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June 16, 2009

Comments

Charles Liu

First of all the PC manufacturers are not required to install Green Dam, as others have pointed out to you it can also be available on the accompanyng CD-ROM.

Second the end users are not required to run this software, and the Chinese government is only giving away a 1-year license.

Lastly is Green Dam really that different than the McGuff SafeGuard (http://gomcgruff.com) cyber safety software our own DoJ is giving away to US citizens?

Paul

I find it hard to believe that you can't see the difference. The complaint is not that the central government is supporting the Green Dam, it is that it is required on all PCs sold in China. Vastly different than the McGruff example you use.

You are absolutely wrong about it not being required. Here is the original Chinese from the MIIT document:

7月1日之后在我国销售的所有个人电脑出厂时预装绿色上网过滤软件“绿坝-花季护航".

“预装”is pretty clear.

Charles Liu

Paul, rconversation has the announcement PDF in a previous blogpost:

http://rconversation.blogs.com/notification.pdf

Page 2 paragraph 2 states "preinstalled on computer hard drive or in accompany disk". Paragraph 2 also mentions recovery file but any reasonable person can see it's refering to preinstall scenario.

This document is dated 5/19/2009. Green Dam has been available for download (just like McGruff) since 10/2008.

At no time did the Chinese government ever require end user to run it or keep any installation. Green Dam uninstall is non-standard (an option within application maintainance) but entirely possible.

I've installed Green Dam on my box, and I was able to access FLG, TAM mothers, Student for Free Tibet, and Pamela Anderson.

What I was unable to access was the U of Michigan website, since the malicious script was detected and disallowed. Perhaps the difference is UM test disabled conventional security measures such as anti-virus or firewall software.

Inst

One thing about the Green Dam escort "pornographic manga" characters; I'm under the impression that in Japan the "OS-tans" are not really pornographic to start with, although is a lot of unlicensed pornography available of them, as there is with virtually all manga characters.

I agree that Green Dam-tan is not completely respectful as it brings the censoring software down to a cartoon character, but calling it a pornographic cartoon character seems to be unwarranted. Of course, I may be wrong; the OS-tans may be considered mainly pornographic in the Chinese context.

GP

Hi Rebecca, I see the infamous Charles Liu has found your blog.

I guess you know how much weight to lend his posts.

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/01/23/montreal-newspaper-a-voice-for-chinese-regime/

nym

In American english, the word "escort" is a polite word for "whore".

Charles Liu

I’ve found more interview on Baidu that explains this whole thing. Appearantly 1) the term “preinstall” isn’t the right translation; 2) the government mandate was never to have the filter application on computer, only the setup for the filter application available to people who purchase a computer:

http://news.sohu.com/20090611/n264469623.shtml

There is difference between “preinstall/预装” and “install/安装” in Chinese, and “preinstall” is not in the sense we are thinking. This renders the the 5/19 MIIB announcement page 2 paragraph 2 completely sensical - the mandate is setup for Green Dam should be available on hard drive or CD:

“按照预装绿色过滤软件通知的要求,这款软件预装在电脑的硬盘或者随机的光盘中,要发挥作用还需按照安装程序进行激活” - according to the requirements in green filter software notification, the [setup] software is preinstalled on computer hard drive or CD, to activate it still require following the installation program.

There, Green Dam setup has to be avalable on hard drive or CD, not the filter application itself. And end users are not required to install it or run it.

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