Beijing's Abortive Censorship Push

By Paul Mooney

The saga of the "Green Dam," Beijing's most recent censorship initiative, has become a Rorschach test for how one views the development of the Chinese Internet. Facing mounting opposition, the government announced it was temporarily shelving a controversial requirement to install the problem-laden filtering program on every personal computer sold in China just hours before the policy was to go into effect on July 1. Some see this as a victory for freedom of expression; others as a temporary reprieve.

Given the opaque world of Chinese politics, it's not clear whether or not "Green Dam" will reappear in a newer version. So while free-speech advocates who led a chorus of angry voices against the software are celebrating, their joy may prove premature.

The Green Dam program, produced by Jinhui Computer System, was ostensibly aimed at shutting down access to child-pornography Web sites from China. However, experts say it also had dangerous security flaws and an unprecedented ability to censor politically sensitive Web sites, which led to a groundswell of strong opposition from at home and around the world.

Non-Chinese PC manufacturers were at particular risk. "Foreign companies face a problem in that they are being required to ship software that contains known security problems and may infringe on the intellectual property of other companies," said Alex Halderman, co-author of a report on the software published last month by the University of Michigan. "On the one hand, they need to be in compliance with the law, but on the other hand, they face potential lawsuits and higher technical support costs if they do."

According to the MIIT regulations, computers must have the software installed on computer hard drives prior to sale, and every month manufacturers must provide the ministry with a sales report. "The Green Dam Mandate has raised international concern," said Richard Buangan, deputy press spokesman at the United States Embassy in Beijing. "The U.S. Government shares the concerns raised by Chinese citizens and international technology companies regarding the mandate's potential impact on trade and the free flow of information, as well as serious technical issues raised by use of the software."

The biggest immediate problem is the gaps in security, which soon had Chinese calling it "Leaky Dam." According to the report by the University of Michigan, Web sites can make use of vulnerabilities in the software to take control of computers that visit their sites. "This could allow malicious sites to steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet," said the report, which said it discovered serious security vulnerabilities within just 12 hours, adding that these "may be only the tip of the iceberg." The authors said that they were encouraged to see that the Chinese developers had quickly updated the program, rectifying some of the security issues. However, they warned that there were likely still undiscovered problems.

The report's authors advised users who had already installed the program to uninstall it. "Green Dam seems to have been written very quickly and designed with little attention to security," said Mr. Halderman. "As a result, the problems seem to run deep, and it may take many months of additional engineering and testing to make the software reasonably safe." Experts were wary of what would happen immediately after the July 1 deadline. Mathew McDougall, chief executive officer of the Sinotech Group, a digital marketing firm in Beijing, said the installation of the program would have been "a red light for people to hack it or expose its weaknesses." "The potential for trouble is huge," said an American businessman who has been working in China for three decades, but who declined to be named. "It could be a disaster . . . It works from a 'Big Brother' aspect, but doesn't appear to be a good piece of software," he said.

And it's this Big Brother aspect that has many people worried. "One danger of Internet filtering software is that it can be programmed to filter out any list of sites," said Mr. Halderman. "Clearly, the government and Green Dam's developers decided that they wanted it to filter out more than pornography."

The OpenNet Initiative, a joint project by Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and the University of Toronto, said Green Dam "exerts unprecedented controls," adding that the version it tested operating under default settings "is far more intrusive than any other content-control software we have reviewed." The report adds that the software can block access to a wide range of Web sites, including porn, gaming, gay content, religious sites and political themes, while it "actively monitors individual computer behavior." The report also stated that Green Dam also has the ability to shut down applications, a capability that is set off by attempts to access sites on a blacklist that includes terms such as the banned group Falun Gong and the June 4, 1989 massacre. The blacklist can be remotely updated regularly.

The software could result in even more Web sites being blocked by the Chinese government -- some without reason. "The impact will come on Web sites because they may inadvertently get blocked," said Mr. McDougall. "There might be some internal teething problems and sites could be blocked completely." "There are 30,000 Internet police censors," he said. "It will be very easy for them to tick a few boxes, but difficult for them to untick them."

The program's maker Jinhui has insisted that the software can be easily deleted or closed by users. "The current version uninstalls itself completely, but it leaves behind log files of Web sites visited and filtered, as well as images of what's been on the computer screen recently," said Mr. Halderman. "It's possible for users to clean these up themselves, but most people probably will not realize that these files are there."

Ironically, the 41.7 million yuan ($6.1 million) program, which is supposed to detect and filter "flesh-colored images," doesn't seem to do a good job of this; it sometimes filters out cartoon figures such as pigs, while completely missing naked blacks, according to people who have tested the program.

International and domestic opposition to the program was unprecedented, which likely pressured the Chinese government to reconsider its plan. On June 26, the European Union charged China with "unacceptable" Internet censorship. "The aim of this Internet filter, contrary to what Chinese authorities contend, is clearly to censor Internet and limit freedom of expression," the European Commission said in a statement. Dozens of chambers of commerce and industrial associations have also urged China to reconsider its Green Dam policy.

The Obama administration took a strong stance on the issue. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke sent a joint letter to the Chinese ministers of technology and economics on June 24 urging them to reconsider the decision, arguing that the mandate "poses a serious barrier to trade" and may violate World Trade Organization regulations as American companies were only given six weeks to comply. "China is putting companies in an untenable position by requiring them with virtually no public notice to preinstall software that appears to have broad-based censorship implications and network security issues," Mr. Locke stated in a news release.

Domestically Green Dam also provoked ire. Hu Shuli, the editor of the respected Caijing magazine, criticized the plan, saying citizens need to collect information for their daily life and work, and that Chinese should be allowed to filter unwanted information on their own. An online survey by sina.com.cn, China's biggest portal, showed that more than 80% of those responding said they were not willing to use the program. Chinese bloggers posted sexually suggestive cartoon images of "Green Dam Girl" mocking the program. Some Chinese called for a boycott of manufacturers and stores that follow the order to preinstall Green Dam; outspoken artist Ai Weiwei called for a boycott of the entire Internet on July 1.

What was meant to be a protest in Beijing on the evening of July 1 turned into a huge party that night after the news of the delay was announced. Mr. Ai spoke at the party calling the decision a victory for public opinion.

However, not everyone was so sanguine. Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, commented: "The government is unlikely to abandon its policy to control online content and user behavior. Other measures similar to Green Dam will likely re-emerge in more subtle forms." Nevertheless, he acknowledged that "the strong domestic opposition has been crucial in terms of promoting public awareness of censorship and therefore had more lasting impact in terms of putting constraints on the government censorship policy."

On July 1, the official China Daily, quoting an unnamed official of the ministry, confirmed Green Dam would rise again. "The government will definitely carry on the directive on Green Dam," the official said. "It's just a matter of time."

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Mr. Mooney is a free-lance journalist based in Beijing.