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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.
Certain pieces of information are key nodes that link other clusters of information. You're right in so far as a name itself may not be unique and if given nothing but that piece of information, it'd be hard to single out and individual. But real names are very rarely isolated like that. There is usually a entire clusters of information around a name. And this rule would simply ensure that those clusters stay attached to any given individual (or at least - harder to isolate).
You do realize how many Chinese characters and variations there are right?
Just because English phonetic translations look the same, doesn't mean the names are actually the same.
What you see as Wang or Chen may actually be multiple different Chinese characters.
Example: Use Google PinYin IME and type "Chen" and see how many different characters pop up.
Chinese names are rarely that long. Normally 3 characters (incl Family Name), sometimes 2. Maybe 4-5, but that's really rare.
Names in normal usage are basically the same as in the West. Kind of like Hello Mr. Chen, or Hello Wang.
The casual usage you talk of is more like nicknames, like Dick for Richard.
But ya, I don't see what the point of the OP is. English names for identification works out just fine even with all the overlapping names. 10 people having the name John Doe doesn't make it that much more difficult for identification in usage. There are always other things to include to make the name more meaningful.
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)
heya,
Actually, the largest religion isn't Buddhism (or Taoism), per se, because they aren't really practiced as a "religion", as such.
Most Chinese just have a mix of weird cultural superstitious, that get passed on in the family. They believe in a heaven (celestial court), and various Gods/deities/ghosts etc, but usually in a very general sense. This is something of a stereotype, but often they'll just pray in the hopes that their kids will get good marks at school, or they'll earn good money etc. They don't really mind/care much about the history behind it, or the reasons for it.
Even the way they practice Buddhism is more like just a collection of superstitions, or "thought systems"/"cultural practicses" (as the Wikipedia article refers to it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China)
Very few Chinese people/family friends I know actually know much about the religion itself. Ironically, I'm Anglican, and I sometimes seem to know more about their faiths (from an academic point of view) than many of the practitioners do. Often, I've pointed out the reasons they're doing something, or they history behind something, and they'll be like...oh....we've just always done it because our parents did.
And officially, the Communists/CCP hate religion anyway, although this has relaxed somewhat.
Cheers,
Victor
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.