China Green Dam Youth Escort Filtering Software Review

China Great Wall has been a centre of attention for the past many centuries since it once protected the Chinese capital from the attacks by its enemies. To keep up with its tradition, Chinese authorities have come out with a new modern era Great Chinese Cyber Wall to protect the Chinese lands from the cyber attacks. The software has been labeled as China Green Dam Youth Escort. The stated purpose of the software is to protect Chinese children from content that is not suitable for their age i.e pornography.

The installation of the Green Dam has been made mandatory by the directive of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of the PRC asking all the vendors of the pc to pre install the software or ship it on a separate cd with all the pc sold in Chinese market. Since historically, the vendors abide by such rules, the implementation of this rule won’t be much different and the vendors are expect to follow the new directives from 1st July, 2009.

OpenNet Initiative,which is a joint project between Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and other universities to monitor government internet surveillance, the program is a lot more then just a simple filtering program to protect Chinese children from pornography. Below are the key finds of OpenNet Initiative after testing the software.

Green Dam exerts unprecedented control over users’ computing experience
The version of the Green Dam software that we tested, when operating under its default settings, is far more intrusive than any other content control software we have reviewed. Not only does it block access to a wide range of web sites based on keywords and image processing, including porn, gaming, gay content, religious sites and political themes, it actively monitors individual computer behavior, such that a wide range of programs including word processing and email can be suddenly terminated if content algorithm detects inappropriate speech. The program installs components deep into the kernel of the computer operating system in order to enable this application layer monitoring. The operation of the software is highly unpredictable and disrupts computer activity far beyond the blocking of websites.

The functionality of Green Dam goes far beyond that which is needed to protect children online and subjects users to security risks
The deeply intrusive nature of the software opens up several possibilities for use other than filtering material harmful to minors. With minor changes introduced through the auto-update feature, the architecture could be used for monitoring personal communications and Internet browsing behavior. Log files are currently recorded locally on the machine, including events and keywords that trigger filtering. The auto-update feature can used to change the scope and targeting of filtering without any notification to users.

The effective level of parental control over the software is poor
Technically, the software may be turned off or uninstalled and the filtering settings adjusted. In practice, a large number of users accept pre-installed software and never change default settings. Moreover, a combination of poor implementation and opaque design makes it very difficult for even expert users to understand what the system is doing by default, let alone understand the impact and scope of auto-updates and configuration changes. These factors severely erode any arguments over parental choice. Moreover, the bundling of filtering to cover many different targets through poorly designed and implemented interfaces leaves parents with inadequate choices in customizing filtering setting to match their personal family preferences.

Mandating the use of a specific software product is a questionable policy decision
Introducing a product standard by mandating the use of a particular software product made by a specific company for individual use at a national level is unprecedented. We are not aware of any comparable requirement by any country in any context. A product mandate provides a strong measure of central control at the cost of consumer choice, security, and product quality, with implications for personal computer performance. This is a remarkably poor choice for computer users in any country. The effects of this product mandate are magnified by the fact that the product and company in question are reported to have little or no experience in the development, testing, deployment, or support of a very widely used software product.

The implementation of the software is the decision of the Chinese Government and hence should not be a major source of controversy. Chinese Government has brought revolutionery changes in the lives of its citizens in the past few decades and i think we should give them the benefit of doubt if they want to keep monitoring the activities of their citizens to protect the state from its enemies.

The privacy of the citizens has been challenged by many governments and even the Bush administration has violated it by monitoring the activities of the American citizens.

In a related development,  US software publisher Solid Oak Software is lobbying to preventing US companies from shipping software bundled with Green Dam, levelling allegations that part of the program was stolen from its CyberSitter filtering program.

According to Reuters story, Solid Oak has claimed that it has found pieces of its proprietary code in Green Dam, as well as a copy of instructions for updating the software, . However, the Chinese builders of the software – Jinhui Computer Systems – denied the allegations.

A detail report by OpenNet Initiative can be found by clicking here (pdf file)

Update:

The Chinese government has backed down on its controversial Green Dam web filtering scheme. The plan, which required all mainland computers to ship with the web filtering application, was due to come into effect from today.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) last night put the proposal on hold, saying PC vendors needed more time, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
“[S]ome computer producers said such a massive installation demanded extra time,” the ministry said in a statement issued at 8pm.
It did not say when the scheme would be resurrected.  Source: Robert Clark, Telecom Asia

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Tagged as: China, Filtering, GDYE, Greem Dam, Green Dam Youth Escort, Jinhui, MIIT, Software