Imagethief

MIIT says reports of Green Dam Youth Escort's demise are greatly exaggerated

will — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:29:00 GMT

Or so, at least, claims the China Daily:

Despite a last-minute delay in implementing Green Dam internet-filtering software, China's authorities and its PC manufacturers said Wednesday they expect the tool will end up on new computers.

One day after the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) declared a postponement to the July 1 start date for the mandatory inclusion of "Green Dam-Youth Escort" porn filtering software, an MIIT official said it was only "a matter of time" before the directive took effect.

"The government will definitely carry on the directive on Green Dam. It's just a matter of time," he told China Daily on condition of anonymity.

An earlier directive to all PC makers on May 19 said the pre-installation of the filtering software would be mandatory on July 1 for any new PC produced or sold in China.

The official said issues around potential copyright infringement were not behind the delay - it was simply because some computer manufacturers needed more time.

"What will happen is that some PC manufacturers will have it included with their PC packages sooner than the others," he said. "But there is no definite deadline at the moment."

Domestic PC giants, including Lenovo Group, Tsinghua Tongfang, Founder Technology Group and Haier Group, said Wednesday they will "install the filter as they were told". But some manufacturers have included a disclaimer with new PCs, saying they would not be responsible for damage caused by Green Dam.

Well, we'll see.

Reading the above, Imagethief wonders if one compromise solution that might emerge from this is for local PC manufacturers, such as those named above, to end up including the software while foreign manufacturers are allowed, in practice if not in law, to take a pass. I can't imagine that local manufacturers would much like that.

Also, did you note the comment from "the official"? The delay has nothing to do with the copyright issues, security problems, or general shoddy state of the software. It's solely the fault of ill-prepared PC makers caught with their pants down. This was the face-saving message in the official communication issued two days ago as well. It's interesting to see it getting further play.

Previously on Imagethief:

Why I'm not in a tizzy over China's new Internet filtering software (June, 2009)
Communication is the real lesson from the Green Dam Youth Escort fiasco (June, 2009)
Green Dam Youth Escort vanishes faster than predicted (July, 2009)

Green Dam Youth Escort vanishes faster than predicted

will — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:51:00 GMT

Well, it appears that Imagethief was overly optimistic about Green Dam Youth Escort's longevity. My original prediction was that it would be allowed to die and in six months no one would remember it. Apparently six weeks would have been closer to the mark. Today was the day from which computer manufacturers were to be officially required to include Green Dam Youth Escort filtering software with all computers shipped in China. Instead, after widespread resistance from computer users, computer manufacturers, and most media organizations not called "Xinhua", the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology decided to postpone implementation of the requirement indefinitely. Yes, technically it hasn't vanished (it will still be in schools and Internet cafes), but we're well into face-saving territory. The news emerged via Xinhua:

BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- China will delay the mandatory installation of the controversial "Green Dam-Youth Escort" filtering software on new computers, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said here Tuesday.
The pre-installation was postponed as some computer producers said such massive installation demanded extra time, said the ministry.
"The ministry would keep on soliciting opinions to perfect the pre-installation plan," a spokesman with MIIT said.

Imagethief expects that solicitation to take just long enough for everyone to forget this ever happened. It's also interesting that one third of the article is dedicated to the news that the implementation is delayed, while two thirds of it is given up to what might be best described as buffing the legacy of this idea. You need not read the whole thing; the two sub-heds tell the whole story. They are, "Safe, legal and trustworthy" and "Popular among parents". Enough said.

For such a spanning, industry-wide announcement, it sure didn't get much play on the ministerial website itself, being relegated into a larger "Q&A" on the wonders of Green Dam Youth Escort. I found it through a Google search for pages on Green Dam on MIIT's domain that had been posted or amended in the last week. Xinhua and many other mianstream Chinese publications delivered the news in similarly softened form. English language Chinese media was less charitable. The China Daily was surprisingly unsparing. But even they couldn't top the glittering, front-page treatment in today's Wall Street Journal Asia, above both the BP-China National Petroleum Company win in Iraq and Taiwan's opening to mainland Chinese investment. Further proof, one suspects, of the Western media's sinister plot to humiliate China.

Green Dam Youth Escort may have submarined as predicted, but make no mistake, this isn't over. The objective that drove it the Green Dam plan, the desire to "purify the Internet", still stands. All attempts are being made to wrap the demise of Green Dam in face-saving balm, but there is no disguising the thoroughly humiliating nature of the episode. Nothing stokes the fires of zealotry like a bout of punishing humiliation, and I'd expect to see that zealotry redirected in coming months in an attempt to justify the Green Dam initiative. The recent assault on Google may be a sign of things to come. PC makers may be able to breathe a sigh of relief now, but portals, video sharing sites, social networks, Internet cafes and others may be in for an interesting few months. Watch this space.

Update (July 2):

And, bang on cue: Campaign launched against Chinese Internet "cultural irregularities", via China Tech News:

According to Zhang Xinjian, deputy director of the Market Division of the Ministry of Culture, this campaign will focus on six main tasks, which include further purifying [the] social and cultural environment; cracking down on illegal cultural products and services; conducting special checks on recreational and entertainment venues; strengthening the management and supervision of netcafes; conducting special checks on the animated cartoon market; and strengthening the inspection on culture service providers.

I'm not saying these things are directly related, especially given the breadth of the campaign above. I'm just saying, expect more like this in coming months.

Previously on Imagethief:

Why I'm not in a tizzy over China's new Internet filtering software (June, 2009)
Communication is the real lesson from the Green Dam Youth Escort fiasco (June, 2009)

See also:

Danwei: Danwei talks to Caijing about the public's right to collect information
China Journal: Geen Dam and the politics of consent
Rebecca MacKinnon: Green Dam is breached...now what?

Oh, yeah, and that Taiwan investment thing, too.

Rough for Expo with all those robot fights breaking out in that nameless city

will — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:27:00 GMT

In 2007, Imagethief actually forked over 160 RMB so he and Mrs. Imagethief could see Mike Bay's first Transformers movie on the big screen at Oriental Plaza. This was before Imagethief Jr. came along and little things like an evening out or even eating a airlie meal in peace became remote luxuries only whispered about in furtive tones. I don't remember it being 160RMB especially well spent, although it was pretty much what was advertised on the tin, assuming the labelling on the tin read "idiotic robot movie".

One of the things I remember about watching the movie was that there were period references to a potential enemy, or strategic rival, that had obviously intentionally garbled in the audio. Only later, through the magic of HBO Asia (all the neutered, family-friendly movies you care to watch, zero nudity or harsh language), did I discover that the garbled country was "China". It obviously made sense that China would garble references to itself in Transformers, as China's stated policy, as a nation committed to a peaceful rise and a policy of non-interference, is never to take advantage of outbreaks of alien robot warfare on Earth to advance its own political agenda. To suggest any such thing in a motion picture is obviously an affront to the Chinese people (although to suggest it in a pirate DVD or on a video sharing site is, conversely, a damn good deal).

But if to scandalize China once seems like misfortune, to scandalize it twice looks like carelessness. And so we come to Transformers II, the widely ~~dreaded~~ anticipated sequel, which, we learn, has downgraded China from potential strategic rival to incidental battleground with the predictable results, as noted by the Hollywood Reporter:

China's government once again demonstrated its sensitivity to portrayal of the country in foreign movies.

Even-handed online debate in China about "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and its depiction of Shanghai didn't stop media monitors from bleeping the name of China's biggest city from the soundtrack of the DreamWorks film, which was released here this week.

The censorship, though fleeting, is the latest in a series of cuts to Hollywood imports perceived by communist authorities to malign China's image, and it is significant given the scale of the potential audience for the film.

***
In the opening battle sequence of the $200 million "Transformers" sequel, the Autobots and Decepticons drop lots of bombs as they chase one another about a shabby-looking industrial part of Shanghai, actually portrayed by a defunct Pennsylvania steel mill.

A billboard over a highway featured in the chase features Metersbonwe, China's first publicly listed fashion retailer, in its first big Hollywood product placement -- the work of L.A.-based Norm Marshall Associates.

Hard luck for Meters/Bonwe, which will no doubt catch an earful from the Shanghai government for helping to underwrite such crass, foreign propaganda. Perhaps upon seeing the final print they should have asked the producers to digitally replace their sign with one advertising Uniqlo, which, after all, is Japanese and can scarcely be expected to know better.

The Shanghai government has always been uptight about how the city is portrayed, as anyone who remembers the ridiculous flap over hanging underwear in Mission: Impossible III will know. Having lived in Shanghai, Imagethief can report that there are plenty of scruffy neighborhoods. Seriously, how prickly can you be? It's not like your grandparents are going to watch this movie and then say, "Gosh, Mervyn, I don't know. All those robot fights breaking out. Maybe we should cancel those Expo tickets." Good thing the city fathers didn't notice the giant monsters trampling them in Godzilla: Final Wars (you can just see what appears to be the Oriental Pearl Tower getting it at 1:02 in this trailer). They'd be burning Nikons and Vaios in the streets.

Frankly, Imagethief thinks that the Shanghai government is directing its rage at the wrong place. The insult isn't that Shanghai was depicted (accurately) as having some grotty, industrial neighborhoods. It's that some piece of Pennsylvania was used as the stunt-city. That's just not right. But the correct response isn't to have a big, petty bitch-up that only makes them look far too preoccupied about the most niggling of PR mosquito bites, like the guy who's just been hit by a car fussing over his manicure while the doctors try to get his ribs back inside. After all, this is the city that just had a whole building tip over without any robot help whatsoever.

No, the correct approach is to slip Mikie Bay a fifty to get "Shanghai" changed to "Shenyang" or "Suzhou" (because "Beijing" wouldn't look right looped over the lip movements for "Shanghai"). And speaking of that, aren't the censors based in Beijing? I know they have the interests of the country at whole at heart, but itsn't the Shanghai clique's power waning? What do you care if cinematic robots destroy a warehouse in outer Zhabei? It's not like they destroyed the Bird's Nest. (Mental note: Pitch destruction of Bird's Nest to Bay for Transformers III.)

But maybe it's personal. Maybe Mr. Bay has it in for Shanghai in particular. After all, he nuked it flat with a meteor in "Armageddon". At this rate, he'll have to come up with something truly awful to do to Shanghai with his next movie. Like screen it there.

Previously on Imagethief:

Beijing needs a giant monster attack (December, 2005)

And when Megatron is done with Shanghai, he will thoroughly insult Hangzhou!

Why is Imagethief suddenly so popular in Taiwan?

will — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:55:00 GMT

My first post on Green Dam Youth Escort has nearly 16,000 page views so far. This is an unusually large number for a blog where a widely-read post gets somewhere between 1,000 and 4,000 web reads. Oddly, almost all of them seem to come from Taiwan. The Sitemeter screen for the locations of my last 20 visits (and it's been like this for a few days):

What's the deal with that? Nothing shows up in the referrals screen of my admin page.

Communication is the real lesson from the Green Dam Youth Escort fiasco

will — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:10:00 GMT

So Green Dam + Youth Escort blocks images based on skin tone. But what if I like Afro-porn? These, and other important questions are arising now that serious analysts (which is to say, people other than me), have had some time to dig into the capabilities of Jinhui's now infamous software package. The verdict is pretty much as you might have guessed: Green Dam + Youth Escort is a poorly designed rip-off of a foreign nanny-ware product, is unstable, and is riddled with security holes. It is, in short, crapware. I won't go into the gruesome details, but if you're interested I highly recommend an analysis by the Computer Science and Engineering division of the University of Michigan. For those in a hurry, the summary gives you a taste of their conclusions:

We examined the Green Dam software and found that it contains serious security vulnerabilities due to programming errors. Once Green Dam is installed, any web site the user visits can exploit these problems to take control of the computer. This could allow malicious sites to steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet. In addition, we found vulnerabilities in the way Green Dam processes blacklist updates that could allow the software makers or others to install malicious code during the update process.
We found these problems with less than 12 hours of testing, and we believe they may be only the tip of the iceberg. Green Dam makes frequent use of unsafe and outdated programming practices that likely introduce numerous other vulnerabilities. Correcting these problems will require extensive changes to the software and careful retesting. In the meantime, we recommend that users protect themselves by uninstalling Green Dam immediately.

Judging from the livid reaction in China, no-one will have to work too hard to convince Chinese computer users to take that advice. So this will go down as yet another shining moment in the annals of government procurement.

But despite what you may think, the government's real problem wasn't in the procurement process or obviously less-than-rigorous technical evaluation. It was in the public communication, which was nonexistent. This is a bit of surprise because on average, Chinese government bodies have become significantly better at public communication in the past few years, developing a level of responsiveness to public opinion that would have been unthinkable a couple of decades ago. But the radar was definitely switched off in this situation.

In Imagethief's personal experience, most Chinese people are relatively sanguine about the Great Firewall (or Net Nanny or Golden Shield or what have you). It doesn't interfere with most of the things your average Chinese net user wants to do (watching a complete and conveniently subtitled version of the new Star Trek movie on Youku, for instance), and is treated as a kind of necessary but slightly obnoxious inconvenience, like a younger brother who wants to join your pickup soccer game. You can always make him play fullback, where he'll probably stay out of trouble.

But there is something important about how the mechanism of the Great Firewall relates to this forgiving attitude. The Great Firewall is implemented at a distance from the end user, in the ISPs, routers and gateways that form the infrastructure of the Internet. It's enforced out in the cloud, and is thus abstract to some degree, even if its effects are apparent in the information you can or cannot access at any given time.

But what the regulator does in the cloud is one thing. What it does when it reaches out and plants its mitts squarely in your computer -- your personal computer, in all senses of the word-- is entirely different. It is the difference between posting speed limits and deploying the highway patrol on dangerous stretches of road, and putting a governor in your car so it won't go over 55 mph no matter what you do. The former is completely reasonable for the public good. The latter is an insult to your manhood (unless you're a woman, in which case it's presumably an insult to something else).

Now, imagine that the authorities are not only putting a governor in your car, but that it's a crappy governor that sometimes kicks in when you're only going 35, stalls the car completely when you break 55 rather than simply limiting your acceleration, and spontaneously unlocks all the doors and starts the engine when car thieves walk by. That's about where we stand with Green Dam + Youth Escort according to the analyses.

It's conceivable that the authorities could have pulled this off if they had taken a few basic steps. First, it would have been good to have a period of public consultation. At least that would have provided a chance to assess public reaction and respond appropriately prior to making a commitment. They also could have used that period to defuse some of the negative reaction from the PC manufacturers, all of which are publicly walking a fine diplomatic line, and privately lobbying like Jack Abramoff on poppers and Red Bull. At the risk of letting you see how a PR person thinks (a dark and terrible thing), if I was selling this idea I'd do as much work as I could with grass-roots and community groups and academics to build up the problem of undesirable information with supporting comment from a variety of different directions. I'd run a parallel media compaign also building up the problem and making sure that regulatory interest in a solution was presented in an appropriately benevolent light. Then I'd position the free inclusion of parental control software (and that's how I'd describe it) with all computers sold in the country as a gift, not as a mandate. Importantly, I'd suggest making it clear that the software is only included with the computer as a disk, and not preinstalled. I'd combine that with community distribution to get the software out to households that already have computers. This puts the software potentially on the desktops of children and students for whom it matters (if you believe in such things) while not wasting time on the committed geeks and randy young men who will immediately scrub the software off of any computer they buy. I'm not saying I like doing this, I'm just saying that's how I would do it if I had to.

Oh, it would help immeasurably if the software itself wasn't complete crap. Because I'd also encourage public review of the software itself prior to finalizing the plan. And, after all, you'll have a much easier time selling this idea to the PC industry and enlisting their support if the PC industry doesn't think it's going to break their products.

Instead, the authorities mandated bad software by fiat without warning anyone. In the face of the entirely predictable backlask, they are reduced to their usual double-pronged approach to managing public opinion, telling the mainstream commercial media to tone down the criticism and running a happy-banner up the trusty Xinhua flagpole. Good luck with that. Imagethief stands by his original judgment: In six months, this will all be conveniently flushed down the memory hole. You might want to order a new PC soon just for the souvenir value.

See also:

Open Net Initiative: China's Green Dam: The Implications of Government Control Encroaching on the Home PC
Rebecca MacKinnon: More Green Dam documents and statements
John Pomfret: China's rising Internet
Danwei: Green Dam girl (Well worth your time)
Danwei: Oddities in the Green Dam filtered words list

Hey, does Green Dam Youth Escort block bunny pr0n?

Image via ChinaSMACK.

Why, again, did I agree to be paid in RMB?

will — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:30:00 GMT

Just went to the bank to convert a year's worth of RMB savings to Singapore dollars (my main savings currency), where I was reminded by the vast complexities involved that the renminbi is not freely exchangeable. Here's the box score:

Documents required: Passport, work permit, passbook, employment contract, income statement from my employer, official 2008 receipt for tax paid. Also on hand just in case: Every payslip from the past year and a photocopy of my actual Chinese tax return.
People dealt with: Four. One woman to arrange wire transfer, one guy to do currency swap, and two supervisors (both for the currency swap).
Number of chops: I lost count. Dozens. Literally.
Number of signatures: Four (less than I anticipated, actually).
Number of little tiaozi receipts: Eight, but technically one doesn't count because it's from a document I filled out so the teller could do a typed version.
Time at windows: 45 minutes.
Status of my savings: In some kind of quantum limbo between banks for 24 hours or so. On the other hand, it's always worked before.

On the upside, no line at ICBC this morning and the service was relatively cheery.

And here's the vaccuum tube your money is in.

Hohhot hazmat squad defuses world's cheapest inflatable woman

will — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:11:00 GMT

Brings all new meaning to the phrase "dirty bomb". And what on earth is that guy on the right holding?

The latest installment in our unfolding series of strange photos from Chinese anti-terrorism drills. From this series of photos of China's "Great Wall-6" anti-terror exercise.

Previously:

Introducing the Jinan precision Segway assault squad! (July, 2008)

Why I'm not in a tizzy over China's new Internet filtering software

will — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:34:00 GMT

Another day, another censorship-related thing to get bent out of shape about here in China.This week it's the dreaded "Green Dam Youth Escort" internet filtering software, which goes right to the head of the nominee list for the annual Imagethief "branding that translates badly" award. They can collect the statuette, a little plastic model of a Chevy Nova*, at the ceremony, which will be hosted by the auntie who empties the garbage can in my apartment hallway. Watch your mailbox for an invitation. Black tie, please.

Originally reported by the Wall Street Journal and then relayed by the New York Times in somewhat darker terms, the story is that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the IT regulator, will require all computers shipped in China after July 1st to include Green Dam Youth Escort, a client-side Internet filtering program (actually two related programs it turns out, "Green Dam" and "Youth Escort") . The Journal also published a day-after follow-up with some further industry response and third-party comment. The industry response might best be characterized as weary sighs punctuated with occasional slaps to the forehead when they think no one is looking.

Personally, Imagethief isn't getting his shorts in too much of a twist over this. Don't misread me: There is nothing to celebrate in yet another measure of government intrusiveness in people's surfing habits, or the mandating of the use of what is almost certainly a perfectly crappy bit of software. But I'd say that the net effect of Green Dam Youth Escort on Chinese surfing habits will be close to zero.

First of all, it is unclear whether PCs will ship with the software installed. The Wall Street Journal says that the software need only be packaged with PCs sold in China, and not necessarily installed. Rebecca MacKinnon, on the other hand, has received a copy of what is claimed to be the original MIIT notice calling for the use of the software. Her reading is that the document requires that the software be pre-installed on computers. (See also Rebecca's initial post on the software.)

Even if Green Dam Youth Escort comes pre-installed, however, it seems like the leakiest of dams. After all, what's to stop anyone acquiring a new computer from simply doing a fresh reinstall of Windows? Certainly no IT administrator at a major corporation --especially a foreign one-- will allow this software on company systems, given its apparent propensity to phone home for poorly documented reasons.

And even a post-purchase reinstall won't be necessary in many situations as I'm sure any DIY vendor at the highly competitive IT malls will sell you a nicely scrubbed box at your convenience. They're already willing to sell you pirate software and technically illegal mobile phones, so it's hard to imagine they'll let a little thing like Green Dam Youth Escort stand between them and a sale.

Also, this is Windows-only software as near as I can tell (the website is not accessible right now, so I can't confirm). Will Macs and Linux systems be in technical violation? Or will they be conveniently ignored? What about the increasing number of Internet capable mobile handsets that are on the market? Plenty of palm-friendly (I don't mean it that way, you filthmonger) yellow content out there for on-the-go types.

The claim is that Green Dam Youth Escort is meant primarily to filter pornographic and otherwise socially objectionable content rather than politically objectionable content. It's hard to imagine that it wouldn't be used for both, redundant as that seems given existing censorship mechanisms. But the Chinese government has a well established obsession with limiting access to pornography and similarly nasty content. Hence the periodic Internet-purification campaigns and the regular drip-feed of ghastly stories about Internet addiction, young lives ruined, etc.

But if this is really about limiting access to porn, then the effort is even more doomed than I thought. Demand for dissident content is pretty selective despite what people overseas may believe (Imagethief's Chinese colleagues were annoyed by the recent blocking of Twitter, but mostly for mundane reasons). However, it's a safe bet on demographic grounds alone that demand for porn is as sky-high among Chinese Internet users as it is anywhere else. Commercial forces alone will doom Green Dam Youth Escort (unless it's actually linked to an escort service, which seems unlikely). After all, look how miserably government attempts to limit online game playing worked. It took a commercial issue to deny Chinese gamers access to World of Warcraft for any significant amount of time.

Imagethief detects the whiff of a sweetheart deal. Certainly the company that produced the software, Jinhui Computer System Engineering Company, will cash a nice check from the government, which will apparently underwrite the inclusion of the program. But client-side filtering software, even if updated from a central database, is principally useful at an organizational level, such as by a company or household, where policies need to be set locally. If the government wants to set policy for the entire country, then China's existing DNS, ISP and gateway-based filtering mechanisms are much more efficient and, for all their porousness, harder to circumvent. If Chinese ISPs start denying connectivity to clients not running Green Dam Youth Escort, then I'll panic. But I don't see how that's feasible (and if it gets tried, stand-by for the slap-fight of the century between MIIT and MOFCOM).

Frankly, despite the inevitable hand-wringing and bluster, I wouldn't be surprised to see the whole initiative vanish quietly after a few face-saving months.

*NB: The Chevy Nova story is actually bullshit, but it lives in legend.

Update:

From Malcom Moore's story on this in the Telegraph, this outstanding quote from the Jinhui spokeswoman:

"This is very good news for users, so they should not uninstall it. It will automatically filter pornographic images and antirevolutionary content. It will not take up much space on the hard drive. It is very stable and we have conducted many tests already," [the spokeswoman] added.

As if. Also, screenshots here (in Chinese) courtesy of @davesgonechina.

Update 2:

Speaking of handwringing, this quote from the AP's coverage:

John Palfrey, an Internet censorship expert at Harvard University, described the latest requirements as "a potential game changer in the story of Internet control," by moving China's "Great Firewall" closer to the user, where censorship can be more effective.

Game changing indeed. As long as the game is strip-Parcheesi played by monkeys in diapers. I disagree that censorship is more effective when it's closer to the user. I think it's more effective when it's centralized for the reasons described above. Ask the DVD consortium how they feel about device-level security restrictions in China (although it's an imperfect comparison as the government doesn't give a crap about DVD piracy). Still, unless something completely unexpected is sprung in the implementation of this software, getting it off of your computer will be about as easy as hitting a dead sturgeon with a fork.

Update 3 (June 10):

The government and Jinhui both insist it's not spyware. So that's OK then, but I notice nobody insists its not crappy software, as alleged elsewhere. Bonus: The Foreign Ministry spokesman claims that China's internet has always been "open". Which is true, if by "open" you mean "restricted".

Also, Bruce Einhorn of BusinessWeek writes about the lack of consultation with the industry over this move, and what that says about the Chinese approach to regulation.

I can't see any sea cucumbers, but look what Edison's
doing with this girl!

Green Dam promotional image via RConversation.

Previously:

Consultants say hardened Chinese death-nerds are coming for your daughters (May, 2009)
Chinese cyberspies? Sheer lies and heinous fabrications (April, 2009)
Is the latest round of Chinese Internet purification a sign of things to come? (Jan, 2009)

Radio silence and a coming month on the road

will — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:14:00 GMT

Apologies for another extended period of radio silence over the last couple of weeks, which period included, as most readers will know, a Significant Anniversary and several odd goings-on in the media. Imagethief has been preoccupied with a visit by his father and rather heavy work schedule. I'll also be heading to Singapore for a month this Friday for my five-yearly tax retreat from China (that Somewhat Less Significant Anniversary rolled around on June 6th), so it's going to continue to be hectic for the next week or two as we get moved and temporarily resettled.

Some thoughts on 6/4 and a couple of other things on the way, hopefully while they're still vaguely relevant.

-Will

Turning the Mighty Though-o-Tronic on the North Korean military leadership

will — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:03:00 GMT

Chilling news this afternoon that North Korea may have tested a second nuclear weapon. News reports of this incident came with a photograph released by the North Korean government of the Dear Leader at an Air Force inspection. Long time readers will know that some years back Imagethief invented a device called the Mighty Thought-o-Tronic (TM) that allows him to read the thoughts of people in news photographs. I seldom use it because it, to be quite honest, it's a bit annoying. But given the sensitivity and perhaps global importance of these developments, I thought it might be worth brushing the cobwebs off for this photograph. The results are as terrifying as you would imagine:

Yes, it will be tense times indeed at the next round of Six Party talks.

Imagethief has previously used the Mighty Thought-o-Tronic on:

George Bush and Hu Jintao (January, 2006)
A random Chinese couple during Chinese New Year (January, 2006)
Bill Gates and Hu Jintao (April, 2006)
A tiger (November, 2006)
Hank Paulson and Wu Yi (May, 2007)

To the best of our knowledge, no tigers or politicians were harmed by Thought-o-Tronic radiation.

Comparing surfing habits in the US and China and other worthwhile weekend reading

will — Sun, 24 May 2009 06:49:00 GMT

A few things spotted over the weekend and worth sharing.

Comparing Chinese and US surfing habits
Silicon Alley Insider uses Pew and CNNIC data to build a chart showing the differences between the surfing habits of Americans and Chinese. No huge surprises -- more e-commerce for Americans, more games and IM for Chinese-- but interesting nevertheless and easy to read.

Update: Ryan McLaughlin gets into this in some detail at The Tech Dynasty.

On translating the word "宣传" and a recent media pissing match
David Bandurski of the China Media Project comments on a recent online slang between a foreign columnist for the China Daily and a China-based journalist for the Daily Telegraph over whether foreign media unfairly label the Chinese government's public communication efforts as "propaganda". Bandurski takes his usual literate approach. His piece includes links to the original articles, which are worth reading also. This is a week old, but still worth the time.

Imagethief has friends who work or who have worked in Chinese media, and finds nothing wrong with their professional choices. However, I also fully believe that "propaganda" is a perfectly appropriate word to use in describing the efforts of the 宣传部 (a phrase that I personally translate as "Propaganda Department" although others translate as "Publicity Department"). I work in the propaganda business, and know it when I see it. The US government also disseminates plenty of propaganda. But, as Bandurski points out, there are substantial and meaningful differences into how the US and Chinese government manage their respective relationships with the media.

Related on Imagethief:

What to make of Edwin Maher? (Dec, 2007)

Spend some vicarious time in Taihe
Ben Ross, who wrote a memorable series of blog posts about working in a Chinese hair salon in 2007, has written a post from his recent travels in Taihe, in Anhui province. It is an affectionate and nicely illustrated portrait of a part of China most of us will never see, and reminder to those of us in the tier-one bubble that "China" is more than what we see on a day-to-day basis.

Mr. Ross and friends, and not a Starbucks in sight.

Down the quarantine rabbit hole in Shanghai

will — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:44:00 GMT

A funny story from an AP journalist who, along with his wife, was quarantined in China for seven days after a two-hour stopover in Cancun:

The Mexican stamps in our passports — my wife is Chilean, I'm American — are enough for authorities to pull us out of line at immigration and send us to a medical room where attendants in white lab coats take our temperature yet again and give us surgical masks.
I produce the wedding invitation with the groom's cell phone number, hoping the doctor will let us call. The doctor — one of the few people at the airport who speaks English — mistakenly thinks we came to China to get married.
"Sorry you have to spend your honeymoon like this," he says.
After 3 1/2 hours, a man in uniform — speaking by phone with a communist official everyone calls "the leader" — announces we will be confined to a hotel room for seven days.
We say we'll simply fly back home. He tells us that isn't possible.
That draws a protest from my wife, Chilean journalist Monica Medel, who notes that while the United States has more swine flu cases than Mexico, I'm the only one of the 200-plus Americans on our plane going into quarantine.
"Why aren't Americans being quarantined?" she asks.
"Right," says the doctor. "That's the same question all of us have been asking."

Let's hope they don't dwell on the American issue too much. Imagethief's father arrives from San Francisco next week.

Previously:

A few other people that China could helpfully quarantine (May, 2009)

Room service! Did you order a colonic?

Don't be too CNBC: Xinhua slaps down foreign financial media

will — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:14:00 GMT

In the latest salvo in the largely hidden war over the right to distribute financial news in China, Xinhua has accused western media of being complicit in the financial crisis. This claim has been made elsewhere, most famously by Jon Stewart in his now legendary dissection of Jim Cramer. However, to hear it from Xinhua is, well, perhaps a bit rich. From the Wall Street Journal's China Journal blog:

The context: China’s state news agency says its newsgathering efforts will be an essential pillar in a reordered global financial landscape, since a “monopoly” of Western media shirked their duty to protect the system.

“I will underscore today that the information asymmetry and the non-objective, unfair and one-sided information order as another reason for the financial crisis,” Xinhua Vice President Lu Wei told bankers and policymakers gathered in Shanghai on Saturday (report in Chinese here).

In his spirited presentation, Mr. Lu echoed other conference delegates that the global recession resulted from lax regulators and greedy financiers, and he also laid fresh charges: “Under a situation where news gathering was monopolized, communication power was controlled, risks were hidden, the truth covered-up, market information was disseminated to represent selected groups, falsities clouded investor judgment and brought finance to the abyss,” Mr. Lu said.

Let that be a lesson to Western media. Don't be too CNBC.

Previously:

Of course you can distribute financial news in China, but about your journalists... (May, 2009)

Who's laughing now, western beeyotches?

Your hardened operating system is no match for my nuclear weapons

will — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:45:00 GMT

Further to yesterday's post on hardened death-nerds, from Wired's Danger Room blog:

How would the American military respond to an attack on its networks? If we take the commander of U.S. strategic forces at his word, they’d nuke those hackers, if need be.
Speaking to reporters at a press breakfast last week, Gen. Kevin Chilton, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, said the president retained the option to retaliate with military force in the event of a serious cyber attack against U.S. networks. Global Security Newswire’s Elaine Grossman has the key quote:
“I think you don’t take any response options off the table from an attack on the United States of America,” Chilton said. “Why would we constrain ourselves on how we respond?”
“I think that’s been our policy on any attack on the United States of America,” the general added. “And I don’t see any reason to treat cyber any differently. I mean, why would we tie the president’s hands? I can’t. It’s up to the president to decide.”

As a matter of public communication it makes perfect sense to let enemies know you'll respond to cyberattacks the same way you'd respond to conventional attacks. As a matter of practicality, it's a little more difficult. Cyberwar--such as it is--is less like conventional battlefield war and more like terrorism or insurgency. It's hard to figure out who's attacking you, whether its a state or nonstate actor, and where the enemy's weak points are. We all know how useful nukes, and conventional warfare in general, are against terrorism.

So by all means, keep the rhetoric up. But invest more in sensible precautions and security, which will be what ultimately make the difference. And, the great news is, unlike nukes better IT security has loads of civilian benefits and almost never accidentally falls out of disintegrating B-52s and lands in Spain.

Hat tip: Bill Bishop

Consultants say hardened Chinese death-nerds are coming for your daughters

will — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:43:00 GMT

Yes, it's true. Those Chinese death-nerds are everywhere. They're in your bank account. They're in the Pentagon. They're sending naked pictures of themselves to your daughter. And they're completely invulnerable to all known countermeasures!

Or at least that's the terrifying conclusion one might draw if one was to read a long article from the Washington Times with the chilling headline, "China blocks US from cyber warfare." Now, the Washington Times and this journalist in particular have--how shall I put it?--a distinct point of view on China, and it's perhaps just a tad darker than my own. But I find this story interesting less on its own (thin) merits and more because it represents the latest installment in what seems to be something of a fad in hair-raising stories on the Chinese cyber-security threat. My heavens, are we having a meme?

You may recall that this idea began rolling in its most recent incarnation with a report about Ghost Net, in which the link to the Chinese government was unclear but widely assumed. It gathered steam with a rather vague Wall Street Journal article about Chinese "spies" hacking into the US electricity grid. With this Washington Times article, which has been picked up by AFP and thus relayed to Yahoo and other portals, it's reached something of a loony crescendo. You'd think bureaucracies in Washington were competing over turf and budgets and thus doing their best to dial up the general anxiety level in order to exert political leverage. Because, you know, what with the economy, two wars, the Taliban destabilizing Pakistan and ~~Swine~~ A/H1N1 flu we so desperately need one more thing to be afraid of.

The Washington Times article really is in a class all by itself, though. It focuses on the devastating implications of a "hardened" Chinese operating system that, to read this article, makes Chinese government computers essentially hack-proof. It is based largely on the testimony (PDF) of Mr. Kevin Coleman, one of nine witnesses speaking before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission on April 30th. (The USCC makes periodic recommendations to congress on the national security implications of trade with China.) There is no one part of the article can single out for an excerpt, so I'll instead give you a rundown of the highlights. The article features:

An IT security consultant (Mr. Coleman) who "advises the government on cybersecurity" telling us that the Chinese are outplaying us badly. Because what do you expect him to say? "It's all good. I'm done here."

Terrifying absolutes, such as this quote on the effect of China "hardening" it's servers with this new operating system:

"This action also made our offensive cybercapabilities ineffective against them, given the cyberweapons were designed to be used against Linux, UNIX and Windows," he said.

The suggestion that the revelation of this operating system is somehow an intelligence coup, on par with the cracking of Enigma:

The secure operating system was disclosed as computer hackers in China - some of them sponsored by the communist government and military - are engaged in aggressive attacks against the United States, said officials and experts who disclosed new details of what was described as a growing war in cyberspace.

Further vague but terrifying details designed to emphasize our inferiority:

Additionally, Mr. Coleman said, the Chinese have developed a secure microprocessor that, unlike U.S.-made chips, is known to be hardened against external access by a hacker or automated malicious software. "If you add a hardened microchip and a hardened operating system, that makes a really good solid platform for defending infrastructure [from external attack]," Mr. Coleman said.

Hopeless over-generalizations of dubious technical soundness:

U.S. operating system software, including Microsoft, used open-source and offshore code that makes it less secure and vulnerable to software "trap doors" that could allow access in wartime, he explained.

Quotable quotes:

"What's so interesting from a strategic standpoint is that in the cyberarena, China is playing chess while we're playing checkers," he said.

The devastating revelation that the Chinese government is hiring hackers!

A third computer specialist, Alan Paller, told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on April 29 that China's military in 2005 recruited Tan Dailin, a graduate student at Sichuan University, after he showed off his hacker skills at an annual contest.
Mr. Paller, a computer security specialist with the SANS Institute, said the Chinese military put the hacker through a 30-day, 16-hour-a-day workshop "where he learned to develop really high-end attacks and honed his skills."

Meaningless statistics:

Mr. Coleman said one indication of the problem was identified by Solutionary, a computer security company that in March detected 128 "acts of cyberagression" per minute tied to Internet addresses in China.
"These acts should serve as a warning that clearly indicates just how far along China's cyberintelligence collection capabilities are," Mr. Coleman said.

Just plain goofyness:

Mr. [Joel] Brenner [national counterintelligence executive] said there are minimal concerns about a Chinese cyberattack to shut down U.S. banking networks because "they have too much money invested here."

Well, thank god for that!

It's hard to know where to start with this article, but perhaps I should begin by saying, of course the Chinese government is conducting cyber-espionage against the US. They'd be stupid not to. And of course they are concerned with securing their own critical systems against the United States' equally inevitable cyber-espionage. Again, they'd be stupid not to. And certainly the US government needs to take information security seriously. And so do businesses. And so does your grandmother. Especially if she's using Windows. All granted.

And it's nice that various American government bureaucracies are having a pissing match about who should oversee American cyber-security at a government level (the end of the article hints at that a bit). I hope somebody wins someday. But, really, do we need to frame all of this in such Michael Bay terms? Let's take a closer look at this super-secure operating system, "Kylin". It's hardly a secret, having been in the press since at least 2004. You can even download the ISO files, which suggests security somewhat shy of, say, the Manhattan Project. I'm thinking Langley may have a copy. A fairly sketchy DIY site promisingly called "Cheapest-computer-hardware-software.com" has the skinny (all Chinglish is sic):

The Kylin operating system focuses on high performance, reliability and security. The development program was first funded by the Chinese government sponsored R&D program during 2002. The operating system developed in a hierarchical model, in which, the kernel layer is based on Mach, the system service layer is based on FreeBSD and the desktop environment is similar to that of Windows. The operating system standards are similar to UNIX standards, and are highly compatible with Linux binaries.
***
The operating system was on development at the National University of Defense Technology. The operating system was designated as the document processing operating system. It can now turn China into super power in IT product development. The powerfulness, stronger security of the operating system may make Chinese people to replace the foreign operating systems. In China, Kylin was listed among the best 10 scientific and Technological Progresses News of Higher Learning Institutes during 2005.
***
The dominance of IT product by the foreigners in China will get reduced, once this operating system made popular among Chinese population. The security of data will be stronger, because, it is being developed by the Chinese government and people themselves.

So, the indestructible Chinese operating system is FreeBSD + Mach. Yes, that's right, the operating system that frees them from foreign innovation and with which China will conquer the world is a less slick version of Mac OS X. Well, I hate to break that to the scare-mongers Washington, but we have that technology also. As for the secure microprocessor, I hope he's not talking about Godson, the domestic chip project that languishes in the same commercial phantom zone as the domestic video disk project (EVD) and the domestic WiFi standard project (WAPI).

Why would I trust some half-assed and likely Chinese no-name site over the best and brightest of Washington DC? Well, for one reason, the language in the extract above rings absolutely true. Second, let's just say I'm getting agenda sensitivity on this issue. Sure, it's possible this is all part of some huge Chinese disinformation campaign and I'm just another useful idiot, talking down the crowbar that the Chinese state will someday use to pry open the secret folder where I keep the naughty photos of Mrs. Imagethief. Maybe there are two Kylins, and I've got the wrong one. Maybe Kylin + Godson is the shit, and I should trade in my MacBook Pro.

Or, just conceivably, people with their noses in the Washington trough are blowing smoke up my ass. Let's face it, it wouldn't be the first time.

We unload the Yellow Peril Meter for the first time since 2005:

Four out of five Lei Fengs! Not bad.

Previously:

Demystifying Chinese hackers (April, 2009)
Chinese cyberspies? Sheer lies and heinous fabrications! (April, 2009)
Run silent, run cheap (August, 2005)