Slashdot Mirror
China To Photograph All Internet Cafe Customers
Gwaihir the Windlord writes "Not only is the Great Firewall of China back up and running, but now if you visit an Internet cafe, your photo will be taken and your identity card scanned. And the friendly officers of the Cultural Law Enforcement Taskforce make those details, entered into a city-wide database, available at any other cafe. So much for the new levels of openness and transparency that the Olympics were supposed to usher in."
Your personal details *are* being made quite transparent and open here.
> So much for the new levels of openness and transparency that the Olympics were supposed to usher in.
Oh you thought "openness and transparency" was for the government? no no, they meant for the citizens
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Openness and privacy have not always been the easiest values to reconcile. This post completely dropped the ball :)
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Heh...this from the Australians who recently designed software to track file transmissions over the internet in the US, and are having problems of their own with censorship.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
...your license and registration please. Your other license and registration.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Couldn't they stop to give ideas to the Britons ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
It seems odd that other cafes are given this information. Is this so that cafe owners can track down lost customers, or find out who does the best Mocha? And the punters are leaving themselves open to all sorts of abuses. What do find in chinese cafes? China Mugs!
Smivs on the intertubes!
Slashdot poster with thing for Asians?
Where's the moderator option for "cliche"?
Maybe someone will figure out that hack from Ghost in the Shell that overlays an avatar image over a persons face. That would solve the problem.
I sense an opening in the market for false moustaches in China!
And you have nothing important to say/think either. So you're good.
Seems to me that the Chinese Government is being very open about the amount of surveillance they are using on their citizens.
This is not very far from the current push for mass surveillance in the post-9/11 western world. The only difference is that China is a bit ahead of us. We'll get there in time, also. Remember, people, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
If you walk into an internet cafe in the UK you've likely been recorded by 10 different cameras on the street on the way in, and the goverment is now promising to log all your online activity in a central database.
This loss of privacy certainly sucks, but we can no longer smugly denounce the Chinese for it as if we in the west are any more respectful of privacy or any less big-brother-like. "China's internet privacy protection falls to UK level" would be just as apt a headline.
Even China's Tianamen Square atrocity has a western parallel with the USA's killing of Vietnam war protesters at Kent State University in 1970.
It would be nice if we were in a position to righteously denounce the Chinese for human rights violations, but sadly we're really not.
and follows suit...
5...4...3...
While I was hopeful in the early days of the olympics, four years ago, I got a reality check later on when it became obvious that the Chinese government was determined that this was going to be a very tightly controlled operation.
This isn't really a surprise, the Moscow olympics didn't end the cold war, and the Munich olympics didn't stop WWII.
China visibly and provably improving its human rights and freedoms should have been a prerequisite of being given the olympics, not just a half-hearted, vague promise (with fingers crossed) to sort of improve, without actually changing things. Expecting China to follow through once it had secured the event was foolish in hindsight. By that point the IOC had no sanction, they were never going to take it away, China knew that, so they could do what they liked.
Paul Leader
that I could be confident that this sort of practice would remain in China.
Quoting from http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/11/0512216&tid=158
"CNN is reporting that a new Italian law requires that all businesses offering public internet access, such as web cafes, to identify and record all customers. While supporters of this law trumpet its anti-terrorism potential, still others see no such advantage and bemoan this invasion of personal privacy. 'They must be able, if necessary, to track the sites visited by their clients. [...]"
And yes, the law is pretty much alive and well. Also you can't stay anywhere in Italy unless they copy your passport and send it to the police. Free wifi providers (think Starbucks like) have been already fined/prosecuted. You can't get a prepaid SIM card in many European countries without showing your passport and in some cases your "registration" (i.e. the fact that you're a local resident with a "registered address").
"So much for the new levels of openness and transparency that the Olympics were supposed to usher in"
Who sold you that lie?
There is a war going on for your mind.
How are they going to be able to tell the difference between everyone!?
Just a guess, but...Computer software will scan each photo and create a digital profile of every citizen, which will then be used in conjunction with a future camera system on every street of every major city where the movements of every citizen will be closely monitored to insure their safety. And the software is sufficiently advanced now that fake facial hair won't fool it.
Bearded Dragon
your view is as racist as the parent post. It's just got that rosy positive spin...
We need an option for "-1 Didn't get the joke".
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
In the grand scheme of things the democratically elected governments of the world are also cracking down hard on what their citizens view, write, and if at all possible, think.
The issue is China is the same as the issue in the West. As long as the general population believes that the government is doing what keeps the populace safe and organized then an oppressive government will not only stand, but it will grow in power. It doesn't matter if it's a complete illusion, because perception is reality in these cases.
What China seems to need, and perhaps what certain democratic countries need as well, is a peaceful uprising/organized demand for change. It worked (for a while at least) in Russia, and continues to be the catalyst for permanent changes in some of the old Soviet Bloc countries.
How many people casually compare the Patriot Act to Nazi-facism on their way to buy a cart full of Chinese products at Target?
I noticed that 'saycheese' was one of the tags.
:-D
It should be Say Cheese and Die! instead.
I better take off my Free Tibet button first.
Everyone who goes into these cafe's will have their identities made public. What's not transparent about that?
..of fucking assholes the Chinese government are. I hope I live long enough to see the day when the citizens of China kill every last one of the fuckers.
China intentionally hides the news that poisoned milk is in their distribution system to avoid any sad faces during the Olympics (R)(tm).
Thousands of children are intentionally allowed to get sick and some die while their cute little Olympic (R)(tm) mascots dance around all happy happy.
Now they hilariously submit that identity checks are justified "for the sake of children."
More lies from the big red Chinese lie machine.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
If they want to participate in Western traditions, by God, they should have to abide by Western standards. So yes.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
> This isn't really a surprise, the Moscow olympics didn't end the cold war, and the Munich olympics didn't stop WWII.
What ended the cold war? I thought it was alive and well - all that's changed over the years is the stories printed about it.
There's no effective difference between what China are reported to be doing here and what's happening in the UK. You can't go anywhere without being caught on cctv cameras, and the recent proposals to log emails, phone calls, chat, surfing etc, as well as ISP retention laws and the requirement to disclose passwords etc go beyond what China is even proposing. And as always, although the laws in the US don't (yet) allow this stuff, you can bet that it's just being done anyway by the secret police there.
Is China's goal to emulate Orwell's 1984?
If you're going to follow that line, then I could say that if you want to participate in the Greek Olympic tradition, then, by Zeus, you should have to abide by the principle of neutrality and suspended hostilities in the context of the Games.
So much for the new levels of openness and transparency that the Olympics were supposed to usher in.
Like anyone actually believed that.
China visibly and provably improving its human rights and freedoms should have been a prerequisite of being given the olympics, not just a half-hearted, vague promise (with fingers crossed) to sort of improve, without actually changing things. Expecting China to follow through once it had secured the event was foolish in hindsight. By that point the IOC had no sanction, they were never going to take it away, China knew that, so they could do what they liked.
This is what you get with countries that do not stand up to China. Appeasement in a form worse than Danegeld.
Perhaps it is due time to stand up to that country and embargo. If it takes their country down, so be it - that's the only way to end their practices and end foreign appeasement. At least the US still has some factories left to take up the slack.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Works for me, so long as they don't let in any filthy Persians.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Where's the moderator option for "racist"?
Generally speaking, racism has no place in these discussions. Therefore, "Offtopic" or "Flamebait" should be 100% appropriate in every case you're likely to see.
That said, some of us, if not overtly racist, probably find racial jokes funny.
Our UK government probably told them its a good idea. ;) ... (That way, the UK can then bring them in, as everyone else is doing it).
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
No effective difference? I suppose you're right in that in each case the point is to track criminals. But in one situation the crime is looking at a web site that is critical of the local government. It's easy to guess which of the two countries that is, and that makes an effective difference to me.
Apparently it doesn't take very many Greeks to keep out hordes of Persians, so that shouldn't be too much trouble.
Go to an internet cafe in Italy, and you will be asked for your identity card or passport, which will be recorded.
This is, you'll be relieved to hear, to combat terrorism.
We are talking about CHINA. This sort of thing is legal as you have no "rights" there.
the Munich olympics didn't stop WWII
That would've sucked. Fortunately, WWII ended way before the 1972 Olympics.
Drat, I meant the Berlin olympics of 1936. Sigh, it's going to be one of those days.
Paul Leader
Goldfarming operations are largely unaffected due to not being classified as cyber cafes.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Obama will probably be putting up cameras here soon. He is after all in favor of a bigger stronger Federal Government with more control and regulations.
Don't forget it was the Leftist Judges on the Supreme court appointed by Clinton, etc that gave us eminent domain laws that say they can tear down your house to build a shopping mall. Obama has alluded he would appoint similar judges to those that Clinton appointed.
Actually, racist would be if you used race as a proxy for judgment on characteristics unrelated to their race. If he finds the actual physical characteristics common to Chinese women more appealing (e.g. skin tone, hair color and character, cheekbones, etc.), it's not racist.
Now if he made comments about liking ethnically Chinese women for their advanced math skills, that would be racial prejudice with a rosy positive spin, but you needn't jump to racism simply because he *mentioned* race. Sheesh.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
U.K. will follow in 3...2...1...
And here in the U.S., we won't see for this kind of thing at least for another 3-6 months (3 if McCain is elected, 6 if Obama).
... they should have to abide by Western standards ...
Western Standards are hypocritical, so what does abide mean? "Do as we say, but not as we do?", "Do as we do, but pretend to do as we say?" or "Do as you wish, but pretend to do as we say?". I'm confused, perhaps the Chinese are too.
It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
The Internet masturbates to pictures of you!
Good lord. You found a way to reference appeasement that doesn't involve Nazis or Hitler. Are you trying to break Godwin's, or intentionally provoking it by giving me an opening for this response?
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
That also means nude athletes.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
"Lulz" at the crackheads who thought china would just roll over and open up because of the Olympics. "NOOBS"
That also means nude athletes.
I'll put up with the nude blokes if it means a nude Stephanie Rice.
I hope people in China don't get their hands on wireless internet gear. It would screw this plan up and that would be a shame.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I know here in the US we have groups like EFF and ACLU. Are there similar organizations at an international level?
http://pixelcort.com/
I bet the hoopla against "fascist" Italy years ago was much less than hoopla around all bad things Chinese (except of course, brutal oppression of Muslims in Eastern Turkestan).
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Thats just a silly stereotype. When I lived in China some decades ago it took about three days for the "sameness" to disappear from my perception. It was a lot harder for buildings however. They do really look the same.
What this would actually prevent in either case... You can't really stifle all forms of communications between two parties no matter how many "laws" you have on your side. Just think about our prison system and how gangs communicate with the outside. This kind of thing would only work if the party you are trying to silence really lacks imagination.
On the other hand, something like this in the U.S. would go pretty far in instilling paranoia in liberals. At least the 3-4 who are not already.
we do it "for the children" in the US!
I assume you're referring to Kelo. As much as I disagree with this ruling, it's worth noting that three of the five Justices in the majority were nominated by Republican presidents (Stevens/Ford, Kennedy/Reagan, Souter/Bush-41) and only two by Clinton (Ginsburg and Breyer). It is true that all four dissenting Justices were nominated by Republicans (O'Connor/Reagan, Rehnquist/Reagan, Scalia/Reagan, Thomas/Bush-41) - but both Reagan and Bush-41 also had one of the Justices they nominated side with the majority.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Who cares!?!? You don't bitch and moan when getting a drivers license. You don't gripe when there are cameras on the road seeing if there are unwanted criminals on the road. This is just a security measure to track down individuals if they do malicious things on the net. Personally I'm tired of spam. I'm tired of having to worry about getting companies getting hacked by some dude sitting in an Internet Cafe in China. The security industry says most of the attacks now come from the US. We need to implement an ID card system in cafes. I think its the right thing to do.
We don't have to worry about Nuclear wars, or blowing each other to smithereens. Now it's a cyber war. There's been so much data compromised in the recent past... government data, that could have put an entirely different spin on the beginning of the Iraq War. But due to Saddam's distrust of the information, it ended up the way it did.
All you people who gripe about invasion of privacy, and issues with getting rights taken away. Grow the hell up. This isn't about you. It's about the people that have ABUSED their PRIVILEDGES of having internet access and the ability to communicate with everyone across the net. Because we have ignorant people that can't install anti-malware programs on their computers, that didn't bother educating themselves on how to use a computer properly, and how to surf safely. It's all due to ignorance and abuse. Now Governments are trying to right the wrongs and get control over a problem and you're complaining about it?! STFU!
I was at Marco Polo Airport (Venice, Italy) two weeks ago for the first time in a couple of years. While waiting for my flight out of the country, I noticed an internet kiosk near my boarding gate. I was shocked to find out that to 'unlock' the kiosk, I had to let it photograph my passport before usage. The first five minutes was free but it still insisted that I needed to slide my passport bio page into a slot before it would allow me to surf the internet.
Needless to say, I killed the time by having a nice cup of coffee and a pastry instead.
Oh, how I wish Enforcement were spelled with an I!
Well the Moscow olympics might have helped end the cold war, if the US and 60 other countries hadn't boycotted them. I'm really astonished by the idea our leaders keep getting that the best way to change the minds of your enemies is to refuse to talk to them.
What? Who said that the Olympics were going to usher in new levels of openness and transparency? First I've heard of it. Last time I checked, the Olympics were intended to be a symbol of the end of China's isolation from world affairs, and a bit of bragging about what could be achieved by a Communist (in name only) dictatorship after a period of market reforms.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
"Now if he made comments about liking ethnically Chinese women for their advanced math skills,"
Not necessarily. Asian women have a fairly high educational attainment in the USA (for example, they are overrepresented in the University of California system, 40%+). So to say that you like Asians for their academic skills would not be racist (because it is the truth).
Difference in educational attainment are in large due to cultural issues. Some cultures/individuals value education more than others.
Mr Wong the restauranteur had returned from holiday unaware that his trash bin had been taken. One of the refuse guys knocked on the door one morning.
"Where's yer bin?"
"I bin to Hong Kong".
"No, where's yer wheeley bin"
"I weally bin to Hong Kong!"
Smivs on the intertubes!
I don't know, I've always found a girl who knew how to use her divisors positively sexy.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
You won't *SEE* it at all. It will be done in secret, with severe penalties for anyone who lets it slip...
While we should damn China's censorship, we should definitely first stop /. from censoring contents it does not like. I have a track records of successful story submissions. Many of my submissions are related to China -- both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE. However, it couldn't help me to notice that SLAHSDOT would always put on hold and eventually reject any story that deems put a positive light on China's political and online freedom, even if the cited source is a rather conservative ones like The Economist. See my latest hanging submission (here is the original article) for example. The only "positive" stories the /. editor will post are those purely about technology -- like about their space development.
I hope that's only my illusion. But one can't stand on a moral high ground unless one acknowledges or at least open to all facts.
While I think it's okay that he says he thinks Chinese women are beautiful, I can understand why it might also be considered racist. Saying he thinks Chinese women are the most beautiful is kind of like saying he thinks women who are not Chinese are not the most beautiful, which sounds kind of like the guy he criticized, who implies he's a good looking guy because he's not Chinese.
Ok, so it's also not racism to say that I like black people for their crack-smoking skills, since it's true, as they are overrepresented among crack-smokers? Somehow that seems wrong.
c++;
But we already have that in a way here in the US, since most every major city in America has cameras on every building. ( and many many intersections ).
Sure they don't get your ID, but if they get your face, and can track you to somewhere you might have used a CC card or ATM, or if you get into your car ( license plate ) they got you.
Reasonable expectations of privacy is part of freedom. Did you enjoy it while we had it?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
On the heels of the NSA wiretapping of Americans abroad, these damn C*** are learning fast.
That's odd; do you know when that law was supposed to go into effect? I see the article is dated 2005, but I spent 1.5 weeks in Italy in the summer of 2006 and never ran into any of those issues. Internet Cafes only required a signature on a timer sheet so they'd know how long I spent at their computers; nobody ever asked for my ID. Also, the only time I was ever required to show my passport was at the airports--hotels were perfectly fine seeing a credit card, instead.
Maybe I just got lucky, but I stayed in five different hotels and visited at least 6-7 different internet-access locations, so I assume I would have run into *someone* obeying this law, if it's actually on the books.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
And to think about how we missed out: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hyMhwroFlOgzPE61X3P0AVEmxCHA
Yet another win-win situation, denied by our democratic ideals.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I AM THE CLET COMMANDER!
Wherever you see CLET you'll see this face. No one works the CLET like I can...not this tubby bitch, nobody!
I make that shit work!
You are correct in who nominated these judges. But no doubt that the judges in the majority are the ones that lean left of center. This also shows the recent trend of some kind of litmus test for Judges on the Supreme court. The first Bush and Reagan didn't pick known far right judges as Clinton picked from the far left(Ginsburg).
McCain clearly said he would not apply a litmus test, Obama didn't clearly answer the question.
Let me clear it up for you--try not running tanks over your citizens when they're peacefully protesting. That should help.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
BTW the majority of SPAM comes not from China but from the US!
and there were no bombs in Beijing: http://edition.cnn.com/US/9607/27/olympic.bomb.main/
So what would he think of an innumerate Chinese woman? If it's a woman skilled in math that he likes, then that's the trait to admire. But making the assumption a Chinese woman has the skills that he finds attractive is a racial assumption that has a very good chance of being false.
Personally I'd like to see all poorly considered statistical correlations banished.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Ooh, China is soo Evil. We would never spy on people using the internet in the US... ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME! Between my ISP, RIAA, and the Goverment I am amazed my email even reaches me.
What race? There are more race than the human race? I haven't met a martian yet, or did I miss something?
I like mixed-race black/Asian women for their mathematically precise crack smoking skills.
'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM DATA WHERE name LIKE '%'... if you're reading this, it didn't work.
It's probably a good idea. How else will they be able to notify next-of-kin when the next customer drops dead from playing an MMORPG for 3 days straight?
How one dimensional of you.
Start your own blog with your own resources. Slashdot owes you nothing, least of all coverage on the front page. Part of Slashdot's value is in filtering stories for its voluntary audience — providing "news for nerds."
Even given this lack of obligation, Slashdot is fairly liberal (in the classical sense) in not censoring. Your journal is not censored. Your comments are not censored (barring that Scientology incident). Moderation is hardly censorship; it is another form of filtering that you voluntarily submit to by posting comments and reading Slashdot at a given threshold.
As for your rejected stories, consider writing your stories as journal entries and submitting them that way so that they are published regardless of whether an editor decides to put it on the front page.
Fortunately, WWII ended way before the 1972 Olympics.
Right. Next you'll say that Elvis is dead.
Sheeple.
Does being "one dimensional" qualify me to be part of the main stream media?
Oh wait I am not a former Clinton political advisor like George so I am not able to work for ABC and call all 4 debates for the Democrats.
I've been living in Shanghai for more than 2 years and a half now. Since march 2006 at least (I can't tell if it was done before), the ID (passport in case of a stranger) is scanned. What's new is "only" the photo, but isn't there is a photo on passports and ID cards? What difference does it makes to take a picture more? This slashdoter "news" is a fake or what?
Way to post a useless semantics argument. I'm sure your dog thinks you're a genius. Have you noticed that "ethnicism" hasn't really caught on? "Race" and "racism" are commonly accepted, if not necessarily perfectly defined terms that are appropriate for the topic at hand. Come back when you have something to offer beyond pointless blather.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
And here goes the Tiananmen Square google query story again... I'm not working for the chinese gov. but... If you type the query "Tiananmen Square" on google from China, and if you try from another place, it will all lead to the SAME EXACT RESULT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989 If you didn't know, since last summer, Wikipedia is not blocked anymore in China (but who knows what is going to happen again...). I keep reading again, and again, and again, the same crap about the google results for "Tiananmen Square" being not the same from China or from abroad. This is simply WRONG NOW, even if it might HAVE BEEN truth BEFORE. So please, do not repeat what you have read elsewhere without a bit of a check. Also, the issue here in China is not about the google results (everybody here knows what happened, or they are really stupid), but more that it's quite difficult to build company in the Internet sector, that you need an ICP (Internet Content Provider) license only for hosting a site in China, etc. All these kind of things are, IMHO, more hurting the economy than protecting the government, and this is more the issue. Everybody in China is well aware that there is the great firewall of China, and I can tell you that it's VERY easy for anyone that really wishes it to bypass it.
What Western standards, precisely?
Invading a continent and committing nearly total genocide on the natives -- is that the Western standard you want China to follow?
If the work of a government involves the management of people's personal/private information, then I think some secrecy is justified. (eg. Tax departments probably hold a lot of information about individuals that shouldn't be distributed to everyone.) It also makes sense for some parts of government to keep information secret if its release might compromise safety of people, and ideally only for the duration of time that this is an issue. (eg. Police investigations, and yeah I'm sure there is the occasional national security thing that justifies this.)
The problem is really that lazily designed governments tend to lean towards habits of making things secret by default because it's easier than having to make them open. Once you're in the habit of having secrets it's difficult to re-design ways of doing things to make them less secret, but still keep it safe. If you want an idea of a government with a reasonably open design, take a look at this Australian journalist's blog post about the New Zealand Government's Official Information Act. (Transparency International rates NZ as first equal with Denmark and Sweden in its 2008 corruption perception's index.)
Anyone in New Zealand can request any information they like from a government department, and the department is legally obligated to respond with the information within a set time-frame. The only exceptions are if the request wasn't specific enough (or would require unreasonable amounts of work), if privacy or national security might be unreasonably compromised, if the department doesn't have the info (in which case they have to try to transfer it to somewhere that does) and a few other things which are clearly defined. If anything is with-held, the department has to explain why in the context of the relevant section of the law.
If the person who made a request isn't satisfied, they can complain to an independent ombudsman who has complete power to investigate and see any information that's being withheld, then make a judgement. The consequence is that nearly any sizeable government department has entire sections of people whose primary job is to receive requests for information, distribute them to people who can answer them, and make sure they get answered on time. Being too badly organised isn't an acceptable excuse for not responding in the legally defined timeframe, so librarians get employed to make sure that all information gets properly catalogued as soon as it's produced, to make it efficient and quick to find if and when it's requested, and that relevant information doesn't get missed. (Otherwise the department could get in trouble later on if there's an investigation.) Often it's easier to just be in the habit of producing information and reports that can easily be made public, and publishing it before people ask for it, then help people find it if they continue to ask.
If there aren't proper checks and balances within the government, there's nothing to make sure that an agency is doing what it's supposed to do when it's being secret. That's where the biggest problem is because there's no reason to justify why the public should trust the government, and trust should be everything in a democratically elected government. Even if you don't get the government you voted for, you should be able to trust that the government you get is doing what it's doing above board and as openly as possible. You should also be able to be sure that elected politicians aren't directly interfering with the rest of the workings of government except in ways that are clearly visible and above board, and I think that's where the USA and several other countries have serious p
I haven't been to an Internet cafe in years, but I can tell you that getting wifi access at hotels and such in Italy these days invariably involves having your passport scanned or photocopied.
As as westerner who lives in China, can I simply say 'bollocks' to this story?
In China, as long as you don't upset the government you can do what you like (in many ways this is a very liberal society).
The worst thing to happen is that the many many numerous internet bars here (mainly frequented by chain-smoking WoW players) will simply either ignore this rule or slip 100 RMB into the pocket of the local officer.
Ditto in India.
Would you like to work for ABC? Is that your childhood dream?
My favourite "wifi cafes" in China are the wireless kind, where you buy a cup of coffee and maybe pull out your laptop.
Of course you don't need to be inside the cafe to pull out your laptop, either.
Let me clear it up for you--try not running tanks over your citizens when they're peacefully protesting. That should help.
How does clear anything up? It only muddies the waters further by implying that Western powers never crush people with tanks, etc.
Geez, you have no humour.
My point is, race, ethnic, or what-not is meaningless. What matter is the culture. If a ethnic Han Chinese is brought up and raised in different culture, is that person no longer a Chinese? That makes no sense.
googling your Tibetz...
So much for the new levels of openness and transparency that the Olympics were supposed to usher in.
I'm sorry, who exactly was saying this would happen? I don't recall anything like that.
Property is theft.
I live in China and I've lived in other parts of the world. I can tell you, girls here aren't prettier or uglier than in the USA, Canada, Europe, other parts of Asia, Oceania and South America.
:(){
In Italy when you go to the internet cafe, they will as you for a photo ID and photocopy it.
Also you cannot buy a topup simcard without ID or passport, and it's very likely (if you're a foreginer) to be denied for 'security reasons'!
Nightmare!
I feel remiss in not pointing out Lawrence Sirovich "A pattern analysis of the second Rehnquist U.S. Supreme Court" PNAS June 24, 2003 vol. 100 no. 13 7432-7437.
Cites of western powers running over their own unarmed citizens with tanks?
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
How about cites of powers running over their own unarmed left-handed citizens with green tanks no more than three metres long on a Sunday after a rainy Friday, but not on a leap year?
Demanding very specific forms of abuse before you'll accept that there's abuse is dishonest and comical. "--Hitler killed 6M Jews! --Ah, but did he do it with the guillotine? --Um, no... --In that case he's nothing compared to the evil of the French revolution!"
I also think there's something screwy in the insistence on the victims being "their own". It is normal to assume that a state has greater rights over its own citizens than over others. Thus, we accept police offers imprisoning (sometimes with eventual executions) "their own" citizens, and would consider it quite objectionable for police acting outside their jurisdiction to do the same. And yet, when it suits them, people like you like to turn that on its head.
A weird consequence of this is that, in your book, an abuse against a person living in the territory of your state is less extreme if that person is unjustly denied citizenship as well. A case in point is the West Bank Palestinians, quite a few of whom have been crushed by tanks or bulldozers, and who live on land militarily controlled by Israel, slowly colonised by Israel, and claimed as part of Israel by fringes of Israeli society, and yet not granted Israeli citizenship.
So you took four paragraphs to say you don't have any cites. Well done.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Well, if we're going for pure conciseness, I suppose I should give you kudos for admitting, in one line, that you don't have any cites for the example that I gave.
But I *do* have an example of the PRC doing what I had said. So looks like I've produced a cite and you're produced a strawman counterexample.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
this makes me think about how they were photographing/videorecording my face in coffee shops in Amsterdam...
OK, so I'm not the only one. Now, is there a unknown to me higher truth that /.ers have a thing for redheads as well? Then I'd be truly fulfilled.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.