So by now I thought the world would have caught up with this massive piece of news. It occurred two days ago and I am still having trouble finding any information about it.

Google smacked China. Basically what happened was Google became aware that it was under highly advanced and targeted attacks against its Gmail section. It was originating from inside China and going after the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Then they got serious and started digging. Finding that dozens of US, European and Chinese Gmail account for activists were being routinely accessed, not through Google’s breach but through each account holders breach. Add in to all this that the attack was not just on Google but on around 20 other large companies this is massive news.

With this Google has been sharing around the information it has gathered so far with other relevant parties.

The upshot of this? When Google first entered into China, opened up offices and started up Google.cn I was impressed. I have lived in China for a while and the greatest problem there, is not the corruption, the systemic caste system of communist party members and non-members. No the greatest problem is knowledge about the world and current events. opening up Google like this could only be a good thing… and then we found out that Google would filter the results. I can see their argument, opening up the internet is a great achievement and paying for it by censoring some results was a small price. however like the rest of the world China is hurriedly going ass-backwards on how the internet should work.

So now Google has flat out said “No, no more. We will not censor results for you. if you don’t like that then we will take our ball and go home.” effectively? Suck it China.

This is amazing, this is  wonderful and yet I can’t find much information or coverage on this. The ramifications are huge. If nothing else this should force a light onto China, if Google does pull out then everyone will sit up and pay attention.

As I said the greatest problem in China is the lack of world knowledge, so the greatest threat to the Chinese government is people waking up and paying attention.

I realise that people have been banging on and on about this for a while. Everyone should be aware of what my stance is on this, however I wanted to cover two points that I only really encountered recently.

First, just in case, the internet filter is a scheme by which the Australian government will filter websites at the URL level. This is being put forth as a way to protect the children, the rallying cry of people with ulterior motives.

I will not be pointing out the flaws of this service, that has already been covered many times, for more reading go here.

No, what has me more worried are two things. One, the only people who really seem to care about this are tech people. People who understand the dangers of limiting our access to a free and open internet, the people who understand the “think of the children” as a ploy. This is anecdotal, sure, but the general response from people who don’t quite understand it is “what’s your point? It’s a good thing right? it stops child porn!” I am not sure how to combat this, there does not seem to be any form of widespread movement against it, No Clean Feed are doing their best but they can only do so much. Add in the fact Conroy is being a sneaky bitch by trying to get it passed in February but will not implement anything until after the election.

The other thing that worries me more and is a growing trend to match the trend of the world’s leaders trying to filter the internet. The tech people, the people who are the best placed to understand what is going on and to do something about it. The overwhelming response? “It’s so stupid, they can put this in place but I will just get around it!” No! That is not the point! Open access to the internet is not something you should have to “get around”. What about the average user? Should we not be fighting this trend of retardation? Should we not be using our knowledge to show why open access to the internet is the best possible option?

The thing that gets most people, is you have to pay for the good with the bad. Let me explain. All forms of freedom are tempered. The freedom of speech means that you are free to speak what you believe in without fear of reprisal. The flip side is you will hear a lot of things that you don’t agree with. The freedom to access whatever reading material’s or magazine’s you want means that you have to allow porn. There is always a price. The freedom of having an unrestricted, open internet mean everyone can access what sites they want without judgement. That also means, again, lots of porn.

This all comes back to the original problem. The filtering will go through under the banner of Think of the Children. however the same argument stands. The government should not be able to judge what you can and cannot do. If you as a parent are worried about your children, how about you act like a parent and do your fucking job? do you let your children have their own machine in an unmonitored area? Then anything that happens is your fault. Do you notice your children spending hours a day on the machine? How about connecting with your children over what is it currently their main pastime.

We as tech people need to stop saying this will not affect me because we can circumvent it. We need to start doing something about educating people to the dangers of this god awful scheme. If someone says “Think of the Children” then simply help them setup OpenDNS on their children’s machine. It’s worth the effort.