China Orders E-Mail Screening 409
Greyfox writes: "According to this CNN article, China has ordered Internet providers to screen users' E-mails for subversive statements. See how fascist governments control the flow of information? Aren't you glad our government doesn't do this? Oh... Wait..."
The difference between China and the U.S. . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Here, we get things like Carnivore and promises that they'll only be used with warrants. Or to catch mobsters. Or terrorists. Honest.
This is news??? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a slippery slope.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Offered for your Fascist consideration...
o- Asset forfeiture of people who have not even been convicted of a crime.
o- FBI breaking and entering and placing keyboard sniffers on someone's PC to snag their PGP key without their knowledge.
o- Carnivore (as you so well alluded).
o- Magic Lantern
o- Linking of state's driver's license databases to provide the equivilant of a National ID Card.
o- Ubiquitous surveillance cameras in public places.
The US government, federal and local law enforcement want to control YOU!
Re:Read the Chinese Constitution first. (Score:2, Interesting)
China and the US (Score:1, Interesting)
The difference is that China doesn't try to hide the fact that they screen e-mails. They tell everyone that they will monitor their e-mails and people can decide what to say based on that. The US is much more secretive about it.
The good side of brutal, repressive regimes (Score:2, Interesting)
The article says: Foreign software makers must now guarantee in writing that their products do not contain hidden programs that would allow spying or hacking into Chinese computers.
This spec would be useful for everyone's networks. Vendors who are accepted for use in China could advertise they met "the Chinese standard" for security.
Privacy on the Internet (Score:4, Interesting)
If you wish to have privacy, then you must send your communications over a private, secure channel, which the Internet is not. For example, the U.S. Postal Service is an entity that sends information securely; you can rest assured that your letters will never pass through the hands of a third party. But if you transmit information by posting a postcard on a bulletic board, it is free to be read by anyone who passes by, including government law enforcement officials.
You can attempt to make your messages sent through the public Internet "private" by encrypting the messages (which is perfectly legal and will continue to remain legal as long as our government is a free government). But that does not GUARANTEE privacy.
There is a general mistrust of government in general in this forum, which is sad. While I agree that the size and scope of government should be kept to a minimum, we should be able to trust the elected officials in a republican system, since we choose who our representatives will be. And we should certainly trust the executive branch (the ones actually screening the public E-mails) to do what they need to enforce the laws our elected representatives pass. If they aren't, then the people should vote accordingly for representatives that will fix the problem.
And despite what most people think, law enforcement officials are WAY to busy to concern themselves with the details of your private life. They are only concerned for the information that will help them protect the public from criminals.
Political Compass (Score:2, Interesting)
They argue that the left-right is very simplistic, so they introduce "totalitarian" vs. "libertarian" as well. Of course it is better, but it still doesn't go a long way.
It's a test on the web site to help classify yourself. If I remember correctly, I got the score (-6, -6) which means rather leftist and rather libertarian.
Wonder what it would look like if you plotted all /.ers in there...
Like we don't do the same to them... (Score:3, Interesting)
China Orders E-Mail Screening
The USA tries to snoop China. China snoops its own people. What's the difference?
(At least China tells its own people that it's going to be snooping their e-mails. The USA just does it without warning.)
Re:Privacy on the Internet (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but it can be inferred from the third, fourth and ninth Amendments (and probably bits and pieces of five and six). The third Amendment has been interpreted to mean that people have a right not be under constant surveillance by law enforcement. The fourth Amendment, The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, should be obvious. And the ninth Amendment is the one that says, basically, that just because the constitution only protects certain enumerated (spelled-out) rights does not mean the people do not have other ones, that arent explicitly forbidden elsewhere.
If you place your messages in the public domain (which is what you do whenever you send an E-mail over the Internet), don't be surprised when it is screened, read, etc., by either the government or anyone who happens to own the router that your message passes through.
Sending email is no more placing messages in the public domain than using the postal system is. Placing messages in a public forum (e.g., Usenet, Slashdot, etc.) would be, however. Simply because email is sent plaintext through a bunch of third-party routing servers does not mean it is public, no more than postal mail being handled by a dozen different postal workers, makes postal mail public.
There is a general mistrust of government in general in this forum, which is sad. While I agree that the size and scope of government should be kept to a minimum, we should be able to trust the elected officials in a republican system, since we choose who our representatives will be. And we should certainly trust the executive branch (the ones actually screening the public E-mails) to do what they need to enforce the laws our elected representatives pass. If they aren't, then the people should vote accordingly for representatives that will fix the problem.
Yeah, youre right, the people should. They should be able to trust the government, and should vote accordingly when the government betrays its ideals. Unfortunately, youre describing a functional constitutionaldemocratic-republic, not the United States, here.
[Law enforcement officials] are only concerned for the information that will help them protect the public from criminals.
The problem is what, exactly, gets defined as criminal.
Encryption recommendation (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Give me a break! (Score:5, Interesting)
And neither have you, or you would understand that all dictatorships are benign - to begin with. The 2nd amendment to the Constitution recognises exactly that.
The intention or the degree of oppression is not the issue. Dictating directly or through propaganda what is right and what is wrong - as opposed to serving the will of the electorate - is oppression. I'd say that we have a government so composed of incumbents and hereditary heirs that it already views itself as master and not servant. A benign master perhaps, but a master none the less, and you don't give power to a good man that you wouldn't want his bad successor to have.
As you say, it doesn't look too bad right now. Of course, it gets just a little worse every year, but not so much that any one incident is enough to force the issue, and all the controls and crackdowns are justifiable. It's unfortunate that we can't move towards a more liberal society that treats people as innocent until proven guilty, but, hey, there's a lot of bad people in the world, right? Just one more restriction, then we'll be done, promise.
And so we go. Are you willing to bet that in 30 years, the next generation isn't going to look back and say "My god, why didn't you stop this peacefully when you had the chance?"
Re:The difference between China and the U.S. . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing I've been thinking, lately though, is that the Republicans are more the party of "Freedom" than the Democrats are. Not because of ideology, as you noted in your post. But because of practical effects. See, the Democrats long ago got most of the economic powers they wish to weild legitimized by constitutional scholars. Either by interpretation in court decisions stretching the commerce regulation clause beyond any rational interpretation, or by passing ammendments (like the 16th ammendment). So, the primary check on the Democrat's excercise of their ideology in a place where I disagree with it (I'm a libertarian) is themselves. Usually their laws stand up to constitutional challenge: income tax raises; social programs; environmental programs, whatever. They generally don't get challenged to begin with, and, if they do get challenged, the Democrats win a lot of em.
On the other hand, the Republicans have been totally unable to win constitutional support for their most extreme positions. Thus, the vast majority of ludicrous Republican laws get struck down.
So, the final calculation is that, while ideologically I disagree with about half of what Democrats want to do, and I disagree with about half of what Republicans want to do, in the actuall effect of their governing, the Republicans piss me off a lot less.
Also, one last thing - has anyone else noticed that "bipartisan" means "you vote for my pork-barrel programs and I'll vote for yours?" Man I hold on to my wallet when I hear that one...
PS: I know this is redundant, but this is the only post I'm gonna make on this thread, and I've got to get it out of my system. Is that original new poster an idiot, or an asshole? What kind of moron can't see the difference between mandatory drag-net filtering for "subversive" ideas and Carnivore's (comparatively) targeted use against specified individuals? I realize that Carnivore has some problems, and we should be complaining loudly about those, but to try to even imply that throwing little old ladies in prison for putting up web pages about their religion is somehow morally equivilant to a system which is designed to go after specific people who have warrants and are suspected of engaging in criminal activity is myopic in the extreme. In China, you could've gone to JAIL for making that news post with that wise-ass remark. Here, you just get flamed for being an idiot.
Exactly the opposite? (Score:2, Interesting)
The "Great Firewall" only filters information between China and the outside world. It is powerless against domestic network use and easy to skirt for those capable of using foreign proxies.
The new regulations imply to me that the Chinese government is relatively powerless. They're trying to push the network to regulate itself at the local level. Instead of strengthening the capabilities of the center to regulate user behavior, they're decentralizing network administration. Exactly the opposite of the Echelon strategy, actually.
I think it's more interesting to see that we're getting this kind of policy out of the MII at all. Last I heard, the agency was set to be radically overhauled and Wu Jichuan's aggressive control policies were losing out. Does this indicate a return to strict control over user behavior, or does the obvious weaknesses of the policy suggest that the CPP *is* slowly liberalizing its policy on network use, and that this is a bone for the hardcore element of the MII?
Re:Privacy on the Internet (Score:2, Interesting)
On a lighter note, I am also an email administrator for a local government. Thankfully, the only time we go snooping into people's email accounts is for discovery due to legal matters. And even that has only happened four times in six years.