China Getting 'Serious' About Spam?

Ritz_Just_Ritz writes "Apparently, the Chinese MII (Ministry of Information) is going to crack down on Spam from within China. This will include training for 1000 mail administrators and recruitment of 20,000 'anti-spam volunteers.'"

Translation of the Article

[eldavojohn]

I see this article was still in Chinese when I read it. Allow me to translate it into English:

Ministry of Information Industry (MII), Internet Society of China (ISC) and China Communications Standards Association (CCSA) launched a national anti-spam campaign on June 21, reports Nanfang Daily.

Translation: "The MII decided it was time to start a campaign that looks like it will help the people. The ISC & CCSA were informed of this decision."

An insider at ISC said MII has set up a hotline at 01-12321 for spam-related tip-offs and is preparing to send out one million anti-spam notices.

Translation: "The MII instructed the Nanfang Daily to print this. Like every other government controlled media outlet, the Nanfang Daily immediately complied. The MII has constructed methods for witch hunts and omitted the precise definition of 'spam' or what the criteria consists of. There are roughly one million people the MII doesn't really care for and they will receive notices informing them that they had better go underground or face prosecution without a trial."

The report said that professional training will be offered for 1,000 email administrators and that 20,000 anti-spam volunteers will be recruited.

Translation: "One thousand citizens will be trained to point the finger at anyone the government doesn't like using an ISP. This will prevent anyone from speculating that it is just one person or the government doing this. It will also aid in making this look like a benefit for the people. A lucky 20,000 other individuals will learn to play ball for the government and this will go on their permanent records--which might lead to good fortune."

I'm going to take a stab in the dark and wager that SPAM simply means "e-mailing the way the government doesn't want you to" in Chinese. Whether that be based on the content or motive of your e-mails. The government seems to be implementing laws that have no clear definition in order to devise a method by which they can jail/fine/deter anyone they want. And it will most likely be met with synchronous thundering applause of one billion people clapping robotically togethor.

Americans lose their freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism. Now the Chinese will lose their freedoms in the name of fighting SPAM. *sigh* Canada keeps looking warmer and warmer.

Wake me up

[hackstraw]

when the get 'serious' about spam coming _outside_ of China!

About 50% of my spam has url's resolving back to China or Korea.

"Spam"

[buxrule]

With all the censoring China does, it sounds to me like it's just an excuse to hire 20000 people to read through everyone's email and make sure they're not discussing something they "shouldn't" be talking about.

US priorities

[electrosoccertux]

I find it informing that our politicians are willing to sanction trade with Sweden because *our* (i.e. Not Their) laws say they are infringing on our IP. But we haven't heard anything of the sort in relation to China and Nigeria over spam (a much bigger problem).

Regardless of whether or not we have a copy of a blank check signed by the RIAA to [insert politician here], this passive aggression our leaders are so fond of is very telling.

Will they treat spammers like Falun Gong members?

[Nova Express]

I'll beleive Communist China is serious about stopping spammers when they start treating [religioustolerance.org] them like Falun Gong members. [wikipedia.org] You know, like imprisoning them in forced labor camps and working them to death. [faluninfo.net] Or maybe torturing them. [faluninfo.net] But until they're willing to treat spammers with the same harsh methods the Communist Party reserves for those trying to exercise freedom of religion, I doubt I'll see any reduction of spam in my mailbox.

Re:Translation of the Article

[pete6677]

Even if this is true, Chinese people have more freedom now than they did 20 years ago, and things will continue to progress in this direction. Government crackdows are getting harder to pull off, there is a lot of unpublished internal dissent, and the government is begging for a revolution if their response is to just crack down harder. Piss off 1 billion people alltogether, and its pretty hard to keep them contained.

Re:Wow, short aricle for sure

[iezhy]

An insider at ISC said MII has set up a hotline at 01-12321 for spam-related tip-offs and is preparing to send out one million anti-spam notices.

fighting spam with spam? :)

'bout time

[CFrankBernard]

How many years now have numerous email admins either blocked all email from China or score hits to blacklists such as Blackhole's China & Korea Combined very highly? BTW, China definitely has no right to complain about firewall/gateway censorship.

You don't know that

[Moraelin]

May I point out that, although totalitarian regimes _do_ violate human rights and mis-use laws against dissidents, sometimes they actually have to solve an actual problem? E.g., even Stalin's USSR and Mao's China at their darkest hour, while they did have a some of the most brutal suppression of dissidents, they also had laws to deal with plain old crimes like theft, embezzlement, murder, etc. They also had plenty of civil laws too, like for example, divorces, inheritance, child support, etc.

I.e., it seems to me pretty stupid to assume that any law in China is somehow _guaranteed_ be 100% for oppression purposes, and only disguised in a more propaganda-friendly guise. Maybe someone there genuinely got fed up with spam. Maybe a bunch of bosses in the PRC just had one day too many of finding their inboxes full of "H3rb@1 \/i@gr@" emails. Or maybe it was the "Thousands of 18 year old teens waiting for you!!!" mails. China's conservative leadership tends to take a very grim view of pornography, plus they have _much_ higher age of consent.

Are those volunteers paid to either read other people's emails and to point fingers at demand? How do you know that? How do you know it's not just people paid to register email addresses and use them all over the place, and see what spam lands in those inboxes? Or maybe run honeypots to see who's actually commanding the army of spam-bots with Joe-job faked sender addresses? Or whatever? For the size of China 1000 admins and 20,000 volunteers is a spit in the ocean, if their goal was to read all emails. But to run a honeypot net or to get reliable reports of who's been spamming their inboxes, it may be just enough.

Basically the D&D mentality that some people are by definition evil, hence they can only ever give evil laws, is so fucking stupid that it's not even funny. _Noone_ defines themselves as evil, sworn enemy of all goodness, and able to only ever do evil stuff, like in retarded D&D-type settings and cheap fantasy flicks. The Real Life isn't divided neatly like that.

In RL even the most horrible dictator may really think they're only doing just what's good for their country (even if for everyone else it doesn't really count as good), and not just acting out of some Sith-like determination to extinguish all goodness. RL "evil" is more about not caring about collateral damage done than being some sworn destroyer of all that's still good and pure. And sometimes, even if by accident, their notion of "good" may actually be good.

That's all I'm saying here too. Just assuming "The Chinese government is evil, hence any Chinese law _must_ be 100% for the sole purpose of crushing freedoms and harming people" is just bullshit. We just don't know that. Assuming you can "translate" like that, is just some self-righteous bullshit, nothing more.

Re:Translation of the Article

[russ1337]

I love it!!!

"The government really does put the well being of its people first. Ahead of their foreign reputation, which is why we all see them as the bad guys

So that is why America hates China! They look after their people!

This statement also holds true:
"Everyone agrees that the AMERICAN government is opressive. But this is not Orwell's 1984. The government provides stability, which was rarely present in AMERICAN history. There is no mass shuffling of money from the poor to the rich, although there is increasing disparity these days as industrilization makes it harder to make a living in rural communities."

Re:You don't know that

[Moraelin]

I must have been unclear. I'm not saying they weren't evil. Yes, they were evil.

I'm just saying that even evil people sometimes do good things. It doesn't necessarily make them less evil, but it doesn't make the act automatically evil by association either.

E.g., Al Capone on one hand ordered some brutal massacres, but on the other hand opened soup kitchens for the victims of the great depression and paid (out of that ill gotten money) for shelter and clothing for them. Was he evil? Yes. Were his soup kitchens evil? No.

That's really all I'm saying. One can't just say, "Person X is evil, action Y was done by X, hence Y is evil too." Guilt or evil aren't something transmittable by association like that.

The same applies to the Chinese government too. Is it an evil oppressive government? Yes, certainly. Does it automatically make everything they touch evil? No. It _is_ entirely possible that someone genuinely is sick and tired of spam, or of seeing their country's reputation being tainted by spam. One can't automatically assume (or "translate") that an anti-spam law is automatically just some oppression tool against dissidents.