China Media Project http://cmp.hku.hk/2009/06/16/1665/
ISC required members to “actively” promote Green Dam last January By David Bandurski
“purifying social civilization,” said Ms. Guo,
BEIJING — U.S. computer makers say the Chinese government has not
backed down from a requirement that Internet filtering software be
installed on all computers sold in China after July 1, despite reports
this week that the rule had been relaxed. Meanwhile, in
another sign that Chinese officials are trying to assert more control
over the Internet, the city of Beijing wants to recruit 10,000
volunteers by the end of the summer to monitor Internet content, said
Ms. Guo, an employee of the Beijing government’s Spiritual Civilization
Office.
An edict from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) that all new personal computers sold or made in China from July 1 must feature its Green Dam-Youth Escort program. And experts have predicted the directive could be revised or
scrapped, with Shen Kui, deputy dean of the school of law at Peking
University, saying that he believed the government had found itself in
a "very uncomfortable position". Some PC manufacturers and other firms in the IT industry are already
refusing to pre-install the software, for which the government has paid
41.7 million yuan ($6 million) for a one-year lease of the program. Some citizens cautiously welcomed the policy to help create a
porn-free environment, but others chose to publicly vent their
frustrations after discovering that content deemed politically
sensitive or homosexual would also be targeted by Green Dam, or luba,
which shares the same pronunciation with "filtering bully".
The anti-Green Dam website, lssw365.org, launched on June 11, has
already received 10,400 comments from netizens, most of whom seem to be
using their real names.
China Flip-Flops on Mandatory Filtering because the software was pirated.
California-based Solid Oak Systems, makers of the Cybersitter
censorship software, is alleging that the Chinese military
front-company providing the Green Dam software, Jinhui Computer System
Engineering Inc, copied blacklists and actual functional code from its
software.
The tip pointed to
a report
published last week by three University of Michigan computer
researchers and DiPasquale said the report proved to be accurate. "We
discovered that they had proprietary information about CYBERsitter,"
she said, citing a list of
serial numbers,
blacklist files, and
DLL files.
The Chinese government's Central Propaganda department reportedly
has been telling news organizations to stop complaining and to take a
more positive tone in stories about Green Dam. Nonetheless, academics
and lawyers in China have asked for hearings on the government's Web
filtering requirement.
InformationWeek Analytics and DarkReading.com have published an independent analysis of security outsourcing. Download the report here registration required.
The allegations arise from a U.Michigan report on the Green Dam
software, which noted the similarities as well as several
vulnerabilities in the program. Jinhui intends to sue the authors of
the U.Michigan report for disclosing those vulnerabilities.
Solid Oak has also sent cease-and-desist letters to major US PC makers
directing them not to export machines containing the Chinese software
while legal actions are pursued.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124486910756712249.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2348834,00.asp
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06/15/content_8282225.htmCybersitterHow to disable Cybersitter
First try to access
http://www.StupidCensorship.com/
If your admin hasn't updated their Cybersitter blocked-site list yet, you can use that site to
get around Cybersitter.
If that site is blocked, then follow the instructions on Peacefire's page,
setting
up a circumventor. You can set up the "circumventor" program on your computer,
and it will give you a URL that you can use to bypass Cybersitter wherever you go.
Peacefire
has released a bypass program -- eponymously named "Peacefire" -- which
can disable all popular Windows
blocking software (Cyber Patrol,
SurfWatch, Net Nanny, CYBERsitter, X-Stop, Cyber Snoop, PureSight) with
the click of a button.
Bug discovered in new anti-porn computer software
AN Internet security firm said yesterday the online
pornography-blocking software, which will be pre-installed in all new
computers sold domestically from next month, has a "high-level"
loophole that leaves machines...
Schools told to use Green DamABOUT 4 million computers at all the 1,500-some local primary and
secondary schools will be equipped
with newly developed software that
blocks access to online pornography by the end of this month. The
Shanghai...
Anti-porn software leaves net users coldINTERNET users appear hesitant about the online pornography-blocking
software China is pushing for
personal computers. About 85 percent of
66,080 respondents to a survey on Sina.com say they will not install
the software...
New PCs to be equipped with software that blocks out porn
CHINA wants all personal computers sold domestically to come with
software that
blocks access to online pornography, the main developer
of the software said yesterday.
The software, called "Green Dam-Youth
Escort,"...
Green Dam developers face copyright suitChinese developers of a controversial
software to filter pornography may face legal action from the US makers
of a similar Internet filter. Solid Oak said it had "very solid
evidence" to support copyright infringement against developers Jinhui
Computer System Engineering Co and Dazheng Human Language Technology Co. The
California-based software maker has sent "cease and desist" letters to
Hewlet-Packard and Dell to stop distributing computers containing the
alleged copied software and said it was considering seeking an
injunction in a US court. "We are weighing our legal options
against the two program developers in China. We should know more in the
coming 24-48 hours," said Jenna DiPasquale, the head of Solid Oak PR
and marketing. The development puts a question mark over the
future of the Green Dam-Youth Escort software, for which the government
paid 41.7million yuan ($6 million) and must be included in all
computers sold on the mainland from July 1. DiPasquale said
programming codes within Solid Oak's CyberSitter had been found in the
Green Dam software, which the government said is designed to protect
youngsters from pornography and violence. "We have sent HP and Dell, with which we have had business relationships, cease and desist letters," said DiPasquale. "We
objected to the distribution of any software based on proprietary
CyberSitter data, techniques, or methods that were illegally obtained
or reverse engineered without proper licensing, or any Green Dam
product that contains illegally obtained intellectual property. "We have also asked them to provide an accounting for any units that may have already been shipped." Zhang
Chenmin, general manager of the Zhengzhou-based Jinhui, could not be
reached for comment yesterday but he told China Daily earlier that the
two filters' databases of blacklisted URL addresses might share
similarities. "After all, they are all well-known international
pornographic websites that all porn-filters are meant to block. We
didn't steal their programming code," he said on Sunday. American
experts were yesterday quoted as saying that legal action in the US
could not stop the sale of computers within China. Dell and HP could
not be reached for comment. The threat of legal action is the
latest in a list of woes for Jinhui. Last week, a University of
Michigan study found that the Green Dam software contained, apart from
codes similar to CyberSitter, security vulnerabilities, which the
company said it has addressed. Meanwhile, a group of 19 business
associations have urged the government to review the Green Dam ruling,
Bloomberg reported yesterday.
The software raises "questions of
security, privacy, system reliability " according to the letter, a copy
of which Bloomberg News said it obtained. The group, includes the
American Chamber of Commerce in China and the Business Software
Alliance. Wang Lijian, a spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology, told Bloomberg that he could not immediately
comment on the issue. A ministry official said yesterday that
some foreign PC makers may not be able to include the Green Dam
software in their software packages by the deadline set.
"All
domestic PC makers are ready to include the software by July 1, but
some foreign PC makers, such as Dell, might not be able to meet the
deadline as far as I know," the official at the department of software
service, who spoke on condition if anonymity, told China Daily.
Wang Xing contributed to the story
Source:China DailyJinhui Computer System Engineering Co, has ties to China’s security ministry and military.
Outrage over bid to tame WebBy Cui Xiaohuo and Cui Jia (China Daily)
Critics have also been creative and posted online around a dozen
variations of the "Green Dam Girl", usually a busty Japanese
Manga-style character in an army cap and mini dress who totes a bucket
of soy sauce - considered a disinfectant - for cleaning up dirty
websites. Lawyers in Beijing and Shanghai have also drawn up domestic petitions and legal challenges against the filtering plan. In the capital, Li Fangping, a lawyer with Beijing Ruifeng Law Firm,
submitted a request to the MIIT last week demanding a public hearing on
the "legitimacy and rationality" of having PC manufacturers include the
"pornography filtering package". He has yet to receive a response.
"There is no problem with the government protecting the Chinese youth (by keeping them away from porn), it is the same as what is being done elsewhere in the world," said Professor Chen Lidan, a senior researcher on journalism for Renmin University of China.
"But the problem is adults in China, who comprise about two-thirds of the nation's online community, will have to face the fact all computers will be pre-fitted with filters according to the government's stipulation.
"If they are told they must share the same level of access as children, isn't it true that their access to information has been stripped?"
... told us to make the software safer as soon as a series of security vulnerabilities were found,” Zhang Chenmin, the general manager of Jinhui Computer System Engineering, which helped design the software, told China
Daily. To say that the concern of critics was that non-governmental
hackers could break into the system and see what people are doing is to
misstate and fail to address...
... recrypted it using their own mechanism and changed the file extension." However, general manager Zhang Chenmin
denied that Jinhui had stolen Green Dam's code. "I cannot deny that the
two filters' databases of blacklisted URL addresses might share
similarities. After all, they are all well known international
pornographic websites that all porn-filters are meant to block," Zhang...
China Orders Patches to Planned Web Filter
... told us to make the software safer as soon as a series of security vulnerabilities were found,” Zhang Chenmin, the general manager of Jinhui Computer System Engineering, which helped design the software, told China Daily.Mr. Zhang
acknowledged that the software had systemic flaws that would allow
hackers to attack computers that used the program, “just like any other
software...
... safer as soon a series of security vulnerabilities were found," the official China Daily quoted Zhang Chenmin,
manager of Jinhui Computer System Engineering, as saying. Jinhui's
programmers were "working non-stop in collaboration with domestic
anti-virus program experts" to develop the security patches, Zhang said. Jinhui helped to develop the Green Dam Youth Escort software,...