rickfarang Posted June 9, 2009 Report Share Posted June 9, 2009 Comment: Thailand is already well down this road with the Cyber Crimes Act, but as we have seen in the past, it is common for multiple laws to be created to address an issue when it is felt that the earlier law(s) are not being enforced. Therefore, I suspect that some in the government here are looking at China's most recent effort to protect their citizens' minds with some interest. The idea of a government requiring a back door on every new system sold after July 1st is troubling. Part of the story is below. Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alPTKnbdMl8Q -------------------------------------------------- begin excerpt ----------------------------------------------------------- China to Add Web-Censoring Software to PCs, WSJ Says By Mark Lee and Tim Culpan June 8 (Bloomberg) -- China plans to require all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 to include software that prevents access to an automatically updated list of Web sites banned by the government, the Wall Street Journal reported. The plan is aimed at preventing â??harmfulâ? information from influencing young people, according to an unpublicized Ministry of Industry and Information Technology document dated May 19, the Journal reported today. PC makers have been told of the requirement, part of a government program called â??Green Dam-Youth Escort,â? the newspaper said. â??The apparent objective of the software is to control access to pornographic sites, but we donâ??t know what else is in the code,â? said Charles Mok, chairman of the Hong Kong division of Internet Society, an international standard-setting body. â??Computer users have no control over modifications to the software, which may be used to collect personal data or filter other Web sites.â? -------------------------------------------------- end excerpt ----------------------------------------------------------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faustian Posted June 9, 2009 Report Share Posted June 9, 2009 Very scary. I'm sure a few western governments are looking on with interest too.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted June 9, 2009 Report Share Posted June 9, 2009 Hi, Very scary indeed, but I wonder if it would withstand a full format and reinstall of a copy of Windows or Linux downloaded from outside of China. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted June 11, 2009 Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 Hi, I wonder if it would withstand a full format and reinstall of a copy of Windows or Linux downloaded from outside of China. Sanuk! No it doesn't. Also it is said to be very buggy and even dangerous to users: Industry experts and civil libertarians say they are worried the software may simply be a Trojan horse for greater Internet control. The software developers have ties to Chinaâ??s military and public security agencies, they point out, and Green Damâ??s backers say the effort is supported by Li Changchun, the countryâ??s chief propaganda official and a memberof the decision-making body of the Communist Party, the Politburo Standing Committee. ... Even beyond ethical concerns, those who have tested the new software describe it as technically flawed. An American software engineer said [color:red]it led machines to crash frequently[/color]. Others worry that it could leave tens of millions of computers [color:red]vulnerable to hackers[/color]. So far, at least, there is [color:red]no version for the Linux[/color] operating system and for Appleâ??s Macintosh system. NYT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted June 11, 2009 Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 The software might be even a great help for Western spy agencies: Security holes poked in Chinese compulsory PC filter plan Green Dam it all By John Leyden Plans to mandate the use of a particular brand of censorware software in China pose a grave security risk, security watchers and net privacy activists warn. All PCs shipped to China from July 1 2009 onwards will be required to bundle a locally brewed application called Green Dam Youth Escort in order to prevent access to "harmful content". The parental control/censorship software, developed by Jinhui Computer System Engineering, will be used to block access to porn as well as politically sensitive content, in conjunction with server-side and ISP-level filters (the so-called Great Firewall of China) already in place. By creating a software monoculture the Chinese authorities are creating a risk that a vulnerability in the software, providing it was serious enough to allow remote code injection, could be used to [color:red]create a huge botnet[/color]. More subtle flaws might also be used to create [color:red]targeted attacks on government computers[/color] - a factor that is unlikely to pass unnoticed down at the NSA. And the whole exercise might be of limited use anyway, because early versions of the software work only IE or Google Chrome on Windows. According to collaborative tests, carried out in China and summarised by Global Voices here, the software [color:orange]fails to work with Firefox[/color]. The software - already widely deployed in China - is [color:orange]incompatible with Mac or Linux[/color] machines. Other reported problems include suggestions that the Green Dam Youth Escort is a [color:orange]resource hog[/color], might be high maintenance when it comes to applying upgrades, and has been found to inadvertently [color:orange]block course-related material in schools[/color]. Questions are also being asked about the costs of the software, estimated as costing 41m Yuan in the first year. Isaac Mao, a research fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, has uncovered other problems with the software. Communications between the systems at Jinhui and client PC running its Green Dam Youth Escort are unencrypted, leaving the door open for [color:red]man in the middle attacks and clickstream snooping[/color]. It could be the system is designed this way to allow the Chinese government to monitor its citizens. However, Green Dam maintains that its software is "only a filter", the BBC (citing reports in the official Chinese media last year) reports. ® The Register Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torneyboy Posted June 11, 2009 Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 yeah that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted June 11, 2009 Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 I would think they would stick the virus in the BIOS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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