Beijing Police To Launch Animated Web Patrols

Reader geoffrobinson notes an AP story on a new initiative by the police in Beijing to put a visible police presence on the screens of Chinese citizens. Starting Sept. 1, little animated cop figures will wander across the displays of users of a baker's dozen of Chinese Web portals. The program is set to expand by year's end to all sites "registered with Beijing servers," according to the report. The point of the anime-like figures seems to be to remind citizens that their Web usage is being monitored, not to actually implement any further monitoring themselves.

Sweet!

[Spudtrooper (1073512)]

Bonzi Buddy got a new job!

xeyes

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

Been built in to *nix for ages!

Oh no!

[orionop (1139819)]

What is next, an animated goatse reminding us of the horrors that are to be found on the internet?

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

Award 4 internets to this person.

So

[Vinegar Joe (998110)]

If you google Tiananmen does a little animated tank come out and crush your cursor?

Re:So

[Phybersyk0 (513618)]

Nope. 404-Not Found.

(Most Chinese people under 30 don't know about the Tianamen Square protests -- Those that do don't really hold the event in high regard, as the student protest leaders are rumored to have had passports/visa's and transportation to get out of the country after the protest was held.)

Americans like the idea of revolution, but when it happens for real, good people die.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolut ion/ [wikipedia.org]) The Chinese government knows this, and freedoms will come, but it's going to take time. Generations. Not weeks.

Bad Link

[johndiii (229824)]

I assume that you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution [wikipedia.org]. And it was not a revolution in the way that we normally understand it. From the article:

It was launched by the Communist Party of China's Chairman, Mao Zedong on May 16, 1966, officially as a campaign to rid China of its "liberal bourgeoisie" elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle. It is widely recognized, however, as a method to regain control of the party after the disastrous Great Leap Forward led to a significant loss of Mao's power to rivals Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and would eventually manifest into waves of power struggles between rival factions both nationally and locally.

Many people did die, but the net result was that some people who already had power got more, and some people that had power lost it (and frequently their lives).

Re:Bad Link

[Phybersyk0 (513618)]

Many people did die, but the net result was that some people who already had power got more, and some people that had power lost it (and frequently their lives).

I think you grossly understate things.

I've personally met more than a handful people in China who simply refuse to discuss the Cultural Revolution in any detail at all. They wont even document their experience in writing. It's still too painful for them.

Re:Bad Link

[DDLKermit007 (911046)]

It's not that it's painful as much as it's a giant black mark on Chinese history. The Chinese usually hate discussing ANYTHING that they/the government lost face on. An act that causes a loss of face (even if for a good reason) is something people disappear over in China.

Re:

[SQL Error (16383)]

Americans like the idea of revolution, but when it happens for real, good people die.

Revolutionary's Handbook Tip #1: When you throw out the bad old system, try not to replace it with something worse.

Re:

[RuBLed (995686)]

Remember those ads where you need to shoot the rubber ducks and win a prize? I'm smelling a firefox addon going to be made by a pissed Chinese.

Is it really funny?

[Nymz (905908)]

If you google Tiananmen does a little animated tank come out and crush your cursor?

I laughed at first too, because the whole idea seems pointless and annoying, as if we don't have enough unwanted pop-ups and such. But then I realize I'm free, so I can only imagine how creepy, and how sad it is to be reminded every half hour that you are so subjugated.

Re:Is it really funny?

[Spikeles (972972)]

The biggest trick the government ever pulled was convincing the citizen that he was free

Perception of Freedom

[Nymz (905908)]

The biggest trick the government ever pulled was convincing the citizen that he was free

If I end up in prison after Yahoo 'complies' with my government, then I'll reconsider my perception of freedom.

Re:

[slashdot.org (321932)]

If I end up in prison after Yahoo 'complies' with my government, then I'll reconsider my perception of freedom.

Some people believe that freedom is the ability to do whatever you want so long as you don't hurt anyone else. Given that definition, the US is far from a free country.

As an example, explain how drinking alcohol is considered fine and smoking weed can land you in jail. (despite stacks of research proving that pot has less negative effects than alcohol does)

Not to mention Guantanamo. Those aren't ci

Re:Is it really funny?

[fractoid (1076465)]

The biggest trick the government ever pulled was convincing the citizen that he was free

Go outside and yell "The government sucks!" three times, then post conspiracy theory crap everywhere. Did they suppress you? No?

Re:Is it really funny?

[asuffield (111848)]

Go outside and yell "The government sucks!" three times, then post conspiracy theory crap everywhere. Did they suppress you? No?

In China? No, you just disappear. Maybe the government did it. Maybe the mafia did it because you owed them money. Maybe you ran away with a girl. Maybe you're escaping after committing a crime. That's why they do it that way - people go missing all the time, and nobody can be sure which ones were government work. It makes it very easy for people to believe that the government isn't actually doing anything wrong, and that's part of how they convince the citizen that he's free.

Realistically though, the Chinese government does not tend to do anything about the kind of behaviour you describe. They don't actually care what you do - they just pay attention to the effect you have. Anybody who creates an effect that they don't like tends to disappear. Ineffectual people are left alone.

Mod parent up

[shadowbearer (554144)]

I suspect that many people who remember the old Soviet Union would recognize that technique as well.

Just as a general comment on this thread, not @ you asuffield, is that those of you who yammer on, constantly, about how much freedom we have in this country would be better off looking after it, rather than boasting about it. Especially because the boasting makes you looked pretty damned foolish to some people who have perhaps considered the issue a little more objectively and at least made an effor

Re:

[kalirion (728907)]

Reminds me of an old Soviet joke:

A Russian and an American are discussing the merits of their governments.

The American says, "We have full freedom of speech. I could stand on a soap box all day and yell 'The American government sucks, and the American president is a criminal' and I would not be arrested."

The Russian replies, "That's nothing. I could go into Kremlin, call a press conference with invitations to all the communist party leaders, and announce 'The American government sucks, and the American pr

Re:Is it really funny?

[Eivind (15695)]

You're not free. You are *more* politically free than the average person in China, but freedom ain't an "on/off" kind of thing, it's a "more/less" kind of thing.

The sad thing is though, that while the average chinese has become steadily more and more free lately, the trend in USA has been the other way, you guys are significantly less *free* now than you where a decade or two ago.

You require government-permission if you want to take pictures of a group of more than 2 people for over 20 minutes in Central Park, using a tripod. You are not allowed to talk about certain kinds of knowledge, like for example even that de-CSS exist. Your government maintains it can legitimately keep people imprisoned indefinitely while giving same neither the rigths of a POV nor the rigths of a criminal. You cannot bring something as trivial as a can of coke with you on a plane. You have to walk trough metal-detectors and accept answering questioning to be allowed to enter public buildings. You're not allowed to take apart objects that you own to figure out how they work. (not generally anyway) and if you *do* figure out how they work, sharing that knowledge with others may be a crime. You've been falling steadily on "freedom-of-press" rankings for the last decade, you used to be near the top, these days you're under average for a western democracy. "Free speech zones" (no comment needed)

USA is still in pretty good shape, certainly miles ahead of countries like china. But you're on the wrong track. You need to wake up.

Re:

[Eivind (15695)]

The thing about "emergency" laws though, is that they're not *actually* repelled even nearly as often as you would like them to be. There are strong forces that *want* such laws, permanently, and whatever emergency pops up is a welcome excuse to push them trough rapidly. If the laws are still there 20 years later, who will even remember?

If the "emergency" part was seriously meant, the laws would come with an automatic expiry-date. "This law expires automatically in 3 years, unless extended by congress", but

Re:

[Eivind (15695)]

The situation in China is, as you point out, still very bad.

I still think it's justified to say it's improving though. First, China is a lot more open than it used to be. Sure, there are draconian internet-filters and arbitrary shutdowns of in-china sites that the government doesn't like. But being on the internet at all is still, by itself, a huge step forward, as we all know a *LOT* of stuff leaks trough even the most paranoid of filters.

Chinese are now able to start and own businesses, which didn't use t

Re:

[ultranova (717540)]

But then I realize I'm free, so I can only imagine how creepy, and how sad it is to be reminded every half hour that you are so subjugated.

You need not worry; by all available evidence, the Chinese government is doing its level best to keep its citizens from being reminded of the Tiananmen massacre.

As for you, you won't be free until the last libertarian is strangled with the entrails of the last fascist. As long as we keep on letting ideology of any kind to guide our political or economic decisions,

Here's a question...

[Gordonjcp (186804)]

... prompted by the word "Tianamen" - the Great Firewall of China blocks "objectionable content" based on keywords. Presumably it doesn't only work on port 80, otherwise people would be proxying web traffic through non-standard ports.

If I'm getting a lot of spam from China, would sticking words that trigger the firewall in my SMTP HELO response automatically block them?

1984

[martinelli (1082609)]

Big Brother is Watching You

Re:1984

[Chairboy (88841)]

Shouldn't that be "Big Brother is watching Yu"?

A study I was a part of in college

[garcia (6573)]

During college I took a SOC or PSYC class (I forget which) and as part of the class you were required to "volunteer" as a subject in a study on campus. The one I was part of was doing data entry and every so often a little head would appear in the top corner that was to signify that a "supervisor" was watching what you did.

They wanted to see if your data entry slowed/sped up, if your errors increased/decreased, etc. While I don't know what the end result was, I was shown my results and found that when the "supervisor" was in the corner I was less attentive and my data entry slowed.

What if a majority of students/researchers in China are working on their Internet (yes, their) and the "virtua-cop" fucks up their work? I can't imagine that this will do anything but be ridiculous and annoying.

Waste your time on something else, seriously.

Re:A study I was a part of in college

[JonTurner (178845)]

>>every so often a little head would appear in the top corner that was to signify that a "supervisor" was watching...
Fascinating study! I guess the Panopticon would cause people to just freak out. Maybe the pervasive monitoring in some societies (UK, Hong Kong) is both a symptom AND a cause of the very crime it's meant to monitor.

>>What if a majority of students/researchers in China are working on their Internet (yes, their) and the "virtua-cop" fucks up their work?
The short answer is: the officials don't care. Truly. Government is about control, not service, and it's certainly not measured by the results it gives. That's a very "western" viewpoint. And this government has a particularly nasty (and long) history of killing its own folks.

Re:

[DigiShaman (671371)]

What if a majority of students/researchers in China are working on their Internet (yes, their) and the "virtua-cop" fucks up their work?

In China, the government values control over efficiency of its nation. Sorry, but nothing new here.

Interesting research BTW. I'd love to read more about it.

Insert clippy joke here.

[rabiddeity (941737)]

You look like you're trying to access the Real Internet! Would you like me to:

-block the sites you're trying to access
-uninstall your proxy software
-report you to the authorities for re-education
-subtly rewrite your search results

Re:

[NeverVotedBush (1041088)]

You forgot: -shoot you in the head for acting against the motherland and then charging your family for the bullet

I saw one of these guys hanging around this site

[by Anonymous Coward]

Just like the cops at home. [dunkindonuts.com]

Paper Cut-Outs

[biocute (936687)]

I must admit that I do slow down sometimes when I see a paper cut-out on the side of a highway.

How annoying

[Kris_J (10111)]

I've voluntarily installed screenmate software [adtoolsinc.com] before and typically it doesn't last past the day. I can't imagine there won't be plenty of programs written to turn them off.

Re:

[techno-vampire (666512)]

I don't think this is the same thing. It's not something people are required to have installed on their machines, it's something running on the webserver and adding these images to the pages they serve. Unless all the images come from certain special servers, even adblock won't help.

Easy Vista

[KingPrad (518495)]

This should streamline running Vista. Now whenever you are prompted for Allow/Deny the character will go ahead and choose Deny for you. Every time.

conflict with China

[drDugan (219551)]

With the end of the cold war, I was hopeful that the ideological conflict between the west and the rest of the world was over. It looked like China was opening up.

It appears, with stories like this and many others, not to be the case. China is obviously acting in ways that are not good for people - as defined by Western standards of freedom. Unlike Russia, they do not appear to have the financial decay leading to an eventual collapse.

I've heard people argue that no one will go to war with China - the sta

I'll bite the trollbait...

[by Anonymous Coward]

I live in China, and I can tell you that it's certainly not in a "death-like state like that the of Chinese government oppression". Sure, censorship exists, the government is quite corrupt and abusive, especially on the lower levels, and it can be hard to find a good book. It drives me up the wall sometimes, just how flat the popular culture is- anything controversial gets dropped like a hot rock.

On the other hand, there are raunchy popular novels (printed by half-legal vanity presses) being sold right outside my door. There's tons of (bad) modern art expressing the pain of living in Chinese society, and (bad) rock 'n roll expressing the pain of being young and unloved. Although there are fewer than 100 movies released to theaters each year on the mainland, every film ever made is sporadically available on DVD, from Deep Throat to To Live to They Live. Chinese people can find every sort of approved and forbidden idea under the sun if they're curious, and they're mostly free to discuss it in private. Publishing is another thing, but the Cultural Revolution is over, and you can pretty much say whatever you want to your friends.

China is booming, and the authorities can barely keep it under control. I won't defend their actions (although cartoon cops are hardly the worst things they do....) but the notion that China in any way resembles 1984 is absurd. While the government is sliding from totalitarian Communism towards plutocracy, the people are getting away with everything they can, and it's a lot. I don't hold out a lot of hope that we'll have big D Democracy here anytime soon, but to imagine that this country, or the US, or anyone else would somehow be better off in a Massive 3rd World War is insane.

You are insane.

Re:conflict with China

[ultranova (717540)]

Last time I checked, China has about 130 nuclear warheads, US has 9 960, and Russia has 16 000.

Guess who is going to be obliterated first when the WW3 begins.

Whoever the guy with the fastest missiles hates most ?

Please understand that having 9960 nuclear warheads in no way stops 130 enemy warheads from reaching you. While 130 nuclear warheads is not sufficient to carpet bomb a country the size of the USA, it is quite sufficient to take out large cities, industry, food production and central administration. The end result is likely massive death toll from starvation and plague, and collapse of the USA as a nation, or at the very least its removal from its world power status.

So no, no one dares attack China.

Re:

[Grym (725290)]

While 130 nuclear warheads is not sufficient to carpet bomb a country the size of the USA, it is quite sufficient to take out large cities, industry, food production and central administration. The end result is likely massive death toll from starvation and plague, and collapse of the USA as a nation, or at the very least its removal from its world power status.

What you describe is entirely unlikely. You act as if the U.S. military would sit back passively while the Chinese spent hours fueling their 130

Awww...

[StikyPad (445176)]

They're so cute they just make me want to limit my searches to government approved propaganda and puppies.

This is a problem because...?

[Mr. Roadkill (731328)]

Look, we all know that the Chinese government is going to be monitoring as much as it can. They're control freaks. I, for one, welcome any measures they take to remind the people that they're being watched - maybe such reminders will help the people of china think about what kind of society they live in and what kind of society they would like to live in, and encourage them to take action to try to shape their future.

Tentacles

[mwvdlee (775178)]

Can you get all hentai on that girl cop and "interact" with her using a tentacle cursor?

Re:Odd...

[QuantumG (50515)]

"He said he was going somewhere he would need Euros"

Damn you single trade currency!

Re:

[garcia (6573)]

I am sure the NeoCons are drooling at a visual reminder "We are watching your every mouse click".
They will have the "Terror level" displayed on a flag carried by a little goose-stepping Uncle Sam.

They're doing enough of that in the media. They'd rather let you pretend you are supporting the "land of the free" with some sense of false freedom feeling.

Honestly, at least the Chinese know they're being watched at every step and don't have a government watching them closely but pretending they don't.

Re:

[ResidntGeek (772730)]

Your paranoia's completely off base. The current administration has very obviously shied away from visible losses of freedom and displays thereof, which is integral to its "protecting your freedom" defenses. The only exception is airline security, where the public wanted them to take some freedom. You need to pay more attention.

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

Perhaps if you hate America so much,

My country! Right or wrong! Eh?

Re:AT&T, NSA andHomeland scrutiny are the next

[pclminion (145572)]

Maybe you should consider that a country can be fucked up even if it isn't the worst on Earth. Sure, we might be doing better than China based on some criteria, but that doesn't mean there aren't quite a few things seriously wrong. "If you don't like it, leave." No thanks. If I don't like it I'll do what I can to fix it. Pointing out what's wrong is the first step.

Re:

[ari_j (90255)]

Without reading the whole thread, I do know that the next step is formulating a coherent statement of what is wrong and why it is, in fact, wrong. The third step is proposing a solution that will not introduce more problems than it solves. The fourth is convincing enough of the right people that your solution has sufficient merit to be implemented.

One problem that the USA does not have that China does is that the above steps are impossible for a Chinese subject (I hesitate to use the word citizen) to c

Re:

[non (130182)]

i don't know where to begin, either you're a total idiot, or just another ditto-head, and frankly i can't tell the difference anymore. while your rights and liberties are being slowly^H^H^Hrapidly eroded, you sit back and say, "if you don't like it, leave." perhaps you'd care to comment on adequate controls in government as they apply to electronic communications by the executive branch staff? or even more so, on the number of executive orders made by the current administration?

foreigners, nationals of a co