China backtracks, makes Green Dam 'optional'
By Vlad Savov 
posted August 14th 2009 12:07PM
posted August 14th 2009 12:07PM
[Via CNET]
posted August 14th 2009 12:07PM
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Yay for Pip-Boy! Always providing us with a cheery smile in the face of certain doom!
Pip-boy rules the world
"Vault Boy should not be confused with Pip-Boy which is the name of the (virtual) personal information processor used as the game interface in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout Tactics."
yep, that's "vault boy" not pip-boy, which was the computer your character has on their arm
OK nerds, calm down. rofl.
No. This distinction is serious business. SERIOUS.
...nor to be confused with Fallout Boy, an American Grammy-nominated rock band from Wilmette, Illinois, formed in 2001.
@Quantumphysics: Oh come on. Fallout Boy was a superhero sidekick from the Simpsons long before it was a band. Let's keep the record straight here.
@Mark. No. Fallout Boy is a group of no talent assclowns who find it necessary to create ridiculously stupid "music".
QP:
I'm afraid you are mistaken: fallout boy is as far from "rock" as any band can be.
I thought Fall Out Boy was Radioactive Man's faithful sidekick?
is this a Bing commercial?
Communists...when will they learn?
Better red than dead, you capitalist pig.
+1, unfortunately one man cannot handle the power of an entire country, thats the downfall of socialism.
@Alberto: Apparently you have no concept of what socialism and communism mean.
Alberto, you're thinking of a dictatorship. There is nothing about Communism nor Socialism that explicitly states there needs to be a dictator.
As I understand china's system, most of the decisions are made by committee.
"green dam" sounds like an environmentally safe STD prevention technique.
Come on lawyer bird, I thin you know the meaning of the phrase "de facto" and how it applies to communism and dictatorships.
The only problem with communism is people.
"DEATH IS A PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE TO COMMUNISM."
@ Liberty Prime
Wouldn't it be great if they blocked Engadget.
Yea, will be a nice day when communism falls over there.
It pretty much has(technically speaking it never really was communism but that's a subject for another day). It's shifted almost entirely over to a capitalist system. It's still totalitarian, which is what I think you mean but the age of economic communism in China are pretty well over.
Yes, yes we have all taken basic history no one was a true communist country. And yea mostly harping on the dictatorship and human rights thing.
If you actually went over there you'd realize nobody wants the communists to fall, since many of the problems over there are due to government thugocrats (and corrupt businesspeople) that are really only held in check by the communists. A lot of the really bad abuses are things that the communists are trying to stop from happening.
From the news it's easy to think of the Chinese government as one giant entity, but that'd be like looking at Blagojevich or the fine politicians of New Jersey and their kidney smuggling ways and assuming that the entire government of the United States is responsible for what these numbnuts do.
So similar to how we can distinguish Hoboken's mayor from Washington as a whole most Chinese people don't really blame the communist party and Beijing for most of the stupid crap that happens there.
Yea, will be a nice day when communism falls over here in the U.S.
^^ To all the above posters regarding insults towards the governance of other countries (Socialism/Communism).
As if capitalist democracy has yeilded crops of intelligent, unspoiled, non-complainers... *insert sarcasm here*
*yielded
high-horse FAIL
To be fair, few of them seem to have a good understanding of what those words mean. Communism and Socialism have been equated to pure evil in this country so long that I think people have lost any grasp on what they actually are. The people above are really insulting totalitarianism and dictatorships(even specifically monarchies in one case).
So what do the Chinese have against Green Day? They're a great band!
I dunno, I used to love them(the first cd I ever bought was Dookie when it first came out; I was 8) but lately they've kinda sucked. Their latest album is probably among the biggest examples of selling out I've ever seen. Kinda sad, really.
The US is so in dept to China. I really hope that our evil government doesn't end up selling us to them :)
What's dept?
The $700,000,000,000 public debt of US
We would like to thank the Big Brother for increase our monthly chocolate ration.
- or something along this lines. I didn't read it in english, anyway.
War is peace,
Freedom is slavery,
Ignorance is strength
China "fully respects everyone's freedom to choose." BWAHAHHAHAHA LOLZOL *tear* oh yea that was a good one!
The real reason it was pulled back was because the software (like most software in China) was stolen. Solid Oak software the people that make the infamous Cybersitter say their code is in Green Dam. Here is the real story: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1529142/chinese-porn-blocker-killed
Oh those silly compulsive paranoid liar control freak thief mindwashing commies, what will they do next?
Apparently they were too lazy to even change the user interface lol Here is a rundown on the infractions in pdf form: http://www.cybersitter.com/gdcs.pdf
As was referenced in the article... What are you on about? Oh and in response to your question: practically owning the entire US since they make almost everything we use day to day and we owe them tremendous amounts of money.
Once again the Engadget dual story system Read and VIA gets me, didn't even notice the link to two different sources!
Anyways owning something doesn't give you sovereignty. China is so heavily dependent on other countries I can't really see what they could hope to do by simply owning things, they still have to comply to laws in respective countries, not only the US. People of this world would do well to be able to cooperate in business more and stop being so damn paranoid and frightened of each other. Even as China owns so much of the US they are terrified of us and still seek to thoroughly control their own peoples thoughts so they don't become like us or the rest of the "westernized" world. Not going to work.
I'd suggest you learn more about China and its society before making statements like that. They may have major problems right now but they really aren't too different from how this country was in the early 1900's. Matter of fact, the United States did very much the same trying to "control their own peoples thoughts" during the McCarthy-ism era that was only about 30-40 years ago. All so that we wouldn't become like them or the rest of the "Communist" world.
I am aware what a complete disaster the industrial revolution was and the US was a disaster in that time period. So what? What is your point? The only thing that proves is that China rather not prevent history from repeating. Yes the US did try to control our own people in many ways just like China now, but again that shows China rather not learn from history. What is your point?
My point is that it was wrong then and it is wrong now.
My point is that every civilization goes through the same growing pains China is currently going through at some point. It's a bit unfair to blame communism or any other part of Chinese society for what's going on there when the same thing has occurred and in many cases continues to occur in developed nations. Hell, while not as severe by any stretch, the US got pretty damn close to the same thing with the Patriot Act just a couple years ago(unless I've missed it, which is possible, that's still in effect). And that's with the fact that we've been around as a steady government for closing in on 250 years. The Communist government in China took over during the 1940s, meaning that we have a 190 year lead on them. Where were we in 1836? Point being: China has problems, but they're nothing out of the ordinary for a 60 year old government.
I like to poke at the Chinese communists but I don't really care what kinda name they give their government. I always had the impression that communists were supposed to respect the average workers and people more then the privileged people. No society ever lives up to its true ideals though. Anyways I really don't go for the argument that it's ok these things happen simply because it is a relatively new government. This is just another case of people failing to learn from history. Even then the concept of controlling peoples thoughts and opinions goes back thousands of years so there are no excuses for that. It is not ok for this stuff to happen anywhere. The industrial revolution mistakes were not limited to the US, these same things happened all around the world to countries right next to china. China was a pioneer in crude automation using water wheels hundreds of years before the industrial revolution even started.
I'm down with the principles of communism:
From each according to his abilities: I can sort things by color, if there aren't too many colors.
To each according his needs: I need a billion dollars.
I'm sorry If I don't follow, but "Censorship is dead, long live censorship." Wha???
Google for "the king is dead long live the king".
Thanks for not being a immature 10 year old like most here would. Much obliged sir
1984 has been staved off, for now.