Behind the Green Dam 2

The Chinese government has backed down slightly from its internet filtering software mandate. The Guardian reports, "The Green Dam Youth Escort program, which restricts access to pornography and politically sensitive websites, was due to be compulsorily incorporated in the hard drives of all new machines sold after 1 July, but the state-run media announced today that it would instead be an optional package." Still an outrage, but it's good to see the communist thugocracy backpedaling.

The Epoch Times poked around inside Green Dam and exposed some of the program's nasty secrets.

The regime says Green Dam can block pornography, filter illicit content, control web surfing time, and check browsing records. In fact, the software is capable of blocking politically sensitive websites, filtering out content based on a list of keywords, recording keystrokes and passwords, taking screenshots every 3 minutes, and recording all of the websites visited along with all of the user’s other internet activity.

The makers of Green Dam claim that, while the software will be pre-installed, users can remove it.

A mainland Chinese computer expert discovered the truth after he installed and uninstalled the screening software. He said, “When we used its [Green Dam] uninstallation program to uninstall the software, about half of Green Dam’s 110 system files continued to reside in the computer. After restarting the computer, Green Dam’s screening program is running actively in the background. The only part of the software uninstalled is its user interface.”

My favorite detail: among the banned keywords are "Truthfulness" and "Compassion".

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