Green Damned

Chinese netizens are certainly having fun mocking the government's mandate for PC manufacurers to install the Green Dam-Youth Escort software. Danwei posted some great pictures of cartoon "green dam girls," greated in the style of Japanese porno manga. This one on the left (click to enlarge) is removing the underwear of "Windows XP Girl". Hecaitou has a lot more.

The Guardian, Associated Press, and even the China Daily are now quoting an unnamed Chinese official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology who says that the installation of Green Dam-Youth Escort is "not compulsory." The China Daily reports:

"The PC makers only need to save the setup files of the program on the hard drives of the computers, or provide CD-ROMs containing the program with their PC packages," said an official of the department of software service under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, who did not want to be named.

PC users have the "final say" over installing the filter and recent reports of the government compelling them to use the software was "a misunderstanding", the official said.

"The government only provides the Green Dam-Youth Escort software for free."

It seems like there must have been some kind of policy tug-of-war going on these past few days. Late last week the Communist Party's Propaganda Department sent round an edict to the media instructing them to say nice things about Green Dam and stop being so critical. But Caijing and other media continued running critical articles, and then the People's daily website, Renminwang, launched a whole feature section on Saturday with full coverage of the Green Dam story - pro and con. Plus a reader opinion poll. Here's the screenshot I took Monday morning of the results, soon before the whole thing got taken down (click to enlarge):

At the time the screenshot was taken, more than 5 million readers had voted. 16 percent (nearly 880 thousand) supported Green Dam, while 74 percent (more than 4 million) voted against it.

On the left is a screenshot of the front page of the feature section, provocatively titled: "Have you been 'Green Dam-Youth Escort-ed' today?" (Click to enlarge.) Interestingly, the accompanying discussion forum has not been deleted - and it's full of comments criticizing or mocking Green Dam. Even though the main section has been taken offline, Chinese media insiders say the fact that the critical analysis and online poll managed to appear at all on the People’s Daily website is proof of strong internal government disagreement over how to respond to this public relations fiasco.

Despite today's reports about an apparent climbdown, however, I got an email from one person in the industry who said his company has yet to hear anything different from the original directive in his company's discussions with the government. So the game may not be completely over, and some in the industry are concerned about the implications of even providing an accompanying disc, knowing the security and IP issues in addition to the free speech implications.

Meanwhile the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has ordered Green Dam's maker, Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co. to urgently patch their now well-documented security flaws. That could take a while if it’s to be done right: the University of Michigan computer scientists who analyzed Green Dam last week warned that the problems are so serious that they can only be resolved with “extensive changes to the software and careful retesting.” Whether the government requires installation or just an accompanying disc, it’s unclear whether it will still hold PC makers and importers to the original July 1^st implementation deadline. It also remains unclear whether the mandate will ultimately end up being enforced. If Jinhui fails to patch Green Dam’s leaks to government satisfaction in a timely manner, that could give the authorities solid reason to scrap the plan. Meanwhile, never a dull moment on the Chinese Internet. I look forward to the continued Chinese online humor... including this doozy that some reader managed to post for a short period of time also on the People's Daily site:

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.