Psiphon may knock down the Great Firewall of China.

CANWEST OTTAWA – The Ottawa man who led the team that recently busted “GhostNet,” an international network of cyber espionage, has launched an attack on “the Great Firewall of China.” Rafal Rohozinski, chief executive of Psiphon Inc. and lead investigator in the discovery of GhostNet’s cyber spy servers – most of them based in China – launched a service on Friday that allows people in China and other nations with government censorship of the Internet to get around the firewalls. The service called Psiphon is not the first to try to crash through Internet censorship in countries such as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but it is the first to require no downloads by the user. More significantly, it’s the first to work on mobile browsers, such as those on cellphones.

HOT STUFF!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psiphon

Researchers uncover China cyber spies

Time , AP TORONTO – A cyber spy network based mainly in China has tapped into classified documents from government and private organizations in 103 countries, including the computers of Tibetan exiles, Canadian researchers said Saturday. The work of the Information Warfare Monitor initially focused on allegations of Chinese cyber espionage against the Tibetan community in exile, and eventually led to a much wider network of compromised machines, the Internet-based research group said. “We uncovered real-time evidence of malware that had penetrated Tibetan computer systems, extracting sensitive documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama,” investigator Greg Walton said. The research group said that while its analysis points to China as the main source of the network, it has not conclusively been able to detect the exact identity or motivation of the hackers. The Chinese Embassy in Toronto did not immediately return calls for comment. Students For a Free Tibet activist Bhutila Karpoche said she was not surprised about the possibility that China could be behind the network. “Our computers have been hacked into numerous times over the past 4 to 5 years and especially in the past year,” Karpoche said. She said she often gets e-mails that end up containing viruses that crash the group’s computers. The IWM is composed of researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. The group’s initial findings lead to a 10-month investigation that has been summarized in the report, “Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.” It will be released online Sunday. The researchers detected a cyber espionage network involving over 1,295 compromised computers from the ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan. They also discovered hacked systems in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan. Once the hackers infiltrated the systems, they gained control using malware — software they install on the compromised computers — and sent and received data from them, the researchers said.

China Spying On Internet Use In Hotels

AP
July 29, 2008

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.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., produced a translated version of a document from China’s Public Security Bureau that requires hotels to use the monitoring equipment.

“These hotels are justifiably outraged by this order, which puts them in the awkward position of having to craft pop-up messages explaining to their customers that their Web history, communications, searches and key strokes are being spied on by the Chinese government,” Brownback said at a news conference.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brownback said several international hotel chains confirmed receiving the order from China’s Public Security Bureau. The hotels are in a bind, he said, because they don’t want to comply with the order, but also don’t want to jeopardize their investment of millions of dollars to expand their businesses in China. The hotel chains that forwarded the order to Brownback are declining to reveal their identities for fear of reprisal.

Earlier this year, the U.S. State Department issued a fact sheet warning travelers attending the Olympic games that “they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations” in China.

“All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times,” the agency states.

The Public Security Bureau order threatens that failure to comply could result in financial penalties, suspending access to the Internet or the loss of a license to operate a hotel in China.

“If you were a human rights advocate, if you’re a journalist, you’re in room 1251 of a hotel, anything that you use, sending out over the Internet is monitored in real time by the Chinese Public Security bureau,” Brownback said. “That’s not right. It’s not in the Olympic spirit.”

Brownback and other lawmakers have repeatedly denounced China’s record of human rights abuses and asked President Bush not to attend the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing.

Brownback was introducing a resolution in the Senate on Tuesday that urges China to reverse its actions.

Read Full Article Here

China To Censor Internet During Olympics

AP
July 29, 2008

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.

BBC China has been monitoring and censoring messages sent through the internet service Skype, researchers say.

Citizen Lab, a Canadian research group, says it found a database containing thousands of politically sensitive words which had been blocked by China.

The publically available database also displayed personal data on subscribers.

Skype said it had always been open about the filtering of data by Chinese partners, but that it was concerned by breaches in the security of the site.

Citizen Lab researchers, based at the University of Toronto, said they discovered a huge surveillance system which had picked up and stored messages sent through the online telephone and text messaging service.

The database held more than 150,000 messages which included words such as “democracy” and “Tibet” and phrases relating to the banned spiritual movement, Falun Gong.

“These text messages, along with millions of records containing personal information, are stored on insecure publicly accessible web servers,” said Citizen Lab’s report, entitled “Breaching Trust”.

They said that by using one username, it was possible to identify all the people who had sent messages to or received them from the original user.

The rare footages of Chinese police beating Tibetans

Here’s the video link:

http://tinyurl.com/c7d6t3

or go through China Digital Times where I found it:

http://tinyurl.com/cplt3w

This is definitely a rare video, but it is not a rare occurence.  The Chinese gestapo is brutal as you can see, but this is nothing compared to their torture routines in secret places (so called state secrets protected by so called law).

I think this video can help people feel the the heartlessness of the CCP agents. Please help.

A rare Tibetan critic sues China’s government

AP…Woeser’s willingness to openly confront authorities makes her stand out. Most Tibetans are reluctant to do that, even more so than environmental and human rights activists. If they complain at all, they often do so in hushed tones and under the cloak of anonymity.

“When she first started to write about these things, I think everyone assumed that her position would be impossible to sustain. But she has never faltered. … The risks she took were off the chart,” he said, calling Woeser “a poet who forgot to be afraid.”

Her stance is not without cost: Her books are banned in China, and security agents watch her apartment. At one point, she was confined to house arrest. Authorities shut down three of her blogs.

 

When Woeser sent friends to make inquiries, police told them she posed a danger to state security, the reason often given for keeping dissidents in check.

Woeser dismisses the label.

“I’m an author who writes from home all the time. If I really am posing a threat to society, doesn’t it make the great country of China seem very weak?” she said with a laugh.

I

How does China exert media controls?

The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders ranked China 163 out of 168 countries in its 2007 index of press freedom. China’s constitution affords its citizens freedom of speech and press, but the document contains broad language that says Chinese citizens must defend “the security, honor, and interests of the motherland.” Chinese law includes media regulations with vague language that authorities use to claim stories endanger the country by sharing state secrets. Journalists face harassment and prison terms for violating these rules and revealing classified matter. The government’s monitoring structure promotes an atmosphere of self-censorship; if published materials are deemed dangerous to state security after they appear in the media, the information can then be considered classified and journalists can be prosecuted.

The most powerful monitoring body is the Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department (CPD), which coordinates with GAPP and SARFT to make sure content promotes and remains consistent with party doctrine…Publicizing the CPD guidelines invites punishment,.. as in the case of Shi Tao, a journalist detained in 2004 and serving a ten-year sentence for posting an online summary describing the CPD’s instructions for how to report about the fifteen-year anniversary of events at Tiananmen Square.

This article can provide a very basic level of understanding, but it does not go into all the horrible details.  It has here described how the CCP uses broad language in order to deprive people of their constitutional rights at any given moment, but this is the point that is so crucial.  If the peolpe MUST defend “the security, honor, and interests of the motherland.” If the CCP manages to tie it’s own longevity and reputation to the so called interests of the motherland (which they have), then bam, there you have it, they can now use this disguise to protect themselves, and that’s why no one can criticize the party and anyone who dares speak the truth or call for justice is hit with this club and has no rights under this system of combining brainwashing and tricky language.  That is also why a lot pf Chinese people and the Chinese regime can look you in the face and say, we abide by the Chinese constitution and Chinese people have human rights, it’s because each crime they commit against Chinese people, they have a slippery way of getting around justice to suit the image they want people to perceive.

Exciting new book about China!

OUT OF MAO’S SHADOW

The Struggle for the Soul of a New China

I don’t normally get excited about such books because the campaign of misinformation regarding all sorts of historical events and Chinese phenomenon has been so effective that even Western scholars and Chinese scholars don’t tell the truth.  Westerners because they learn from Chinese, and the Chinese because they are either deceived or not allowed to tell factual accounts.

But this one seems different because it sympathizes with the people who sacrifice their comfort for the sake of following their consciences.

From what I have read which is not much, I am still left with a lot of sadness because people are fearful creatures and most inevitably cannot face what the communist party will dish to them if they really press for truth.  That is why I write about Falun Gong a lot.  It seems these people are willing to press for their consciences beyond the boundaries that other dissidents dare to.  As documented by Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur on Torture, UN, 66% of torture victims in China are Falun Gong practitioners and torture in China is ‘widespread’.

The Last Hero of Tiananmen is a hugely important, heartbreaking and hopeful tale of a man with a conscience for truth, a man who is a true Chinese patriot, not these parrots who think repeating the party line is the glory of all humanity.  The ending is so sad, but it just shows that people need to support one another, we can’t leave it to a few individuals to sacrifice everything for China, otherwise the glory of the new and better China will only belong to them. People stand up!

Battle Lines

Portraits of people seeking, and resisting, change in China’, is a description of the new book from the Washington Post.

A Past Written In Blood

In the New China, the Story of a Defiant Poet’s Last Words Can Finally Be Told, is a bit of the book also from the WP.

The world and its media are playing the dictators’ game

Heroic Chinese rescuers and quake survivors lead the news. But away from our TVs, the Burmese we could save are left to die

This article in The Guardian tries to figure out the reason why we are so focussed on China’s earthquake when just ahead of it there was a terrible cyclone in Burma that endangers the lives of five times as many China, or more.

My perception of the communist party of China is that they will do anything to stay in power, not because they are a decent government.  They have always acted that way, they do what they have to do to not get pitched out by the people, if lying can’t work, they must resort to actually doing some work as government.  But they’re legitimacy is still based on lying to the Chinese people otherwise they would not fear the truth so much.

I still have a hard time believing that a government in power who hates justice and truth, actually cares about people.  I think that the gov’t of Burma wants the people to die, because they have proper sanitation, so they only look forward to less people to bother with. I think the same about the Chinese current party in power.  I think the last thing they care about are human lives.  I think that they see people as tools under them, things to manipulate for power. I hope all the best for Chinese, Burmese and everyone.  

“Support the peaceful uprising in Burma. Boycott Chinese goods!”

Myanmar Buddhist monks gather in the streets in the vicinity of Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar, 24 September 2007, the seventh day of peaceful rebellion against the country’s military regime. Journalists trying to cover the protests in Myanmar have been increasingly affected by government propaganda, censorship and violence, Reporters without Borders and the Burma Media Association said. EPA/- +++(c) dpa – Bildfunk+++

Photo taken from Ko Htike’s blog in the UK 

 

Let’s Not Forget About North Korea

Hi, Tibet is big on the agenda now and that is really great, but what’s with North Korea?
Here is a really nifty presentation on the situation in NK.
The North Korean Human Rights Crisis
The Olympic Torch Relay has passed through South Korea recently and a lot of controversy has followed.
Some fighting broke out among the different groups of spectators and protesters. My impression is that the Chinese ultra nationalists think that pro Human rights means anti China… Thats my impression. So the ultranationalists will make fools of themselves by being against people who want human rights, like the North Koreans and South Koreans who want CCP to stop sending escapees of NK back to NK where they will be killed and tortured, and where they were probably starving. I suppose China is one of or N.K’s only trading partner as well and the CCP is a friend of the communist party in N.K.
I don’t exactly understand how people can be so against basic human rights, how people can endorse lying, accept so much corruption, watch the land be destroyed, treat Tibetans, Falun Gong etc. people as if wanting basic rights is a traitorous crime, support a backward justice system, and all because the middle class has more money… I will have to work harder to understand…
Heres a video about S.Koreans kidnapped by N.Koreans, creepy.
Secret Victims – North Korea
And one about a family who escaped from N. Korea.
Escape from North Korea – North Korea

Zhang Ping fired from magazine for rational look at Tibet

Zhang Ping (or Chen Ping) lost his post as editor of a Chinese magazine because he wasn’t accurately following the party line on Tibet. I think the party line requires people not to use common sense but to simply follow the fervour of indoctrined party-patriotism. Mr.Ping has written a beautiful statement about how he feels working for the party, using his position to spread lies to the people.  

 

From China Rising,

The University of California at Berkeley’s China Media Project translated one of Zhang’s recent blog posts. Titled My Cowardice and Impotence, here is an excerpt:

I am afraid of other people praising me as a brave newspaperman, because I know I am full of fear in my heart. I did write some commentaries on current affairs, and edited some articles that exposed the truth. I lost my job and was threatened for speaking the truth. However, to be honest, these were exceptional cases. They were my miscalculations. In my various media positions in the past decade, what I’ve practiced most is avoiding risk. Self-censorship has become part of my life. It makes me disgusted with myself.

Some of my peers are proud of their censorship skills, and like to show it off to employers. I have similar skills, and I am using them everyday. But I am deeply uncomfortable with it. I feel ashamed about it, just like an executioner knows that he is good at killing.

I could console myself by saying that I am not alone in avoiding risks. There are risks in all professions, and everybody has to know how to control it… However, the media industry is different. I participate in telling lies to the public whenever I cancel a good news story, whenever I delete a sentence of truth, if we regard the media as a public good.

I could also excuse my cowardice by saying that tens of thousands of jobs are at stake if I speak the truth. I should take responsibility for others who rely on the publication for a living… However, I have to admit that I wouldn’t have the courage to speak out, if there were not so many colleagues associated with me, or if I was required to make sacrifices to secure their jobs. How can I use others as my fig leaf and pretend to be noble?

…Compared to the importance of the media to the society, what I’ve done is very limited. I should be ashamed of taking such an important position in this industry and not doing more. I should be more ashamed when I get honors for my work.

Even if I don’t have the courage and capacity to do more than I can do now, I should at least live honestly and conscientiously, and be aware of my cowardice and impotence.

 

According to the China Digital Times, Chinese people have been condemning Mr. Ping as a traitor for his words on media censorship.  A columnist of Beijing Evening News wrote:

“This individual had brought free speech to an appalling or even terrifying degree”, the columnist said.

This falls into the CCP brainwashing that human rights like freedom of speech are frightening and will destroy China, this threat of chaos is very effective at getting people to consent to be lied to.

The controversial article that had him fired (as I understand it) is:  How To Find The Truth About Lhasa? available thanks to Danwei

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for freedom of speech, issued this statement about Zhang’s firing.

Chinese people are also attacking Reporters Without Borders, you can read there statement about that as well. Also, 

Repression of journalists continues with two more arrests

Reporters without Borders has suggested wearing an armband that says Freedom in Chinese characters like the one above. Click here 

It has been suggested by another group that anyone who wants change for China human rights should sport something orange, anything, at Olympics time.  I read that here.

Tibet: Her Pain, My Shame

Here’s something to consider.  I don’t say this girl has all the answers, neither Grace Wang, but both girls have sympathy and rationality and these are true Chinese characteristics.  Neither of them are trying to hurt China or split China.  I think it’s about time that people calm down and understand for real. The article by Tang Danhong is presented here by danwei