China recently announced a policy that every computer sold must be packaged with specific software that bars it from being used to visit certain Internet sites. This so-called "Green Dam" software ostensibly is aimed at blocking child pornography and other vile sites. In Chinese, "green" and "clean" are interchangeable -- here, the idea being that software is supposed to keep computers clean.
Why should we care what China does as it is a sovereign, Communist, non-democratic country? It shares no version of our First Amendment rights, and does not claim to have a free marketplace of ideas. We can even agree with the Chinese that child pornography is heinous, immoral and should be stopped in any possible way.
But the fear inside and outside of China is that this government mandate endangers human rights and technology in general. Requiring a specific software program on every computer is an invitation for both disaster and for unprecedented control. If this mandate stands, there are three possible outcomes: the software works as promised, it doesn't work, or whether or not it works it will create havoc.
As to whether the Green Dam program works, we are doubtful. For one thing, the government paid two tiny unknown Chinese software companies over $30 million to develop this software. Chinese procurement policy is not as transparent as ours, so competitive bidding and competence may have been sacrificed for kickbacks or favoritism. And one software company is already claiming that its filtering technology was illegally appropriated by the Chinese government and used in Green Dam.
But even if it works on some level, Americans would have to view Green Dam as ethically flawed. Our view of basic human rights is that every individual should have the right to explore the world, through freedom of digital travel. This is not just about child pornography, but more about controlling access to information. We know the Chinese government will use Green Dam to block discussions of Tibet, Taiwan, and freedom. And while we can understand a country's right to not adopt our laws, we struggle with how far any country should be allowed to censor and block its citizens from access to information. Plus, it doesn't seem right to require every computer maker to package and pay for any specific type of software.
But let's assume we can accept a country's sovereign right to require that censorware be packaged with a computer, this type of software will certainly be hacked. Smart programmers can get around almost any block, and the largest country in the world mandating the same software program on every computer is an invitation for hackers.
And whether it is hackers or the Chinese government, the risk is not only censorship, but control or even massive destruction. Imagine if you could control the software put on one billion computers in a country. You could destroy the computers by creating a virus. You could shut them off all at once. You could turn them on and send them to the same landing page. You could turn them into bots whose mission is to connect to the Internet and destroy other computers or even the Internet itself. They could be turned into hacking devices aimed at disrupting the world's financial system, electrical grid, water systems, websites, or other sources of connectivity, finance and commerce. As almost everything is run by computer, with control of millions of computers, it just takes imagination, power and desire to mess up the world on a grand scale.
Computers are powerful tools. When any government demands control of its citizens' computers, the world must take note. I urge the technology community to resist publicly any further such efforts and explain to Beijing that control through mandatory software is unacceptable.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
Follow Gary Shapiro on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GaryShapiro
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There was never a mandate to force installation of this software. According to the original 5/19 MIIT announement, the software is to bundle on hard drive or CD-ROM.
There may have been confusion over the term "preinstall/bundle", but both MIIT and the software maker have clarified this point as early as 6/10, that what is distributed is the setup file, and users are not required to install or run Green Dam (IMHO unfortunately ignored by the media at large, who seem to have opted for sensationalism):
a) http://www.taizhou.gov.cn/art/2009/6/10/art_76_36883.html
据新华社电 昨日，工信部有关负责人说
According to Xinhua wire yesterday [6/09], relevant MIIT leader said
...
这位负责人还表示，“绿坝”产品的有效识别率超过90%。考虑到不同层次用户的实际情况，“绿坝”软件运行环境对计算机配置要求低于目前市场主流产品，***并可由用户自行选择安装与否***，同时对用户上网行为不进行任何监控，也不搜集任何用户信息。
The ***end user can freely choose to install or not*** quote from MIIT offical is emphasized.
b) http://www.hngybz.gov.cn/news2.aspx?hyid=82644
绿坝预装只提供安装文件 用户可决定是否安装 - Green Dam “bundle/preinstall” only provide installation articles, end users decide install or not
工信部要求预装进电脑的只是一个软件安装文件，所以用户可以选择是否把它装进自己的电脑里让他运行 - MIIT asks “bundle/preinstall” on computer is only the installation, so end users can choose wheither to execute it to install on their own computer
c) http://news.qq.com/a/20090610/000087.htm
“工信部：上网过滤软件不监控网民 不强制安装”
MIIT: Online Filtering Sowftware Will Not Monitor Citizen, Will Not Force Installation (quote from software maker on MIIT mandate)