China's War Against the Internet Rages On

In browsing the archives of the same scholarly periodical I referenced before (they have whole Communications tab, it's pretty sweet), I found an article about how the Chinese version of Skype, an application called TOM Skype (that link will only be useful to you if you read Chinese, so I'm not sure why I posted it), was found to contain some of the same wordfilters imposed by the Chinese Government upon ISPs in China. These Skype filters, however, didn't block the use of these words- instead, it took a packet of information from the sender's computer and ISP, sometimes including highly sensitive information like real names, passwords, CC numbers, and bank account numbers, and sent this packet to a server full of similar information. This server full of valuable information was not even secured, although shortly after the study this article was based on was published, it got locked up in a hurry.

Now, this could be two things, to my eyes. Either someone hacked TOM Skype real good for the purpose of stealing identities, which the rather slapdash nature of the entire operation suggests; or, the Chinese government is finding new and even more intrusive/damaging ways to quash their citizens' ability to communicate with the world outside the Chinese borders. I find the second much more compelling for a number of reasons, and I'm going to run with it for the rest of this post.

First, I should probably say that I'm no expert on China, Chinese history/culture, or Chinese/American/International relations, so I may be underestimating the effect of Chinese culture and heritage upon their citizens' mindsets, but all of my experience and acculturation from the United States says that censoring the Internet is like trying to censor the entire rest of the world: it can't be done. People- smart, free-thinking, rebellious people- will know how to get around whatever restrictions you put in fromt of them; hackers have been proving this again and again in the recent history of the United States and Europe.

On the other hand, since the entire remainder of China's media outlets seem to be pretty Authoritarian (or perhaps Not-So-Soviet Totalitarian), and Chinese history has dictated that the masses will think what the leader(s) thinks, at least until a suitably charismatic revolutionary alternative to the previous revolution, now a bloated and corrupt bureaucracy, appears, perhaps this will all blow over. Regardless, the topic of censorship is an intriguing one, and I think there may be some serious potential for work in this area of the field, especially with the advent of the Internet and its many pornographic... er, commercial uses.