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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.'"
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.
Is that you?
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
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.
Uh, you are talking about "westernized" names. They're quite different to their real names. Also, a lot of Asian countries tend to shorten their names in casual usage and only use the real long name in official situations. For example Thai people have really long names, but casually everyone shortens it to the first 3-4 letters.
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).
Every child born will also be assigned a permanent unique sequential code, in the form of a UUID, including a series of digits that represent the time of birth/registration, and a series of digits that represent the locality of birth, as well as a sequential serial number.
And then all the kids with 6-digit UUIDs will scoff at the newcomers with 7-digit UUIDs...
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
This is already true. I forgot where the link to the article, but China restricts names in several ways. The most prominent being that it has to be able to be typed on a keyboard and entered into a database. My understanding is that only a fraction of the Chinese characters are represented in operating systems. Baby names are limited to that fraction.
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
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
I bet there'll be a lot of names like Yin Dao Yan, Qian Lie Xie, Wei Shen Jing, and Ji Ba Mao.
There are so many Wings and Wongs in China, it is very likely to Wing a Wong number.
It had to be said.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
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.
Asking Slashdot for information on wiretaps is like asking Rush Limbaugh for information on Obama's policies, or asking Al Gore for information on climate science. The results may be amusing, but I hope you don't expect them to bear any resemblance to reality.
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.