Limited (just a guess translation) who has a electronic map service license from the National Survey Department (apparently the prime driver for the regulatory initiative). The reporter speculates that the regulatory initiave may be related to the competition between Beijing United Map Technology with its duopoly competitior, Beijing Map Advanced Technology.
The official reasons given by the Deputy Director of the National Survey Department are:
1. Inaccurate boundaries show parts of PRC as soil of other nations
2. Omission of south sea islands (disputed islands with Japan)
3. Omission of Taiwan or labeling of Taiwan as independent
4. Inaccurate boundaries between administrative regions and dissemination of important geographical data
5. Annotation of sensitive, nonpublic, or national security information on the map.
(Think of Dick Cheney's house...)
Part of Google's objection is that there are no clear laws pertaining to online maps in PRC. Thus the regulators are not acting on a solid foundation. There remains wide spread confuson on what exactly is required by these regulations.
As for Google's choices, they are actively protesting this initiative. But unless they prevail or pull out of China they would be subjected to their laws and likely to adapt to publishing only authorized versions of PRC maps.
It will push the artificial intelligence field of image recognition to unthinkable heights.
Blind people around the world should praise China for their invaluable help.
If they can find China in any way of map representation it should surely be easy to discern among different types of porn.
From a purely algorithmical point of view, of course.
I am surprised it took them so long to make this decision and I expect other countries to do the same. Maps have historically been used by explorers and the military so why would any country accept that potential enemies gain access to that kind of information?
"On this spot in 1989, nothing happened".
Argentina streets aren't in Google maps either. I've heard tons of versions regarding why practically every southamerican country but Argentina don't show up there. Including, and this one came from a Google employee, that the military/goverment didn't want to give "sensitive" information (Read: The bribe wasn't good enough). So they were looking for third party mapping companies to buy the data from (Read: Unhappy employee)
MSN Live has streets but it seems they've used very old data as they show streets that don't exist so don't rely on them too much.
Don't know about Yahoo.
Tibet has always been part of China. Just as Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Best Slashdot Co
...to give these fuckers a lesson in just how slippery and hard to control the truth can be.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
what the heck ever happened to freedom from oppression?
the current policy is appeasement, plain and simple
There's already some coverage of China in openstreetmap.org (which is like Wikipedia for maps). For example, here's Shanghai:
http://openstreetmap.org/?lat=31.226&lon=121.5487&zoom=12&layers=B0FT
The coverage is only going to improve. Already in other countries, many cities are nearing completion. You can't close the mapping door after the GPS trace has bolted.
Paid Q&A/Research
I'm renaming China to "VaChina." Because it really is a pussy coward of a country. It really needs to grow a pair and embrace freedom.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
The South China Sea all the way to Malaysia and Philippines as being a part of China. Needless to say, the map treats all other seas, gulfs, and bays on the globe as being international waters.
Chinese culture seems to me to still be in the 19th century in many regards, and unable to engage in self-criticism. I've never met a Chinese person who could admit opposing points in relation to Tibet for example, notwithstanding that these people are all intelligent and decent in other regards.
I'd be able to feel more sorry for Tibet if the exiled government wasn't stuck in the middle ages though.
If China is so determined to regulate what goes into the maps then just remove them. That way they can't complain about it. Just leave a blank area with a not available on picture day caption.
I wouldn't care if China were not on the map. What gets me is that I can't find Garbage Island on Google Maps. You know, the one that's as big as Texas, in the middle of the Pacific.
No morals? Money more important than human rights? Save us all!
It ended up in part, causing a war with India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino_indian_war
A lot of China's posturing and paranoia seems to almost make sense if you look at the history of how they have been treated by other nations.
Seeing as Sun Tzu said winning without war is best, it doesn't surprise me that instead of fighting a war with any of their neighbors and secessionists, they'll simply rewrite the story to show they've never left, or to annex new countries.
So let me get this straight. Your idea of promoting an encouraging openness (which you and I agree is a good thing) is by completely shutting down China.
That doesn't make much sense to me. I think if you spent even 20 minutes reading about Chinese history in the last century you would be far less ignorant of world affairs and specifically Chinese affairs. I am in no way defending totalitarianism or censorship. I just want to point out how rediculous your "solution" sounds.
If you actually load up wikipedia and read for 20 minutes you might find out about the enormous amounts of strife China as a nation has endured over the last 150 years. Then you would see how it has only been 30 years since the end of the Cultural revolution, and just how much the nation has turned around in the blink of an eye.
Now you advocate destroying 30 years of progress? You want 1.3 billion people to go back to living in abject poverty (even though hundreds of millions are still in abject poverty). All because they draw their maps a little differently from the way we do? You would rather force them into submission than help them grow?
Fuck China? Fuck you.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
You see, the corporations finance them, and then they goes out... and the corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all corporation-y... and they make money.
Might this have something to do with the fact that China just had a large earthquake and in usual fashion they are trying to control the news of it. They essentially want to make such events seem very minor, and make it look to foreign eyes that they recover from such disasters in almost no time at all.
And no it's probably not to just cover this one earthquake's damage, but really to cover news of future floods, quakes, fires, etc from outside eyes.
Ahh... but if we remove China from the map, we can actually have an excuse to put "Here, thar be dragons" on the map!
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
It seems to me that we should deliberately publish maps of China and its neighbors with the borders and names FUBARed in order to piss off the powers that be in China. Like Taiwan and Tibet especially. Also I think there are a few small islands in the Philippines that China is trying to bully onto their map. When China creates this opportunity to abuse their wishes take advantage.
I'll have to work on my map of the IO's borders. Off the cuff, I think I'm going to chop what was formerly known as China in at least half...I might take Tibet under my wing, although I won't have any military to protect them.
Granted, I can't enforce the borders of the IO, and as such will never be officially recognized by the UN, but I really don't care. I just want a world map widely published map with borders that cuts China down to size....if they want to sue me, come get me.
You may call me "Your Anonymous Higness" until I come up with a better title.
People who wanting to breathe in and out will need to take permits from Secretariat of Breathe-in and from Secretariat of Breathe-Out respectively.
Plans for regulations on Bodily Biological Gas Emissions by the Ministry of Natural Gas Resources are told to be underway, and citizens are urged to get their butt sizes measured at the nearest municipal authority.
Read radical news here
i know this is slashdot and opinions voiced extremely are more likely to get modded up (or whatever dumb verb is equivalent to "digg"). but, really, how much china-bashing can one site tolerate and promote? how can people call for actively isolating a country of over a billion people and consider themselves nerds? where i grew up, nerds were among the few who stood a chance of seeing things rationally. these are clearly not the nerds of slashdot.
yes, china's government has issues. but no government in the world can escape this. french policy led to race riots. saudi arabia prohibits women from being elected. canadian ships open up waterways for the sole purpose of clubbing baby seals to death. and so on and so forth.
the world is an interconnected place. we have all contributed to all of these governments' actions, whether we like to think so or not. china's government did not appear out of a vacuum to suddenly take control of the country overnight. outside economic forces (cheap labor demand) contributed to how the chinese government behaves; and outside political forces (shift to capitalism please) did as well. forgetting your wallet and your vote in this (or selectively ignoring both) is irresponsible to the greatest degree.
it is also absolute cowardice to hide behind the "evil corporations did it" argument. while there may exist some few who have existed without ever patronizing a corporation, they do not represent even a slim minority. corporations act for profit, which only their customers (which means you) can hand them. and when customers are uninformed when purchasing, then they (again, this means you) are part of the problem.
if you've never been a customer, feel free to absolve yourself of this rant. otherwise, try to find a grown-up solution for grown-up problems. isolating china is not only a childish knee-jerk reaction, but it's completely ineffective. fidel's government was never overthrown and kim jong-il is still in power.
Since it seems we're still in the grey zone while people work out what to do, surely the thing to do is script up something to scan across google's maps of china, save all the raw data somewhere and create a bittorrent out of it all.
So it might be several gigabytes in size...
But it would keep the cat out of that bag.
And besides, "national security"... does anyone really believe that those that China would want to hide things of "national security" from are not going to care at all what is published on the internet? Would any self respecting military use google for satellite images or their own contacts?
because my post wasn't outwardly antiwestern, but instead criticized china and the islamic world, it got modded down
even though i specifically mentioned the usa and the uk as falling for blind pride, and even though what i say is equally applicable to anything the west has done or is doing
the take home lesson is that some people think that only statements that criticize the west are deserving of being modded up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So you have forgotten the FBI's liquidation of the Branch Davidians at Waco, have you? Typical American hypocrisy. The death toll in that conflict was worse, per capita, than Tienanmen.
It was actually a little bit exciting to see the map in Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger, showing the United States Bullion Depository located at the intersection of Bullion Boulevard and Gold Vault Road. In those days before Wikipedia and Google Earth, this gave at least one reader frisson of forbidden information. I wondered whether Fleming would be the target of any mysterious reprisals for publishing it.
Given that Fleming (along with Eric Frank Russel) was in the British Military Intelligence during WWII and loosely based his fiction on his experiences there, I doubt that the US spook community would take reprisals against such an honored member of their fraternity (and potentially create a major international incident) over such a minor issue as leaking an open secret in an adventure story.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If China is so determined to regulate what goes into the maps then just remove them. That way they can't complain about it. Just leave a blank area with a not available on picture day caption.
An old tradition for unmapped, hard to get to, areas was to label them with rumors, like "Here there be Dragons". Cartographer-speak for "This page intentionally left blank."
Given China's traditions about dragons it seems appropriate.
(Unfortunately, they might like it.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Not to mention East Turkistan, Inner Mongolia and Manchuria.
Red China never ruled Formosa. No way is it a break-away province. And the islands of the Philippines and Japan invaded by Red Guards terrorist organization troops do not belong to that terrorist organization, either.
We just need a layer with SPOT data.