Slashdot Mirror
China Delays "Green Dam" Internet Filter
SailorSpork sends in a BBC report that "China is delaying a controversial plan requiring all new computers sold in the country to be equipped with an Internet filtering software, state media says. The filter, called Green Dam Youth Escort, was to have been required from Wednesday, but the ministry of industry said computer makers needed more time." The submitter adds: "Except of course for Sony, who as reported earlier lacked the moral fiber to hold off installing the spyware, which reportedly is ridden with security holes and uses stolen code. Sony actually managed to ship ahead of the schedule."
"Green Dam",
Total sham.
Real security:
Green eggs and ham.
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Well, Sony finally manages to get SOMETHING out on time. Too bad God of War 3 wasn't requested by an evil totalitarian regime to oppress its people.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A direct violation of Copyright.
Where are Sony's Copyright lawers this time?
The filter, called Green Dam Youth Escort
Filters are censorship. But, if implemented correctly, they're one of the most innocuous forms of censorship. I was initially lead to believe that Green Dam Youth Escort was community driven:
In 2008, under instructions from political leaders, the MIIT implemented a "community-oriented green open Internet filtering software project" with the support of the Central Civilisation Office and the Ministry of Finance. Its aim was to build a "green, healthy network environment, to protect the healthy growth of young people".
Trials commenced in Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Lanzhou, and Xi'an in October 2008 after the ministry negotiated with the software suppliers and 50 web portals to make the software publicly available without charge, and more than 2,000 installations took place. Trials rolled out to 10 more cities, including Chengdu, Shenyang, Harbin, and Qingdao. The ministry claimed that by December 2008, the software had been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and 3 million times since the end of March 2009. Five leading PC vendors in mainland China, Founder, Lenovo, Tongfang, Great Wall and HEDY, also participated in trial installations.
Ok, no biggie. We've got Spamhaus, right? That's a community censorship project against something we don't want--spam! And I love it. But Green Dam Youth Escort seems to be passing the boundaries of what a "filter" does:
According to the Epoch Times, hackers in China had accessed the keyword library and administrative codes, revealing only 2,700 keywords relating to pornography, and over 6,500 politically sensitive keywords which included '4 June', 'Tibet' and 'Falun Gong'. Chinese users of the software have apparently found that it injects a DLL file into Internet Explorer that prohibits the usage of FreeGate, one of the programs commonly used to bypass the Golden Shield Project.
Alright, swapping out a dynamically linked library is transcending a "filter" ... or any label we've invented so far. I must have missed the reports on that but that's pretty shocking to me. If I had to dub this anything it'd be 1984ware.
My work here is dung.
Green dam won't ship until it goes through a major change. Even the Chinese government would be embarrassed to relese such an unpopular piece of software. Even more so after it was discovered that a good chunk of the code was stolen
I've been Sony-Free since about 2004. I purchase no products, services, or media that allows Sony to profit.
It's a pain in the ass since Sony owns patents and rights on a huge amount of computer hardware that people take for granted these days. However, I've made a game out of it, carefully researching all my purchases beforehand to make sure they don't contain any Sony parts or licenses.
There are lots of reasons to boycott Sony. Why not join me over this one?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The hardest part about doing this would be Jeopardy.
Can I still watch it, if I promise to skip the commercials? If I boycott the advertisers? (That's a pretty easy one, no HeadOn for me, thanks.)
Would I be allowed to try out for the show?
and involves underage hookers.
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
So this is old hat plus a slam on Sony... so it makes slash because it's a slam on Sony?
Go back to 4chan, /b/tard troll.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Green Dam
Some small dams are made of wood
Wet wood can turn green
You could call the boards in this Green Dam 'Water Boards'
Dick Cheney loves Water Boarding
Coincidence? I think not
I blame Dick Cheney for this fiasco.
Even if they mandate that the software somehow be made "uninstallable", determined people will hack around it or hack it out completely in no time anyway.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Anyone remember the CD rootkits?
as China sees fit and no amount of anything will move them from that position.
So . . . .
In my other life, I eat cats.
Yeah, call it a crazy theory and call me cynical for thinking that Chinese government wants even more control over the citizens, but the exploit found allowed an attacker to remotely control any system running the software. My guess the coders need more time to "fix" that issue and implement another hole for the government to take even more control.
You want to sell computers in China and CCP tells you need to put that on, you put that on.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Corporations have no moral values. I hope someday people will be understand that the behavior of a corporation is tied to the moral values of the board of directors/people to take decisions, and I want the law to be enforced on them instead of just applying fines to the company
Then why not just ask Sony to install their ill-fated rootkit which they tried to secretly auto-install on any computer that read a Sony BMG music CD?
That's one reason Sony is taking heat here now and forever. Capitulating to a dictatorship just adds to the list.
According to all reports that I've read Sony did not install the program, merely placed the executable on the computer to meet the governments requirements. Sounds like a smart compromise to me.
I'd rather have a communist dictatorship robbing me of my privacy tbh
I am curious - I often hear that Chinese projects have some name that seems utterly random to me, but probably has some connotations or meaning to them.
Does "Green Dam" have a different meaning, or carry some form of meaning beyond its name?
So I'm thinking of starting a fund to raise money and get Slashdot a dictionary. Who's in?
Have any of you ever bought a computer or been to China? When you buy a comp you go to a store where a vendor asks you what programs pirated or otherwise you want installed on your PC, then you hand over the cash and you get your computer with a pirated WinXP or Vista. That's how the majority buy their PCs. Hence why the people in China don't see "Green Dam" as an issue because the transaction completely side steps the software. In other words enforcing the installation of "Green Dam" is extremly hard.
The real issue people are pissed about here is the collusion of business and government, ie. why the government contracted an unknown company to make a software using $6 million dollars worth of public money.
They really should call it the Van Dam filter. Because really, this is like the Dim Muk to computing.
I can't, I got banned while trying to over 9000...
...hmm?
Dammit, slashdot too?!
ics
I know /. hates all things Sony and nothing will ever able to make them remotely like the company again but I wish people would at least try and get facts about stuff but this is /. so that is a another pipe dream kinda like Hope and Change I guess. Sony does included the files for Green Dam on new computers but it's not installed and it comes with instructions on how to install it but we can't let the facts get in between /. and some good Sony hating
But only when they are being loss leadered.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
not sure i'd be pushing for my kids to have an escort... besides they're harder to find with craigslist now lol
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
"Green Dam is the alleged predecessor to a larger and more invasive firewall nicknamed, 'God Damn.'"