U.S. Companies Help Chinese Limit Access to U.S. News

Showbizdata ^ | 19-Feb-02

[Rightwing Canuck]

U.S. COMPANIES HELP CHINESE LIMIT ACCESS TO U.S. NEWS

Under a contract with the Chinese government, San Jose-based Cisco Systems has developed an elaborate firewall and filtering system that effectively prevents the Chinese population from accessing controversial political content, such as the website of CNN or other U.S. news services, via the Internet, the Weekly Standard reports in its current issue. Moreover, the magazine reported, Yahoo! has developed a version of its portal site that delays chat-room conversations so that individual comments can be monitored by censors before they are distributed to the group, and has modified its search engine to disallow searches when politically sensitive keywords are entered.

[Rightwing Canuck]

I did a search but couldn't find anything.

[eno_]

It is these companies' decision to do this. It is your decision where to buy routers and what portals to use.

[EBUCK]

Right on.

EBUCK

[flamefront]

But you might find this extremely related info useful:

Who Lost China's Internet - on Cisco

Which yields this invaluable Chaimberlain-esque quote:

David Zhou, a systems engineer manager at Cisco, Beijing, told me flat out, "We don't care about the [Chinese government's] rules. It's none of Cisco's business." I replied that he has a point: It's not the gun but the way it's used, and how can a company that builds firewalls be expected to, well, not build firewalls? Zhou relaxed, then confidently added that the capabilities of Cisco's routers can be used to intercept information and to conduct keyword searches: "We have the capability to look deeply into the packet." He admitted that Cisco is under the direct scrutiny of State Security, the Public Security Bureau, and the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

[Ranger]

Lots of companies worked with Hitler in the 30s and later regretted it. This will be no different.

[Free the USA]

Bump List

[SSN558]

"Lots of companies worked with Hitler in the 30s and later regretted it. This will be no different."

Yes but their are ways around it. When BJC was prez every visit he made to China was preceeded by my emails to numerous addresses in China. Even countries that have elaborate controls over internet access like some in the middle east can not police every email and web site that passes through their routers. Not yet anyway.

[batter]

Money talks. I'm taking my money elsewhere.
flamefront - thanks for the link and (the disturbing, barf alert worthy) quote. It's comforting to know that US corporations are helping the PRC to violate human rights and international security. </sarcasm>

[mafree]

Bump.

[Boyd]

Not really 'news'. And, hardly surprising, considering the sizable US investment in China. And verse VICE-uh.

[Plummz]

A good way to combat this sort of thing is through ahreholder motions at annual meetings.

[jwh_Denver]

I know what you're thinking but even though the Chinese official pukes are looking over their shoulders with this firewall it doesn't matter. Give hackers a couple months and they'll find holes the size of Lake Michigan in it. And then with the Internet? Well information tends to go exponential in it. Firewall or no firewall.

[KneelBeforeZod]

I was able to get on FR from China, about 2 weeks ago.

[KneelBeforeZod]

I was in an internet cafe in china...the locals were playing counter strike over LAN and internet. And some other game like Diablo or something. If they can set that up, I'm sure they can set up proxy servers and just go around the firewalls.

[jwh_Denver]

Did you leave FR bookmarked? LOL!

Naw, tain't worried a bit about firewalls. Their out of date faster than a Nehru jacket. Hoping these US companies are really stiffing them with the price!