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Censorship China

China Cracks Down On Mobile Messaging 58

Posted by samzenpus
from the watch-what-you-say dept.

China Cracks Down On Mobile Messaging

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  • ...why they have not banned text service altogether by now. Or phones because people can do conference calls. C'mon, If they really monitor everything, it's easy to root those guys out instead of having the need to restrict it. Slap the "conspiracy to topple the government" and voila! People will stop doing it very soon.
    • Sure, it would be easy to root out the dissenters... but that costs you a productive citizen each time you do it. If you can prevent them from becoming dissenters in the first place, you come up way ahead.

      • by drinkypoo (153816)


        That's what's so brilliant about state-operated labor camps. You turn productive citizens into productive prisoners. That's so much more efficient than the way we do it here in the USA, where we turn them into hardened criminals and excuses to extract tax money from the citizenry and hand it to the already wealthy.

    • The more you tighten your grip, China, the more citizens will slip through your fingers... or something like that.

      The fact that this is even news, and getting out, is a sign that the times, they are a changin... at least in China. Russia, seems to be going backward however. And the mid-east? Pffft. that never changes one way or the other.
  • We've always been at war with Eastasia"
  • by CaptainDork (3678879) on Thursday August 07, 2014 @07:07PM (#47627079)

    ... because everyone on Facebook has to use their real name and stuff.

  • It's OK they have Chinese Whispers :)
  • by mysidia (191772) on Thursday August 07, 2014 @07:45PM (#47627229)

    The supreme court is bound to overturn it as a flagrant violation of the 1st amendment.


      • by mysidia (191772)

        It was a joke. I was implying that since the US jurisdiction now applies everywhere; for example, claims a right to enforce its own laws on citizens even related to behavior or activities occuring outside the US, the US federal courts have held that search warrants can be issued to seize data overseas, the government attempts to collect income tax on US-based companies worldwide revenue, and foreigners who never set foot in the US have been extradited due to violations of US law.

        That the constitutiona

  • by Anonymous Coward

    It has been clear for a long time that governments want to use the internet for mass scale surveillance(usa, lesser extent many others), control(china, russia, middle east), and generally Orwellian things.

    It is LONG past time to invent dead-simple to use programs and protocols that are end to end encrypted and take control out of the hands of governments and put it back where it belongs: with the people.

    It should not be possible for the NSA to tap all communications, because it should all be strongly encryp

    • by Wycliffe (116160)

      While you're at it, we should go to a mesh network. The internet was originally conceived tob e able to
      withstand a nuclear attack by routing around damage and "finding" the path from point A to point B
      by whatever path possible. Unfortunately we've discovered that it's faster to have internet backbones
      than it is to have to have 50 hops to get to your destination. Encryption might help a little but what we
      really need to do is figure out a way to have a more peer to peer system so there aren't bottlenecks

  • by xdor (1218206)
    What the FCC would look like if it were run by the FAA
  • Does iMessage run afoul of this?

    If the encryption is good (and China doesn't have the pull to get access as the NSA does) then maybe Apple products DO pose a security threat .... to the government.

    • Works just fine between the US and China as it uses SSL over port 443. They haven't blocked it yet, and the connection is stable. If they do block it, it will be based on entire net block ranges and not host names via DNS.

      http://support.apple.com/kb/HT... [apple.com]

  • Before the Internet, Chinese in their villages wondered what was happening in the world. After the Internet, Chinese in their villages looked at their mobile phones and wondered what is happening in the world.




  • I am glad Google failed and I hope any future attempts will also fail. "Users of the instant messaging services will also have to register with their official IDs, and agree to follow relevant laws." Corporations and governments want the same thing. Now why could this be?
  • As long as China continues to maintain an exponential growth in the standard of living.
    People accept that tradeoff: freedom for increased prosperity.
    Where it breaks down is in the eventual slowdown of exponential growth, which WILL occur.
    At that point, the agreement weakens. Why maintain the line if the old promises no longer apply?
    That's when things get dicey, and why the Chinese leadership is so paranoid.
    Unfortunately, cracking down will, long run, just fuel the fire.
