China 'Green Dam' enforcement faces hurdles

China's Green Dam-Youth Escort censorship initiative is facing hurdles as some schools and Internet cafes either don't have the software or have uninstalled it.

Initially required for all new PCs when it was introduced in June, the Chinese government revised its mandate in August and effectively lifted the burden on PC makers to package the so-called content-filtering software in computers. However, the highly controversial software is still required to be installed in PCs used in schools and public places, including Internet cafes.

Green Dam is one of many tools the government uses to control Internet content.

Read more of "Green Dam enforcement watered down" at ZDNet Asia.

[Seaspray0]

It will no doubt be as effective as keeping pirated software off the streets. Like that will ever happen.

[magicmaster]

Use your force.

[gefitz]

China could partly get around this problem by requiring hardware manufacturers to include some sort of firmware or chip on computers that would report back to somewhere if the software was not installed. The software could be written to disable this communication when it is running.

That could be circumvented, I'm sure, at some point by those who are really motivated. But at least this would take care of a large hunk of the issue.

[Nataku4ca]

not really... if you know the habit of chinese people...

[jake3373]

So, have they fixed the security bugs yet?????

[Michichael]

Is anyone else wildly amused by the "Is your PC infected? Click here to find out!" malware advert at the bottom of this article? We've had how many articles posted to Cnet about malware posing as anti-malware, and now they're advertising for it on Cnet? Rofl!