If you have been watching the news, you certainly probably know about the Chinese Censorship Program, dubbed Green Dam-Youth Escort. Apparently, this program was to be installed on all computers from the date of July 1st, which was two days ago. This was originally supposed to be pre-installed on all computers in China, which probably sparked a pretty big “Green Damn!” from the citizens of China.
The Chinese Government, after probably hearing the loud “Damn” from it’s citizens, allowed themselves to tiptoe towards democracy by havin the option to uninstall the program, or for the CD containing the program to be bundled with the computer. Even more recent, the Chinese Gov. decided to delay the mandate, which we still haven’t heard when it will be mandated on the computers, although, some companies have jumped the gun (Ahem, Sony), and already have begun shipping the computers, ironically with a disclaimer in it saying the program “Is against their beliefs, and is potentially dangerous to your computer and should be uninstalled promptly.”
The Green Dam software includes an image filter, text filter, and URL filter. The image filter is supposed to block large areas of images that appear to look like human flesh, excluding faces. Tests on the software showed that this was more efficient in blocking pork, than actual porn. Yep, it filters the pork so you can get to your porn. The text filter is supposed to block offensive phrases, and displays an error box. The URL filter simply blocks unwanted sites, probably included very suggestive pictures of pork, while still letting you to get all the porn you want.
Although what I’ve said doesn’t put the software to be very bad, (After all, many parents have similar things), but some gaps and holes in the program could cause a “Green Damn!” from users. Michigan University did a study on the filtering software, and discovered that it could be an agent for websites to take control of your computer, and steal private data, send you spam (Probably of pork), and let your computer to become a part of a botnet. And what the Chinese Government says about this “Fix it!”. How Communist.
Also, this software apparently blocks pictures with Garfield, Paris Hilton, and Johnny Depp. I can see why they want to block Paris, but seriously, Garfield? Maybe they’re just against cats.
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