Chinese Lawyer Lobbies Hearing Over Porn Filter
Earlier in the week it emerged that China would soon require PC manufacturers to pre-install Green Dam, a software that blocks certain websites, befor shipping.
Designed to weed out pornography and material that China considers "unhealthy information,” the idea is like a turbo net nanny for the entire country. Beginning July 1, the government would have the ability to update new PCs with a list of banned websites, and will refresh the list with new additions similar to distribution methods used by Symantec and McAfee.
The proposed action has created a ton of controversy, with computer experts believing that the government will gain access to personal information and have the ability to monitor Internet use through the software. Today Reuters today reports that a Chinese lawyer has demanded a public hearing to reconsider the decision.
According to Reuters, Beijing human rights advocate, Li Fangping has asked the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to allow hearings on the "lawfulness and reasonableness" of the demand, saying the action lacks a legal basis and claiming that designation that the same software be installed on all computers affects citizens’ right to choose. Fangping added that above all, they are concerned about free speech and citizens privacy.
"Above all, we're concerned about freedom of speech and the right to know," he said. "We know that citizens have been prosecuted because of their private emails, and we're worried about more such cases."
However it’s not just the madatory installation of Green Dam or freedom of speech that Fingping is campaigning for. Apparently the software would also mean no more access to several gay community websites.
"We need to demand not just the lifting of this software decree, but also an end to restrictions on gay publications," Wan told Reuters. "This is about opposing censorship."
Check out the full story here.
-
Previous News Article
Microsoft Bing Gets Naughty as... -
Next News Article
Doom Resurrection Heading to...
I think you need to change the tag on green/dam to "green dam"
So a lawyer wants to help make people getting screwed public? He could just put a live feed in the courtroom.
Whatever this green damn is, it is not about blocking porn. The river crabs are all out in Malegebi to kill grass mud horses.
I wish Mr. Lawyer the best of luck. Chinese citizens speaking out against their government rarely ends well.
Maybe someone could reverse engineer the protocol and hack into the government's monitoring system. That could be fun.
I am sure green dam does more that then what the chinese government says. After all its a amadatory installation, so that they can control people more so even with in the country. china is fail. even if half the stuff almost anyone has says "made in china" lol
The restrictions of rights in some other countries are almost incomprehensible. All I can say is I am glad I don't live in China.
Green dam will only create a BIG market for sophisticated proxies that report back to Green dam servers as a Green dam installation on the client computer. This will be a N! factorial problem to enforce.
The Chinese Government needs some pussy in there life then the'll lightin up
if the chinese government wins this then the chinese disc pirate mafias are going to get crazy powerful.
damn poor Chinese, they'll never know the pleasures of debby does dallas... plus they'll be stuck in missionary possession for the rest of their lives no reverse cowgirl over there.
It's not about Porn, you can buy cheap porn on the black market in China and they haven't cracked down on that so obviously that is not the reason for this software.
It's a huge botnet!
It's obviously something that they will use to block stuff that they don't like.
The ONLY REAL reason is to force control over information.
Green Dam also blocks human rights for Tibet.
Damned Chinese government, damn you and shame on you!
Porn will just move over to the black market.
This could lead to an insanely powerful computing cloud. With almost 300 million people online and growing, the sheer processing power would be tremendous. Even if that feature is not yet built into the software, the major hurdle is just getting it onto the computers. A stealth update could easily expand the scope of this tool and turn the Green Dam into a Green Tsunami. Thoughts?
Maybe someone could reverse engineer the protocol and hack into the government's monitoring system. That could be fun.
there is someone doing this , see this link if you know chinese.
http://softbbs.pconline.com.cn/10273556.html
find out that this software ain't just deliberately block some "unheath info" which deifinited by stupid chinese gov,it also block some proxy server to prevent people from many foreign websites.And the UI of this software is ultimately ugly, besides, it's extremely easy to crack and kill. what a crap! And it sells 6,000,000$ for a year license. Can you believe it?