Chinese Government Control Hardware

greatfirewallofchina

Next time you can’t access a site at work because your company has decided to filter Facebook or various entertainment sites in an effort to make you work harder, spare a thought for the people of China whose government are issuing even more censorship controls related to the net.

From next month, all computers in China will be shipped with software that blocks what the Chinese government refer to as ‘harmful’ content in an effort to ‘protect young people’. This content includes things such as sites which contain pornography and violence (perhaps fair enough) but also sites that promote political views sensitive to the government such as any site promoting the independence of Tibet.

China already as a filtering system in place which is commonly known as the Great Firewall, but it’s generally quite easy to get around because it works at a network level. The new software would work on at a local level. However, initial reports suggest that it would be relatively easy to disable and that it might not ship pre-installed but rather come on a CD like other common software packages.

Experts have warned that computer users who do have the program installed should be very concerned – as well as censoring their net access it could cause PCs to crash or slow down. It could also be used to transmit large amounts of personal data. The security problem of having billions of computer users all using one program without clear security measures is also quite obvious.

It seems like another case of China trying to push back the sea as far as the internet is concerned. Can you really stop a billion people from accessing the net how they wish? Probably not.

Posted on June 10, 2009 | Filed Under Tech