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Chinese Schools Ax Green Dam Censorship Software

Posted by timothy on from the ungrateful-whelps dept.

eldavojohn writes "China's controversial Green Dam Internet Filter died on new PCs a month ago, but it wasn't until recently that Chinese schools silently removed it. Claims that the software inhibited work in schools was cited as the reason by Reuters. 'We will remove all Green Dam software from computers in the school as it has strong conflicts with teaching software we need for normal work,' said one school, while another claimed, 'It had seriously influenced our normal work.'"

7 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Kinda like my school last year. by Slashdot+Suxxors · · Score: 5, Informative

    We had a SonicWall filter and it blocked pretty much everything. Not saying it was SonicWall's fault as we had a highly incompetent system administrator, but it was very detrimental to doing even the simplest of tasks. So I know how these students and teachers feel.

    1. Re:Kinda like my school last year. by Ephemeriis · · Score: 2, Informative

      We had a SonicWall filter and it blocked pretty much everything. Not saying it was SonicWall's fault as we had a highly incompetent system administrator, but it was very detrimental to doing even the simplest of tasks. So I know how these students and teachers feel.

      We've got a few clients who want things filtered, which means we've tried several different products to do that.

      We ran a Squid/Dan's Guardian proxy for a while... But I was the only person here who could do anything with it, which made my job harder.

      We set up gateways with built-in filters like the SonicWall, but I always felt their classifications were a little weird and arbitrary. Stuff got filtered that shouldn't have... Or got through that shouldn't have... And depending on how many users they had, it could get more expensive than I felt was necessary.

      These days we're using OpenDNS. Anyone here can change the settings, it requires absolutely no special knowledge. The filter lists are pretty sensible... Not a whole lot blocked/allowed that shouldn't be... And the price is great.

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
  2. Re:Engrish or bad translation by quatin · · Score: 3, Informative

    There's nothing wrong with the translation. I think it's more about your understanding of the word "influence". Influencing their normal work just means it affects their normal work. It doesn't mean a good influence or a bad influence. Is the sentence by itself ambiguous? Yes. But it's in the right context to suggest a bad influence, so there shouldn't be a misunderstanding.

  3. Re:Controversial? by samcan · · Score: 4, Informative

    The controversy was that the Chinese government was requiring this software (I believe developed by the Chinese government) to be installed on all new computers sold in China, including those sold by U.S. manufacturers.

  4. Yes, Impressively Controversial by eldavojohn · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ok, I'm curious now. Exactly what was the controversy about it? Whether it sucks or it blows? :P

    You only list two but I was fairly impressed with the number of dimensions of controversy this effort managed to accrue. You have (and this is by no means a complete list) accusations of copyright infringement and stealing code, unencrypted transmission from every machine to the server and accusations that said vulnerabilities make way for a possible government botnet tool. And that's aside from obvious controversy of the citizen privacy violations and the Chinese government manipulating PC manufacturers.

    Really, if you were to tell me that a government was pushing this I could not, in my wildest dreams, have guessed all of those controversies springing up. Hats off to the Chinese government. Sometimes I think nothing can else surprise me and then, well, there it is.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  5. Re:Controversial? by quatin · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ok, the Australian article does state that, but if you read the article linked through the slashdot submission we are currently discussing.

    Chinaâ(TM)s industry and information technology minister Li Yizhong said manufacturers, internet users and organisations opposed to the plans had received the wrong message from his department and that installation was never planned to be compulsory.

    He said Green Dam would be installed in public places and schools, but would be âoevoluntaryâ for other users who can choose whether to install a software disk that they will receive when buying a new computer.

  6. Re:Engrish or bad translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most likely the work "influence" was translated from the Chinese word yinxiang, which generally connotes a negative influence. A better translation in this context might be "disturb."