Thursday, April 28, 2005

China's Great Firewall


From: Gerry Groot
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 16:19:34 +0930
Subject: [chineseinternetresearch] China's Great Firewall

China's Great Firewall

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2005

2005.04.15

WASHINGTON ñ The Chinese government's system for blocking access to
the Internet is now the world's "most sophisticated," according to a
report released in Washington on Thursday.

The report, "Internet Filtering in China 2004-2005,"
http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/ was prepared by the
OpenNet Initiative, http://www.opennetinitiative.net/ a
collaborative project by groups based at Harvard University, the
University of Cambridge, and the University of Toronto.
(PDF Version)
http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/ONI_China_Country_Study.pdf

Speaking at a hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission, John Palfrey, one of the co-authors of the report, said,
"While China seeks to grow its economy through the use of new
technologies, the State's actions suggest at the same time a
deep-seated fear of free and open communications made possible by the
Internet."

This fear has led the Chinese government to create the world's "most
sophisticated Internet-filtering regime," Palfrey said.

Palfrey noted that government efficiency at filtering has increased
since 2002, when the OpenNet Initiative released its last report.

"As more Internet communications methods have become popular in China
- for instance online discussion forums, search engines, and Web logs
("blogs," personal online journals) - the Chinese state has extended
its filtering apparatus to control expression in these new media."

Banned Topics

Palfrey said that China's Internet blocking is cued by "keywords" to
prevent access to politically sensitive topics such as political
dissent, movements for the independence of Tibet and Taiwan, and the
1989 government crackdown at Tiananmen Square.

Filtering of these topics relies on multiple and overlapping systems,
Palfrey said, and takes place at access points like cyber cafes, at
intermediary points like Internet Service Providers, and at the
central national Internet network.

Other, nontechnical means are also used by China's government to
prevent free access to information. OpenNet Initiative representative
Derek Bambauer, also speaking at the hearing, said, "Cyber cafes are
required to log users and the pages they accessed, and particularly
the pages
they accessed that are blocked or prohibited."

Bambauer said that this puts users on notice they are being watched.

Other Media Also Controlled

Speaking before the Commission, U.S. State Department human rights
official Susan O'Sullivan said that China is matching its citizens'
growing Internet use with an increase in the numbers of technicians
trained to block access to material the Chinese government deems
offensive. About 30,000 are now employed in this way, she said.

"They have the power to block offending material temporarily or
permanently, or edit it electronically. And if the Web site is
domestic, they can issue a warning or close it down ."

China last year spent an estimated $800 million on Internet-filtering
efforts according to Jack He, a network technologies specialist
speaking in November at a symposium titled ìEthnic Relations During
the Information Age.î

Princeton University China scholar Perry Link, speaking at the China
Commission hearing, said that Chinese government control over all
media has become tighter, not looser since Communist Party leaders Hu
Jintao and Wen Jiabao took power in 2003.

Link noted that Chinese media are now freer, but only on the surface
and focus mainly on topics like commerce, entertainment, fashion,
sports, and romance. Sex and corruption are also more openly
discussed, Link said, as long as the first is not taken too far and
reporting on the
second is not aimed at targets that are placed "too high."

This, Link said, can lead observers to conclude that "a kind of
liberalism" has set in. "And that's a mistake, a serious mistake, in
my view."

"Whenever the topic is serious, from the point of view of political
control at the top ñ topics such as [China's northwestern Muslim
province] Xinjiang, Tibet, of course Taiwan, of course [the banned
spiritual group] Falun Gong and so on ñ on those topics, the control
is tighter."

Little Progress Toward Openness

Addressing Commission members and witnesses, Commission chairman
Richard D'Amato recalled that when the U.S. government granted China
permanent normal trading status in 2000, it hoped that China's
government would gradually ease its rigid political controls over the
Chinese people.

There has been little progress toward that goal, D'Amato said.

"Control over information is one of the most powerful and dangerous
tools that can be developed by a government," D'Amato observed.
"China has clearly worked hard to establish and maintain such
control."

Sarah Jackson-Han (jacksonhans@rfa.org)
Director of Communications
Radio Free Asia
2025 M Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
Phone : 202-530-7774
Fax : 202-530-7794

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Via / By / Excerpted / From / Tip from / Thanks to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chineseinternetresearch/

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Friday, April 15, 2005

Bogus blogs snare fresh victims


Bogus blogs snare fresh victims

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4441333.stm

Excerpt

"... Cyber criminals are starting to use fake blogs to snare new victims.

The bogus web journals are being used as traps that infect visitor's
machines with keylogging software or viruses.

Filtering firm Websense said it had found hundreds of bogus blogs
baited with all kinds of malicious software to snare the unwary.

Websense warned that the baited blogs could get past traditional
security measures that try to protect people from malicious programs.

Hidden harm

The company said blogs were being used because they inadvertently
offered lots of help to computer criminals.

Blogs are free and simple to use, offer users lots of storage space,
can be used anonymously and most do not scan stored files for viruses
and other malicious programs.

Websense said it had seen examples of some computer criminals
creating a legitimate looking weblog, loading it with keylogging
software or viral code, and then sending out the address of it
through instant messenger or spam e-mail.

"These aren't the kind of blog websites that someone would stumble
upon and infect their machine accidentally," said Dan Hubbard,
Websense's research director. "The success of these attacks relies
upon a certain level of social engineering to persuade the individual
to click on the link."

In separate cases some blogs were being used as storage lockers
holding chunks of malicious code that the controller of a network of
zombie machines wants those remotely-controlled computers to use. ..."

RELATED INTERNET LINKS:
Websense
http://ww2.websense.com/
Websense alert on bogus blog message
http://www.websensesecuritylabs.com/alerts/alert.php?AlertID=156
Technorati
http://www.technorati.com/

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Borderless blogs vs. Canada press ban

Borderless blogs vs. Canada press ban
The Internet has perhaps rendered publication bans futile. By Rondi
Adamson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0413/p09s01-coop.html?s=hns

Monday, April 11, 2005

How to blog anonymously, a guide [fs]


Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 20:28:06 -0400
From: Declan McCullagh
Subject: [Politech] How to blog anonymously, a guide [fs]
List-Archive: http://politechbot.com/pipermail/politech
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Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

EFF Releases How-To Guide for People Who Want to Blog Safely and Anonymously

San Francisco, CA - With the privacy of bloggers and their
news sources coming under fire in the court system (see,
e.g., Apple v. Does), it's crucial that web writers know
how to express themselves without risking their jobs or
social lives. Yesterday the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF) released "How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything
Else)," a how-to guide for bloggers worried about
protecting their privacy and free speech.

The guide covers basic measures people can take to keep
their blogs anonymous and explores what the law says about
discussing work-related issues online. Some advice is
common sense; for example, don't post a picture of yourself
if you want to stay anonymous. But for bloggers who want
strong guarantees of privacy, EFF suggests using
technologies like Tor or Anonymizer to prevent your
blog-hosting company from logging your computer's unique
Internet Protocol (IP) address. Bloggers who fear they
could be fired for blogging are also given an introduction
to laws that prevent an employer from punishing them for
speaking out online.

"There is a lot of misinformation out there about the ways
people could get into trouble for blogging," said EFF
Policy Analyst Annalee Newitz. "We hope advice about online
anonymity and the law will help more people engage in free
expression without living in fear of reprisals, legal or
otherwise."

How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity/blog-anonymously.php

Apple v. Does
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Apple_v_Does/

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_04.php#003506

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/

-end-
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Wednesday, April 06, 2005

A satellite picture of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories

A satellite picture of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=60.006980895996094,-111.87515258789062&spn=0.20702362060546875,0.270538330078125&t=k&hl=en

Shorter link to above URL
http://snipurl.com/dumh

Click on the image and drag it to move the image and see more of the
region... or zoom out to see an overview or follow the Slave River

Sunday, April 03, 2005

The whole future of computing at stake? Sounds like a movie

The whole future of computing at stake? Sounds like a movie

By John Naughton

April 3, 2005, The Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1451089,00.html

[excerpt]

In a high-ceilinged courtroom in Washington last Monday,
seven men and two women sat listening to arguments about
technology. As far as we know, none of them is especially
knowledgeable about technology.

Indeed, one of them disdains even to use a laptop, and writes
his judicial opinions by hand on a yellow legal pad. But
these are the highest judges in the US, and they are deciding
the future of computing and possibly of the internet itself.

This may seem a grandiose claim, but bear with me. The
Supreme Court was hearing arguments about MGM vs Grokster, a
case which movie studios and other content owners had brought
against Grokster, a file-sharing service, on the grounds that
it enabled copyright infringement by allowing users to
exchange music files freely over the internet.

Grokster's defence was that it provided an efficient
technology for sharing files and could not be held
responsible if users employed it for illicit purposes - in
other words, that its file-sharing technology had substantial
'non-infringing' uses.

This phrase echoes the nub of a landmark precedent set 20
years ago by the Supreme Court in the famous 'Sony- Betamax'
case, which held that Sony was not liable for any copyright
abuses likely to be perpetrated by owners of video-cassette
recorders because there were 'substantial non-infringing'
uses of the product. Or, to put it another way, just because
the VCR could be used for perfectly legitimate purposes -
like viewing a rented movie - it was OK for Sony to sell it,
even if some rogues were going to use it to record
copyrighted TV programmes.

The core of the Grokster defence rests on this 20-year- old
decision - made by a hair's breadth majority of one - and is
supported by a range of briefs filed by technology experts.
They argue that the 'Peer-to-peer' (P2P) networking
technology (of which the Grokster system is a particular
type) is a vital technology for a networked world.

The Ainu aborigines of Japan and their Ainu Dog

The Ainu
http://www.indigenouspeople.net/JapaneseLit/

Ainu Dog
(Hokkaido Dog) (Hokkaidoken) (Hokkaïdo) (Ainu-Ken) (Ainu Inu)
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/ainudog.htm

The Ainu Museum
http://www.ainu-museum.or.jp/english/english.html

Ainu , aborigines of Japan who may be descended from a Caucasoid
people who once lived in N Asia. More powerful invaders from the
Asian mainland gradually forced the Ainu to retreat to the northern
islands of Japan and Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in what is now
the Russian Far East; today, they reside mainly on Hokkaido. Reduced
in number, they live by hunting, fishing, and small-scale farming.
The Ainu have attracted the attention of tourists, and some now make
a living by selling reproductions of their cultural artifacts.
Physically, they seem related to European peoples, i.e., they have
much more body hair than typical East Asians, but intermarriage has
introduced Asian traits among them. Contact with the Japanese has led
also to culture change and assimilation, which the Ainu have resisted
in the past, with decreasing success. Their religion is highly
animistic and centers on a bear cult; a captive bear is sacrificed at
an annual winter feast and his spirit, thus released, is believed to
guard the Ainu settlements.

http://www.answers.com/ainu&r=67

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003,
Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press.
All rights reserved. http://www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/

Related ethnic groups
Though no specific ethnic groups have been proven to be related to
the Ainu, the term "Caucasoid" has been used historically, as a
general classification, to distinguish the Ainu from the Japanese,
and they are usually grouped with the non-Tungusic peoples of
Sakhalin, the Amur river valley, and the Kamchatka peninsula:
* Nivkhs
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3ertkhgocn0ic?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Nivkh&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc04b
* Itelmens
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3ertkhgocn0ic?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Itelmens&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc04b
* Chukchis
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3ertkhgocn0ic?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Chukchi+%28people%29&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc04b
* Koryaks
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3ertkhgocn0ic?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Koryaks&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc04b
* Aleuts
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3ertkhgocn0ic?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Aleut&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc04b
(and sometimes Eskimos in general as well)
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3ertkhgocn0ic?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Inuit&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc04b

The Ainu People
http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/redir.htm?advanced=1&top=1&nde=1&qcat=web&q_all=&q_phrase=ainu&q_any=&q_not=&Submit1=Go%2BFetch!#)=&dpcollation=1&qk=20&qafterm=01&qafterd=01&qaftery=1990&qbeforem=03&qbefored=30&qbeforey=2005&domaint=&familyfilter=0

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Ainu&btnG=Google+Search

Images of the Ainu
http://images.google.com/images?q=Ainu&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=ii&oi=imagest

Language
http://jguide.stanford.edu/site/ainu_3187.html

"Ainu" means "human." The Ainu people regard things useful to them or
beyond their control as "kamuy"(gods). In daily life, they prayed to
and performed various ceremonies for the gods. These gods include :
"nature" gods, such as of fire, water, wind and thunder ; "animal"
gods, such as of bears, foxes, spotted owls and gram-puses ; "plant"
gods, such as of aconite, mush-room and mugwort ; "object" gods, such
as of boats and pots ; and gods which protect houses, gods of
mountains and gods of lakes. The word "Ainu" refers to the opposite
of these gods.

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http://www.indigenouspeople.net/JapaneseLit/

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