Who Lost China's Internet?

[miltownkid]

@Ethan Gutmann

The former Yahoo! rep also admitted that the search phrase “Taiwan independence” on Chinese Yahoo! would yield no results, because Yahoo! has disabled searches for select keywords, such as “Falun Gong” and “China democracy.” Search for VIP Reference, a major overseas Chinese dissident site, and you will get a single hit, a government site ripping it to shreds. How did Yahoo! come up with these policies? He replied, “It was a precautionary measure. The State Information Bureau was in charge of watching and making sure that we complied. The game is to make sure that they don’t complain.” By this logic, when Yahoo! rejected an attempt by Voice of America to buy ad space, they were just helping the Internet function smoothly. The former rep defended such censorship: “We are not a content creator, just a medium, a selective medium.” But it is a critical medium. The Chinese government uses it to wage political campaigns against Taiwan, Tibet, and America.

It’s late so I don’t have time to write much, but this is a pretty cool article (a friend forwarded it to me). If only half of what’s said in it is true, China is a really jacked up Internet wise. I’ll be reading more about it (and commenting) tomorrow. Take a looky look.

[Tetsuo]

China sucks at teh internets.

[miltownkid]

One thing (quick before work) is that big switch to Linux I’ve heard about. The article says they were unwilling to work with Microsoft unless they opened up the kernel, Micro said no and China eventually folded. Now they’re going to use Linux instead. I thought that was a “good” thing. Maybe it is? But I feel like it’s not.

[scomargo]

I’d be interested in hearing why this switch to linux is a bad thing. I can see why shareholders of Microsoft would say that, but other reasons?

[markshih]

@scomargo

I’d be interested in hearing why this switch to linux is a bad thing. I can see why shareholders of Microsoft would say that, but other reasons?

The bad thing is that Linux is customizable. So China can modify Linux to embed the “big brother” software packages into the Linux Kernel itself and force the use of their flavor of Linux in China. That way, they just have to check for the computer to see if it is using their modified Linux OS and force out all others. Once the spyware is in the OS, there is very little need for other spying measures. Although the open source lincense stipulates that the modifications to Linux will have to be open to others so the Open Source community might end up having to fight the Chinese government if they refuse to reveal their modifications to Linux.

[Dog_s_Breakfast]

@markshih

[quote=“scomargo”]I’d be interested in hearing why this switch to linux is a bad thing. I can see why shareholders of Microsoft would say that, but other reasons?

The bad thing is that Linux is customizable. So China can modify Linux to embed the “big brother” software packages into the Linux Kernel itself and force the use of their flavor of Linux in China. That way, they just have to check for the computer to see if it is using their modified Linux OS and force out all others. Once the spyware is in the OS, there is very little need for other spying measures. Although the open source lincense stipulates that the modifications to Linux will have to be open to others so the Open Source community might end up having to fight the Chinese government if they refuse to reveal their modifications to Linux.[/quote]

Interesting theory. Yes, they could actually do this, though I suspect they could get the same result by sticking spyware on Windows, even without the benefit of the source code.

George Orwell was almost right when he wrote 1984, he just got the date wrong.

cheers,
DB

[Tetsuo]

True, but programs added on top of an OS can be removed - if they modify the source and don’t provide said source to the end user, it’ll be pretty much there for good.