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China Views Internet As "Controllable"
Radcliffe_V writes "According to a leaked cable via Wikileaks, the Chinese government views the internet as very controllable, despite western views otherwise. The New York Times article also sheds light on how involved the Chinese government is in cyber attacks against US assets and companies such as Google."
Communist states view everything as being controllable.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
I suppose it's too much to ask for a link to page one or even a printer-friendly URL? Oh, wait, this is /.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
internet is certainly controllable, but what u said on internet is another case.
Computer networks and information systems are very controllable The Internet however is The Internet because of its loose control. China does not give access to The Internet to its citizens it gives access to its network which so happens to have internet gateways. Those gateways may be well controlled. China's network though is a walled garden with internet access its not The Internet at all.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
No need for a large government like China's to control the Internet!
The leaks are about what Diplomats said, not FACTS.
The internet will be controllable if we continue to give up it open nature in favor of locked down protocols and technologies.
The internet of 1985 was not controllable because its users were technically literate and would act to oppose such control.
The internet of 2010, not so much.
The internet of 2020? Probably quite controlled.
WHICH nation has an elected politician calling for the assasination of a foreign national? Which nation is stopping its own citizens from reading websites? Which nation is putting presure on private companies to follow its agenda without any laws being written? Which nation is performing a massive denial of service attack to censor the net from information it finds undesirable?
Sorry, but if the Chinese think the internet is controllable, it is because the US is showing them how to.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If the US hadn't borrowed over a $TRILLION from China that it spent on the Iraq war, the US might be a lot more free to defend itself from China.
--
make install -not war
It doesn't matter whether the Chinese choose Symantec or McAfee. They can't hope to secure the entire internet using anti-virus products. Freedom is a disease that cannot be contained. Likewise, as I learned from watching an episode of the Tick - Justice is a big blue salmon swimming upstream towards the spawning ground of Evil.
So evil dictators beware! There's a big blue salmon coming your way to give you a taste of the disease of freedom. And no anti-viral net can stop it.
china trying to control the net, bad. But USA attempting to take wikileaks offline, business as usual...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
The United States will too.
Where are the original cables? There seem to be a few talking about blocking/redirecting google in china. But I can't find those refering to "cyberattacks".
http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/05/09BEIJING1336.html
http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09BEIJING1957.html
So why was it kept confidential in the first place? I think the US government and Google would only gain if they made it public.
People like to say the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it, but it's not really true. When you control the channel between your citizens and restricted content or otherwise control the infrastructure that makes the Internet possible, you also control and can censor the Internet to a significant degree.
The United States' recent actions (Homeland Security seizing "infringing" domains; American companies being pressured into dropping Wikileaks) are good examples of this.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Leaving aside the absurdity of meaningfully controlling the internet (a sentiment obviously shared by the Chinese informants, likely younger, New Guard leaders), they may have a point in trying to control the dissemination of information in China.
Personally, I believe information should be free, and fully support WikiLeaks. However, having been to China on numerous occasions, and having had opportunities to talk to some of those hundreds of millions of peasant that still litter the countryside... censorship can be a good thing in a society in which ignorance is widespread. I do think China goes too far, and censors many things that should not be censored, to the detriment of both its and society's interests.
But it also can prevent Fox-news style media from manipulating the masses (that role stays in the hands of the government). We in the West can do a better job of handling freedom of information. Many in China, however, are not yet ready. The urban centers could probably handle it. But I don't trust the peasants in the Chinese boonies any more than I trust rednecks and hillbillies in the United States. The Politburo leader who googled himself and found critical articles: some of those are legitimate criticisms, other are "Obama isn't America" style crap. The average Chinese peasant doesn't know the difference; given how the Chinese government often behaves, even conspiracy theories are all too believable.
The Chinese central government has improved a lot; based on my friends who have connections in Zhongnanhai, the central government basically hopes to keep the lid on things as it (really fucking slowly) tries to clean up its act (which is basically impossible, since the local and provincial governments very much like being corrupt). But until then, keeping local yahoos from rioting based on false information may take precedence over total freedom of information for China. Hopefully this will slowly change. But until then, keeping the masses ignorant may contribute more to social stability and prosperity than openness of information would. Democratizing too soon might result in Soviet-style collapse: democracy did not work out well for Russia in the early 90s, just as I doubt it would work out well for China now.
Next question, how well can the Chinese government control the Internet access points of their citizens?
I suppose they're quite efficient at it, but I'm also sure there are ways to operate "subversive information flows."
Specifically, how safe is it for a person in China to bypass the Golden Shield Project?
And while we're at it, how well can they control international information flow between their territory and other countries? Anybody got some info?
Before this degenerates into another self hating, "America is just as bad" thread lets take a step back. China is at war with the United States as they outlined in the document "Unrestricted Warfare" (http://cryptome.org/cuw01.htm). Lets not forget that fact. The Chinese Politburo wants to destroy Western values, such as representative democracy and freedom of the press. The US is not a perfect example. But it is far and away a better example than China.
The way the Chinese leaderships sees it, there are two options. Option 1: Western ideals spread to China and one party rule comes to an end. Option 2: Chinese authoritarianism spreads to the West and the party lives on. This is a fight to the death of one system against another. If we don't hold our system up as a shining example of how things "should be", while trying to make it better, then there is but one alternative. An untenable one.
To the posters who will lambaste me, I ask only one thing: When you point out the flaws in Western governance please include a proposed solution. Mindless complaining should not be confused with intelligence.
...not free for the rest of the world.
idiots. yeah sure, the internet is controllable... maybe if you had a BILLION PEOPLE at your disposal!
oh... wait, never mind
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the DNS & DDOS attacks on Wikileaks, the elimination of net neutrality, the courts vs. Limewire... what more proof do we need that our own US government will only let us have the internet that they want us to see?
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
The Chinese government claims Communism works. Or that they're communist. Or a combination thereof, dunno which it is this week.
Let's be serious here, "the Chinese government claims..." is now a sentence that means something? What happened to good ol' free world hubris? Did it go out the window when we abandoned the free part?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Internet views China as "controllable"
Ironic that their thoughts on the 'controlability' of the internet would be disseminated through a leak made to ... the internet.
Which of these is most likely?
1. They earnestly wanted to share their intelligence with the rest of us: their best computer scientists and cryptographers have discovered that they can one day control the internet
2. They are merely posing a talking point, pondering openly, and they hope that other governments will share their views on the matter.
3. They've recently discovered that they'll never be able to control the internet, so they want to intimate that they can control the internet
4. They are referring to ICANN.
Anybody want to take bets?
Wikileaks Is Democracy
I beg leave to go diverge from the subject at hand for a bit, but I think it is relevant. Although we all know China censors the internet, our greater concern is that all the other nations of the world will follow - or are already following - China's example.
These leaks have proven that all our "democratic" governments routinely lie to their employers (the people). Naturally this should cause us to ask what else our governments have lied about.
Of personal concern to me are the lies told about pedophilia and child abuse: specifically, the truth - from many sources - is that non-pedophiles are more likely to abuse children than pedophiles, that females are more likely to abuse children than males, and that parents are more likely to abuse children than non-parents.
So who do the government and their media accomplices target while claiming to protect children? Non-parent male pedophiles. "Stranger danger" and all that.
I suspect that the government believes that pedophiles, by offering children freedom and affection, are a threat to the power of the state, because they offer a compelling alternative narrative to that which the state force feeds its charges during 12 years of compulsory indoctrination - which is, of course, that they must obey the state at all times, no matter what the state might do to them.
I am looking forward to the day that WikiLeaks receives some inside information from the National Center for Misusing and Exploiting Children.
I say that this is of personal concern to me, but it should also be of great concern to the entire public. Our western governments routinely use the fear of pedophiles to justify the apparatus of censorship. Why should the government be allowed the capability to censor websites? Because they might contain images of naked children, naturally. Why should the government have the right to snoop on our emails? Well, how else are we going to stop those evil pedophiles - you know, those male, non-related people who aren't abusing children? The people of the Western world will never be able to challenge the installation and use of the apparatus of censorship until the demonization of pedophiles and the legal discrimination against pedophiles and children ceases.
It remains to be seen whether the public will be able to let go of their prejudices long enough to save themselves.
Of course the U.S. government doesn't lock up the crazies. Their "tolerance" for people that no one would ever believe is their evidence that nothing is wrong and all is right in the world.
If you look into the FBI going to Mexico to arrest Jon Schillaci you will believe differently. First, note that he was named one of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted because he was accused, years ago, of touching a boy's penis. Never mind that there were no accusations of rape or any kind of force, just an unreliable allegation that he touched a boy's penis. Regardless of how wrong you might think that may be, how does it justify putting a man on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list and featuring him on the "America's Most Wanted" TV show? Aren't there enough murderers, bank robbers, thieves, and actual rapists (you know - the kind who used force) to lead that list?
Of course, Jon Schillaci was also the webmaster for a leading site where posters presented a view that contradicted the State's official teachings. In other words, he was a heretic against the State. All of a sudden it makes sense why the government targeted him and put him in jail. Modern tyrannies don't say they are censoring dissidents. They always give some plausible reason why they arrest those who challenge them.
Alternately, consider the case of Jack McClellan, a girl lover whom the State of California issued a restraining order against because he openly advocated for the rights of pedophiles. This restraining order was so broad that it essentially required Jack to leave California even though he was never convicted, or even seriously accused, of any crime.
These are only two of the more prominent cases.
No, the United States doesn't suppress dissent. No, the United States doesn't put people in jail for expressing opinions. They always find another excuse - except when they don't.
Fricken Murdock and his pay wall. I'm not about to log in just quickly review one post.
Add the fact that the Australian Labor government who were once the champion of rights are happy to see Julian hang and the insistence on a laudatory internet filter and we need to have a riot in this country to get out rights back NOW.
Theirs will be. Ours won't. When your medium is the sum total of all contributions and all potential contributions from any human being on the globe, you're working against a resource the likes of which has never been seen before and that we're continuously finding new ways to exploit. Parts of it are static enough to control or influence strongly, but the medium as a whole is moving in unpredictable ways and the tighter they squeeze, the more domains will slip through their fingers.
There will always be a con-man or scammer who will claim that the internet can be controlled. What easier way to extract money and power from fools? Moreover, government officials *want* to believe this, so I don't doubt that the Chinese government, and other governments, will be made to believe it's possible.
China can control (sort of) the internet within its jurisdiction - for the moment. Let any significant civil unrest start in China and you can watch even the weak control that they now have break down pretty quickly. No government can control ALL of the people who *directly* control its technology. It only takes one hacker with a virus or a disruptive technology to change the rules and there are a *lot* of them. No amount of technology and/or social engineering can stop them all. Attempting to do so would bankrupt any government that tried.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51&lpg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false :-)
relates to this, but it would be a spoiler to tell you how...
Theodore Sturgeon at his best, predicting our mobile social computing future presciently in the 1950s. It inspired Ted Nelson's Xanadu system.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
before, wikileaks was known by a few information junkies and conspiraty theorists, now everybody knows it. There is no power without corruption, if you think the us never had anyone assassinated i would dare call you naive. No place is without flaws, i'm happy for gi joe keeping the afghans busy but i'm sad to see european leaders poking their noses into stuff that might get me blown up. I suppose brussels makes a nice decoy even if europe has no real power or army force at all
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)