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from the what-about-the-ones-you-did-NOT-catch? dept.
Chinese authorities have detained a software developer for selling computer services that allow internet users to evade China's "Great Firewall," which blocks access to thousands of websites, from Facebook to Twitter to some news outlets, a media report said Monday.
The software developer, who is from the coastal province of Jiangsu, near Shanghai, was arrested in late August and held for three days for building a small business to sell virtual private networks, the Global Times newspaper reported, citing the official Xinhua news agency. VPNs create encrypted links between computers and allow Chinese web users to see blocked sites by hiding the address from government filters.
Subscribers paid 10 yuan, or about $1.50, for one month of the developer's service. Authorities also seized the developer's earnings, which totaled 1,080 yuan, or about $165.
Some internet businessmen have faced far harsher punishments: Earlier this year, a 26-year-old entrepreneur who sold VPN services in Dongguan, near Hong Kong, was sentenced to nine months in prison.
How far away from having this happen in the West are we, really?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:11PM (8 children)
Don't hold your breath. J-Mo is a master of compartmentalization; he typed the above screed while completely oblivious to the fact that it undermines his free-market-uber-alles shibboleths elsewhere.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:23PM (7 children)
Sorry, corporations are entities CREATED by governments, and as such, are not products of the Free Market. This is illustrated quite clearly with large corporations who screw up, such as Equifax having given away all their records on millions of people via a wildly insecure server while their CSO at the time was a music major.
In the Free Market, you personally experience the consequences of your choices, both good and pad. No golden parachutes and "fines" in lieu of criminal prosecution.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:34PM (6 children)
This free market thing sounds awesome. How do we make it? And how do we prevent corporations-in-all-but-government-charter from appearing? Or is it okay so long as they're just using their own private mercenary forces rather than Eeeeeebil Gubbamint Lawmen (TM) to force their ways on people?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:52PM
So apparently the AC must have found the one link in Yahoo! Answers that brought them here :D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:21PM (2 children)
You're afraid of the possibility of an effectively unaccountable police force - so you're advocating to keep the effectively unaccountable police force to protect you from the possibility of another effectively unaccountable police force.
We don't prevent anything. Unaccountable corporations only exist because GOVERNMENT has deemed them to be "people", special "people" who cannot be arrested, tried, imprisoned, and/or executed. In a free market there are only people, as in regular everyday people with no legally-protected "corporate veil" to hide behind.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:45AM (1 child)
You are a big fool. Humans naturally form hierarchies, and these reinforce themselves in the manner of a positive feedback: power to power, money to money, privilege to privilege, in an ever-escalating spiral. Removing any sort of check against this would only accelerate it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @04:16AM
Well, then you've got nothing to worry about. Hard to think up a more powerful combination that a mercantilist world-empire with "private" corporations pulling the strings of a massive federal government. Which is of course exactly what you have now. Enjoy that "positive" feedback!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:47AM (1 child)
We could start by declaring every corporation that is "Too big to fail" to also be too big to exist and break them up. The Joint Stock Corporation does have certain advantages in raising large sums for really large projects so outright banning them is probably a cure worse than the disease but the current model where every doctor and accountant registers an LLC is too far in the other direction.
We always need to be on the lookout for "socialize the losses, but the gains are private" cronyism calling itself Capitalism. And what else is a Corporation? Investors can never be liable for more than the money spent on the stock, the officers generally have to eat a baby or something to be held personally liable, yet everybody has unlimited upside. Could we agree that publicly traded corporations should be limited to a low fixed number, forbidden from owning stock in or sharing officers with another and have a 99 year maximum lifetime? Perhaps an exception and some special rules for utilities, stable dividend paying entities with little change and little competition since they are already in bed with the government.
Private, closely held corporations are much more similar to partnerships and a few changes in the law could enhance that, making the principle shareholders and officers more liable for misconduct.
Monopolies almost always have one of two properties, a temporary accident soon corrected or a government connection creating and maintaining the monopoly. All anti-trust law is not evil either. Dangerous, but like government itself needed for certain purposes for which it is uniquely suited.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 20 2017, @06:29AM
Who are you and what have you done with the real J-Mo? Please, please, please tell me you threw him into an active volcano or something...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...