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From blocking to botnet Censorship isn't the only problem with China's new Internet blocking software
- 10 June, 2009
There's chilling Internet news out of China. And as bad as it seems at first glance for human rights and privacy advocates, there could be something more disturbing in the wings.
The Chinese government has announced that, starting in July, it will require all computers sold in China to come with Internet blocking software. The goal, authorities say, is to protect children from pornography.
Given that the software is being created and sold by a company with ties to China's security apparatus, and that China hasn't hesitated in the past to block access to web sites critical of its record on democracy and human rights, the government's critics are understandably skeptical. Software that blocks access to pornography can easily be configured to block access to, say, Amnesty International.
So speculation is rampant that the software, dubbed Green Dam Youth Escort, will be used for censorship or surveillance -- if not immediately, then whenever China's next human rights crisis arises. And while its makers say parents will be able to deactivate Green Dam at will, the government could well be tempted to make using the software mandatory... or at least hard to deactivate, and less than forthright about what content it's blocking and what information it's collecting.
None of that is good news. But consider this.
Any blocking software needs to update itself from time to time: at the very least to freshen its database of forbidden content, and more than likely to fix bugs, add features and improve performance. (Most anti-virus software does this.)
If all the software does is to refresh the list of banned sites, that limits the potential for abuse. But if the software is loading new executable code onto the computer, suddenly there's the potential for something a lot bigger.
Say you're a high-ranking official in the Chinese military. And let's say you have some responsibility for the state's capacity to wage so-called cyber warfare: digital assaults on an enemy's technological infrastructure.
You're idly surfing the web on your home computer late one night, when it starts to automatically download an update. And it occurs to you that, somewhere out there, a single central point is making the decision about what goes into that update.
It strikes you: there's a single backdoor into more that 40 million Chinese computers, capable of installing... well, nearly anything you want. [read the rest]
posted by: gqpartner
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