Chinese Government To Mandate PC Censorware

An anonymous reader writes "The Chinese government has sponsored the development of a censorware package called 'Green Dam Youth Escort'; basically a PC-resident IP blocker that gets regular updates of banned sites from a central government site. There are now plans afoot to mandate that all new PCs sold in China be shipped with this software. The rationale behind this is to 'stop the poisoning of children's minds.'"

Comments

Re:Count down to a hack around it in...

[CRCulver]

I cannot imagine a concerted effort of Chinese hackers or those in sympathy with the Chinese people

As I wrote in another comment here, I suspect the Chinese people are generally in favour of censorship. Though people in the West may want to paint the Chinese masses as a suffering people yearning to break free of the yoke of oppressive government, such a portrayal may not stand up to facts. Indeed, just last week in the International Herald Tribune (the international version of the New York Times) there was an article about how Chinese students nowadays think Tiananmen-square style civic commitment needs to be nipped in the bud, because it would threaten China's economic development that is making them very happy.

Re:Nanny State Cat Accepts Nanny State

[eugene2k]

Communism doesn't exist in China, nor did it ever exist in any of the communist-controlled states past or present. What you called communism is actually authoritarianism. And this is not the merits of communism that are discussed, it is in fact the actual circumstances.