Fudan University Poisoning Case Suspect Unmasked

This is said to be the weibo of the single suspect Mr. Lin. Lin's last weibo was posted on April 7. He lamented on the limit of reach of medical assistance, and wish he could help patients beyond his specialities.

Lin tipped the cause, Alloxan, of his roommate Mr. Huang's illness via an anonymous message, which helped doctors to make a positive diagnose, but too late to save Huang life. The message also helped police to trace back to Lin. Huang passed away on April 16 after fell into liver exhaustion shortly after April 1st.

Lin was taken away from his dorm room by police in the night on April 13, but it is still not clear as to a cause or motivation.

Rumor has it that Lin's target was a third student sharing the dorm room. Huang wasn't staying at the time, but came back unexpectedly. Huang felt sick after drank from the water dispenser installed in the room. Huang suspected the water was contaminated (from manufacture, transportation, etc.) so he washed the water bottle afterwards.

Lin was originally from Guangdong Province, and attended the Sun Yet-sen University.

The victim's last weibo was on March 13: Dark Knight: No one can eascape moral judgement.

Notable poisoning cases involving Chinese students:

date	place	victim	suspect	association	substance
2013	Fudan University	Huang Yang	Lin Senhao	roommate	alloxan
2011	New Jersey	Wang Xiaoye	Li Tianle	spouse	thallium
2007	China University of Mining and Technology	Niu, Li, Shi	Chang	roommate	thallium
1999	Columbia University	Yao Cheng, Liu Lei	Yao Cheng	self	phosphorus-32
1997	Beijing University	Jiang Lin, Lu Chenguang	Wang Xiaolong	roommate	thallium
1994	Qinghua University	Zhu Ling	unknown		thallium

Blooking of Github Led to Whitehouse Petition

Github become the newest major programming websites blocked by China's Great FireWall (GFW), following glories of sites such as SourceForge, Python, etc.

Concerned citizens filed a petition at the Whitehouse. The online petition asked the President to deny entry to the US to those "who help internet censorship, builders of Great Firewall in China." The Whitehouse pledge to respond to a petition if it can generate 100,000 signatures within 2 weeks. This petition collected about 3,000 votes in its first day.

Demanding an immigration policy change from the Whitehouse might be a long fetch. There are, actually, easier ways to do just the same, if the movement can gain the sympathy from the visa interviewers at the US's Beijing Embassy.

The embassy should be provided with a list of most notoriously active GFW researchers. Individual interviewer may block anyone who appears on that list from entering US. Per US laws, the interview agent must exercise her own judgement in each case, regardless of directives from her boss or other government agencies.

The GFW is the most extensive and most advanced content filtering and management system in the world. It is estimated thousands of researchers are working on this project on daily basis. Most of them keep a low profile. Few ever show their pride on the Wall in public, with the exception of two persons so far.

The first one is of course 'the Father of the GFW', Mr. Fang Binxing. In an interview, Mr. Fang said he truly believe the Wall is an important tool that benefits the Communists government. Because the government is for the people, thus it also benefits the people.

The second person is an associate professor Mr. Han Weili in Fudan University. The Wall is rarely discussed in public. When Professor Han posted a job ad for research assistants on the internal bulletin board system (BBS), several students questioned how could he do this in his conscience. Some commented that how would anyone get involved to fix their resume later on (so that not to offend any potential employers whom with no exception must have been victimized by the research). Han boasted his 12 years experience on the Wall, and stated that he only interested in the technology. A student pointed out there is a difference when you already knew how your technology would be deployed (against human mankind) but still work on it.

Mr. Han Weili should be found a spot on the list, no question about that.

Dr. Han's research activities can be viewed at his university homepage.

On an unrelated note, it seems the Great FireWall conducted an MITM attack targeting the Github. It is not clear whether the attack is sponsored by the government, or is a personal act launched by a few operators (Dr. Han). Visitors within China was cheated from a self-issued certificate when they tried to access the Github websites. Chinese government and GFW operators have the authority to issue security certificates with their root certificate privilege. The attack lasted about an hour. The fake certificate was captured and displayed at many security sites and blogs. While it is impractical to yank the root certificate controlled by Chinese government, concerned individuals should make an effort to remove it from their own computers.

Update: After the petition, the GFW Dr. Han issued a statement in which he denied any involvement in the GFW project ever. The Seagull found a screenshot of the exchanges between the GFW Dr. and a Fudan University student luosheng. Anyone reads Chinese can see with your own eyes.