Slashdot Mirror
Skype Messages Monitored In China
Pickens writes "Human-rights activists have discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives Internet text conversations sent by customers of Tom-Skype, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and eBay. Researchers say the system monitors a list of politically charged words that includes words related to the religious group Falun Gong, Taiwan independence, the Chinese Communist Party and also words like democracy, earthquake and milk powder. The encrypted list of words inside the Tom-Skype software blocks the transmission of these words and records personal information about the customers who send the messages. Researchers say their discovery contradicts a public statement made by Skype executives in 2006 that 'full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people's privacy.' The Chinese government is not alone in its Internet surveillance efforts. In 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency was monitoring large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of an eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. 'This is the worst nightmares of the conspiracy theorists around surveillance coming true,' says Ronald J. Deibert, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. 'It's "X-Files" without the aliens.'"
Writing through a scribe over Skype from mainland China, I can confidently say that messages about Falun Gong are not being
You fail it, chink.
What do you expect when the NSA is the phone company?
Echelon anyone?
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
what's the difference?
I agree. And you are right, two wrongs don't make a right. But at the same time, most of the people only know one side of the story. I think it's safe to say that hearing two sides of the stories is always better than one, right?
On the topic of atrocities, the Tibetan atrocities to its own people as well as the Han people are also well documented. Michael Parenti of Yale University wrote in "The Tibetan Myth" that "earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism [...] the populace was under the 'intolerable tyranny of monks' and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people." I wonder how many people actually knew how oppressed the monks were to the Tibetan people.
Of course, this doesn't justify the Chinese actions, but at the same time, it makes you wonder if the Dalai Lama is also the rightful replacement of Tibet. "In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master's cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away."