08 January 2018
04 January 2017
Spare Slots for Regular Freelance Work Soon Available
Posted by Glyn Moody at 11:45 am 0 comments
Labels: china, copyright, digital rights, europe, free software, freelance, journalism, linux, open access, open source
26 July 2014
Huawei's Global Head Of Cyber Security Wants The Government 'To Have As Much Data As Possible'
In Der Spiegel's recent revelations about the far-reaching nature of the NSA's spykit, it mentions several US companies, Samsung from South Korea, and one from China -- Huawei. Like the others, Huawei denied any knowledge of the modifications to its products that Der Spiegel claims are used by the NSA to break into systems. This isn't the first time that the finger has been pointed at Huawei. Some years back, Huawei was accused of facilitating spying for the Chinese government, but after an 18-month investigation, no evidence was found of this. That fact allowed John Suffolk, Global Head of Cyber Security for Huawei and the former UK Government CIO, to enjoy the irony of Snowden's leaks about backdoors in US products:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 11:43 am 0 comments
Labels: china, der spiegel, Huawei, nsa, surveillance, techdirt
24 July 2014
100,000 Users Of Chinese Microblog Sina Weibo Punished For Violating 'Censorship Guidelines'
We've written a number of times of the various ways in which China tries to police its online world. These include punishing individuals, as well as imposing general rules that apply to everybody. Until now, it's been hard to tell to what extent the latter were just saber-rattling. Now we know, thanks to a new post on the Global Voices site:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 4:15 pm 0 comments
Labels: censorship, china, sina, techdirt, weibo
Chinese CCTV Surveillance Defeated By Chinese Smog
Techdirt has often written about CCTV surveillance, and its many pitfalls. But according to this story in the South China Morning Post, the provincial capital Harbin, in north-eastern China, has a very particular problem in this regard:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 1:54 pm 0 comments
Labels: china, harbin, smog, surveillance, techdirt
How China Is Going Global With Its Censorship
It is neither a secret nor much of a surprise that China keeps its media under tight control. But one knock-on consequence of its rise as a global power is that it is now seeking to extend that influence to those located outside China, including mainstream Western media. That trend is explored in a new report from The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), entitled "The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: How the Communist Party's Media Restrictions Affect News Outlets Around the World."
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 1:39 pm 0 comments
Labels: censorship, china, techdirt
The Coming Chinese Android Invasion
Remember all those years ago, when people laughed at the first Android phones (which were, to tell the truth, pretty clunky, but still...). Remember how Apple fans have always insisted that however well Android did in the smartphone market, it would always be second best, and never seriously threaten Apple's dominance? Well here's what actually happened:
On Open Enterprise blog.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 10:40 am 0 comments
Labels: android, apple, china, iphone, open enterprise, smartphone
24 November 2013
China Sends Mixed Signals On Censorship
Last week we wrote about China's worrying new censorship approach, which threatens up to three years in prison for those spreading "false information" if their posts are viewed 5000 times, or forwarded 500 times. Improbable though that law is in its exactitude, it seems it has already been applied:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 5:07 pm 0 comments
Labels: censorship, china, microblogs, surveillance, techdirt
23 November 2013
Turkish Government Aims To Create 6000-Strong Social Media Propaganda Squad
In the recent demonstrations in Istanbul, the Turkish government may have had superior police and security forces on the streets, but one area where it lost the battle was on social networks, which anti-government protesters used adroitly to get their viewpoint out to the world. It seems the Turkish government has learned its lesson, and has decided to fight back according to this report in the Wall Street Journal:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 5:44 pm 0 comments
Labels: china, propaganda, techdirt, turkey
China's New Censorship Plan: Three Years In Prison If You Get 500 Retweets Of A 'Harmful' Post
As we've noted before, the online community is kept on a pretty tight leash in China, with information deemed subversive or just embarrassing disappearing quickly from the networks. But it seems that's not enough. Global Voices is reporting that yet another approach is being tried to discourage "offenders" from posting in the first place:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 12:46 pm 0 comments
Labels: censorship, china, techdirt, twitter, weibo
Is This Finally the Year of Open Source...in China?
One of the long-running jokes in the free software world is that this year will finally be the year of open source on the desktop - just like it was last year, and the year before that. Thanks to the astounding rise of Android, people now realise that the desktop is last decade's platform, and that mobile - smartphones and tablets - are the future. But I'd argue that there is something even more important these, and that is the widespread deployment of open source in China.
On Open Enterprise blog.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 10:52 am 0 comments
Labels: china, desktop, open enterprise, open source
19 September 2013
NSA Spying Revelations Start To Cause Outrage In Europe; China Next?
News that the NSA has unfettered access to most of the leading Internet services inevitably has an international dimension. After all, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google and the rest of the Naughty Nine all operate around the world, so spying on their users means spying on people everywhere. Indeed, as Mike explained earlier today, the NSA is actually trying to quell criticism by selling this news as something that purely concerns non-Americans (although that's clearly rubbish.)
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 4:17 pm 0 comments
Labels: china, google, Microsoft, nsa, spying, surveillance, techdirt, yahoo
June 4th: The Struggle Of Memory Against Forgetting
Today is June 4th, a day pretty much like any other day in most parts of the world. But in China, June 4th has a unique significance because of the events that took place in Tiananmen Square on that day in 1989. This has led the Chinese authorities to introduce a range of increasingly repressive measures designed to minimize the ability of people to find out about what happened then, or to commemorate it, as the International Herald Tribune explains:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 4:09 pm 0 comments
Labels: china, june 4th, memory, techdirt, tiananmen square
Taiwan's Copyright Proposals Would Combine SOPA With A Dash Of The Great Firewall Of China
You might have hoped that the extensive discussions that took place around SOPA a year or so ago would have warned off governments elsewhere from replicating some of the really bad ideas there, like DNS blocking, but it seems that Taiwan didn't get the message, as Global Voices reports:
On Techdirt.
18 September 2013
Critic Of Chinese Censorship Censored: Microblog With 1.1 Million Followers Deleted
It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone to learn that a popular writer and well-known critic of China's pervasive censorship system has run into trouble for his views. Fortunately, in this case that doesn't mean getting arrested, but nonetheless involves quite a dramatic slapdown:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 12:46 pm 0 comments
Labels: censorship, china, techdirt, weibo
10 March 2013
Chinese Junk Patents Flood Into Australia, Allowing Chinese Companies To Strategically Block Innovation
Techdirt has been writing for a while about China's policy of providing incentives to file patents -- regardless of whether those patents have any worth. That's led to a naïve celebration of the large numbers now being granted, as if more patents corresponded to more innovation.
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 10:48 pm 0 comments
Labels: australia, china, innovation, patents, techdirt
09 March 2013
China's Censorship Hits Internet Users In Other Countries
It's hardly a surprise these days that Chinese Internet companies routinely self-censor what appears on their services: the world knows there's not much it can do about what happens within China's borders. But here's a disturbing story about how that censorship has started spreading further afield.
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 9:40 pm 0 comments
Labels: censorship, china, techdirt
China Tries To Bolster Claim To Disputed Pacific Islands By Upgrading Mobile Coverage There
The Spratly Islands are some 750 reefs, atolls and islands in the South China Sea that are claimed variously by Brunei, the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. That's largely because of the rich fishing grounds that surround them, and the possibility of significant oil and gas reserves nearby.
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 9:33 pm 0 comments
10 February 2013
Pirated Buildings In China And The Rise Of Architectural Mashups
Although China is often glibly dismissed as little more than an imitator of others, yet another story about copying paradoxically shows it leading the way. That's because what's being cloned is an entire building complex that's still under construction:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 10:00 pm 0 comments
Labels: architecture, china, copying, piracy, techdirt
06 January 2013
To Avoid Controversy, 'Realtime' Microblogging In China Now Delayed By 7 Days
Despite increasing competition around the world, China remains the leader when it comes to finding ways to censor the online world. A few months ago, the site Tech in Asia listed no less than eight ways in which users of Sina Weibo, China's hugely-popular homegrown microblog service, can be penalized for "inappropriate" tweets. Now it seems it has come up with a ninth:
On Techdirt.
Posted by Glyn Moody at 9:53 pm 0 comments
Labels: censorship, china, real-time, techdirt, twitter