Censorship on the Chinese Information Highway

China is a country with a long and controversial past when it comes to what it always calls “protecting its citizens,” especially on the Internet.

The Chinese government has been known to block Internet addresses and domains which it deems unfit for the public to see. During last year’s Olympic Games, the Chinese government blocked access to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) websites, after the Canadian broadcaster revealed that parts of the opening ceremonies which were supposed to be live, were pre-taped.

So when the government of China says they are censoring something to protect their citizens, it is questionable as to what exactly they are protecting – their citizens, or their own reputation.

China’s government is taking censorship to a whole new level, thanks to technology. Effective tomorrow, all computers sold in mainland China must come with a program called Green Dam-Youth Escort.

This program—at a cost of over $6 million in developmental fees paid for by the Chinese government – is being mandated by government law to be installed on every computer sold from July 1 onwards. By filtering keywords, Universal Resource Locators (URLs), image recognition, and contextual phrase recognition, the application is supposed to make the Internet safer for children, by blocking access to banned sites.

Problem is, those who control which sites are banned and which aren’t are those in the Chinese government – so despite the government’s claim, this program will most likely be used to block all Internet sites which don’t mesh with what the Chinese governments political views.

The Green Dam-Youth Escort program, developed in China, by a Chinese software company, is also full of security holes, which leaves anyone using the application vulnerable to hackers, viruses, Internet worms and other malicious electronic attack.

North American and European business leaders have sent letters directly to the leaders of the Chinese government, asking them to reconsider their mandate. Even governments are getting up in arms over China’s increased censorship of the Internet. The U.S. Department of Commerce sent a letter to the Chinese government, listing several concerns.

The Green Dam-Youth Escort program doesn’t just block access to certain web sites, it actually can crash an Internet browser completely.

A Harvard University researcher posted on YouTube a demonstration, showing how the Green Dam-Youth Escort program freezes a web browser, whenever you type the letter “f” into the location bar. This happened after the letter “f” became associated via the browser’s auto-complete list with the “falundafa.org web” site, which is has ties to Falun Gong – a religious sect banned by the Chinese government.

Image by Raideres via Flickr

Falun Gong has no links to pornography, but because they believe in values which the Chinese government doesn’t agree with, they are blocked by the software.

Clearly the government is increasing its ability to control the Internet – they can update the software’s list of banned sites at anytime, just like your anti-virus software updates itself all the time with the latest security patches.

Though unlike your security software, which protects you from electronic harm, China’s Green Dam-Youth Escort software is only protecting the Chinese government’s shady reputation from being exposed to those who matter most – it’s citizens.

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Surfing the Net in Canada – Watch Where You Click

A proposed new law is being introduced in Canada’s House of Commons today, which would grant police the power to force your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to hand over all records of your online activities without a warrant.

Imagine having someone go through all your personal emails, chat room conversations, website histories, file transfers and surfing habits, without your knowledge, and for reasons which may or may not be justified.

The proposed law, a Bill called “An Act Regulating Telecommunications Facilities to Support Investigations,” gives Canadian law enforcement agencies unprecedented sweeping powers to dig up all this dirt, without justifying their reasons.

Simply cut off a cop on the highway, and next thing you know, they b

reak down your door because you downloaded last summer’s block buster movie off the net.

Supporters of the Bill – including police forces across the country – say situations like these aren’t likely, because they will only use these new rights to investigate criminal activates. They say the Internet has become an easy and important tool by criminals, pedophiles, terrorists, drug dealers and scam artists.

However, Canada’s Federal Privacy Commissioner and other privacy watchdogs are very worried about this proposed legislation, because it allows police to have carte blanche access to your complete online life, with nothing more than a hunch.

Currently, law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant – by providing reasonable and probable grounds to a judge to get that warrant – just to listen in on your phone conversations, or to search your places of work or residence. They don’t presently have any rights to access your online usage from your ISP.

Police and other law enforcement agencies across Canada have been demanding this type of law for years, to help in their criminal investigations.

Granting law enforcement agencies the right to gather this information from ISPs isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but allowing them to have this information without a warrant is.

Being a police officer is a tough job, but being a cop also means having a certain element of power and responsibility.

Placing the responsibility in those that have the power is a dangerous combination – that’s why the proposed Bill is a bad Bill. It allows police to regulate themselves in terms of what prompts them to order an ISP to hand over personal online information.

You could be out at a restaurant with a group of friends, one joke taken the wrong way by a police officer in earshot, and that cop goes off and starts searching through your online life – and you may never know about this, especially if there is nothing incriminating against you.

If the police and other law enforcement agencies want to have laws allowing them to access the personal information of suspected criminals online – fine. But giving them unfettered access, based on what may just be a best-guess, is a step closer to living in a country like China, where the government regularly blocks Internet access under the guise of “protecting its citizens.”

Like when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported during last summer’s Olympic Games that some of the ceremonies broadcast “live” from China, were actually pre-recorded and edited by the Chinese government. Within hours of CBC reporting that story, the Chinese government had blocked all CBC sites within China.

It would take a long time, and many more similar Bills proposed and passed in Canada, before such a controlled online world were to happen. But this Bill is the first step towards just that.

Is that the type of society we want here in Canada?

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