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Red Flag Linux Forced On Chinese Internet Cafes
iamhigh writes "Reports are popping up that Chinese Internet Cafes are being required to switch to Red Flag Linux. Red Flag is China's biggest Linux distro and recently received headlines for their Olympic Edition release. The regulations, effective Nov. 5th, are aimed at combating piracy and require only that cafes install either a legal version of Windows or Red Flag. However, Radio Free Asia says that cafes are being forced to install Red Flag even if they have legal versions of Windows. Obviously questions about spying and surveillance have arisen, with no comment from the Chinese Government."
Obviously questions about spying and surveillance have arisen ...
Um, it uses RPM as a package manager so as long as the government isn't forcing Cafes to use a certain package repository or use certain packages, where does the danger of surveillance lie? I mean, I wouldn't trust the Chinese government either but I am confused why a mandate of Red Flag Linux upsets people in this case ... and a recommendation from the DoD is probably heralded?
Yeah, they're running an industry's tech core, yeah they're stating exactly what OSS to use but where is the danger?
My work here is dung.
The year of Linux on the desktop, right?
You know Microsoft has been pushing for the Chinese government to do something about the rampant piracy in China... They no doubt expected reduced piracy to lead to more legal installations of Windows but it has backfired on them hugely with this move to allow Internet Cafés to use Red Flag Linux.
Also the spying claims are meh. We already know the Chinese Gov. watch the pipes closely there really is no advantage in further monitoring within Internet Cafés.
A red flag should go up when you are forced to use an operating system designated by the government.
If you don't think Red Flag is meant to be a Windows replacement, take a look at Wikipedia's screen shot of Version 6 (presumably out of the box).
...
Isn't this the part where Gates shits his gourd and asks to meet with Hu Jintao? Then baits the large part of greater China with free software that he writes off as a goodwill donation? I mean, we are talking a serious part of the world's population
My work here is dung.
Perhaps Microsoft will complain less about piracy if governments force people to replace pirated versions of Windows with Linux instead of forcing them to buy Windows licenses.
In this case, though, I suspect that there are some other motives at work besides curbing piracy--namely supporting a local software developer/distributor over a foreign one and possibly the ability to better control/monitor internet access in the future.
Windows market share suddenly drops below 50%
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Who do you think controls the RPM repository that Red Flag uses? A company in league with the PRC government.
In China, because a large number of the players do not own the computer they use to play games (e.g. Internet cafes), the CD keys required to create an account can be purchased independently of the software package. In order to play the game, players must also purchase prepaid game cards that can be played for 66 hours and 40 minutes.[43] A monthly fee model is not available to players of this region. The Chinese government and The9, the licensee for World of Warcraft in China, have imposed a modification on Chinese versions of the game which places flesh on bare-boned skeletons and transforms dead character corpses into tidy graves. These changes were imposed by the Chinese government in an attempt to "promote a healthy and harmonious online game environment" in World of Warcraft.
My work here is dung.
Maybe it is so the cafes are limited to software that runs on Linux? Does Red Flag Linux have/support WINE or an equivalent?
V for Vendetta: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
If I were some non-american government then I would prefer people to use Linux. Not because of any backdoors that I could put in it, but because I could be reasonably sure that there were no backdoors put in it by the US government.
What "questions about spying and surveillance?" TFA doesn't mention any.
Did you read the same article I did? From TFA:
It quoted Xiao Qiang, director of the California-based China Internet Project, as saying the new rules would help authorities regulate Internet cafes that now operate on the margins of the law, and allow them to undertake heightened surveillance.
3 full paragraphs in the article discuss surveillance.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What good is a fork? The rest of the world generally isn't using Red Flag anyways and China isn't exactly all butterflies and tater tots when it comes to their directives.
If they say you have to use Red Flag, you'll be using Red Flag or they'll be "reeducating" you on just WHY you should be using it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I've been into some of China's small town Internet Cafe's and almost everyone was under 20 and gaming. I sure hope those games have been ported with proper language support or the cafe's will be hurting.
The internet cafes in China are not going to run Linux anytime soon.
Why?
Because the cafe users are gamers, mostly. They use the *cheap* internet connection to play one of tons of different windows only MMORPGs(And that includes World of Warcraft.) or Online shooters.(Used to be counterstrike.)
To ask those internet cafes to run Linux is to ask them to get rid of their source of profits.
Not when it isn't a voluntary adoption.
I have had the occasion to visit MII in China. They can already get a screenshot of what any iCafe user is doing in real time. I saw it with my own eyes. Combine that with their requirement that iCafe users need to show their ID card when they rent a computer and there is effectively zero privacy. These were windows PC's so I'm not sure why the hurry to switch to Linux. It probably has less to do with the actual operating system and more to do with the vendor who is supporting the switchover backhanding some government lackey a Benz or three. Welcome to China.
That's going to be a lot of new Linux users.
Imagine Linux on the desktop taking off due to support from a totalitarian regime!
Btw. does anyone know if Red Flag contributes any code back to the community? It would be interesting if they've submitted any of their changes to KDE, Gnome, or OpenSSH...
I stole this Sig
up comments is confusing.
that which was started to cricumvent corporate control, is used as a tool for authoritarian control
this is not in any way good for linux
it cuts to the very core of the rationale we all use for saying linux and open source software is a superior approach
if the software is coopted and subverted by an authoritarain regime, where is the inherent freedom that makes open software ideologically superior?
a corporate controlled software can make deals with an authoritarian regime, and withhold support for certain functionality. not that they do, but that they can. but with open source, the devil doesn't need to make deals with you, he just ignores you completely, and uses the software for dominance and control as the authoritarian regime sees fit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The new rules that went into effect Nov. 5 are aimed at cracking down on the use of pirated software, said Hu Shenghua, a spokesman for the Culture Bureau in the city of Nanchang.
Welcome to China!
And anyone can stand in front of a fucking tank.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
you're forgetting that China filters heavily. there's no reason to believe any RPM repositories other than the one hosted by the government would be accessible.
But you'll probably get cleaved and die unless you have 25000+ hp. :)
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Slightly off-topic, but how in hell could you hope to succeed secretly be doing surveillance in an OPEN SOURCE software ? (GPL, in this case)
- As the source is accessible, surveillance functionality hidden in the source code would soon be discovered and published about. (Just as exploitable bugs are regularily cleaned)
- People would be free as per GPL to make surveillance-free forks of the code and publish "clean" versions of RFL (even more easy if these fix are done under non-Chinese jurisdictions)
Even if *indeed* there was surveillance in RFL, at least something could be done against it, thanks to the GPL. The Chinese would only be vulnerable if :
- either they are too lazy
- or the government explicitly states that the surveillance modules are mandatory (in which case it won't be a secret anymore).
Whereas, with proprietary Windows, the US could pretty much be already spying on the Chinese and nothing could be done against it to either prevent it or even detect it. The Chinese would be completely vulnerable to some foreign developers.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That move is against "free" in the spirit of open source movement.
Everyone should against it.
Really. Unless youv'e been asleep for the last 10 years, can there be any question?
Anyone cares to read the referred articles? This is only a move of a insignificant local government and is already criticized in many Chinese forums and online media sites. As a big country, things much weirder than this happens all the time. It is surprising why it gets singled out here. Yes, Chinese government heavily filters Internet connections and suppress any sites that it sees inappropriate, but it does NOT have to force linux on Internet cafe simply to spy on citizens. Believe me, it is much easier and inexpensive to spy on Windows machines. My suggestion: next time before you bring up something about a monarchy/communist/evil China, do some research.
Non-sequitur. The fact that the integrity is easy to verify does not change the fact that they cannot get a clean copy. Knowing your copy isn't clean does you no good if there are no clean copies.
Yes, there can and should be questions.
The first one to ask is "who would want this rumour, true or not, to be spread?"
The second one to ask is "do those who might benefit have a history of disinformation?"
The third one to ask is "if country X monitors hundreds of millions of PCs, where are all the millions of people doing the monitoring?"
China is a new capitalist society with roots in communism, and has quite a bit of baggage to deal with. Among them a propensity to overregulate everything, and likewise for the citizens to ignore all the regulations as long as no-one is watching.
I don't doubt for a second that the Chinese government can and will spy on some of its citizens, just like CIA, FBI, NSA and SS will over here. But they quite frankly don't have the infrastructure to do full scale computer surveillance, nor any need to -- if they want someone arrested, they simply arrest him or her. They don't need to collect evidence and convince a judge first.
And just like here, if they want to monitor internet traffic, doing it at the ISP or confiscating equipment is far easier than backdooring individual systems. For one thing, you don't need highly skilled agents capable of accessing back doors with the required finesse and understanding.
This whole article smells of FUD and agitprop. Sure, China is designated the new Big Evil, and the US needs another Enemy to believe in right now. But seeing Chinese government conspiracies in everything doesn't make it true, any more than seeing communist conspiracies in the 50s and 60s made that propaganda true.
My guess: A canton or city government decided to go linux, and chose Red Flag as their distro. Some zealous and cerebrally challenged bureaucrats (I know, a tautology) then interpreted that as an order. And a newspaper picked up the blunder, and wrote a note about it, which was then picked up and massaged to fit the desired perception by their western colleagues who like to post propaganda against the enemy du jour, because it sells ads. Our local Ministry of Truth won't interfere, as long as the bashing is against this year's designated foe.
ICBW, but it seems like a much simpler explanation.
And personally, I think China is on the road towards freedom, even if they stumble every now and then. But we need to keep in mind that it's going to be a long march.
"They cannot get a clean copy" is simply an invention. Have you been to China?
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Do you really think you can get a clean copy of Debian off the Chinese internet? The view from the average citizen's perspective remains grim.
I don't know but it cant be that hard to find out
1) get debian ssh certs
2) go to china
3) apt-get update
or
1) hack a us box
2) compare ssh certs
or
1) phone a friend in another country and get them to read the cert to you
I mean im all for paranoia and tin foilhattery but seriously your just blindly speculating
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
It doesn't have to do that with closed source, either.