China's 'Green Dam' Software Program Near Collapse

katarn writes "Apparently domestic and international pressure, security vulnerabilities, and a $2.2B lawsuit over alleged stolen code have taken their toll on China's Green Dam software censorship program. Green Dam is a separate program from the 'Great Firewall of China,' which remains firmly in place. According to Green Dam program partners, funding for the project has not been renewed. The project development team has been shut down and the installation and aftercare team is facing closure. Unsurprisingly there has been no official comment from official Chinese authorities."

Comments

Note: It was a US Software Company suing for 2.2B

[Mekkah]

Not only was it a 2.2b lawsuit, but it was brought on by US Software Firms.

US software firm sues China over Green Dam piracy

Dam it!

[daremonai]

According to Mr Chen, requests to the government for more funding had generated no response.

Actually, the government did try to respond, but unfortunately Green Dam blocked it. Some sort of obscenity issue, apparently.

Re:Damn China damn green damn software

[Coren22]

**** China **** green **** software sirs.

China green software? What is this supposed to mean? I don't understand. Are you saying I should uninstall Green Dam?

Re:Officially Official

[Stormwatch]

All continental China authorities are unofficial. The official, legitimate government of China is the one in Taipei.

Re:Note: It was a US Software Company suing for 2.

[ILuvRamen]

It wasn't just a "US Software Firm" it was the infamous Solid Oak, the makers of Cyber Sitter. I just had someone's comp have Cyber Sitter version 10 (the version they ripped off to make Green Dam) blow itself up and removing manually it is an unbelievable pain in the ass. The LSP's regenerate themselves if all pieces of the software aren't deleted at the exact same time. So needless to say, it probably would have worked well which is why they stole it. The funny thing is, it's a pretty poorly rated program compared to others. They should have ripped off Net Nanny, the current highest rated internet filter. I think Cyber Sitter might be the hardest to remove though. The good news in all of this is maybe Cyber Sitter will get a sizeable chunk of that 2.2 billion and finally be able to afford some damn technical support! In fact, it's so awful and the product ratings are so far in the toilet, China stealing their code for Green Dam may actually save their entire company because they're not doing so well lately. Just thought that little back story on who's behind this might be interesting.