China to censor Internet during Games: official

China to censor Internet during Games: official

www.breitbart.com

China will censor the Internet used by foreign media during the Olympics, an organising committee official confirmed Wednesday, reversing a pledge to offer complete media freedom at the games.
"During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the organising committee.

He confirmed, however, that journalists would not be able to access information or websites connected to the Falungong spiritual movement which is banned in China.

Other sites were also unavailable to journalists, he said, without specifying which ones.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I will bet that the Chinese will also try and hack into any computer on the network during the Olympic games. If people are smart, they will not have any sensitive information on their personal computers.

I'm still trying to figure out why the Chinese are restricting access to some internet sites. What do they hope to accomplish?

www.breitbart.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Here is another similar article but I did not want to start a seperate thread because of the similarity.

Senator: China spying on internet use in hotels

Here is a snippet:

WASHINGTON - Foreign-owned hotels in China face the prospect of "severe retaliation" if they refuse to install government software that can spy on Internet use by hotel guests coming to watch the summer Olympic games, a U.S. lawmaker said Tuesday.

Hmm....I wonder what they mean by 'severe retaliation'?

I guess if journalists, athletes or spectators use a satellite link for internet access, they could bypass the Chinese restrictions right? Does anyone know the answer to this question as I am not a internet guru.

Communist China has been censoring the Internet for more than five years. They are just making an announcement so that no one is surprised by it.

Originally posted by HaveYouConsidered?
Communist China has been censoring the Internet for more than five years. They are just making an announcement so that no one is surprised by it.

Of course they censor the internet for their citizens but China made an agreement with the Olympic committee that they would not censor the internet during the games for reporters, athletes etc.
Now at the last minute they are not going to honor that agreement. Sad.

reply to post by WhatTheory


They are restricting internet because it is a free source of information, which is good, and China knows this. They restrict websites that advertise certain ideas and beliefs. China does this so they may control the beliefs of the people, it's a Communist society and China, in general, has been very conservative to change. They don't want a revolution from new ideas that they read on the internet. The banning of texts of new thought has occurred throughout history and not just with China, except now, new ideas are also on the internet and not only books.

As to hacking, I doubt China would try to pull a stunt like that. The point of the Olympics is so China looks appealing to the world. Don't you think it would kind of be against the point if they were caught?

Edit: Grammar

[edit on 30-7-2008 by Neaux]

Originally posted by Neaux
As to hacking, I doubt China would try to pull a stunt like that. The point of the Olympics is so China looks appealing to the world. Don't you think it would kind of be against the point if they were caught?

I don't know. Since they control the network, how would anyone really be able to provide evidence they were hacking into the computers?

Jolly, the Communist Chinese are Indian givers. First saying one thing then do the complete opposite. They also want to censor the foreign press.

Only an idiot would have believed them to start with. These are not the feel good communists like the Russians are. They are the same mindset since over taking the country in 1948. Only now, they have more money to spend for indoor plumbing.

This is just normal actions for the Chinese government.

And guess who provides the Chinese with the technology to sensor and block information from their websites?

Yahoo!, AOL, Google and Skype all provide internal content monitors to the Chinese in order to be able to operate from the Chinese mainland.
www.microsoft.com...

Even Microsoft voluntarily censor their Windows Live Network in China, because according to MS: "continuing to provide Internet services is more beneficial to the Chinese."

As long as big Western corporations back the Chinese and give into their demands to censor their services and websites for Chinese users, than they'll become complacent with Internet censorship and see nothing wrong with it.

Money does talk after all it seems....