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China Wiretapping Skype

chinaAn Internet censorship specialist revealed on Wednesday that TOM-Skype, the Chinese partnership of eBay’s Skype, is monitoring and storing text chats. Skype is a widely used messaging and voice chat service that identifies itself as being secure for communication due to its encryption technology. China’s government set keywords to flag messages on the service, where they would be analyzed for IP addresses and usernames. This information was stored insecurely, leading to its discovery by Canadian researcher Nart Villeneuve at the University of Toronto.

“Skype encryption ensures that no other party can eavesdrop on your call or read your instant messages.” says their security page , but has a policy of responding to “lawful requests from relevant authorities.”  The FBI wants telephone tapping laws on communication services like Skype, but these do not apply to instant text messages that skip the phone system entirely. The Chinese version of Skype allows surveillance of messages with flagged keywords, some of which include “democracy” and “Tibet.”

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google and top100 logosIt appears that in a country where over 90 percent of the downloaded music is illegally pirated, if you can’t beat them, join them. Google, Inc. has launched a free and legal music download service that is available exclusively to internet users in China. The plan is for the Web site to sustain on advertising revenue, which will be split among Google, a Chinese music company named Top 100.cn, and the participating music record labels. The move symbolizes a potential shift in strategy against piracy, which is also a significant problem— albeit much less pervasive—in America and other countries. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that the music industry loses hundreds of millions in dollars as a result of piracy.

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illustrationThe recent earthquake in China is exposing the country’s tight control over information flow from the country, as massive amounts of people are spreading information through the Internet and text messages.
Last Monday’s 7.9 earthquake utterly devastated the country, and with China being home to the fastest-growing number of Internet users, information has been flowing from the country faster than ever before.
Blogging and text messaging have been almost uncensored in the country which usually keeps a tight lid on the information that leaves its borders.
People describe the disaster firsthand, criticize the government about its plan to bring aid to the victims, and how many of the victims were children, calling into question the structural codes of school buildings.
“I don’t want to use the word transparent, but it’s less censored, an almost free flow of discussion,” said Xiao Qiang, a journalism professor at the University of California, Berkeley and director of the China Internet Project, which monitors and translates Chinese Web sites, in an interview with Msnbc.com.
Nonetheless, the government is finding ways to monitor the information flow.
So far, 17 people have been detained for writing messages online that “spread false information, made sensational statements and sapped public confidence,” the state-run news agency, Xinhua, reported last week.
The number is low considering the many critical sentiments emanating from the country, and China is notorious for controlling data concerning similar disasters.
“We didn’t know that hundreds of thousands of lives passed away during the Tangshan earthquake in 1976 until many years after the disaster took place,” sociologist Zheng Yefu said in a commentary last week in the Southern Metropolis News.
The mass amounts of information flowing from China concerning the devastating earthquake are bypassing the government’s traditional controls over information, and maybe it is a sign of more lax policies to come.
By Danny Scuderi

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  • Filed under: International
  • beijing 2008 logoChina will not quell the fears of many over Internet censorship in the coming Beijing Olympics, saying it does not guarantee that it will not censor online coverage of the event.
    The country’s officials had promised complete freedom to the media regarding the coverage of the event, but its strict control of the Internet has many in doubt over the sincerity of such remarks.
    China has been lauding the coming summer games as the “high-tech Olympics,” promising that broadband wireless access will be available throughout the country.
    Still, the government’s strict policing of the Internet troubles many who do not foresee China opening up the Internet pathways for the games.
    “I’ve not got any clear information about which sites will be shut or screened. But to protect the youth there are controls on some unhealthy Web sites,” said Technology Minister Wan Gang.
    The Unites States government has voiced its concern over coverage of the event. “”We would hope that people in China would be able to have access to all forms of information that are out there, including those that are available online,” said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
    He added that unrestricted coverage of the event should be available to “full-time residents of China as well as those who might be visiting for the Olympics.”
    China is home to the fastest-growing online population, but strict Internet regulations prohibit its users to access certain Web sites. Those aimed against the Chinese government and its policies cannot be accessed.
    Most recently, coverage of the protests in Tibet were tightly controlled by the government, as very few news stories featured the same violence and scope of information as that in the international media.
    A symbol of international peace, the 2008 Beijing Olympics will be a symbol of international tension if it decides to censor coverage of the summer games.
    By Danny Scuderi

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    YouTube Censorship in China

    censoredChina has blocked access to YouTube.com after videos of the deadly Tibetan protests appeared on the video Web site.
    The YouTube censorship exemplifies new internet restrictions the Chinese government implemented on January 30, 2008 aimed at controlling video-posting sites. It states that Web sites which “provide Internet video services should insist on serving the people, serve socialism … and abide by the moral code of socialism.”
    The blockage extends the government’s control over information available to its citizens concerning the unrest in Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa over China’s communist rule of the region. Foreign journalists have been denied access to the protests and the domestic CNN feed is blacked out each time it runs a story about it.

    Explanation of Chinese censorship of Tibet broadcasts:

    The Chinese government encourages Internet use for businesses and education but tightly monitors and censors information it deems pornographic or rebellious. Foreign news and human rights Web sites are regularly blocked when they carry subversive information.
    The law requires all Web sites with video programming or uploading capabilities to obtain a permit from the government, but the only sites allowed to do so are state-run. The new YouTube restriction demonstrates the problem of attempting to censor foreign-based video sites which have yet to register.
    State-run video sites 56.com, Youku.com and tudou.com do not have any video of the protests and are operational, but attempts to access YouTube yield a blank page.
    According to Nielson/NetRatings, the U.S. has over 212 million internet users, but experts predict that China will soon have the most users. The new censorship law affects not only the information the Chinese receive, but also the way in which businesses like Google’s YouTube operate in the country.
    With such tight internet restrictions, what we call the World Wide Web might be, in China, referred to as the not-so World Wide Web.
    By Danny Scuderi

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  • Filed under: International
  • demoDEMO held its first international conference in China September 6–8, 2006. Held in Tianjin north of Beijing, the event brought together some 30 innovative hand-picked Chinese companies. The purpose of the semi-annual DEMO conference is simple: over the course of three days, a concentration of promising companies demo emerging technologies to an audience of investors.
    Demonstrations at the China conference included:

    • MobiWallet: uses an RFID chip to turn mobile phones into a contactless, electronic mobile wallet for instant e-ticket and fare payments.
    • Wireless Health Monitoring System (no website yet available): a medical application that makes it possible to remotely monitor and analyze a patient’s health data and send diagnostics and alerts.
    • QuDing.com: A news submission and voting site for Internet users. Chinese adaptation of successful sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, and Bloglines.
    • Hongxiu.com: An atypical website that is already off to a successful start in China. It lets people easily publish their own stories and news on the Internet. Of readers, 70% are professional women—a characteristic that could interest certain advertisers.
    • AreYouHere: This solution presented by ClicMobile makes it possible to create online communities via mobile phones as well as computersmakes it possible to create online communities via mobile phones as well as computers. makes it possible to create online communities via mobile phones as well as computers.

    On his blog, Jake Ludington offers detailed reviews of the most notable companies at the event.

    china_letterAccording to the 18th report published by the China Internet Network Information Center (cnnic.cn), Internet growth in China has again reached a new level.

    As of June 30, 2006, there were 123 million Internet users in in China, up 12 million in six months. Of these, 77 million (more than 60%) have a broadband connection. According to the CNNIC report, there are now 788,400 websites.

    Of China’s 200 million students, 30 million use the Internet on a regular basis—that’s 15.4% of the student population. This percentage jumps to 50% among students pursuing advanced degrees.

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    europe lettersThe European Commission published the results of the fifth European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) on January 12. Brussels believes that, if the current trend continues, the gap between the 25 member states of the European Union and the United States will not narrow. Northern countries—Finland, Sweden, Denmark—scored the best, but Germany and Switzerland also did well.

    Five key aspects of innovation were examined: innovation drivers, knowledge creation, innovation and entrepreneurship, application, and intellectual property. According to the Commission, the EU invests nearly one third less in research than does the United States, a disparity that is increasing rather than decreasing.

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    china_letterDespite constant media attention surrounding the Internet in China, people still know very little about this new Internet frontier. Hardly anyone can tick off the names of dotcoms that are a part of daily life for Chinese Internet users.

    We know all about using MSN Messenger to chat with friends, Amazon.com to buy a book, and eBay to sell a vintage collection of Rolling Stones LPs. Not so in China.

    Exit MSN Messenger. The young (typically urban) Chinese Internet community uses QQ to chat online and goes to Joyo.com (recently acquired by Amazon.com) or DangDang Bookstore Online to by the latest Harry Potter book in Chinese. For online buying and selling, Shanghai and Beijing websurfers log into TaoBao.com, the country’s leading online auction site with over 10 millions users—20 times more than are registered with its competitor eBay China.

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    lorealKamel Ouadi, the new L’Oréal CRM and e‑business director for China, met with L’Atelier BNP Paribas at his new Shanghai office. Ouadi came from Paris in January to implement a new marketing strategy that is already succeeding with eLadies, a site developed in partnership with China’s number-one portal, Sina.com.

    L’Atelier: How is L’Oréal using the Internet to market itself in China?

    Kamel Ouadi: We are primarily experimenting with the tremendously popular portal eLadies launched in April 2002 in partnership with the number-one Chinese portal, Sina, which attracts two million visitors a day and has nine million members. Our approach is mainly service oriented. We provide information on all our product lines and upcoming events.

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