from the the-free-world-will-copy-in-5..4..3.. dept.
Starting March 1, China will ban internet accounts that impersonate people or organizations, and enforce the requirement that people use real names when registering accounts online, its internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), said on Wednesday.
The new regulations are part of efforts to impose real-name registration requirements on internet users and halt the spread of rumors online, the CAC said. Internet companies will have the responsibility to enforce the rules.
On Tuesday, the CAC accused NetEase Inc, a U.S.-listed Chinese web portal, of spreading rumors and pornography. And last month, 133 WeChat accounts were shut down for "distorting history", state media reported.
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Google has been aggressively suppressing an internal memo that shared details of Dragonfly, a censored search engine for China that would also track users:
Google bosses have forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, The Intercept has learned. The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have "unilateral access" to the data.
The memo was shared earlier this month among a group of Google employees who have been organizing internal protests over the censored search system, which has been designed to remove content that China's authoritarian Communist Party regime views as sensitive, such as information about democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.
According to three sources familiar with the incident, Google leadership discovered the memo and were furious that secret details about the China censorship were being passed between employees who were not supposed to have any knowledge about it. Subsequently, Google human resources personnel emailed employees who were believed to have accessed or saved copies of the memo and ordered them to immediately delete it from their computers. Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained "pixel trackers" that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.
[...] Google reportedly maintains an aggressive security and investigation team known as "stopleaks," which is dedicated to preventing unauthorized disclosures. The team is also said to monitor internal discussions. Internal security efforts at Google have ramped up this year as employees have raised ethical concerns around a range of new company projects. Following the revelation by Gizmodo and The Intercept that Google had quietly begun work on a contract with the military last year, known as Project Maven, to develop automated image recognition systems for drone warfare, the communications team moved swiftly to monitor employee activity. The "stopleaks" team, which coordinates with the internal Google communications department, even began monitoring an internal image board used to post messages based on internet memes, according to one former Google employee, for signs of employee sentiment around the Project Maven contract.
Eric Schmidt has predicted that there will be two distinct "Internets" within the decade, with one led by China:
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:33AM
My name is Li.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @05:21AM
We're on to you, Li "Chip" RM35M4419.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:40AM
That's an interesting word for "facts about China's government"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday February 28 2015, @04:58AM
Mmmm... makes me wonder... does the US political life make a claim it? (methinks it would be a valid claim: biggest orgy - a small number of people f**k the rest of the 1/3 billion population, with impunity. NSA anyone?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @05:24AM
So, does this apply to services outside of China as well, or only those hosted within China on their ISPs?
What about services that don't support or allow Chinese kanji when registering usernames; is it acceptable to romanize the person's name?
Considering those two questions ALSO leads me to ask: what happens when The Other People On The Internet start taking up the names of real Chinese folks to use as their online aliases? I feel like it might be a very inevitable outcome just out of spite and protest, but it's just a guess considering that it was my first thought when I heard about this to begin with.
Please fill out the above survey and have it on my desk by noon!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @05:25AM
How else could anyone explain how a nice old spinster like Silence Dogood wind up being a leader in a revolt against a God ordained government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @05:26AM
NT
(Score: 3, Funny) by cmn32480 on Saturday February 28 2015, @03:47PM
Ham on. Ham on. Ham on whole wheat.... alright!
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @05:29AM
So what if two Chinese people happen to have the exact same first and last names? I feel pretty certain that such a case is possible but I'm not exactly sure.
Anyway, would they have to start appending more and more information to the end of their name to avoid the "This username is already taken." errors? Birth years maybe? The last four digits of their credit card number?
(Score: 2, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:43AM
There are only one hundred surnames in China, so the chances of multiple persons of the same name, even from the same village, is huge. So we need about a billion social security numbers, comrades! I love it when we are all equal, you know!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:51AM
> There are only one hundred surnames in China,
I had heard that too. I was even going to post that. But I decided to double check before doing so and found out it is not really true. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:03AM
Jeez, facts? How will we ever get anything resolved here on SN? OK, how about "only one hundred names for Han Chinese"? Better? (And besides, 4000 for a population of a billion is not much of a difference, proportionately. )
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @11:17AM
Proportionally it is 40x greater.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:39PM
For some values of proportionality! Japan has over 100,000 surnames http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2009/10/11/general/the-long-road-to-identity/ [japantimes.co.jp].
(Score: 3, Informative) by mendax on Saturday February 28 2015, @05:53AM
My ass! Essentially, China is doing what has been tried in this country on several occasions, that is to make anonymous speech and association illegal, or at least very impractical.
Fortunately, Americans generally don't have to worry about it thanks to numerous U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the last 50+ years have made it abundantly clear that anonymous speech is a First Amendment right, one that is very difficult to infringe without a very, very good reason.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:29AM
That's terrorist talk! "Terrorism" is any speech we don't like. You have no rights or freedoms. Lick the jackboot, peon.
(Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:37AM
anonymous speech is a First Amendment right, one that is very difficult to infringe without a very, very good reason.
That's terrorist talk! "Terrorism" is any speech we don't like. You have no rights or freedoms. Lick the jackboot, peon.
Says the Anonymous Coward. You do see the irony, I hope.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:09AM
Proud to be an Anonymous Terrorist.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Saturday February 28 2015, @09:37PM
Sieg heil!
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:29AM
Pay attention to this as to how a government stifles freedom of expression because the there's only reason to know your identity if repressive action is planned.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:32AM
And yet you logged in to post. There's only one reason to be logged in. You want to gain reputation from your posts, because you're a karma whore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:35AM
And yet you logged in to post.
Voluntarily logging into a site that you voluntarily visit on an account that very likely isn't even your real name is the same as the government repressing freedom of expression? Silly AC...
(Score: 4, Funny) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 28 2015, @06:42AM
And yet you logged in to post. There's only one reason to be logged in. You want to gain reputation from your posts, because you're a karma whore.
Actually, logging in has quite a few other benefits, friend. Like modding you down for trolling. Which I won't do, as your inept attempts at same should be seen by as many folks as possible, if only to prove the adage "'tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
Doubt has been removed. Good. I hate doubt.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:14AM
Logging in over TOR and using a throw-away email could still be more anonymous then ACing depending.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:15AM
> Pay attention to this as to how a government stifles freedom of expression
Kind of like facebook [lastrealindians.com] and native americans. [countercurrentnews.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @07:46AM
FWIW, in Brazil anonymous speech is constitutionally forbidden: [mit.edu]
Article 5, IV : the expression of thought is free, anonymity being forbidden;
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday February 28 2015, @08:05AM
Pay attention to this as to how a government stifles freedom of expression because the there's only reason to know your identity if repressive action is planned.
There must be a total avalanche of rumors on the internet in China.
TFA also says:
Many users of social media create parody accounts of prominent figures and institutions to poke fun at them.
Why wouldn't they just watch for Registrations using THOSE names?
You can find the same stuff here, total crap postings, but most people in the US and Europe are educated enough not to trust any random rant on the internet. You would think that teaching their citizens to think for themselves and check facts would be more educational than suppressing rumor posts.
Nothing is said about non-rumors (truths) that they would like to suppress.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 28 2015, @11:21AM
> Why wouldn't they just watch for Registrations using THOSE names?
Because that's not really the issue they care about. They want to control the dissemination of information.
They have already decreed that authors will be charged with defamation if 'false information' is reposted more than 500 times via social networks. [theguardian.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @06:13PM
I guess the very last thing they want to teach their citizens is to think for themselves. Because they might use that ability also on the government's propaganda.