Spamhaus Opening New Branch in China 222
Eggplant62 writes "ChinaTechNews.com is reporting that Steve Linford's Spamhaus.org will open operations with the help of Chinese government officials and ISP's in order to remove spammers operating servers on China's portion of the Internet. For years, China's unwitting ignorance of the spam issues they have with the rest of the world has been a major stumbling block in the fight to control spammers who operate from the netblocks of foreign nations. Seeing China take steps to help the world curb the scourge of junk email has me cheering all the way. Go Steve!"
Why is this a Chinese issue - (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Spamhaus.org in the US can assume that spammers will be assessed for fines; the punishments may be more serious in China, whose legal system is much less transparent than that of the United States (although the US is working on theirs).
I would be very careful to point spammers out to law enforcement; I would hate to have on my conscience that some guy with a family to feed is sitting in jail just for spamming because I cooperated with his government in prosecuting him.
Re:Go China? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Stop it at the source... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice to see they have their priorities in order (Score:0, Insightful)
I'm sure I'll see you all at the China Olympics in 2008, where
See, that's it. They won't slap these guy's hands (Score:3, Insightful)
No seriously. If the Chinese government ever half understands how trashed its email reputation is, it will _never_ let these people touch a keyoard again. There are other careers, several of them, in the PRC.
But really the problem is international spammers exploiting unsecured relays, and I would suppose that with official cooperation Mr. Linford oughta be able to track those down pretty easily.
Whether the Chinese netspace can ever be redeemed is another matter. I for one know no one in China and see no reason to quit filtering anything from or relayed through there. Maybe in about five years, if we hear about the situation being "amazingly well cleaned up", perhaps.
China trying to cool economy (Score:5, Insightful)
There is official worry that the bubble may burst,
therefore they are attempting a "soft landing".
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
A Short Lesson in Chinese Politics (Score:5, Insightful)
So, the lesson is, the Chinese government leadership has very good intentions. However, they don't follow through or don't have the power to overcome inertia, bureaucracy, and corruption.
Re:Nice to see they have their priorities in order (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"the scourge of junk email" (Score:5, Insightful)
Then consider that if you have children, Pornographics spammers expose them to the worst of hardcore porn with utter comtempt for their safety and wellbeing.
Finally, remember that Spammers are *all* Sociopaths, protected for the first time by the size of the community, allowing them to abuse anyone without any fear of retribution.
For what it's worth, I personally see spammers as a bigger and more present problem than hackers ever were.
GrpA
yeah, I'll send in my resume tomorrow (Score:4, Insightful)
Now if we can only get them to do something about that pesky human rights problem, we'll be all set. You know, disappearing people, executing them for things like speaking against the government, no free press...
It'll be especially handy, since then if they need anyone from outside China to work in the office, people might actually want to, instead of being terrified of getting arrested for uttering the wrong word or failing to bribe the wrong guy, or telling someone about what's really going on in the world...and getting locked away in some (literal) shithole for the rest of eternity, with a little T&E(torture and execution) thrown in for fun.
Seriously, people- you go to China, there are lots of ways you can end up never being seen/heard from again. I wouldn't go there if you paid me to- I'd go to Iraq before I went to China.
Re:"the scourge of junk email" (Score:5, Insightful)
On an individual basis, who cares? It's just crap to delete.
Now, say you have an organization of a 1000, 90% of whom are your average users ( you want my email address? SURE THING ). 900 users getting spam in their mailbox? Where you would have needed a small 300mhz, 64mb system, now you need a dual 1ghz 1gig system and an admin to keep a constant eye on it.
And I'm not even going into the bandwidth and the spyware/trojan aspect of it.
End result: The side effects are spam are immense, financially.
But this isn't just a white collar crime. Take, for example, the pr0n spam. How many of those chicks do you suppose are 'legal'? Or how about prescription drugs, made available online? Or how about scams that rip off stupid old people ( I won a lottery that I never entered in a country I've never even heard of much less been to, and all I have to do to claim my reward is send them obscene amounts of money? Sign. Me. Up. ) of their retirements?
Spam and those that spam should be strung up by their ball sacks ( or tits. Let it never be said that I haven't discriminated against every single sensitive group ) and stones should be sold, 5c per pound.
Re:Nice to see they have their priorities in order (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait. Yes there is.
The real problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice to see they have their priorities in order (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck to you on that...you can start by solving the AIDS epidemic. I trust you'll report on your progress in timely basis.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill anonymous morons
Re:"the scourge of junk email" (Score:4, Insightful)
They cause billions of dollars worth of damage every year. They are routinely violating numerous laws, yet they still operate freely.
The most recent development has been mass scale use of zombie networks for spamming and DDOS attacks against spam fighters.
It's also widely known that some of the viruses out there have been created solely to establish zombie networks for use by spammers.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. The more painful, the better.
It's 2004 People (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The "get priorities straight" or "let's see China get some basic human rights" posts are more cliche and more often seen than hot grits and Natalie Portman (then again, I read at +1).
2. It's 2004 people, China is no longer the China of ten, even five years ago. China is one of the most rapidly developing nations and with each major technological push in the country, the people receive even more degrees of freedom. When I was in China just two years ago, I could talk to just about anyone about how they felt about the government. No discomfort, no "oh crap, is he secret police?" (I am Chinese, US Citizen, with Beijing Mandarin accent so it's hard to tell that I'm not from there)
Though Internet access is "spotty," e.g. no access to Google cache, etc. They have the Internet and most of it at that. Sure, things operate differently there and it's easier to find yourself in a jail cell. But there is no longer the mentality of "he critized the government, flog him."
Now, in the more interior/central parts of China, changes are slower than on the coast because of the slower pace of technological change there. But I can't emphasize this enough: China has made some serious progress from ten and even five years ago. Every year, China makes big strides. People have more freedom in their speech, press, and some places even have elections.
Also, since it's obvious that most people here aren't that knowledgeable about China (nor am I, but at least I know enough that it's not how everyone is describing it), another important thing to note is the changing of leadership. The old guard is slowly receding with China's new president (though obviously Jiang is still a big figure lurking in the shadows) and fresh blood in the Congress. New ideas and new leadership will only make the country better
Lastly, though we always hear about human rights violations every year, I feel (and this is just my opinion, no real facts here) that a lot of it is blown out of proportion. Not to say that it's okay, but that perhaps people should try to be less biased about it. I think that because people hear about these incidents in China, they automatically think, "Damn, that China, they'll never fix their human rights problems. They are always beating people and torturing them, etc." But now, put that in perspective of what happens in many other developed countries (US, Britain, etc.) Many people are unlawfully detained, or excessive force is used upon them, or they are mistakenly incarcerated. I think that if you took all the news stories about those types of events happening in the US, and said it happened in China, people would go nuts calling out for China to give their citizens "basic human rights."
Re:"the scourge of junk email" (Score:5, Insightful)
In my book there is a huge difference between putting a advertising flyer through someones letter box vs attaching a flyer to a rock and smashing it through a Window. A proper advertising company will use the letter box. IMHO people like Steve Linford help ensure a balance.
when someone DDoS's me I just laugh at them for thinking im hurt by not being able to use the internet for a couple of hours and walk away from my computer
Your lucky to be able to do that. However many people rely on an Internet connection for business. For them walking away means no money is being generated and important customer customer communications are not being received. Like you most if not all of these decent people wish they could just walk away like you can but they are unable to do so.
Re:It's 2004 People (Score:4, Insightful)
To get back on-topic, I think the article is a good example of how China is moving (slowly) towards more modern society even if the pace is not as fast as many would like - there are other factors to take into account...nobody wants a revolution in one of the world biggest economies...this is not good for anyone of us.
Re:yeah, I'll send in my resume tomorrow (Score:2, Insightful)
reuters.com/news.html -> ok
www.iht.com -> ok
www.cnn.com -> ok
www.lemonde.fr -> ok
and you can see that slashdot is working
On Human Rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why I find it amusing that on Nightly Business Report (a US financial news and current program that's on just before our own news) you're using the words 'suspected mistreatment' to describe something that's documented and not denied by anyone (the only issue seems to be whether the Geneva convention was officially supposed to be ignored).
So yeah, look in your own backyard before judging China. Since Sep 11, you're like a wounded pitbull attacking everything and anyone without thought. What on Earth does Iraq have to do with terrorism anyway?
(And yes, Australia has a pretty poor HR record in a lot of ways too - but I'm not denying that)...
China's Human Rights Abuses (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe Amnesty International just gave the US a damning report on human rights abuses. Detention without charge or trial [amnesty.org]
It is hardly suprising that those in the US (land of the free etc) point the finger at China's human rights record, whilst ignoring human rights abuses in their own back yard (Guantanamo Bay, Iraqi prisoners, etc). I'd say our hypocracy (do as we say, but not as we do) and our naive view of the world ("good" vs "evil") has given us a lot of rope with which to hang ourselves.
Flag waving is not a sport
Still USA spammers (Score:4, Insightful)
The ROOT of the problem still exists, and that is USA spammers.
So if China makes some headway to reduce the number of trojaned computers, open relays, etc. thats good but the core spammers still need to be caught and dealt with.
china, human rights, and the united states (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow whenever china gets mentioned- it's horrid stompings on the concept of human rights comes up. That's good, china has some very serious problems with human rights that need to be addressed, even today. However, I find a lot of this stomping to be 'blind stomping' people insult china's human rights violations, without understanding them; or trying to assault the root of the problem. Also statments like 'china shoulden't be doing this until they can get there human rights issues sorted out' come up a lot.
Maby this IS how there going to fix there human rights issues- by making forward strides to making a forward thinking comunity china will raise it's peoples standard of living, and slowly emerge as a global 'contender' in world politics and technology (there allready recognised as a power; but often a pool of cheap labour power, rather then a technological one), so long as china's people are (in the world view) nothing more then cheap labour, how will they ever be able to comprihend there own people as cheap 'disposable' labour; and that sort of thinking results in- you guessed it, human rights violations- if there lives are cheap; there is no incentive not to end them when they commit 'crimes' (the state identifies crimes, which may or may not align with morality or even sanity- see the DMCA for examples)
The next problem I have with people poo-pooing on china's human rights violations blissfully ignores human rights violations from other countries (torture of Iraqie prisoners, horrid treatment of 'illegal combattants' in guantolomo bay from the US for instance, in my own country, we were still 'indoctrinating native children into society' which is a polite way of saying kidnapping native americans and forcing them to attend schools far from home while there sexually assaulted by the priests and nuns until 1971)
My point is; none of our countries are 'perfect' when it comes to human rights- and I think that china should be given some slack- for all the ill they are doing, they seem to be improving by leaps and bounds- improvement still needs to be done, the human rights issues still need to be addressed; but simply saying 'china is a hole where humans have no rights and should be ignored' is wrong- china as a country is trying to better itself, it diserves recognition for that; great change either requires time, or revolution: I think everyone can agree revolution is not in the bests interests of anyone with regard to china.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)
So when it's for our convenience, it's OK?
This is the most inane statement I've read on /. for months, and that's saying something.
Of course it's bad when the government "cracks down" on peaceful people going about their legitimate business and good when the government "cracks down" on thieves and con artists. The latter is one of the reason we put up with having a government in the first place; the former is evil power-mongering.
Re:yeah, I'll send in my resume tomorrow (Score:2, Insightful)
I am an atheist, in China, I will be normal, in the U.S. I would be considered a freak and ostracised. I am a scientist by training, in the U.S., stem cell research is heavily limited by bible thumping politicians, in China, no such problem.
In China, a white guy speaking chinese is impressive. In the U.S. a white guy speaking anything but english is scary, espescially if he speaks french too!
In China... I could go on for hours but I have class in ten minutes (chinese class at that).