Frontline aired a program on the Tiananmen Square uprising this week showing how China blocks internet searches. Photos searches of Tank Man (Google China & Google English) were compared.
Google said this week that it did the right thing in appeasing the Chinese government in order to offer service in the country. The comments were made by CEO Eric Schmidt during a press conference in China to announce a Chinese-language brand name and research center to be located in Beijing.
Yahoo, Google Cisco and Microsoft were mentioned as being complicit in providing information about their users to Chinese authorities. Here’s Video of the Senate Hearing: The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?
Google was heavily criticized in January following the launch of its Chinese language Web site. Searches on the topics of human rights, Tibet, the Dalai Lama, and democracy omitted certain Web sites and redirected to Chinese government URLs. Google also announced that it is going to open a research and development centre in Moscow this year.
Schmidt defended Google’s decision, because without it they could have not properly served the 111 million people now online in the country, he said. China now is the second largest country online in terms of Internet subscribers, behind the United States.
At the end of 2005, there were 393 million cellular users in mainland China. It’s expected to hit 520 million by 2008 and 600 million by 2010.
Monopoly players such as China Unicom, China Netcom, and China Telecom, are now spending hundreds of millions of dollars to complete last mile connectivity using cellular and WiMAX
China Telecom, the nation’s largest fixed-line operator, is looking at ways to block phone calls made over the Internet such as the popular service offered by Skype, according to media reports. China Telecom and its largest rival, China Netcom, do not offer VoIP services.
China Wireless Communications, Inc., headquartered in Denver, CO, has signed a contract with Tianjin University. The company is focusing its efforts on becoming a premier information technology company in China, providing broadband data services, support for Internet access and Voice over IP.
CyberLink demonstrated digital TV playback via a mobile handheld at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei this week and will display its mobile solution in Beijing next week. Based on the DVB-H standard, it supports the playback of audio-video bitstream and Electronic Service Guide (ESG) data.
Of course the United States is not above spying on citizens, either:
Mark Klein, a retired AT&T engineer who is now participating in the case as a witness, has released a statement to the media in which he outlines many of the allegations that are currently under seal. Chief among them is his claim that AT&T installed powerful traffic monitoring equipment in a “secret room” in their San Francisco switching office at the behest of the NSA.
According to Klein, this room contained (among other things) a Narus STA 6400 traffic analyzer into which all of AT&T’s Internet and phone traffic was routed; Klein himself helped wire the splitter box that made this possible. In addition to AT&T’s own traffic, Klein alleges that the company also routed its peering links into the splitter, meaning that any traffic that passed through AT&T’s own network could be scanned.
Futhermore, San Francisco wasn’t the only place such secret rooms were built; Klein claims that AT&T offices in Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego also have them.
AT&T lawyers are now trying to get possession of the EFF documents.
Newsweek and The Baltimore Sun say the NSA spent $1.2 Billion on their Trailblazer datamining initiative, similar to the Total Information Awareness program, with little to show for it.
DailyWireless has more on Dataveillence by the NSA.
