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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:28AM   Printer-friendly
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?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:47AM (1 child)

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:47AM (#570486)

    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.

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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 20 2017, @06:29AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @06:29AM (#570543) Journal

    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...