*I'm not necessarily taking this report at face value, but gently degrading a service so that it looks like a tech problem rather than censorship? Man, that's diabolical. Who pays these people? What else do they do every day?
via SANS
TOP OF THE NEWS
–Google Claims Chinese Government is Interfering with Gmail
(March 21, 2011)
Google says that Chinese authorities are interfering with its Gmail
service. Gmail users are reporting difficulty using the webmail service
in that country. Google says the interference appears to have been
designed to make it look like the problems are in Google's own systems,
but the company has conducted thorough checks and found no problems on
its side.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Google-China-Blocking-Gmail-to-Counter-Jasmine-Revolution-577863/
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301361&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All
[Editor's Note (Schultz): One would think that ICANN would be closer
than it currently is to taking some kind of action against China for its
plethora of malicious activity.]
*How 'bout some automatic realtime voice recognition while you're at it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/asia/22china.html?_r=1&ref=world
China Tightens Censorship of Electronic Communications
By SHARON LaFRANIERE and DAVID BARBOZA
Published: March 21, 2011
BEIJING — If anyone wonders whether the Chinese government has tightened its grip on electronic communications since protests began engulfing the Arab world, Shakespeare may prove instructive.
A Beijing entrepreneur, discussing restaurant choices with his fiancée over their cellphones last week, quoted Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The second time he said the word “protest,” her phone cut off.
He spoke English, but another caller, repeating the same phrase on Monday in Chinese over a different phone, was also cut off in midsentence.
A host of evidence over the past several weeks shows that Chinese authorities are more determined than ever to police cellphone calls, electronic messages, e-mail and access to the Internet in order to smother any hint of antigovernment sentiment. In the cat-and-mouse game that characterizes electronic communications here, analysts suggest that the cat is getting bigger, especially since revolts began to ricochet through the Middle East and North Africa, and homegrown efforts to organize protests in China began to circulate on the Internet about a month ago.
“The hard-liners have won the field, and now we are seeing exactly how they want to run the place,” said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing analyst of China’s leadership. “I think the gloves are coming off.”
On Sunday, Google accused the Chinese government of disrupting its Gmail service in the country and making it appear as if technical problems at Google — not government intervention — were to blame....
