Slashdot Mirror
New Chinese Rule Requires Real Names Online
crimeandpunishment writes "According to a human rights group, a leading Chinese Internet regulator is calling for new rules requiring people to use their real names online and when buying mobile phones. New York-based 'Human Rights in China' says it has obtained the complete text of a speech Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, made in April, and they quote him as saying 'We will make the Internet real name system a reality as soon as possible.'"
You can't buy a cell phone in the USA without either giving your identity, or giving the police permission to tap the line to wait for you to ID yourself.
Post-paid plans already require a credit check that takes your SSN and associates it with the account. If the account changes hands, a new credit check is done on the new identity... no way to hide who you are in this environment.
You could argue that a pre-paid plan can be paid for with untraceable cash... but if large amounts of prepaid phone minutes are bought with cash and they can't figure out why, the price for the service will go up. Top up with just one identifiable payment and it's tied to the phone forever.
The anonymous phone call has gone the way of the pay phone... gone!
new rules requiring people to use their real names -- when buying mobile phones
Just like Chinese, this is required by Apple too. They say it's so that you cannot buy multiple phones, but you still are required to give them your real name when you want to buy a phone. You are only allowed to buy a device with a credit card and they will record your name and phone IMEI.
The trend in the US seems to be going strongly towards using real names too. Theres Facebook and there just was that Blizzard Forum incident. So it's not really nothing new, but it is just an another "china and communism is bad"-story when pretty much the same is done in the US.
Any guess on how many people share the name "Wang Chen" in all of China? Chances are most people could use their real name and still remain relatively anonymous.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Is that you?
World of Warcraft is doing something similar with RealID ( http://us.battle.net/realid/index.html ). It is "completely voluntary"; at least for the moment. I suspect there will be a push for more accountability in all online endeavors soon in an attempt to slow down the horrors of internet anonymity.
It looks like some people want that to be the law, not that it is the law.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
If ever brought into force in my country I suppose I'll have to go through the legal process of changing my name to "John Smith".
Although the article does seem biased, I do not mind as I agree with the sentiment that this move to eliminate anonymity is disturbing. This leads me to two questions:
Something seems a little backwards here...are they really all that naive to see that they may end up losing control?
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
Hey, that's my name too. In fact, one billion other people seem to have registered with this name as well. Go figure.
Thats right, The Mr. Lee....
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
This would be more effective if Chinese people had real names.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
To control something, you have to watch it.
It's not just about 'bad guys'. It's about the web of control you get sucked into.
That MMO that banned people playing characters of differing genders..
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Your name, address, and birth date please.
To those of you saying "we do it too" citing blizzard and facebook.. I don't see the connection or parallel. A company can demand you fill out a form however they would like but if you fail to comply (opting for the input of gyberish) what are they going to do - take away your birthday?
What I need to see in the US to be convinced "US does it too" is Anti-AC legislation in the US. From what I understand every time its been tried it has been shot down in the courts.
In terms of what telecom companies demand of you to provision telephone service I guess you can make that argument.. I don't know enough of the specifics to comment. However I will to counter its perfectly legal to purchase and use an international sim card in the US where there are no identity requirements. Due to minimization laws it can also NOT be used as an excuse to tap communications origionating and terminating within the country without a warrant... Although in practice good luck with that :) Secure codecs are your friends.
What if my name really is breastfan42?
yup a real name
there use this often...but not in canada its a 400$ fine
Cameras and identification everywhere won't prevent you or your family from being killed. They might make it easier to catch who did, but it won't make you safer.
Thank you for your observations, Mr. Imerso. If that is your real name. [dramatic chorus]
Norway also requires you to provide your real name when buying a mobile phone GSM SIM-card, this even applies to cash-cards -- Just like China. Norway also covertly tortures people, just like China, if they talk about NATOs false-flag terrorism or other issues the government wants the population to stay quitet about.
In Sweden you can buy a pay-as-you-go SIM-card for $6 (49 SEK) with no questions asked. The only issue with these cards is that the service provider is in theory able to store what SIM card number was abused in what phone using the phones IMEI, so do remember to never use the same phone to abuse both a SIM-card with a monthly fee and subscriber data and an anonymous pay-as-you go SIM-card. Also remember to change both phone the phone and the SIM-card when they compromize your phone.
It is also possible to point a device against a building and get a nice list of all phones active in it and find out what SIM-card you are using that way, but if someone like Norwegian goverment terrorist are watching you that closely because you say something bad about NATO or something like that then you're screwed anyway and it's probably time to move to slightly more free country like Sweden.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
So, when can I come over and install a camera in your bedroom?
I hope that you see that you do have something to hide. And that having something to hide doesn't necessarily have to be the sole domain of criminals.
For any politician spouting the same line, I ask that you first install a camera in your office. After all, the office is paid for by the citizenry. It's public property.
The people discussing this are missing the point - this is just a first step for China to attempt to de-anonymize the internet in their country. The people who say "well, they still have some anonymity because of name collisions" are correct, but for how long?
Things like this are a precursor to more nefarious things, such as requiring government issued passes to connect to the internet to do anything on it.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
As things stand, unless the user is technically skilled, the real person can often be tracked to the phone / IP address. I think with enough knowledge you could use the web truly anonymously but not many people have that skill. Many will make mistakes that let the government correlate the computer with the person.
'We will make the Internet real name system a reality as soon as possible.'
When will possible get here?
Because sometimes, society is mistaken about what it considers to be wrong. In that situation, which in my opinion is very very common, privacy allows you to act morally.
Recent examples come to mind:
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
The timing of this and Blizzard amuses me a bit. Maybe they got the ideas off each other?
I keep getting this image of BFFs Blizzard and China bouncing ideas off each other while smoking cigars, while whipping their gold farming slaves.
(I don't actually play WoW, so I wasn't able to add the proper imagery. WoW pros please help.)
This has been the norm in South Korea for years. But it isn't public full name that is used. Well some people can if they want, but on most sites you're allowed to set a nickname for display. You can still be anonymous so long as you don't break the law. The government just requires that a real identity be attached to each account. Frankly it does have some benefits. It's much harder to troll if you're banned. You have to steal another ID which is illegal to come back and harass people in games, on forums, etc.
The system only applies to sites and servers in Korea though, so if you want to speak out about the government and do something illegal, just do it on another countries servers.
Shut the fuck up, you cocksmoking teabagger!
Am I the only one who sees the weirdness in how people are reacting to the Chinese removing anonymity when western countries have been doing this for years now without so much as a "WTF!!". For example in Italy you cant even walk into a cafe now and go on the internet without some type of ID. Here in Australia if one buys a mobile phone sim card you have to contact the telco and confirm your name and address before they will even let you make calls. This whole thing reminds me of a sad but true saying
While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.- Lenin (1870 - 1924)
[citation needed]
The thing is that polar bears in zoos are pretty safe too. Maybe they're happy and don't mind being watched all the time, I don't know. But we're human beings and should have the right to choose one way or another. We should provide that for each other. We are the ones who chose to live in society instead of nature, and that should always be of the most benefit to the most people, and should never make people feel miserable or uncomfortable. The government are the servants of the people, we need "leaders" for organization and protection, not for control. Any time organization and protection interferes with our rights then it is going too far and it is not worth it.
I'm in favor of anonymity online because I see all the good it does people. It allows completely free media and it allows people to be honest about things they would never dare express in their real every day lives.
We should control our information, no one else.
Our information does not belong to the governments.
You just reinforced my point. Do you see? I feel better than you. You are just an anonymous "marginal" coward. Thank you.
Thirty years after marrying her, my ex-wife now has more chins than the Beijing phone directory.
Thank God I'm not in China, even though there are some places in the Internet that I don't care if they know my name, but those places are few. But for the other places, they can kiss my ass on that. I'll apply that to Apple too. Fuck the Chinese and if the US does it to, fuck them too.
WoW, seems like Blizzard should be packing up and relocating to China. There's some sorta meeting of the minds going on there.
I'd like to see them try to force me to use my real name on the Internet..... Oh wait.... Curse you, Chinese Government!!!!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
He's in favor of real names online? Masochist. :P
Well in capitalist America if you post on an Internet discussion board as an anonymous coward, the pigs that run the site will give it special treatment to make sure that nobody sees your post!
Its funny that all point to China *now* about *this*. To be clear on that Chins *has* human rights problems, but when it comes to surveillance and giving up privacy in telecommunications, the west should watch itself a little bit better. Mobile phones are mandatory registered (although its not always enforced) in *many* countries. And the Idea that the Internet gets better if everybody would use the real name is not genuinely Chinese (Hello, Blizzard). In some countries the people who print out emails see this actually as the solution to many problems - stimulated by the idea that there are many "criminals" (ranging in their mind somewhere in the undefined range between software pirate and pedophile) and that it will be easier to "catch" them if they use their real names and that internet in general will be much more thrustworthy. At the same time they are complaining Facebook is bad for the privacy of people.
Dear Politicians above 35,
i address some of the most common arguments given by you for such an idea
a) Criminals: Bad people will find a way to circumvent the obligation to give their real name. They also manage this with ID cards.
b) The Nazi/Violent Communist/or whatever is completely unacceptable to you has his right to say his opinion. I may not like it. I may disrespect him. I may contradict him. However forcing people into samiszdat usually does not work (in the way you want). To the extremists this gives just the argument that they are "really suppressed".
c) The solution to kids posing naked on the internet is *not* to enforce open names for everybody. The solution is to make kids feel in a way that there is no pressure from society to pose naked on the internet by *not* imposing on them a overly sexualized picture of the world (And *no* this can not be achieved by censorship, but only by a responsible society taking care and giving respect). Catching the sick pervert commenting on the picture may make *you* feel better, but it does not solve the problem.
d) School shootings will not be prevented by that. Many school shooters posted aggressive thoughts under well known identities. Fuck, many were even known in real life to be strange and alone. Nobody cared.
e) Can we save more people committing suicide? Possibly. But possibly they care the least about using their real name.
f) Terrorists. Sure. They will be totally afraid not only to posses to try to prepare to kill thousands of people, but to violate the rules for blogs. You'll really have them if, on top of the 20 times lifelong sentence you can give them 1 month jail time for not registering correctly.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Spanking your kids is moral?
I go by nickname in real life all the time; lots of people know my nickname who have no idea what my real name is.
If someone tried to call me by my real name, chances are they wouldn't even get my attention.
Why should it be verboten to use a nickname on the web? It doesn't make any sense.
I think i'd rather not sign my posts at all, than use a real name instead of a nickname.
My pen name is more real than my legal name, especially on the internet.
If I were to switch to my real name, none of my online acquaintances would recognize me.
I can't see the point.
That's just because you are a moron.
To explain it in a way that makes sense... well, basically all of your facts are incorrect. And worse, your unconscious mind knows this and is doing it on purpose, thus in a way you already know this, yet in another more direct way you probably honestly do not understand the point.
If you think lack of privacy will Help instead of Harm you and your family, then you deserve neither.
Yer welcome. And yer still a cocksmoking teabagger, mate.
Everybody Wang Chen tonight
Everybody have fun tonight.
(repeat)
This is going to be so good. The lyrics for the song are just so inspiring in the face of Wang Chen's perspective. I think we can all be Wang Chen tonight. I'm going to be Wang Chen for everything I do online.
Yours,
Wang Chen.
This would put the Chinese at a competitive disadvantage. They should overthrow their government, rather than submit to this unfair limit on business!
The de facto anonymity of the internet is nearly dead.
There is no hope of replacing this with any form of legally protected anonymity. No one's going to vote for legal protection for Anonymous.
Legally protected pseudonymity, perhaps further bolstered with limits on the amount of time that pseudonymous data can be kept, is doable though. If you want privacy on the net, you're going to have to come up with an answer to "What if someone posts an anonymous bomb threat and a judge orders the poster's identity to be revealed?" and that answer can't be "Well, the judge can't do that."
My name is Cao Ni Ma.
The /. headline says " New Chinese Rule Requires Real Names Online". The summary and article however says that one individual, a Director of the State Council Information Office, has called for the introduction of a real-name system.
I agree that reading the article is all important, but getting the headline right is also important.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
Why do the Chinese fail with the Internet so much? First they steal code for the easily bypassable Green Dam program, then they fail with the proxifiable Great Wall of China.. Don't they realize that people are never going to abide by these rules and are going to figure out how to bypass them? And they won't ever be able to use the moral argument, because they're the one's denying access to human rights websites. I guess the old hackers were right, the Chinese will never get it!
in which, taking full advantage of the freedoms of the west to say anything you want, you say that there is no freedom at all. or no difference with regimes that frequently jail people for political crimes
this is what happens in china when you express a political opinion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Xiaobo
but you can sit here, talk about all the bullshit idiotic political ideas you want, and, short of threatening someone's life, no one will care. no one's going to punish you, no one's going to control your mind
proof?
the proof is you felt perfectly comfortable writing the mental diarrhea you just wrote, and no one is going to knock on your door, and you know it, because you live in the west. and yet you assert your reality is the exact opposite. why do you do this? because you're stupid
please, enjoy the freedoms you say don't exist... while you exercise them (smirk). while i have absolutely no respect for your hysterical hilarious "opinion", i fully support your right to say it. because i live in the west, believe in, and support freedom of expression. luckily, it is equally my right to laugh my ass off at you as it is for you to spew the crap you do. unfortunately, some people in this world live under regimes where they don't dare criticize or laugh at the official party line. too bad you are to ignorant to know there is a real quantifiable difference between your life and theirs
you fear loss of freedom in this world, and yet you are absolutely no credit whatsoever to the actual principles of freedom, because your opinion is fucking retarded
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
They may have most 'Chan's but no 4chan for China!!!
> So it's not really nothing new, but it is just an another "china and communism is bad"-story when pretty much the same is done in the US.
I don't read it as saying "China as bad" so much as saying that "this idea is bad." Didn't we have a ton of stories about all of those other examples where everyone was pissed off? Why would you assume that we're only mad at China, when we're demonstrably mad at every single person who pulls this crap? But every single time some guy says, "but X is doing it too!" as some kind of idiotic excuse.
Just for the record, I can and have complained about Facebook doing this (and I chose to avoid them all this time), when Apple did this, when Blizzard proposed it (but backed out), when Mexico did it (you forgot about them), and I will continue to complain any other idiot does this. I'm not complaining because I hate the people doing it. I'm complaining because I hate the idea itself.
So please, remember that the next time this story comes up (mark my words, there WILL be a next time) that I'm not doing this because I'm one of those people who irrationally hate X. I'm doing it because I rationally hate this stupid idea. That said, I will of course consider X to be one of a large group of stupid people who are trying/have tried this, but that's part and parcel with hating the idea itself. Sadly, the set of members of X is growing entirely too quickly.
How many people in China have the same name, probably quite a few...
What is funny is the tighter the Chinese leaders tighten their grip and the more prosperous the Chinese middle class become the more changes the country will go through leading to a freedom revolution that I expect will occurs in the next 20-30 years.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Oh No Blizzard!
Privacy, of course, also allows you to act immorally.
The question is - are more people using it to act morally, or immorally?
The problem is the criminals will be the last to be affected.
This is an old, known method. You find a homeless, a poor man, somebody deadly ill, a junkie and such. You pay them some reasonable money for their identity. Then you register the phone in their name, you get money from the skimmed credit cards, you use documents in their name when traveling, you make expensive purchases in their name. When they are caught, they know very little about you and they have little enough to lose and are desperate for money enough that they take the risk, and besides, it is pretty obvious it's not them who did all the things that were done in their name, so the penalties for selling your identity are very moderate.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
- Why is it difficult to use a Chinese telephone directory?
- Because there are so many Wings and Wongs that you might wing the wong number.
It's even worse in Vietnam, where everyone seems to be called Nguyen.
There are those of us that think that while children don't necessarily understand logical arguments or "sanctions", they are hardwired (like every other animal) to understand pain.
I define spanking as causing mild temporary pain without tissue damage. Anything that causes visible damage is "beating" them and not "spanking" them.
It should also be used extremely sparingly and only when other punishments have failed to control their behaviour - that way the other punishments are reinforced and become effective on their own without the need to deploy spanking, because they know what comes next.
In short, spanking is a useful means of defining an absolute frame of reference for other punishment. I've spanked my daughter precisely once in her life, only after the usual punishment (the "naughty corner") was not effective, and explained why. Since then, standard punishments have always been adequate. If I'd left it, what then? She would have learned that the "naughty corner" was an ineffective sanction with no teeth and started to behave just as she chose.
I'm aware that some people take it too far. I would go so far as to suggest that these people aren't even considering the morals of the act. Many of them are just being violent with them because they find the immature behaviour of children annoying.
Banning or stigmatizing the act does nothing but remove a useful disciplinary tool from responsible parents, or make them feel guilty about disciplining their kids. The parents who are beating their kids outside of a disciplinary framework didn't care whether it was moral or not anyway.
Yes, it is indeed better if you are a child abuser to remain anonymous.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Spank your kids
OK.
Goodbye, Slashdot. I am deleting you from my favorites right now, because I can't accept a -1 flamebait while someone who defends PRIVACY TO SPANK YOUR KIDS has a 5 INFORMATIVE.
FUCK YOU, MARGINAL LOSERS.
"The cyber attack was originated by Liu Ya Chen"
"Damnit, i thought we made them put their real names online!"