Green Dam Youth Escort
Encyclopedia
Green Dam Youth Escort is content-control software
for Windows developed in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Originally under a directive from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to take effect on 1 July 2009, it was to be mandatory to have either the software pre-installed, or have the setup files on an accompanying compact disc, for all new personal computers sold in mainland China
, including those imported from abroad. Subsequently, this was changed to be voluntary. End-users, however, are not under a mandate to run the software.
As of 30 June 2009, the mandatory pre-installation of the Green Dam software on new computers has been delayed to an undetermined date. However, Asian brands Sony
, Acer, Asus
, BenQ
and Lenovo etc. are shipping the software as was originally ordered.
On 14 August 2009, Li Yizhong, minister of industry and information technology, announced that computer manufacturers and retailers were no longer obliged to ship the software with new computers for home or business use, but that schools, internet cafes and other public use computers would still be required to run the software.
Devoid of state funding since 2009, business behind the software is on the verge of collapsing by July 2010. According to Beijing Times, The project team under Beijing Dazhang, one of the two companies responsible for development and support of the software, have been disbanded with their office shut down; also in a difficult situation, the team under Zhengzhou Jinhui, the other company, are likely to suffer the same fate at any time. The 20 million users of the software will lose technical support and customer service should the project cease operation.
operating systems, the software was developed by Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering Ltd. (郑州金惠计算机系统工程有限公司 – Jinhui) with input from Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy Ltd. (北京大正语言知识处理科技有限公司 -Dazheng). The software, commissioned by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology through open tender worth 41.7 million yuan in May 2008, is at least officially aimed at restricting online pornography
however, it may be used for electronic censorship and surveillance in addition to its stated purpose. Green Dam Youth Escort automatically downloads the latest updates of a list of prohibited sites from an online database, and also collects private user data. Bryan Zhang, the founder of Jinhui, said that users would not be permitted to see the list, but would have the option of unblocking sites and uninstalling the software. Additional search terms can also be blocked at the owner's discretion.
A separate notice on the ministry's website required schools to install the software on every computer in their purview by the end of May. The ministry shortlisted products from two suppliers, Jinhui and Dazheng.
According to the directive, the aim is to "build a healthy and harmonious
online environment that does not poison young people's minds". Qin Gang, spokesman for the foreign ministry, said the software would filter out pornography or violence: "The purpose of this is to effectively manage harmful material for the public and prevent it from being spread," adding that "[t]he Chinese government pushes forward the healthy development of the internet. But it lawfully manages the internet".
In June 2009, state-run Chinese media announced that the installation of the Green Dam Youth Escort would not be compulsory but an optional package.
. Its aim was to build a "green, healthy network environment, to protect the healthy growth of young people".
Trials commenced in Zhengzhou
, Nanjing
, Lanzhou
, and Xi'an
in October 2008 after the ministry negotiated with the software suppliers and 50 web portals to make the software publicly available without charge, and more than 2,000 installations took place. Trials rolled out to 10 more cities, including Chengdu
, Shenyang
, Harbin
, and Qingdao
. The ministry claimed that by December 2008, the software had been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and 3 million times since the end of March 2009. Five leading PC vendors in mainland China, Founder
, Lenovo, Tongfang, Great Wall and HEDY, also participated in trial installations.
, of Harvard's Berkman Center said: "Once you've got government-mandated software installed on each machine, the software has the keys to the kingdom... While the justification may be pitched as protecting children and mostly concerning pornography, once the architecture is set up it can be used for broader purposes, such as the filtering of political ideas." Colin Maclay, another Harvard academic, said that Green Dam creates a log file of all of the pages that the user tries to access. "At the moment it's unclear whether that is reported back, but it could be."
In fact, the current software filter contains about 85% political keywords, and only 15% pornography-related keywords.
advocacy organization, Computer and Communications Industry Association
(CCIA), said the development was "very unfortunate". Ed Black, CCIA president criticised the move as "clearly an escalation of attempts to limit access and the freedom of the internet, [...with] economic and trade as well as cultural and social ramifications." Black said the Chinese were attempting to "not only control their own citizens' access to the internet but to force everybody into being complicit and participate in a level of censorship".
The CCIA is reported to be taking up a test case for American tech companies wishing to present "a united front against censorship" and it is calling on the Obama administration
to intervene with Beijing over the requirement that manufacturers pre-install the software on all new computers.
On 8 June, Microsoft
said that appropriate parental control tools are "an important societal consideration". However, "[i]n this case, we agree with others in industry and around the world that important issues such as freedom of expression, privacy, system reliability and security need to be properly addressed."
In an unusual move, an international group of business associations expressed their concern in a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, urging the government to scrap the Green Dam directive. The letter was signed by the heads of 22 organisations representing international businesses, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the European-American Business Council, the Information Technology Industry Council and other associations from North America, Europe, and Japan.
In moves which the San Francisco Chronicle
suggested were politically motivated by the quest for closer ties, Taiwanese manufacturers Acer, Asus, BenQ announced they were already shipping products with Green Dam as originally ordered. They are joined by Sony and Lenovo.
s. On Sina
and Netease
, over 80% of poll participants said they would not consider or were not interested in using the software; on Tencent
, over 70% of poll participants said it was unnecessary for new computers to be preloaded with filtering software; on Sohu
, over 70% of poll participants said filtering software would not effectively prevent minors from browsing inappropriate websites. A poll conducted by the Southern Metropolis Daily showed similar results.
The New York Times
cited that human rights advocates and internet users in China have been especially critical, saying that while the software is ostensibly aimed at protecting users against pornography on the web, it "is really a thinly concealed attempt by the government to expand censorship".
A report by the OpenNet Initiative
project acknowledged the broad global support for measures to help parents limit exposure of their children to harmful online material, published a detailed report on the technical and political flaws of this software and its implications.
Internet citizens have created a manga
-style Moe anthropomorphism
named 'Green Dam Girl' , similar to the OS-tan
s. Many versions exist, but the common features are that she is dressed in green, wears a river crab
hat, holding a rabbit (the Green Dam mascot) in hand, and armed with a paintbrush to wipe out online filth. She also commonly wears an armband with the word Discipline written on it.
On 11 June 2009, a team released a third-party tool aiming to provide users with options to disable the software, change the master password and perform post-uninstallation clean-up (i.e., removing files and registry
entries left behind by the uninstaller).
article reported that critics feared this new software could be used by the government to enhance the existing internet censorship system. Jinhui's general manager, [Bryan] Zhang Chenmin, rejecting the accusation: "It's a sheer commercial activity, having nothing to do with the government" he said.
A Global Times article on 10 June replied to a media report viewing the software as spyware by quoting a number of officials; Liu Zhengrong
, deputy chief of the Internet Affairs Bureau of the State Council Information Office said: "The software is designed to filter pornography on the Internet and that's the only purpose of it". Qin Gang said the internet had always been open in China and that it was the government's will to prevent the spread of harmful information in accordance with the law. The report mentioned that the MIIT invested 41.7 million yuan ($6.1 million) in the software and is "the latest step taken by the government to clamp down on young people accessing porn and violent contents". Zhang said: "Our software is simply not capable of spying on Internet users, it is only a filter", and that the Wall Street Journal had "falsely claimed that our software can be used as spyware without having a clear understanding of the product".
On 10 June, amidst massive criticism circling within the internet about the software and the MIIT's directive, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the agency responsible for censorship, issued an instruction attributed to "central leaders" requiring the Chinese media to stop publishing questioning or critical opinions. Reports in defense of the official stand appeared subsequently, with a commentary by the state-run Xinhua news agency saying "support largely stems from end users, opposing opinions primarily come from a minority of media outlets and businesses". The instruction also required online forums to block and remove "offensive speech evolved from the topic" promptly.
In response to the "public concern, anger and protest" triggered by the government edict, China Daily
put forward the case for free choice, saying: "Respect for an individual's right to choice is an important indicator of a free society, depriving them of which is gross transgression." On 15 June, an official of the Department of Software Service under the MIIT downplayed the compulsory aspect of the software: "The PC makers only need to save the setup files of the program on the hard drives of the computers, or provide CD-ROMs containing the program with their PC packages" he said. Users will have the final say on whether or not to install the software, he continued, "so it is misleading to say the government compels PC users to use the software ... The government's role is limited to having the software developed and providing it free".
Further critical articles appeared in both the state-run Peoples' Daily and the relatively liberal China Youth Daily
, a paper run by the China Youth League of which Chinese President Hu Jintao was a member and current patron. This leads to the belief that support for the MIIT's directive was divided within the Chinese government itself.
On the eve of the introduction of the mandatory pre-installation of the Green Dam software on new computers, it was postponed. The MIIT said it would "keep on soliciting opinions to perfect the pre-installation plan." Ministry sources confirmed that the software had been patched, and that the government procurement procedure of the software "had complied with China's Government Procurement Law, which was open, fair, transparent, non-exclusive, [...] under strict supervision" and "in line with regulations of the World Trade Organization"
. However, according to a Southern Weekly article, the software is incapable of recognizing pictures of nudity featuring black- or red-skinned characters but sensitive enough to images with large patches of yellow that it censors promotional images of the film Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
. The article also cited an expert saying that the software's misrecognition of "inappropriate contents" in applications including Microsoft Word
can lead it to forcefully close those applications without notifying the user, and so cause data losses. On 21 June 2009, Ming Pao
reported testing showed censorship to pictures of Chinese political leaders stating those are pornography.
On 11 June 2009, a BBC News
article reported that potential faults in the software could lead to a large-scale disaster. The report included comments by Isaac Mao
, who said that there were "a series of software flaws", including the unencrypted communications between the software and the company's servers, which could allow hackers access to people's private data or place malicious script on machines on the network to "affect [a] large scale disaster". The software runs only on Microsoft Windows
x86, so Microsoft Windows
x86-64
, Mac OS X
, GNU/Linux and users of other operating systems are ignored. Even on Microsoft Windows, the software is known to interfere with Internet Explorer
and Google Chrome
, and is incompatible with Mozilla Firefox
.
Also on 11 June 2009, a Netease
article reported that the master password of the software can be easily cracked. The software stores the MD5
checksum
of the password in a text file
disguised as a DLL
(
s as the software being crackable by "elementary school students".
Researchers from University of Michigan
found the uninstaller "appears to effectively remove Green Dam from the computer."
While some sources states that part of the software (e.g. executables loaded on startup) cannot be removed by its own uninstaller, but most of them (either blogs or media reports) were removed according to the PRC government's request.
published an analysis of Green Dam Youth Escort. They located various security vulnerabilities
that can allow "malicious sites to steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet
" and "the software makers or others to install malicious code during the update process". They recommended that users uninstall the software immediately for protection. Jinhui's general manager, [Bryan] Zhang Chenmin attacked the Wolchok et al. report as irresponsible action and breach of his company's copyright, and said that Jinhui had been ordered to patch the weaknesses.
Wolchok et al. indicated the existence of buffer overflow
vulnerabilities which they ascribed to programming errors. Buffer overflow may occur when the software performs URL
filtering or updates its blacklist filter files due to the use of fixed-length buffers, and can corrupt the execution stack
and potentially allow execution of malicious code. Furthermore, the feature of automatic filter update opens door to the computer being remotely controlled by the software's makers and possibly third parties who manage to impersonate the update server because the updates are delivered via unencrypted HTTP
.
The report included an example page that exploits the buffer overflow vulnerability to crash the software. On 12 June 2009, an exploit that takes advantage of the same defect to practically deploy shellcode
was published on the website milw0rm.com. The author of the exploit claimed that the exploit is able to bypass the DEP
and ASLR
protection mechanisms on Windows Vista
.
references blacklists with download URLs at CyberSitter's website. They also discovered in the software a news bulletin published by CyberSitter in 2004, whose inclusion was conjectured by them to be accidental. A post on the Chinese IT website Solidot published details of the taken files and claimed that the files were outdated.
Both the Wolchok et al. report and a technical analysis released on Wikileaks
indicated that software contains code libraries and a configuration file from the BSD-licensed
computer vision
library OpenCV
. The Wikileaks document said the software violated the BSD license.
said that if the computers are only sold in China it would not be a violation of U.S. copyright and the issue "would have to be resolved in a Chinese court under Chinese law". Solid Oak's Mr Milburn was reported by BBC News as saying that he is not sure legal action will be worth the effort, but would also file a complaint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
's Computer Crime Task Force.
Hewlett-Packard and Dell were sent cease and desist
letters by Solid Oak Software, asking them to respond by 24 June, having determined "without a doubt that Green Dam is indeed pirated, and using 100 percent of our code".
In January 2010, Cybersitter filed a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the PRC government and Jinhui Computer System Engineering charging that Green Dam Youth's developers had stolen more than 5,000 lines of code from Cybersitter.
In December 2010, a California court denied a motion to have the suit dropped.
The motion was filed by Sony
, Acer, BenQ and Asustek, who were named as defendants in a list that also includes Chinese PC makers Lenovo and Haier
.
According to the same addendum, an update was released on 12 June 2009 to reconfigure the software's filtering blacklists files, which modifies one blacklist and disables the rest. However, files taken from CyberSitter continue to be present on the computer even after the update, and are still used in a pre-update version of the software available from its makers' website. Another update was released on 17 June 2009 to include OpenCV's BSD license into the software's help file to address the license violation issue.
The Beijing Times reported that Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy had closed the office for the Green Dam project and up to 30 IT engineers were made redundant, and that co-developer Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering, would soon run into financial difficulties through lack of funding. However, Dazheng said it had been forced to down-size (and not shut) the Green Dam unit due to financial constraints.
Dazheng's general manager said his company received 19.9 million yuan in the first year and had not received payment since, and that its commitment to providing support and updates for the product was costing 7 million yuan annually. Critics said the lack of transparency in the funding cut cast the Ministry in a bad light. Other commentators, whilst noting no change in the government's policy towards policing the Internet, said the de facto abandonment of the project was an admission of error.
Content-control software
Content-control software, also known as censorware or web filtering software, is a term for software designed and optimized for controlling what content is permitted to a reader, especially when it is used to restrict material delivered over the Web...
for Windows developed in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Originally under a directive from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to take effect on 1 July 2009, it was to be mandatory to have either the software pre-installed, or have the setup files on an accompanying compact disc, for all new personal computers sold in mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, including those imported from abroad. Subsequently, this was changed to be voluntary. End-users, however, are not under a mandate to run the software.
As of 30 June 2009, the mandatory pre-installation of the Green Dam software on new computers has been delayed to an undetermined date. However, Asian brands Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, Acer, Asus
ASUS
ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated is a multinational computer technology and consumer electronics product manufacturer headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Its product range includes motherboards, desktops, laptops, monitors, tablet PCs, servers and mobile phones...
, BenQ
BenQ
BenQ Corporation is a Taiwanese multi-national company that sells and markets consumer electronics, computing and communications devices under the "BenQ" brand name, which stands for the company slogan Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to life .- Company :BenQ sells and markets technology products,...
and Lenovo etc. are shipping the software as was originally ordered.
On 14 August 2009, Li Yizhong, minister of industry and information technology, announced that computer manufacturers and retailers were no longer obliged to ship the software with new computers for home or business use, but that schools, internet cafes and other public use computers would still be required to run the software.
Devoid of state funding since 2009, business behind the software is on the verge of collapsing by July 2010. According to Beijing Times, The project team under Beijing Dazhang, one of the two companies responsible for development and support of the software, have been disbanded with their office shut down; also in a difficult situation, the team under Zhengzhou Jinhui, the other company, are likely to suffer the same fate at any time. The 20 million users of the software will lose technical support and customer service should the project cease operation.
Functions
Designed to work with Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating systems, the software was developed by Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering Ltd. (郑州金惠计算机系统工程有限公司 – Jinhui) with input from Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy Ltd. (北京大正语言知识处理科技有限公司 -Dazheng). The software, commissioned by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology through open tender worth 41.7 million yuan in May 2008, is at least officially aimed at restricting online pornography
Internet pornography
Internet pornography is pornography that is distributed by means of various sectors of the Internet, primarily via websites, peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups...
however, it may be used for electronic censorship and surveillance in addition to its stated purpose. Green Dam Youth Escort automatically downloads the latest updates of a list of prohibited sites from an online database, and also collects private user data. Bryan Zhang, the founder of Jinhui, said that users would not be permitted to see the list, but would have the option of unblocking sites and uninstalling the software. Additional search terms can also be blocked at the owner's discretion.
Scope
A notice issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on 19 May stated that, as of 1 July 2009, manufacturers must ship machines to be sold in China with the software preloaded—either pre-installed or enclosed on a compact disc, and that manufacturers are required to report the number of machines shipped with the software to the government.A separate notice on the ministry's website required schools to install the software on every computer in their purview by the end of May. The ministry shortlisted products from two suppliers, Jinhui and Dazheng.
According to the directive, the aim is to "build a healthy and harmonious
Harmonious society
The construction of a Harmonious Society is a socio-economic vision that is said to be the ultimate end result of Chinese leader Hu Jintao's signature ideology of the Scientific Development Concept. It serves as the ultimate goal for the ruling Communist Party of China along with Xiaokang society,...
online environment that does not poison young people's minds". Qin Gang, spokesman for the foreign ministry, said the software would filter out pornography or violence: "The purpose of this is to effectively manage harmful material for the public and prevent it from being spread," adding that "[t]he Chinese government pushes forward the healthy development of the internet. But it lawfully manages the internet".
In June 2009, state-run Chinese media announced that the installation of the Green Dam Youth Escort would not be compulsory but an optional package.
Trials
In 2008, under instructions from political leaders, the MIIT implemented a "community-oriented green open Internet filtering software project" with the support of the Central Civilisation Office and the Ministry of FinanceMinistry of Finance of the People's Republic of China
The Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China is the national executive agency of the Central People's Government which administers macroeconomic policies and the national annual budget. It also handles fiscal policy, economic regulations and government expenditure for the state.The...
. Its aim was to build a "green, healthy network environment, to protect the healthy growth of young people".
Trials commenced in Zhengzhou
Zhengzhou
Zhengzhou , is the capital and largest city of Henan province in north-central China. A prefecture-level city, it also serves as the political, economic, technological, and educational centre of the province, as well as a major transportation hub for Central China...
, Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, Lanzhou
Lanzhou
Lanzhou is the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. A prefecture-level city, it is a key regional transportation hub, allowing areas further west to maintain railroad connections to the eastern half of the country....
, and Xi'an
Xi'an
Xi'an is the capital of the Shaanxi province, and a sub-provincial city in the People's Republic of China. One of the oldest cities in China, with more than 3,100 years of history, the city was known as Chang'an before the Ming Dynasty...
in October 2008 after the ministry negotiated with the software suppliers and 50 web portals to make the software publicly available without charge, and more than 2,000 installations took place. Trials rolled out to 10 more cities, including Chengdu
Chengdu
Chengdu , formerly transliterated Chengtu, is the capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China. It holds sub-provincial administrative status...
, Shenyang
Shenyang
Shenyang , or Mukden , is the capital and largest city of Liaoning Province in Northeast China. Currently holding sub-provincial administrative status, the city was once known as Shengjing or Fengtianfu...
, Harbin
Harbin
Harbin ; Manchu language: , Harbin; Russian: Харби́н Kharbin ), is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China, lying on the southern bank of the Songhua River...
, and Qingdao
Qingdao
' also known in the West by its postal map spelling Tsingtao, is a major city with a population of over 8.715 million in eastern Shandong province, Eastern China. Its built up area, made of 7 urban districts plus Jimo city, is home to about 4,346,000 inhabitants in 2010.It borders Yantai to the...
. The ministry claimed that by December 2008, the software had been downloaded more than 100,000 times, and 3 million times since the end of March 2009. Five leading PC vendors in mainland China, Founder
Founder Technology
Founder Technology Group Corporation , a subsidiary of Founder Group from Peking University, is an information technology state-owned enterprise in Shanghai, China...
, Lenovo, Tongfang, Great Wall and HEDY, also participated in trial installations.
Censorship concerns
Professor Jonathan ZittrainJonathan Zittrain
Jonathan L. Zittrain is a US professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a faculty co-director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society...
, of Harvard's Berkman Center said: "Once you've got government-mandated software installed on each machine, the software has the keys to the kingdom... While the justification may be pitched as protecting children and mostly concerning pornography, once the architecture is set up it can be used for broader purposes, such as the filtering of political ideas." Colin Maclay, another Harvard academic, said that Green Dam creates a log file of all of the pages that the user tries to access. "At the moment it's unclear whether that is reported back, but it could be."
In fact, the current software filter contains about 85% political keywords, and only 15% pornography-related keywords.
Computer industry
The computer industryComputer industry
Computer industry is a collective term used to describe the whole range of businesses involved in developing computer software, designing computer hardware and computer networking infrastructures, the manufacture of computer components and the provision of information technology services.-See...
advocacy organization, Computer and Communications Industry Association
Computer and Communications Industry Association
Computer & Communication Industry Association is an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. which represents a diverse member base in the computer, Internet, information technology, and telecommunications industries...
(CCIA), said the development was "very unfortunate". Ed Black, CCIA president criticised the move as "clearly an escalation of attempts to limit access and the freedom of the internet, [...with] economic and trade as well as cultural and social ramifications." Black said the Chinese were attempting to "not only control their own citizens' access to the internet but to force everybody into being complicit and participate in a level of censorship".
The CCIA is reported to be taking up a test case for American tech companies wishing to present "a united front against censorship" and it is calling on the Obama administration
Presidency of Barack Obama
The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009 when he became the 44th President of the United States. Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election...
to intervene with Beijing over the requirement that manufacturers pre-install the software on all new computers.
On 8 June, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
said that appropriate parental control tools are "an important societal consideration". However, "[i]n this case, we agree with others in industry and around the world that important issues such as freedom of expression, privacy, system reliability and security need to be properly addressed."
In an unusual move, an international group of business associations expressed their concern in a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, urging the government to scrap the Green Dam directive. The letter was signed by the heads of 22 organisations representing international businesses, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the European-American Business Council, the Information Technology Industry Council and other associations from North America, Europe, and Japan.
In moves which the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
suggested were politically motivated by the quest for closer ties, Taiwanese manufacturers Acer, Asus, BenQ announced they were already shipping products with Green Dam as originally ordered. They are joined by Sony and Lenovo.
Public
Online polls conducted by leading Chinese web portals revealed poor acceptance of the software by netizenNetizen
The term Netizen is a portmanteau of the English words internet and citizen. It is defined as an entity or person actively involved in online communities and a user of the internet, especially an avid one. The term can also imply an interest in improving the internet, especially in regard to open...
s. On Sina
Sina.com
SINA is an online media company for China and Chinese communities around the world. SINA operates four major business lines: Sina Weibo, SINA Mobile, SINA Online, and SINA.net. SINA has over 100 million registered users worldwide...
and Netease
NetEase
NetEase is a Chinese internet company that operates 163.com, a popular web portal which received over 546 million page views in June of 2005. The company has grown rapidly since its founding in June 1997, thanks in part to its investment in search engine technology and massively multiplayer...
, over 80% of poll participants said they would not consider or were not interested in using the software; on Tencent
Tencent QQ
Tencent QQ, generally referred to as QQ, is the most popular free instant messaging computer program in mainland China. As of July 11, 2011, the active QQ users accounts for QQ IM totaled 812.3 million, possibly making it the world's second largest online community. The number of simultaneous...
, over 70% of poll participants said it was unnecessary for new computers to be preloaded with filtering software; on Sohu
Sohu
Sohu.com, Inc. is a search engine company headquartered in the Sohu.com Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. This company and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine, on-line multiplayer gaming and other services. For the fiscal year ended December...
, over 70% of poll participants said filtering software would not effectively prevent minors from browsing inappropriate websites. A poll conducted by the Southern Metropolis Daily showed similar results.
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
cited that human rights advocates and internet users in China have been especially critical, saying that while the software is ostensibly aimed at protecting users against pornography on the web, it "is really a thinly concealed attempt by the government to expand censorship".
A report by the OpenNet Initiative
OpenNet Initiative
The OpenNet Initiative is a joint project whose goal is to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employs a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigators, to determine the extent and nature of government-run...
project acknowledged the broad global support for measures to help parents limit exposure of their children to harmful online material, published a detailed report on the technical and political flaws of this software and its implications.
Internet citizens have created a manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
-style Moe anthropomorphism
Moé anthropomorphism
is a form of anthropomorphism where moe qualities are given to non-human beings, objects, concepts, or phenomena. In addition to moe features, moe anthropomorphisms are also characterized by their accessories, which serve to emphasize their original forms before anthropomorphosis...
named 'Green Dam Girl' , similar to the OS-tan
OS-tan
The OS-tan is an Internet phenomenon or meme that originated within the Japanese Futaba Channel. The OS-tan are the moe anthropomorphism/personification of several operating systems by various amateur Japanese artists...
s. Many versions exist, but the common features are that she is dressed in green, wears a river crab
River crab (Internet slang)
River crab and Harmonious/Harmonize/Harmonization are Internet slangs created by Chinese netizens in reference to Internet censorship or the other censorship of China...
hat, holding a rabbit (the Green Dam mascot) in hand, and armed with a paintbrush to wipe out online filth. She also commonly wears an armband with the word Discipline written on it.
On 11 June 2009, a team released a third-party tool aiming to provide users with options to disable the software, change the master password and perform post-uninstallation clean-up (i.e., removing files and registry
Windows registry
The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores configuration settings and options on Microsoft Windows operating systems. It contains settings for low-level operating system components as well as the applications running on the platform: the kernel, device drivers, services, SAM, user...
entries left behind by the uninstaller).
Government and manufacturer
A BBC NewsBBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
article reported that critics feared this new software could be used by the government to enhance the existing internet censorship system. Jinhui's general manager, [Bryan] Zhang Chenmin, rejecting the accusation: "It's a sheer commercial activity, having nothing to do with the government" he said.
A Global Times article on 10 June replied to a media report viewing the software as spyware by quoting a number of officials; Liu Zhengrong
Liu Zhengrong
Liu Zhengrong is the deputy chief of the Internet Affairs Bureau of the People's Republic of China.-References:...
, deputy chief of the Internet Affairs Bureau of the State Council Information Office said: "The software is designed to filter pornography on the Internet and that's the only purpose of it". Qin Gang said the internet had always been open in China and that it was the government's will to prevent the spread of harmful information in accordance with the law. The report mentioned that the MIIT invested 41.7 million yuan ($6.1 million) in the software and is "the latest step taken by the government to clamp down on young people accessing porn and violent contents". Zhang said: "Our software is simply not capable of spying on Internet users, it is only a filter", and that the Wall Street Journal had "falsely claimed that our software can be used as spyware without having a clear understanding of the product".
On 10 June, amidst massive criticism circling within the internet about the software and the MIIT's directive, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the agency responsible for censorship, issued an instruction attributed to "central leaders" requiring the Chinese media to stop publishing questioning or critical opinions. Reports in defense of the official stand appeared subsequently, with a commentary by the state-run Xinhua news agency saying "support largely stems from end users, opposing opinions primarily come from a minority of media outlets and businesses". The instruction also required online forums to block and remove "offensive speech evolved from the topic" promptly.
In response to the "public concern, anger and protest" triggered by the government edict, China Daily
China Daily
The China Daily is an English language daily newspaper published in the People's Republic of China.- Overview :China Daily was established in June 1981 and has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in the country...
put forward the case for free choice, saying: "Respect for an individual's right to choice is an important indicator of a free society, depriving them of which is gross transgression." On 15 June, an official of the Department of Software Service under the MIIT downplayed the compulsory aspect of the software: "The PC makers only need to save the setup files of the program on the hard drives of the computers, or provide CD-ROMs containing the program with their PC packages" he said. Users will have the final say on whether or not to install the software, he continued, "so it is misleading to say the government compels PC users to use the software ... The government's role is limited to having the software developed and providing it free".
Further critical articles appeared in both the state-run Peoples' Daily and the relatively liberal China Youth Daily
China Youth Daily
The China Youth Daily is the official newspaper of Communist Youth League of China , and is a popular official daily newspaper and the first independently operated central government news media portal in the People's Republic of China.In 1980s it was regarded as the best newspaper in mainland...
, a paper run by the China Youth League of which Chinese President Hu Jintao was a member and current patron. This leads to the belief that support for the MIIT's directive was divided within the Chinese government itself.
On the eve of the introduction of the mandatory pre-installation of the Green Dam software on new computers, it was postponed. The MIIT said it would "keep on soliciting opinions to perfect the pre-installation plan." Ministry sources confirmed that the software had been patched, and that the government procurement procedure of the software "had complied with China's Government Procurement Law, which was open, fair, transparent, non-exclusive, [...] under strict supervision" and "in line with regulations of the World Trade Organization"
US Government
On meeting with officials of the MIIT and the ministry of commerce about Green Dam, American diplomats in China issued a statement:Functional defects
Jinhui claimed that Green Dam recognizes pornographic images by analyzing skin-coloured regions, complemented by human face recognitionFacial recognition system
A facial recognition system is a computer application for automatically identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame from a video source...
. However, according to a Southern Weekly article, the software is incapable of recognizing pictures of nudity featuring black- or red-skinned characters but sensitive enough to images with large patches of yellow that it censors promotional images of the film Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties is the 2006 sequel to 2004's live-action feature film Garfield: The Movie...
. The article also cited an expert saying that the software's misrecognition of "inappropriate contents" in applications including Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
can lead it to forcefully close those applications without notifying the user, and so cause data losses. On 21 June 2009, Ming Pao
Ming Pao
Ming Pao is a Chinese language newspaper published by Ming Pao Group in Hong Kong. In the 1990s, Ming Pao established four overseas branches in North America, each provides independent reporting on local news and collect local advertisements. Currently, only the two Canadian editions remain: Ming...
reported testing showed censorship to pictures of Chinese political leaders stating those are pornography.
On 11 June 2009, a BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
article reported that potential faults in the software could lead to a large-scale disaster. The report included comments by Isaac Mao
Isaac Mao
Isaac Mao is a venture capitalist, software architect, and student researcher from the People's Republic of China, known for co-founding of CNBlog.org and for his research in social learning...
, who said that there were "a series of software flaws", including the unencrypted communications between the software and the company's servers, which could allow hackers access to people's private data or place malicious script on machines on the network to "affect [a] large scale disaster". The software runs only on Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
x86, so Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
x86-64
X86-64
x86-64 is an extension of the x86 instruction set. It supports vastly larger virtual and physical address spaces than are possible on x86, thereby allowing programmers to conveniently work with much larger data sets. x86-64 also provides 64-bit general purpose registers and numerous other...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, GNU/Linux and users of other operating systems are ignored. Even on Microsoft Windows, the software is known to interfere with Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
and Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
, and is incompatible with Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
.
Also on 11 June 2009, a Netease
NetEase
NetEase is a Chinese internet company that operates 163.com, a popular web portal which received over 546 million page views in June of 2005. The company has grown rapidly since its founding in June 1997, thanks in part to its investment in search engine technology and massively multiplayer...
article reported that the master password of the software can be easily cracked. The software stores the MD5
MD5
The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm is a widely used cryptographic hash function that produces a 128-bit hash value. Specified in RFC 1321, MD5 has been employed in a wide variety of security applications, and is also commonly used to check data integrity...
checksum
Checksum
A checksum or hash sum is a fixed-size datum computed from an arbitrary block of digital data for the purpose of detecting accidental errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. The integrity of the data can be checked at any later time by recomputing the checksum and...
of the password in a text file
Text file
A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a computer file system...
disguised as a DLL
Dynamic-link library
Dynamic-link library , or DLL, is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems...
(
C:\Windows\System32\kwpwf.dll), thus the password can be arbitrarily set by changing the contents of the file. This was ridiculed by some netizenNetizen
The term Netizen is a portmanteau of the English words internet and citizen. It is defined as an entity or person actively involved in online communities and a user of the internet, especially an avid one. The term can also imply an interest in improving the internet, especially in regard to open...
s as the software being crackable by "elementary school students".
Researchers from University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
found the uninstaller "appears to effectively remove Green Dam from the computer."
While some sources states that part of the software (e.g. executables loaded on startup) cannot be removed by its own uninstaller, but most of them (either blogs or media reports) were removed according to the PRC government's request.
Security vulnerabilities
On 11 June 2009, Scott Wolchok, Randy Yao, and J. Alex Halderman from the University of MichiganUniversity of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
published an analysis of Green Dam Youth Escort. They located various security vulnerabilities
Vulnerability (computing)
In computer security, a vulnerability is a weakness which allows an attacker to reduce a system's information assurance.Vulnerability is the intersection of three elements: a system susceptibility or flaw, attacker access to the flaw, and attacker capability to exploit the flaw...
that can allow "malicious sites to steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet
Botnet
A botnet is a collection of compromised computers connected to the Internet. Termed "bots," they are generally used for malicious purposes. When a computer becomes compromised, it becomes a part of a botnet...
" and "the software makers or others to install malicious code during the update process". They recommended that users uninstall the software immediately for protection. Jinhui's general manager, [Bryan] Zhang Chenmin attacked the Wolchok et al. report as irresponsible action and breach of his company's copyright, and said that Jinhui had been ordered to patch the weaknesses.
Wolchok et al. indicated the existence of buffer overflow
Buffer overflow
In computer security and programming, a buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is an anomaly where a program, while writing data to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory. This is a special case of violation of memory safety....
vulnerabilities which they ascribed to programming errors. Buffer overflow may occur when the software performs URL
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
filtering or updates its blacklist filter files due to the use of fixed-length buffers, and can corrupt the execution stack
Call stack
In computer science, a call stack is a stack data structure that stores information about the active subroutines of a computer program. This kind of stack is also known as an execution stack, control stack, run-time stack, or machine stack, and is often shortened to just "the stack"...
and potentially allow execution of malicious code. Furthermore, the feature of automatic filter update opens door to the computer being remotely controlled by the software's makers and possibly third parties who manage to impersonate the update server because the updates are delivered via unencrypted HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a networking protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web....
.
The report included an example page that exploits the buffer overflow vulnerability to crash the software. On 12 June 2009, an exploit that takes advantage of the same defect to practically deploy shellcode
Shellcode
In computer security, a shellcode is a small piece of code used as the payload in the exploitation of a software vulnerability. It is called "shellcode" because it typically starts a command shell from which the attacker can control the compromised machine. Shellcode is commonly written in...
was published on the website milw0rm.com. The author of the exploit claimed that the exploit is able to bypass the DEP
Data Execution Prevention
Data Execution Prevention is a security feature included in modern operating systems.It is known to be available in Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems and is intended to prevent an application or service from executing code from a non-executable memory region. This helps...
and ASLR
Address space layout randomization
Address space layout randomization is a computer security method which involves randomly arranging the positions of key data areas, usually including the base of the executable and position of libraries, heap, and stack, in a process's address space.- Benefits :Address space randomization hinders...
protection mechanisms on Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
.
Alleged software plagiarism and license violation
In addition to security vulnerabilities, Wolchok, Yao and Halderman also found that a number of blacklist files used by Green Dam Youth Escort were taken from the censorship program CyberSitter, from Solid Oak Software Inc. The decrypted configuration fileConfiguration file
In computing, configuration files, or config files configure the initial settings for some computer programs. They are used for user applications, server processes and operating system settings. The files are often written in ASCII and line-oriented, with lines terminated by a newline or carriage...
references blacklists with download URLs at CyberSitter's website. They also discovered in the software a news bulletin published by CyberSitter in 2004, whose inclusion was conjectured by them to be accidental. A post on the Chinese IT website Solidot published details of the taken files and claimed that the files were outdated.
Both the Wolchok et al. report and a technical analysis released on Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
indicated that software contains code libraries and a configuration file from the BSD-licensed
BSD licenses
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses. The original license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix-like operating system after which it is named....
computer vision
Computer vision
Computer vision is a field that includes methods for acquiring, processing, analysing, and understanding images and, in general, high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions...
library OpenCV
OpenCV
OpenCV is a library of programming functions mainly aimed at real time computer vision, developed by Intel and now supported by Willow Garage. It is free for use under the open source BSD license. The library is cross-platform. It focuses mainly on real-time image processing...
. The Wikileaks document said the software violated the BSD license.
U.S. lawsuit
According to The Wall Street Journal, Solid Oak, which had been apprised of the infringement, announced it would file injunctions on US manufacturers to stop them shipping machines with Green Dam. The report included a response by Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co. denying that they stole anything, quoting Bryan Zhang as saying "That's impossible". Internet lawyer Jonathan ZittrainJonathan Zittrain
Jonathan L. Zittrain is a US professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a faculty co-director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society...
said that if the computers are only sold in China it would not be a violation of U.S. copyright and the issue "would have to be resolved in a Chinese court under Chinese law". Solid Oak's Mr Milburn was reported by BBC News as saying that he is not sure legal action will be worth the effort, but would also file a complaint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
's Computer Crime Task Force.
Hewlett-Packard and Dell were sent cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letters by Solid Oak Software, asking them to respond by 24 June, having determined "without a doubt that Green Dam is indeed pirated, and using 100 percent of our code".
In January 2010, Cybersitter filed a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the PRC government and Jinhui Computer System Engineering charging that Green Dam Youth's developers had stolen more than 5,000 lines of code from Cybersitter.
In December 2010, a California court denied a motion to have the suit dropped.
The motion was filed by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, Acer, BenQ and Asustek, who were named as defendants in a list that also includes Chinese PC makers Lenovo and Haier
Haier
Haier Group is a multinational consumer electronics and home appliances company headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong, People's Republic of China. Its products include air conditioners, mobile phones, computers, microwave ovens, washing machines, refrigerators, and televisions...
.
Reactions of the software's makers
According to an addendum to the Wolchok et al. report published on 18 June 2009, makers of Green Dam Youth Escort silently patched the software on 13 June, addressing at least the one particular buffer overflow vulnerability showcased in the original report. In spite of the patch, the software nevertheless remained vulnerable to more sophisticated attacks, as demonstrated by a new example attack page included in the addendum, leading the authors to stand by their previous recommendation that users uninstall the software immediately.According to the same addendum, an update was released on 12 June 2009 to reconfigure the software's filtering blacklists files, which modifies one blacklist and disables the rest. However, files taken from CyberSitter continue to be present on the computer even after the update, and are still used in a pre-update version of the software available from its makers' website. Another update was released on 17 June 2009 to include OpenCV's BSD license into the software's help file to address the license violation issue.
Loss of funding
The project was reportedly dead because the ministry refused to continue funding the project.The Beijing Times reported that Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy had closed the office for the Green Dam project and up to 30 IT engineers were made redundant, and that co-developer Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering, would soon run into financial difficulties through lack of funding. However, Dazheng said it had been forced to down-size (and not shut) the Green Dam unit due to financial constraints.
Dazheng's general manager said his company received 19.9 million yuan in the first year and had not received payment since, and that its commitment to providing support and updates for the product was costing 7 million yuan annually. Critics said the lack of transparency in the funding cut cast the Ministry in a bad light. Other commentators, whilst noting no change in the government's policy towards policing the Internet, said the de facto abandonment of the project was an admission of error.
See also
- Internet censorship in the People's Republic of ChinaInternet censorship in the People's Republic of ChinaInternet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. There are no specific laws or regulations which the censorship follows...
- Golden Shield ProjectGolden Shield ProjectThe Golden Shield Project , colloquially referred to as the Great Firewall of China is a censorship and surveillance project operated by the Ministry of Public Security division of the government of the People's Republic of China...
, also known as the "Great Firewall of China" - Content-control softwareContent-control softwareContent-control software, also known as censorware or web filtering software, is a term for software designed and optimized for controlling what content is permitted to a reader, especially when it is used to restrict material delivered over the Web...