I used Tor while I was there and didn't encounter any problems. (For some reason, my exit nodes tended to be in Germany.)
When I was in Beijing, I met a few college students, and they were well aware of how censored the Internet was in China. They seemed to find it more annoying than anything, but at the same time mostly a nonissue since most of the sites they visit are Chinese. I forgot to ask if they ever used Tor to access some of the forbidden sites.
The great irony of citing blogs as "news" is that the mainstream media has been adapting this itself.
CNN for instance is pushing their "iReports" where people can submit stories. Then of course, Huffington Post frequently shows up on all sorts of cable news pundit shows. (Like Harry Shearer really has any insights.)
That's interesting. I was in Beijing in April, and stayed at an "international" hotel there across the street from the Bird's Nest, and documented some experiments.
My television received NHK, TV Monde, and CNN International. Once during a CNNi story about the protests in Tibet did the cable cut out. I have heard of the government doing that, but the images were later shown on CCTV, but of course the accompanying commentary would very likely be different.
Wikipedia was accessible, except for certain pages. Google.com was accessible, but if you googled a certain phrases, the connection would be reset, and you couldn't access google for a few seconds.
Domains like tibet.com simply wouldn't resolve.
Seemed like every Taiwanese forum/blog was blocked.
Square solid color rectangles is not the problem. Not being original is the the problem. Not improving is the problem. Not thinking is the problem.
There's no excuse to looking cheap.
As much as everyone bashes Microsoft for not innovating, the only people that innovate less the FOSS community. They simply blindly copy whatever Microsoft does, without regard for whether it's good or not, so they're always stuck developing a crummy knockoff. The FOSS community doesn't have the restrictions that Microsoft are saddled with, and so they have a tremendous opportunity to expand the state of art, yet they consistently refuse There's just no excuse.
How hard is it for Microsoft to treat their customers OK? I mean, the broadcast flag incident shows they bend over for the broadcast networks, even though the networks business model doesn't even require this. Why do they do this to their customers? Obviously, the networks are paying Microsoft, but surely they can't be paying as much as customers pay for licenses to use Vista/XP. Why treat your greatest revenue stream like a POS - like they're stupid?
Your confusion comes from the fact that you think you're Microsoft's customer. You're not. You're a commodity to be bought and sold like a jailhouse bitch. Microsoft's customer is NBC-Universal. They probably activated this draconian broadcast flag because NBC-Universal recently agreed to leave iTunes Music Store to go to Zune store.
DRM? It's not something that any end user would ever want. Afterall who says, "I would like to be able to do less with my stuff"? It's a product to be sold to the likes of NBC-Universal. End users don't even enter into the picture except in the sense of, "We can sell you access to x million units." (Remember that word, "unit," because that all you are to them.)
Let's assume that you're right, and that licensing fees for the end-user products make up a majority of the MS revenue stream. Let's remember something. MS is a monopoly, and monopolies, only exploit. They provide less and less service for higher and higher prices. They're not afraid of you. You've given MS money for the past 20 years, you're giving it now, and you'll give it in the future, regardless of how poor the product is, because there's effectively no other game in town. (Network effect is a bitch.)
Pre-Google (and here "Google" can be replaced without loss of generality for any Western internet company) China (which can again be replaced with any totalitarian regime) had less access to information than rest of the world. Fine. I think everyone will agree to that. You are argue by that Google by simply being available increases access to information. Let's, assume that's true for the sake of argument. Now assuming that access to Google increases information, here's where your, and Google, and all the other Western Totalitarian Regime Apologists', argument breaks down: GOOGLE IS FUCKING CENSORED! There's no increase in access to information, because the information that China blocks the information. That's it. Whatever supposed benefits that Google can bring by enabling access is lost, because the access isn't there! The citizens aren't benefiting here. The regime gets new technology to maintain control, and Sergi's and Larry's bottom line increases. Like the best transactions, everyone wins, excepts the users.
They may fully value human rights, but disagree on the best way to get there. No. They just value the dollar more.
Voice commands will never be a primary interaction method. Why? It's just too hard to speak. Think about it. When you speak, you can literally think of nothing beyond the next word you're going to say. Under fMRI scans, the brain lights up when given even the most basic spoken interaction tasks. Conversely, when someone is interacting with the world in a nonverbal way, the brain is less active, thus allowing multiple tasks (e.g. thinking about something else) to take place.
Also, lets just look at the efficiency of interacting through voice. It's horribly inefficient. Just compare how long it took you to compose (create and revise) your post by typing, versus how long it takes for you to do it with only verbal instructions. Voice is just too slow.
You're right that obscurity can be important to security, and I certainly never intended to imply that it wasn't.
What I am saying is that the critical information is already readily available. Pretending that it isn't useful, and the true security assumes that the Bad Guys(tm) already have that information.
As far as advocating that someone should be allowed to broadcast how to poison a well, you've got me there. In fact, I hate to break it to you, but that's perfectly legal. You may not like it, but there's absolutely nothing illegal nor immoral with going on (inter)national television and saying, "They don't even lock the front door." This information is typically distributed as an expose, since it's usually quite embarrassing that the security is so lax. Not exposing such problems, doesn't make the world more secure, it simply gives the illusion of security. A truly secure site, it wouldn't matter.
You make the common argument, but that argument is specious. Let me explain why.
First, being a large complex, especially a government owned complex, there's going to floor plans readily available at the city hall. This information is already public, so posting floor plans to the internet isn't illegal, nor a problem. All the poster did was save someone the trip to city hall and $30.
Second, guard rotations outside the plant occur in public view, and as been repeatedly upheld by the courts, there is no expectation of privacy when something occurs in public view. So this isn't illegal, and all the poster did was save someone a few hours of sitting on the street corner.
Guards that are internal to the building are a different matter. However, I would certainly hope that the guard rotations aren't like in some video game where sensitive areas are left unguarded and unlocked. Security is a layers.
However the thing that I found most interesting/disturbing about your example (and as I said, it's a very common example) was that it was the hypothetical terrorist attack against a water treatment plant. Let's examine the feasibility of such an attack. Water treatment plants are designed to clean toxins from water. That means its hard to actually contaminate the water supply with some poison. Second, there's A LOT of water. Contrary to what you see on 24, you would need truckfulls of neurotoxin, or whatever to ensure a high enough concentration. Sneaking that past anyone on the street, is non trivial.
So you see, targeting water plants just isn't that plausible. If you wanted to really cause terror, just make an explosive vest and get on a city bus. Or hell, just buy a couple of handguns and go the mall. Even putting up a security checkpoint isn't an effective approach when it comes down to it. (Just shoot the guard at metal detector, ala Neo and Trinity in "The Matrix.)
There's much more effective ways to go, none of which has the purported dilemma of ensuring obscurity.
The Chinese people and government need to realize that they're faced with an enormous public-relations problem.
They do. People who bring a bad name on their country are severely dealt with as a matter of law.
Your statement illustrates the irony of the situation.
What the Chinese government believes "brings a bad name," actually isn't what gives the Chinese government such a poor reputation. It's the fact that the Chinese government feels like it has a right to deal with these people at all, let alone "severely." THAT is what gives them the bad reputation.
What you're defending here is the forceful repression of ideas. That is morally wrong. Everyone has the natural right to express whatever opinion he or she has. You never have to agree with the opinion, you just have to respect someone's right to express it. If you disagree with it, then argue why they're wrong. Don't resort to violence. Resorting to violence shows that you can't defend your position. That you're wrong, or at least so unconfident and weak, that you can't handle criticism.
Small children in every country of the world over are taught to, "Use your words, not your fists." Apparently the Chinese government, and their apologists have forgotten that lesson their mothers undoubtedly taught them. Or to put it another way: "'Might' does not make 'right.'"
However, IMO, a *lot* of the trouble has to be laid squarely at the feet of the westerners who want to take advantage of the Chinese since they are willing to make cheap goods.
Of course you want to believe the story of the ç(TM)½æé" (bai emo). It's a simple story, and CCTV constantly pumps it out in order to stir up nationalism and create an "us versus them" narrative in order to redirect attention away from the real issues. But like most things, the truth is in the middle.
It is up to the western companies to ensure the quality of good sold in the country, no matter where they're made. You don't see people complaining about the quality of their iPods or Macbooks, do you? No, it's primarily greed that is at the root of this, and it's is both westerners and Chinese that are to blame. It is certainly very difficult to blame the government as a group of people. Perhaps you could blame a lack of enforcement/policing/corruption, but these things take a long time to change, and it is clear that they are certainly trying. Are iPods well made? Yes. Almost everything in the world is now made in China, and the vast majority of it is perfectly fine. But at the same time, have chinese factories, which often times have the chinese government as a majority stock holder, churned out lead painted children's toys? Yes. Have chinese factories produced toothpaste that used antifreeze as a thickening agent, thus creating poison because it was cheaper and would increase profits? Yes. Have chinese factories churned out baby formula that had no nutritional value and thus caused parents to unknowingly starve their children to death? Yes. (In that case the head of food and drug regulators in China was executed.)
You're absolutely right to say that these highly publicized problems are the result of corruption and lack of enforcement of basic health and safety laws. You're right when you say it's greed. (While I have never read the PRC's laws regarding food safety, I'm pretty sure they don't allow poison to be sold as "candy.") In fact this lack of enforcement shows that China is no longer a communist state, but rather a laissez faire capitalistic one. (e.g. "It's okay that you can sell poison as 'candy,' because if you do, then word will get out and then no one will buy your candy anymore!" (Of course, that's when you change the name of your "candy" and just keep on selling poison.))
But at the same time you say "oh it's the westerners just taking advantage of the poor chinese." That's the
It would also be scary if you couldn't listen into their phone calls. But alas, that's already illegal. Why? The telephone privacy laws were passed in a much simpler time, when employees were viewed as people and partners, rather than "human resources."
The protest started because wages weren't increasing in the cities. From that initial impetus it moved towards a desire for greater opening of the government as seen in the Soviet Union, and then eventually a more open democracy.
The CPC moved in tanks and soldiers armed with automatic weapons from the countryside to put down the protests because they were afraid of losing their monopoly on power and ostensibly because they were afraid of mob rule. (Which has been the standard trope against popular democracy for hundreds of years.)
Maybe you're even right that "Chinese don't want democracy and freedom". But that's more like saying I don't want to be a billionaire because I waste time posting on slashdot instead of starting the next Google -- of course I would like to, but what's the chances of that? Might as well settle for something else... That's more of what I'm getting at. Sure if someone waved a magic wand and the single party rule of the CPC was swept away and a modern liberal multiparty democracy replaced it, a majority of the people would say, "Hey. That's better." However I don't believe that a majority, or even a large minority, of population wants to take any real effort to make reforms.
If there is a movement for reform, it's going to take place in the west, were there have been protests about the government running roughshod over people's homes in the name progress. It's not going to come from the east where people are undeniably better of than they ever have been. So we're left with a situation where the people with the greatest influence don't care, and those that do care have no influence. (Then again, isn't that how it always is?)
It's the cultural and ideological hurdles that's the crux of the issue isn't it? That's mindset. I am powerless, because I believe that I am powerless. As I believe Vaclav Havel put it, "If you want to live in a free society, then act like you do." Don't get me wrong. There are very real threats, but at the same time there's only so much the government can effectively impose. When people decide that something is illegitimate and powerless, then it is. It's a very powerful and subversive idea. No one can impose a democracy, it must be claimed by the people themselves. Progress on this front won't occur in China until the mindset is changed. After that happens, the rest is comparatively easy.
Of course, the toughest battle is always within. Given that, I suspect that Guns 'n' Roses Chinese Democracy will happen long before the actual Chinese Democracy will.
Perhaps the Chinese will learn English just so they can read the english wikipedia, in the same fashion that I learned German, so I could read the german wikipedia. Of course when it's blocked again...
What? You don't think the Chinese people know they're being fed a line? I can't decide if you're overestimating the CPC, or underestimating the Chinese people.
I'm not saying that no one speaks English. I'm saying that it's not something people look at. Even those that have studied English, the number that can actually understand the entire article is less than than 300k. (As the joke goes wrt Japan. Japan doesn't have a lot of people that speak English. Japan has a lot of people that think they speak English.)
Slashdot Mirror
I used Tor while I was there and didn't encounter any problems. (For some reason, my exit nodes tended to be in Germany.)
When I was in Beijing, I met a few college students, and they were well aware of how censored the Internet was in China. They seemed to find it more annoying than anything, but at the same time mostly a nonissue since most of the sites they visit are Chinese. I forgot to ask if they ever used Tor to access some of the forbidden sites.
The great irony of citing blogs as "news" is that the mainstream media has been adapting this itself.
CNN for instance is pushing their "iReports" where people can submit stories. Then of course, Huffington Post frequently shows up on all sorts of cable news pundit shows. (Like Harry Shearer really has any insights.)
Actually, no.
That's interesting. I was in Beijing in April, and stayed at an "international" hotel there across the street from the Bird's Nest, and documented some experiments.
My television received NHK, TV Monde, and CNN International. Once during a CNNi story about the protests in Tibet did the cable cut out. I have heard of the government doing that, but the images were later shown on CCTV, but of course the accompanying commentary would very likely be different.
Wikipedia was accessible, except for certain pages. Google.com was accessible, but if you googled a certain phrases, the connection would be reset, and you couldn't access google for a few seconds.
Domains like tibet.com simply wouldn't resolve.
Seemed like every Taiwanese forum/blog was blocked.
They're hard to control.
One plug adapter + One power strip = One room with lots of plugs you can use.
Antlr? Never heard of it. Now Lex/YACC, I have.
Square solid color rectangles is not the problem. Not being original is the the problem. Not improving is the problem. Not thinking is the problem.
There's no excuse to looking cheap.
As much as everyone bashes Microsoft for not innovating, the only people that innovate less the FOSS community. They simply blindly copy whatever Microsoft does, without regard for whether it's good or not, so they're always stuck developing a crummy knockoff. The FOSS community doesn't have the restrictions that Microsoft are saddled with, and so they have a tremendous opportunity to expand the state of art, yet they consistently refuse There's just no excuse.
All hail Sawfish! All hail Lisp!
(I've used it since it was called Sawmill.)
Wgt would you want to use nautilus? It's clunky, and has been clunky for 8 years.
You can be lightweight without being a clone of clunk.
Your confusion comes from the fact that you think you're Microsoft's customer. You're not. You're a commodity to be bought and sold like a jailhouse bitch. Microsoft's customer is NBC-Universal. They probably activated this draconian broadcast flag because NBC-Universal recently agreed to leave iTunes Music Store to go to Zune store.
DRM? It's not something that any end user would ever want. Afterall who says, "I would like to be able to do less with my stuff"? It's a product to be sold to the likes of NBC-Universal. End users don't even enter into the picture except in the sense of, "We can sell you access to x million units." (Remember that word, "unit," because that all you are to them.)
Let's assume that you're right, and that licensing fees for the end-user products make up a majority of the MS revenue stream. Let's remember something. MS is a monopoly, and monopolies, only exploit. They provide less and less service for higher and higher prices. They're not afraid of you. You've given MS money for the past 20 years, you're giving it now, and you'll give it in the future, regardless of how poor the product is, because there's effectively no other game in town. (Network effect is a bitch.)
Well at least another section is being misused besides enlightenment.
(It's this dumbass!)
10 hours, later and only now /. is mentioning it.
Personally, I find the the Quake 3 symbol a nice touch. Nice to see another section is being misused beyond enlightenment.
Let's examine this argument shall we?
Pre-Google (and here "Google" can be replaced without loss of generality for any Western internet company) China (which can again be replaced with any totalitarian regime) had less access to information than rest of the world. Fine. I think everyone will agree to that. You are argue by that Google by simply being available increases access to information. Let's, assume that's true for the sake of argument. Now assuming that access to Google increases information, here's where your, and Google, and all the other Western Totalitarian Regime Apologists', argument breaks down: GOOGLE IS FUCKING CENSORED! There's no increase in access to information, because the information that China blocks the information. That's it. Whatever supposed benefits that Google can bring by enabling access is lost, because the access isn't there! The citizens aren't benefiting here. The regime gets new technology to maintain control, and Sergi's and Larry's bottom line increases. Like the best transactions, everyone wins, excepts the users. They may fully value human rights, but disagree on the best way to get there. No. They just value the dollar more.
Voice commands will never be a primary interaction method. Why? It's just too hard to speak. Think about it. When you speak, you can literally think of nothing beyond the next word you're going to say. Under fMRI scans, the brain lights up when given even the most basic spoken interaction tasks. Conversely, when someone is interacting with the world in a nonverbal way, the brain is less active, thus allowing multiple tasks (e.g. thinking about something else) to take place.
Also, lets just look at the efficiency of interacting through voice. It's horribly inefficient. Just compare how long it took you to compose (create and revise) your post by typing, versus how long it takes for you to do it with only verbal instructions. Voice is just too slow.
You're right that obscurity can be important to security, and I certainly never intended to imply that it wasn't.
What I am saying is that the critical information is already readily available. Pretending that it isn't useful, and the true security assumes that the Bad Guys(tm) already have that information.
As far as advocating that someone should be allowed to broadcast how to poison a well, you've got me there. In fact, I hate to break it to you, but that's perfectly legal. You may not like it, but there's absolutely nothing illegal nor immoral with going on (inter)national television and saying, "They don't even lock the front door." This information is typically distributed as an expose, since it's usually quite embarrassing that the security is so lax. Not exposing such problems, doesn't make the world more secure, it simply gives the illusion of security. A truly secure site, it wouldn't matter.
You make the common argument, but that argument is specious. Let me explain why.
First, being a large complex, especially a government owned complex, there's going to floor plans readily available at the city hall. This information is already public, so posting floor plans to the internet isn't illegal, nor a problem. All the poster did was save someone the trip to city hall and $30.
Second, guard rotations outside the plant occur in public view, and as been repeatedly upheld by the courts, there is no expectation of privacy when something occurs in public view. So this isn't illegal, and all the poster did was save someone a few hours of sitting on the street corner.
Guards that are internal to the building are a different matter. However, I would certainly hope that the guard rotations aren't like in some video game where sensitive areas are left unguarded and unlocked. Security is a layers.
However the thing that I found most interesting/disturbing about your example (and as I said, it's a very common example) was that it was the hypothetical terrorist attack against a water treatment plant. Let's examine the feasibility of such an attack. Water treatment plants are designed to clean toxins from water. That means its hard to actually contaminate the water supply with some poison. Second, there's A LOT of water. Contrary to what you see on 24, you would need truckfulls of neurotoxin, or whatever to ensure a high enough concentration. Sneaking that past anyone on the street, is non trivial.
So you see, targeting water plants just isn't that plausible. If you wanted to really cause terror, just make an explosive vest and get on a city bus. Or hell, just buy a couple of handguns and go the mall. Even putting up a security checkpoint isn't an effective approach when it comes down to it. (Just shoot the guard at metal detector, ala Neo and Trinity in "The Matrix.)
There's much more effective ways to go, none of which has the purported dilemma of ensuring obscurity.
The Chinese people and government need to realize that they're faced with an enormous public-relations problem.
They do. People who bring a bad name on their country are severely dealt with as a matter of law.
Your statement illustrates the irony of the situation.
What the Chinese government believes "brings a bad name," actually isn't what gives the Chinese government such a poor reputation. It's the fact that the Chinese government feels like it has a right to deal with these people at all, let alone "severely." THAT is what gives them the bad reputation.
What you're defending here is the forceful repression of ideas. That is morally wrong. Everyone has the natural right to express whatever opinion he or she has. You never have to agree with the opinion, you just have to respect someone's right to express it. If you disagree with it, then argue why they're wrong. Don't resort to violence. Resorting to violence shows that you can't defend your position. That you're wrong, or at least so unconfident and weak, that you can't handle criticism.
Small children in every country of the world over are taught to, "Use your words, not your fists." Apparently the Chinese government, and their apologists have forgotten that lesson their mothers undoubtedly taught them. Or to put it another way: "'Might' does not make 'right.'"
However, IMO, a *lot* of the trouble has to be laid squarely at the feet of the westerners who want to take advantage of the Chinese since they are willing to make cheap goods.
Of course you want to believe the story of the ç(TM)½æé" (bai emo). It's a simple story, and CCTV constantly pumps it out in order to stir up nationalism and create an "us versus them" narrative in order to redirect attention away from the real issues. But like most things, the truth is in the middle.
It is up to the western companies to ensure the quality of good sold in the country, no matter where they're made. You don't see people complaining about the quality of their iPods or Macbooks, do you? No, it's primarily greed that is at the root of this, and it's is both westerners and Chinese that are to blame. It is certainly very difficult to blame the government as a group of people. Perhaps you could blame a lack of enforcement/policing/corruption, but these things take a long time to change, and it is clear that they are certainly trying. Are iPods well made? Yes. Almost everything in the world is now made in China, and the vast majority of it is perfectly fine. But at the same time, have chinese factories, which often times have the chinese government as a majority stock holder, churned out lead painted children's toys? Yes. Have chinese factories produced toothpaste that used antifreeze as a thickening agent, thus creating poison because it was cheaper and would increase profits? Yes. Have chinese factories churned out baby formula that had no nutritional value and thus caused parents to unknowingly starve their children to death? Yes. (In that case the head of food and drug regulators in China was executed.)
You're absolutely right to say that these highly publicized problems are the result of corruption and lack of enforcement of basic health and safety laws. You're right when you say it's greed. (While I have never read the PRC's laws regarding food safety, I'm pretty sure they don't allow poison to be sold as "candy.") In fact this lack of enforcement shows that China is no longer a communist state, but rather a laissez faire capitalistic one. (e.g. "It's okay that you can sell poison as 'candy,' because if you do, then word will get out and then no one will buy your candy anymore!" (Of course, that's when you change the name of your "candy" and just keep on selling poison.))
But at the same time you say "oh it's the westerners just taking advantage of the poor chinese." That's the
It would also be scary if you couldn't listen into their phone calls. But alas, that's already illegal. Why? The telephone privacy laws were passed in a much simpler time, when employees were viewed as people and partners, rather than "human resources."
The CPC moved in tanks and soldiers armed with automatic weapons from the countryside to put down the protests because they were afraid of losing their monopoly on power and ostensibly because they were afraid of mob rule. (Which has been the standard trope against popular democracy for hundreds of years.) Maybe you're even right that "Chinese don't want democracy and freedom". But that's more like saying I don't want to be a billionaire because I waste time posting on slashdot instead of starting the next Google -- of course I would like to, but what's the chances of that? Might as well settle for something else... That's more of what I'm getting at. Sure if someone waved a magic wand and the single party rule of the CPC was swept away and a modern liberal multiparty democracy replaced it, a majority of the people would say, "Hey. That's better." However I don't believe that a majority, or even a large minority, of population wants to take any real effort to make reforms.
If there is a movement for reform, it's going to take place in the west, were there have been protests about the government running roughshod over people's homes in the name progress. It's not going to come from the east where people are undeniably better of than they ever have been. So we're left with a situation where the people with the greatest influence don't care, and those that do care have no influence. (Then again, isn't that how it always is?)
It's the cultural and ideological hurdles that's the crux of the issue isn't it? That's mindset. I am powerless, because I believe that I am powerless. As I believe Vaclav Havel put it, "If you want to live in a free society, then act like you do." Don't get me wrong. There are very real threats, but at the same time there's only so much the government can effectively impose. When people decide that something is illegitimate and powerless, then it is. It's a very powerful and subversive idea. No one can impose a democracy, it must be claimed by the people themselves. Progress on this front won't occur in China until the mindset is changed. After that happens, the rest is comparatively easy.
Of course, the toughest battle is always within. Given that, I suspect that Guns 'n' Roses Chinese Democracy will happen long before the actual Chinese Democracy will.
Your arguments have many holes.
You have a very unique interpretation of the constitution. And by "unique" I mean "incorrect."
What? You don't think the Chinese people know they're being fed a line? I can't decide if you're overestimating the CPC, or underestimating the Chinese people.
300k / 1.2 Billion = .02% = completely negligible.
I'm not saying that no one speaks English. I'm saying that it's not something people look at. Even those that have studied English, the number that can actually understand the entire article is less than than 300k. (As the joke goes wrt Japan. Japan doesn't have a lot of people that speak English. Japan has a lot of people that think they speak English.)