Latest Chinese Government Directives To Censor Reports Of Official Corruption

Dec 162012
 

Ministry of Truth: Reporting Official Corruption

National Energy Administration head Liu Tienan in Japan, 1998. editor Luo Changping has reported him for disciplinary inspection.

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A Driving School For Dogs – Should Insane Ideas Be Censored? No way!

Dec 062012
 

It may be absolutely crazy and I would not want a dog as my cab driver but even ideas that push the boundaries of common sense should be available for all to see.

Check out this outstanding story from New Zealand’s Cambell Live current affairs show about a driving school for dogs and yes they are driving cars but all in a good cause. A nice example of why we need a blend of news and information online – it creates discussion but most of all is a happy story without being sickly sweet.

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Chinese Hackers/Pirates Nearly Bring Down US Tech Firm

Nov 282012
 
Chinese Hackers with suspected links to the government nearly ruinedt a California software company tin an orchestrated attack that mirrors others against companies, government departments and political parties.
The company, Solid Oak, managed to get a confidential legal settlement that has stabilized its financial position and stopped the harassment but it is a case study in how pervasive, ruthless and damaging internet crime can be.
Bloomburg  provided this comprehensive report of the case and the mafia like tactics employed to gain a commercial advantage.

During his civil lawsuit against the People’s Republic of China, Brian Milburn says he never once saw one of the country’s lawyers. He read no court documents from China’s attorneys because they filed none. The voluminous case record at the US District courthouse in Santa Ana, California, contains a single communication from China: a curt letter to the US State Department, urging that the suit be dismissed.

That doesn’t mean Milburn’s adversary had no contact with him.

For three years, a group of hackers from China waged a relentless campaign of cyber harassment against Solid Oak Software, Milburn’s family-owned, eight-person firm in Santa Barbara, California. The attack began less than two weeks after Milburn publicly accused China of appropriating his company’s parental filtering software, CYBERsitter, for a national internet censoring project. And it ended shortly after he settled a US$2.2 billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and a string of computer companies last April.

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Ominous Signs For Free Speech And Netizens During China’s Party Congress

Nov 192012
 

So how open was the Chinese Communist Party’s  Congress. For netizens the answer would be “not even a little bit”.

In a demonstration that the old idea of say nothing and make sure no-one else does either the congress was marked by censorship, widespread internet outages and other attempts to suppress free speech. Any thought that things may be easing for China’s netizens were quickly dismissed.

The best account of what went on during the Congress comes from free speech advocacy group Global Voices.

As China’s new generation of leaders were officially presented to the world this week at the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th National Congress, Chinese netizens experienced severe Internet interruptions. As the longtime Beijing-based blogger and businessman Bill Bishop described it, “these have been the most draconian few days of Internet restrictions I have experienced.”

Several weeks before the Congress, netizens began to report frequent disruptions when accessing Google services, foreign websites and virtual private networks (VPNs) – important tools for Internet users to circumvent the “Great Firewall.”  Interruptions to Internet access then cranked into high gear on November 9, one day after the start of the Congress, when Google services were reported to be fully blocked in China, and their domain name systems were deliberately redirected to unknown IP addresses in Korea. Please see Greatfire.org for more detailed reports and analysis.

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Twitter Hacking And Restricted Internet Services Mark The Opening Of China’s Party Congress

Nov 082012
 

China’s 18th Communist National Party Congress opened in Beijing this week at the same time Twitter accounts have been hacked and there have been reports of problems gaining internet access in the country noted for its draconian censorship and intrusive online surveillance.

The ten yearly Congress formally endorses key leadership positions and sets the country’s agenda for the decade.

The decisions on appointments , including that of president and prime minister have already been settled as have those for other high ranking position in negotiations in the lead up to the congress.

But there is little input from the average citizen. And the Government is keen that netizens only get to hear what they want them to. Not that there anything unusual in that.

Officials have denied the Government ordered or was behind the hacking or loss of internet service but it is a mighty bid coincidence.

Ezine PolicyMic reports that Twitter notified a number of users today that their accounts may have been hacked.

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New Research On Computer Backdoors Reveals Disturbing Long Term Risks For All Netizens

Nov 052012
 

Research by the University of Toronto Citizen Lab shows that computer back doors are a permanent security risk to users through out the world.

Their research based on events in the middle east demonstrates readily available commercial software is being used by governments to infiltrate computers used by critics and dissidents.

Bloomberg news reported the case of Ahmed Mansoor who was sitting in “his study in Dubai and made the mistake of clicking on a Microsoft Word attachment that arrived in an e-mail, labeled “very important” in Arabic, from a sender he thought he recognized.

“With that click, the pro-democracy activist unwittingly downloaded spyware that seized on a flaw in the Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) program to take over his computer and record every keystroke. The hackers infiltrated his digital life so deeply they still accessed his personal e-mail even after he changed his password.

Since then, Mansoor, 42, an electrical engineer and father of four, says he has suffered two beatings by thugs in September during his campaign for citizens’ civil rights in the Persian Gulf federation of the United Arab Emirates. While those assailants remain unknown, researchers say they’ve figured out what was behind the virtual assault.

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China’s Policy Of Censorship Key Part Of Leadership Upset

Nov 042012
 

Reports from Hong Kong media and the blogosphere in China are talking of a radical upset in next weeks change of leadership with hardliners looking to take control of the seven member standing committee.

The return to the failed policies of the past would be disastrous for China economically, socially and politically but the insistence of the current regime to suppress dissent and censor criticism, not for the oft quoted reasons of social stability, but to hide their grubby secrets which range from gross self enrichment to somewhat bizarre sexual behaviors has opened the door for hardliners and anti-reformists to take control.

It is a squandered opportunity. China’s emerging middle class have embraced new technology and the country could have been a world leader and innovator in the use of social media to usher in peaceful social reform if the leadership had really wanted it.

The hardliners are now an attractive alternative  because they offer a return to a time of supposed political stability under Jiang Zemin. It is his appointees who are at the forefront of the move.

It is naive to expect moral decisions from more than a minority of those who wield power. But self interest of the kind that looks further than the next corrupt deal or squalid sexual dalliance should have motivated China’s current leadership at all levels to have tried to secure the recent reforms in place and not allow the door to be opened to the lunatic failed communist past.

The attraction of instant gratifications means the leadership ignored that danger and have blindly gone about illicitly enriching themselves and their families at the same time using the country’s draconian censorship apparatus to hide this malfeasance from the rest of s0ciety.

Instead of grabbing the opportunity of creating a vibrant open and involved society with China’s widespread adoption of the internet and social media, the leadership instead suppressed information and quietly made a fortune.

It is hardly surprising the average Chinese worker is unamused by this sort of behavior which leads to the threat of the greatly feared social upheaval. And well it should be feared. When the communists came to power the first people up against the wall and shot were the officials who had been enriching themselves at the country’s expense.

This is a case of “same meat different gravy”. The titular communists may be in power but they are behaving like their capitalist forebears and could well meet a similar fate.

In this uncertainty it is hardly a shock that the consensus will be to look for a safe haven and the only one on offer is a retreat into the past.

The problem with a blunt instrument like censorship is that it never works. Word gets out sooner or later and recently it has spread far and wide from the Bo Xilai debacle to the more recent revelations about billions of dollars accumulated by  Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and his family revealed  by the New York Times just over a week ago.

But it is hardly new. Former British diplomat Hugh Cortazzi  in May this year wrote about the 3000 Chinese princlings, the children of high ranking officials currently attending grotesquely expensive British schools and universities.

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Double Standard On Display As Western Security Agencies Mimic Their Asian Counterparts In Online Court Case Debacle

Nov 022012
 

China’s security apparatus, and those of  many of its Asian neighbors, have been heavily criticized for their involvement in online censorship and surveillance and a failure to crack down on software and other intellectual piracy.

But their western counterparts may have managed to achieve a new low when it comes to abiding by and enforcing the rule of law over the internet, surveillance and intellectual property.  These actions would have been condemned by Western Nations if the case was in Asia and would probably have been attributed to corruption and other malfeasance.

But this controversy is being played out in a court case in New Zealand over the “megadownloads” website which is accused of being an internet piracy operation on a massive scale. The only certainty so fat is the arrogance and incompetence of  New Zealand and United States security agencies is being laid bare in an embarrassing and, for the case, catastrophic way.

The internal political fallout is also spectacular but more of a sideshow.

On trial is Kim Dotcom, originally from Germany but now a resident in New Zealand. He set up megadownloads and proceeded to make a fortune as people went to the site looking for free downloads of software, movies and other materials. Authorities contend it was  a fortune made on the back of stolen property.

The United States approached New Zealand’s Government Security Communications Bureau for assistance in gathering evidence with a view to extraditing him to America to stand trial.

From the beginning the investigation has been frightening in its utter and total incompetence. The GCSB is responsible for external intelligence issues, and I use the term “intelligence” purely in its technical sense. There are lot allowed by law to conduct surveillance on New Zealand residents.

They claimed they did not know Kim Dotcom was a resident. A quick check with the Department of Immigration could have answered that or if they were closed for the day perhaps Mr Dotcom’s  half million dollar fireworks display over Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, to celebrate his attaining residency may have been a sufficient  hint.

It seems they never even did a google search on the man.

It is hard to imagine that even the intelligence agents’  primeval ancestors oozing from the oceans eons ago would not have seen the signs and  done some back ground checks before storming in with armed police to detain a man who does not look to be in the peak of physical condition that warranted such an operation.

This has now turned into a major political embarrassment and  looks as though it may destroy the case and raises questions about the US and NZ intelligence services.

The one good thing to come out of it is that we are being given a chance to see past the jingoistic rhetoric that surrounds online censorship, surveillance and the enforcement of the relevant aspects of the rule of law.

These wrongs are not nationalistic traits but traits of those who operate without supervision in the thirst for power and personal gain mixed in with a dash of incompetence and bigotry.

I am sure members of the New Zealand, American, British, Chinese, Russian security services among others have more in common with each other than they do with their fellow citizens.

The greatest danger to society is secrecy, censorship, lack of information and a closed and hidden Government. In this darkness festered the spores of Stalinism, Nazism and any other form of ism you care to mention that has reeked havoc on the world whether it came  from the left or the right of the political spectrum or from the devout to the atheist of personal faith.

I can only say that in my few dealings with members of intelligence agencies I have been left with less of a feeling that I have met a James Bond than having been lectured by some slightly precocious, overindulged 11-year-old who keeps insisting they are right but  cannot tell you why, topped off by what they assume is an enigmatic smile.

Then again perhaps that’s what they want us to believe.

 

 

 

Chinese Bloggers Expose More High Level Corruption – Netizens Advance The Rule Of Law

Oct 252012
 

Chinese netizens are managing to do what the authorities including the police, state security apparatus and the ruling communist party’s internal disciplinary bodies cannot or will not do – expose corruption.

In what is becoming a regular and hopefully growing trend Chinese officials have been forced to launch an investigation after microbloggers uncovered another high ranking official with millions of dollar in property and assets.

Quoting state media, wire service AFP, said the Southern Guangzhou city will investigate urban management official Cai Bin, 56, who has 21 homes valued at 40 million yuan ($6.4 million), Xinhua news agency reported.

Cai, who earns about 10,000 yuan a month, failed to report all his holdings as required by the state, the report said.

Nothing as to how this vast wealth was obtained by a man on such a modest salary. Perhaps it a case of putting a little aside each month and watching how quickly it builds up; alternately  Cai is a corrupt, thieving villain who deserves everything coming to him. It is a matter for the courts to decide. But one thing is certain – it will not be swept under the carpet.

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Coverage Of Norodom Sihanouk’s Death Shows The Legacy Of Censorship

Oct 182012
 

When the news broke that former Cambodian King, Norodom Sihanouk, had died aged 89 in hospital in China journalists around the world reached for the archives to construct an obituary.

In those files and archives is material about events that occurred 40 years ago at the height of the war in Vietnam.  Some of those events were censored by the United States or its allies. And even now, when much of that information has come to light or has been officially acknowledged, still the earlier misleading censored versions are quoted in articles such as those on the death of Cambodia’s former king.

There is no need to go through every error in the coverage but one example can be found in coverage attributed to the AP bureau in Phnom Penh. There is no suggestion that the author wittingly mislead readers in what was a generally well written and objective piece of journalism. Instead it seems to demonstrate how censorship has a short and long term affect on reportage.

The paragraph in question was:  “Sihanouk’s top priority was to keep Cambodia out of the war, but he could not. U.S. aircraft bombed Vietnamese communist sanctuaries in Cambodia with increasing regularity, and his protests were ignored.”

The U.S. aircraft not only bombed communist sanctuaries, they made the whole country a free fire zone, records show that vast amounts of ordnance some of it experimental was dropped all over the country as far as the Thai border to the west and in areas as isolated as the Cardomom mountains  – a long way from the action.

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