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June 16, 2009
China Orders Patches to Planned Web Filter
By EDWARD WONG
BEIJING − A designer of censorship software that the Chinese government requires to be preinstalled on computers sold in China has been ordered to fix potential security breaches in the software, the newspaper China Daily reported Monday. The report was an indication that the government still supports use of the software __[CONNECTOR__ heated debate over it.
The software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, has come under attack by many computer users in China for both political and technical reasons.
Critics say that although the Chinese government insists that the software will be used only to block access to pornography Web sites, the software’s actual use will be to block any site with content deemed politically objectionable, like the Tibet issue or the 1989 Tiananmen killings.
The government says all computers sold in China must have the software installed by July 1.
Early reports had indicated that the government might simply require Green Dam to be included on a CD packaged with new computers, so users would have the option to install it. But it became apparent last week that the government was insisting that all computer makers preinstall the software by July 1. Foreign computer makers learned of the directive just three weeks ago and have been asking the Chinese government to reconsider the rules.
Some computer experts who have studied the software said last week that it was so flawed that it could allow hackers to monitor a user’s Internet activity, steal personal data or plant viruses. One expert, J. Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan, has posted on the Internet a report on Green Dam’s vulnerabilities.
Rather than agreeing to scrap the software altogether, the Chinese government has responded to the technical criticisms by ordering that the potential security breaches be eliminated.
Mr. Halderman said in an interview last week that it had only taken a few hours for him and his students to infiltrate a computer loaded with Green Dam and force it to crash. A skilled hacker could take over the computer to mine personal data or hitch it to other infected machines in a malevolent network known as a botnet, he added.
(Adapted from The New York Times, June 16, 2009)
