Company Claims Green Dam Uses Stolen Code
China’s web filtering software has been in the news nearly every day since it was announced on June 6. Recent reports suggest that parts of software have been stolen from a company here in the United States.
The AP reports that Santa Barbara-based Solid Oak has said Friday that parts of its filtering software, CyberSitting, which is aimed at parents, are being used in the Green Dam software.
Designed by Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co. Green Dam was announced as a way to filter out pornographic or otherwise unsavory material that began trials in the fall of last year. However, while it’s all well and good to have the software installed in school computer labs, the Chinese people reacted negatively when the government announced that after July 1 all computers would ship with the software pre-installed. The backlash continued when it was revealed that the software would also filter out political content.
WSJ reports that stolen pieces of code include a list of terms to be blocked, instructions for updating the software and an old news bulletin promoting CyberSitter. Researchers at U of M who discovered vulnerabilities in the software late last week also reported finding aspects of the CyberSitting software present during a detailed study of Green Dam.
Responding to the claims, the founder of the company behind Green Dam called them “impossible.” In an interview with the AP, Solid Oak founder Brian Milburn said the company was considering legal action but was unsure of what could be done since the offending company was based in China. “I don't know how far you can try and reach into China and try to stop stuff like this," he told the Associated Press. "We're still trying to assess what they're doing."
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The Green Dam is just a rubbish. What silly decisions the gov has done!!!
LOL, I still don't know why this is still headline news but this one gets me thinking.
Assuming Solid Oak can't sell enough copy of its software in the US because of the backlash, maybe they are trying to sign on Beijing. Kinda like Buick is dying in the US but doing very well in China.
How can you sell something to someone who has already stolen it..., DUH?
"We're still trying to assess what they're doing."
Come on Tom’s! There is a lot of free spellcheckers out there. Can anyone link me a recent Tom’s article that doesn’t have an elementary school spelling error in it? Do you actually read the articles you write before you post them?
that anyone is truly surprised is wot i find remarkable. not saying Chinese programmers aren't capable of coming up with their own disaster but this being a government sponsored program, the easiest and cheapest way to do it is to use existing software, rebrand it and tweak it a bit, then collect all the extra funding for yourself or other programs of your choosing...
gwellin: Can YOU point out the mistake in that sentence? I sure don't see it.
About the article - this isn't very surprising. Just take a look at China's auto industry. A lot of the cars being produced there are blatant copies of existing cars, minus the safety. That said, I imagine the software is horribly flawed in some way.
My guess is you're going to see a lot of live CD linux distros being downloaded by the Chinese people to circumvent any of the Windows software that they are preinstalling.
what?
there's no uninstall option on that software?
how about just do CTRL-ALT-DELETE and shut down the program manually?
what?there's no uninstall option on that software?how about just do CTRL-ALT-DELETE and shut down the program manually?
I'm sure it is a little more complicated than that.
what?there's no uninstall option on that software?how about just do CTRL-ALT-DELETE and shut down the program manually?
I believe a previous article mentioned that you could disable or uninstall the software, and that it was an optional download for existing computers. Companies are simply required to pre-install it on machines, I don't believe citizens are required to run it on personal computers, not yet anyway.
Unless I missed something, I believe you failed to identify "U of M" before abbreviating it. We talking University of Michigan, University of Montana, University of Missouri, or something completely different?
You're suggesting that some organization known as "U of M" was researching the Chinese' software. You should identify who U of M is before someone gets antsy thinking you're misquoting their organization, when in fact you were talking about someone else.
@gwellin:
There are no mistakes in that sentence you're quoting. However, you have a grammatical error in your reply. You should have said, "There ARE a lot of free spellcheckers out there."
Unless I missed something, I believe you failed to identify "U of M" before abbreviating it. We talking University of Michigan, University of Montana, University of Missouri, or something completely different?
But only one of them is unquestionably the best and the likely University to do the research.
I am, of course, referring to Michigan.
Hail to the Victors!
Anyway, I'm sure lots of people saw this coming. The Chinese are only good at copying people's ideas.
If at all possible, TG, please don't put words like 'porn' in the URL, because they won't load due to being blocked by filters at many locations. Thank you. Good article though, sry about the irony. This is just referring to a lot of the green dam coverage in general.
Once this is out, it will be cracked, hacked in no time by the chinese...lol
I'm a chinese too but not in China...lucky..
"...all computers would ship with the software pre-installed"
No, the computers would ship with the software installed.
STOP THE "PRE-" NONSENSE!