Category: China

Game accounts to be linked to ID in China

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1 February 2009

15:23

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China

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The Chinese Government’s next step is to implement a real name registration system in 2009, which would link game accounts with a given person’s ID number. Apparently the government claims to have a system implemented that can limit the number of hours each day an individual can spend playing games. This is the alleged motivation for this initiative, China’s young are spending too long playing online games. Read more..

Of course during online gaming young people are meeting for long periods of time other players from all over the world. This may start to give them new perceptions on the censorship that is going on in China… this is probably not desirable either for the Chinese government.

China’s Net Nannies have been busy

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15 January 2009

11:31

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China

This was brought to my attention a couple of months ago by one of my HP colleagues, just never got around to posting anything.

“A group of Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers has discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives certain Internet text conversations that include politically charged words. The system tracks text messages sent by customers of Tom-Skype, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and eBay, the Web auctioneer that owns Skype, an online phone and text messaging service. The discovery draws more attention to the Chinese government’s Internet monitoring and filtering efforts, which created controversy this summer during the Beijing Olympics. Researchers in China have estimated that 30,000 or more “Internet police” monitor online traffic, Web sites and blogs for political and other offending content in what is called the Golden Shield Project or the Great Firewall of China.” Read more…

“The Great Firewall of China” is described in a short chapter in my book Virtual Shadows. What they refer to here as “Internet police” are also rather quaintly referred to as “Net nannies” 😉

Chinese wire-tapping during Olympic Games

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2 August 2008

11:51

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China

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Interesting, despite their promise to provide an environment free of government censorship, the Chinese government will monitor the Internet activity of guests staying at foreign-owned hotels during the Beijing Olympics. InformationWeek reports that the government has ordered these hotels to install software and hardware so that the Public Security Bureau may monitor guests’ activity. Chinese authorities said the monitoring is necessary in order to ensure the smooth opening of the Olympic Games and to safeguard the security of the Internet network and the information thereon. Read more….