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Chinese Schools Ax Green Dam Censorship Software
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.'"
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.
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.
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.
Whether it sucks or it blows?
Apparently, it sucks... and spits.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
TFA says the Green Dam software was to be installed on all PUBLIC access computers in China. The United States filters public access computers already. Although there is not a national law that I am aware of, but pretty much every public library I've been to has an internet filter. Ever tried to look at porn on a public library computer?
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.
Here is the Austrialian news article linked to in the original Slashdot post: News article.
CHINA plans to require that all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 be shipped with software that blocks access to certain websites, a move that could give government censors unprecedented control over how Chinese users access the internet.
While in practice that could mean essentially all Internet cafe users, in theory, it would have applied to everyone.
So Green Dam was an influence and not a hindrance?
Perhaps in countries where you can be prosecuted and/or silently punished for criticizing your government the above ambiguity is a must for public statements made to newspapers. I would surmise that the translation was all too accurate. So that those who know what you mean know they are not alone and those who do not agree cannot hold it against you. Just speculation but I would wager these were carefully chosen words.
My work here is dung.
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.
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."
Except that's not what controversy means. Controversy means basically an unsettled and ongoing debate as to whether something is good or bad, black or white, etc, and usually neither side really has more than opinion to support their version. But anyway, the jury is still out on which of them is right.
Exactly which of those aspects you've correctly linked to is still a controversy? Is the jury still out on whether vulnerabilities that could get your machine pwned are good or bad? Do we still have compelling arguments for both sides of the issue of whether private and sensitive user information should be encrypted when sent over the internet? Or what?
It seems to me like nowadays "controversial" has become the euphemism for, basically, "I think it's bad, but I want to pretend to be nice and balanced, so I must find another word."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"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.'"
Really means:
"We (the teachers and staff) were no longer able to watch porn during recess and testing periods."
-Oz
This is Slashdot. Not only do readers need to be spoon-fed, they also need to be told which side of the spoon is up.
I hate printers.
That makes more scene. Thank you for the incite.
This is Slashdot. Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon.
After all, I am strangely colored.
An increase in Chinese school teaching and administrative position availability. They are also on short supply for medical examiners.
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Scuba Diving
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Maybe it's like MegaMaid? IOW, a transformer!
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
There actually is a federal law, if the library in question receives certain federal funds for Internet access or computers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Internet_Protection_Act Many states laws take this forced censorship even further.
(the name means "emperor")
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Yep, just like you are at home and not in jail for inciting social instability.
(depending on your nationality you're either smiling or nerveously looking over your shoulder right now)
Not to worry, IANTCG (I Am Not The Chinese Government)
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
You are aware the Wang is the most common surname in China [highbeam.com], I assume? (the name means "emperor")
What a coincidence! Where I live my "emperor" is called (a) wang.
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
So Green Dam was an influence and not a hindrance?
Given that anything that is a hindrance is an influence (by definition), why would you conclude that it wasn't a hindrance based on the fact that it was an influence? That's a bit like me saying, "I ate a sandwich," and you responding with "So you had a sandwich and not a roast beef sandwich?" Nothing in what I said implied it wasn't roast beef. Nothing in the originally quoted sentence implies it wasn't a hindrance.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Local authority ignores mandates from central government, pretty routine in China, I'd say (despite what you might think about a strong central government): environmental regulation, land use/ownership/compensation guideline, anti-corruption laws, earthquake compensation, labor law etc. China actually have quite a few progressive law on the book, but are usually rendered unenforceable when the very people who are in charge of enforcing them stands to profit (read: kick-back from industry) by ignoring them and no independent judiciary system to hear petition of ordinary people whom these laws helps.
The only difference here is that it have a "positive" outcome.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
> Yay slashdot for not understanding UTF8. It's supposed to be ying xiang.
Yeah, that is irritating. Basically people used things like Unicode's Left to Right Override character to mess up the layout so someone who's language can be represented in 7 bit ASCII decided to clobber Unicode completely.
My Hanyu Pinyin dictionary says ying3xiang3 means influence and it gives one of the examples as "The crops have been influenced by the weather", so the connotation is clearly negative.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
China'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.
I think they've backed down.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Basically people used things like Unicode's Left to Right Override character to mess up the layout so someone who's language can be represented in 7 bit ASCII decided to clobber Unicode completely
Apparently just excluding the relevant unicode ranges was too difficult. It's not like there are existing functions that you can call to do that or anything...
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