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Chinese City Wants To Build a Censorship-Free Hub

Posted by samzenpus on from the welcome-to-the-free-zone dept.

itwbennett writes "The city of Chongqing's proposed Cloud Computing Special Zone would be home to 'a handful of state-of-the-art data centers and is designed to attract investment from multinational companies and boost China's status as a center for cloud computing,' writes the IDG News Service's Michael Kan. The part that's drawing the ire of Chinese Internet users: This censorship-free hub would only be for foreign companies."

6 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. We promise we won't spy on your data... by Nutria · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... unless you have secrets we really, really want.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    1. Re:We promise we won't spy on your data... by Nutria · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How will they?

      If you build all the components, assemble the computers and build the data centers, it's easy enough to build in side-channels and back doors.

      I'm guessing this is more about the use of cryptography

      Great in theory, but not so useful in the real world of non-geeks, where pass phrases are pathetically weak.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  2. Reminds me of Intershop by cpghost · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In former Eastern Germany, their communist regime provided retail stores only for foreigners (or specially privileged East Germans with western money). This made people there very resentful of their government... and eventually, they got rid of it. China's communists should be careful not to rise the ire of their citizens too much if they want to remain in power. Then again, why not? China could really need a breath of fresh air, at least politically.

    --
    cpghost at Cordula's Web.
  3. Re:um are companies really this dumb? by fabioalcor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Realy low cost service. There are lots of companies that don't give a shit about privacy, they only care about budget cuts. Especialy those companies who deal with other people data, not theirs.

  4. Re:Selective Communism by lul_wat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When will people finally understand that there's a difference between communism/socialism and fascism/dictatorship.

    You can have a democratic socialist system, you can have a despot ruled capitalist system.

    Mix and match, bitches.

    --
    Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
  5. Re:um are companies really this dumb? by biodata · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What's dumb about this? Host your data in China, risk the government spying on you and giving secrets to their friends in industry, risk the government censoring and filtering your access to data arbitrarily, risk your employees being arrested for storing the 'wrong' kinds of data. Or - host your data in the US, ditto. Hosting data in thhe US would be dumb. The third option is just starting to emerge where smart people can see the huge gaping gap in the market - host your data in a country with decent laws. Iceland are making moves in the right direction by setting up the right legal framework for data storage free of government interference.

    --
    Korma: Good