China: A leaking dam?

Chinese information activists have been testing and collecting information about the government sponsored filter software, “Green Dam Youth Escort” via blog posts, twitter (search #greendam) and collaborative platforms since the WSJ’s news about Beijing government required PC makers to install filter software for all the PCs shipped to China from July 1 2009 onward popped up. Some of them collectively put together a technical analysis of the software at google document and the result shows that the filter is full of flaws:

Collaborative Testing: a leaking dam

Current versions only support Windows; effective only when used in conjunction with Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, it has no effect when used with Firefox. The harmful information screened by the software includes politically-related harmful information, and the software relies on non-conventional methods to install, also ineffective within Firefox, closing the browser and adding the website address onto a banned list without confirmation. In Internet Explorer, the software’s ability to classify clearly political content as “harmful information” is unreliable; for pornographic content, Green Dam is able to make relatively accurate assessments. When used with Firefox, however, the software shows no response.

If the program clashes with other programs and affects the computer’s other function, or if the network was hacked and user’s private information, such as bank password got stolen, will the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) be ready to pay for the loss?

From the above test result, the software would occupy much computer resources and affect other programs, junior computer users will suffer.

Over blocking

ESWN translated some teacher’s comments on the filter software from KDnet:

– I don’t want to discuss whether the functionalities of Green Dam are good or bad, but it is a nuisance because of all the upgrading that goes on. We are a rural school, and we are using rural distance learning equipment (namely, Lenovo computers). If we install Green Dam, then we cannot do simultaneous network broadcasts or hard disk protection. Even if Green Dam guarantees safe Internet usage, how are we to maintain the software on our computers? Our computer instructor is going to sit around all day to watch Green Dam being upgraded one computer at a time. I am going to faint! Our supervisory leaders must not know how to use computers!

– Let me say something here. We were ordered to install the software. So I have to come to this website and curse. After we installed the software, many normal websites are banned. For example, it is normal for students to like games such as 4399, but not any more … many news reports have certain normal words but they are banned … for example, when reports that there is a campaign against pornographic websites, the software bans the story because the term “pornographic websites” was used. Don’t tell me how great the software technology is, because this is a piece of junk. When we need to look up some course-related material, there is always some provocative advertisements on the pages so we can’t access them anymore. Why doesn’t the state just ban those advertisements directly? I want to curse someone out …

As the keyword filter list includes words such as “touch” and “play” and the graphic detection is set to identify the proportion of skin color in a picture, funny results come out (also from ESWN’s post):

– Can I determine the content of the text filtering? Today, a teacher posted an exam question which talks about “students playing touch-ball game.” The Word document was shut down. I spent a long time trying to determine the cause. This was really depressing. It will be a lot of work dealing these kinds of things in the future.

– How much flesh color does it take to make something “pornography”? I went on the Internet to check out some animal photos. A lovely little naked pig was sent onto the black list. Pitiful little pig! I was curious, so I looked up some photos of naked African women. Oh, they were not censored!

The software is a scumbag equalizes homosexuality with obscenity and violence. Once it is installed, it would filter away all websites with homosexual content. Upon testing, all famous LGBT websites, such as Aibai, idanian, aifufu and etc would be inaccessible. We also found out that if the websites contain keywords such as homosexual, gay, lesbian, the software would automatically identify the graphics as having too many “skin color” and same sex intimacy. The websites would then be blocked, compiled in the black list and banned from future visit.

Government budget and procedural justice

Given all its flaws and not so reliable filter result, the question followed is why the MIIT would spend more than 41 million yuans to pay the software company, Jinhui Technologies, one year license fee?

The company’s software promotion picture (below) seems to celebrate the fact that “Green Dam” is uphold by the government and taxpayer’s money (represented by the two hands):

Indeed, the project is in partnership with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance and State Council Information Department. However, many people questioned the lack of consultation and monitoring of such partnership. A commentary written by Wang Lin, a law professor, in ifeng pointed out that:

It is questionable whether the spending of the MIIT follows the principle of procedural justice. According to the report, even though it appears that the software is free, the cost is actually shouldered by the taxpayers as the MIIT and other departments will spend 41.7 million yuan for the one year license. As MIIT is very determined to continue the effort, the contract won’t be ended after one year. Are we going to spend the huge amount of tax money on this in the future? Should such expense be properly budgeted and approved by people representatives?

Moreover, we also need to check if the administrative promotion of this particular software has violated the current anti monopoly law.

People are more worried about its political implications. Beijing’s control over the Internet is so obvious that everyone knows about its intension. Apart from building up the notorious Great Fire Wall in secret, it frequently launches campaign to clean up the Internet. A most well known example is the anti-vulgarity campaign. After the campaign, the Internet is still full of vulgar content, but a number of critical websites and bloggers have disappeared. It reflects Beijing’s understanding of “vulgarity”.

Now it promotes via regulation a so-called pornography filter software. However, there isn’t any independent third party to monitor the filtered content. And there isn’t any discussion in the society about the policy. People would of course doubt if the Beijing’s definition of pornography would include politics. It is likely that Beijing regards political pornography more damaging than bodily pornography.

This article was originally published on www.globalvoicesonline.org