Something About Internet

Business

Staples.com is showing different prices of the same item depending on users geographic location. For example, if the user is within 20 miles of a competing B&M store, then he will be shown a discounted price. Wall Street Journal found other vendors, such as Discover Financial Services, Rosetta Stone Inc and Hope Depot were playing the same game. The price you see is determined by a range of factors including your location and browsing history. Orbitz was found to charge a higher rate to Mac users earlier this year.

East

The Communist government in China is pushing for a Real Name Act on Internet. Last time, about one year ago, a similar effort aimed to deter criticizing to the government failed due to resistance from both users and the business sector. This time, it was packaged into a consumer protection measure. The purpose, according to the official People's Daily, was to prevent leaking user information.

West

Israel is placing another Internet legislative in the pipe. Once approved, police will be able to secretly shutdown certain websites. The owner and operator of the site would not be notified. The new law is said to be targeting all good causes: gambling, child pornography and copyright infringement.

Top 10 Chinese Internet Events in 2012

Top Ten (Chinese) Internet Moments 2012
1. Chinese intellectuals were forced to take side in a duel between Dr. Shimin Fang and Mr. Han Han. Han was ambushed after he wrote three political essays in which Han advocated for citizen actions for progressive reforms.
2. Director of the Central Bureau of Compilation and Translation, the ideological think tank, was accused of adultery, corruption and taking bribes by a postdoc trainee in the Bureau in a detailed account literature, which was posted online.
3. A post by a Hunan police went viral when people found the government paid $30k to some Urghur Muslims for some fruit cakes. The incident renewed public skeptical in China's Affirmative Action which was perceived as leaning against majority.
4. A Green Peace post triggered an outcry on an unauthorized human test of Genetic Modified Golden Rice on school age children. The experiment was explicitly banned by Chinese authority, but the US based researchers from the Tufts University smuggled testing materials into China, and conduct the experiment in a rural elementary school in disguise of a state sponsored lunch project without informing parents.
5. Violent mobs destroyed Japanese cars and attacked drivers in the heated anti-Japan campaigns across China following the dispute over Diaoyu Islands. Online photos and accounts showed many of the most violent mob were actually plain cloth police.
6. Two Chinese graduate students at USC were killed outside their residence. Because the Associate Press mistakenly reported the two were rich kids, and then refused to issue a correction upon request, Chinese communities felt the AP was conducting an Anti-Chinese spinning of the tragedy.
7. Beijing municipal government was criticized for its handling of a heavy rain. Dozens of people died, including one driver drown in his car on the street in the heart of its CBD area. Many likened the incident to the chaos and cover-up in the bullet train accident last year.
8. Following former deputy mayor of Chongqing Wang Lijun's failed asylum bid at the US Consulate in Chengdu, a big political drama unfolded in the course of months, often proceeded by online rumors which were later turned out to be the truth.
9. Chinese learned from Internet that an affordable luxury brand Zadig & Voltaire announced they would not serve Chinese as a sales pitch.
10. Vice-Chairman of the National People's Congress's Financial and Economic Committee Mr. He Keng blamed westerners who donate to Chinese were shameless. The comment backfired, and forced He quit from online social networks.

Honor Student Arrested at U Maryland

19 year-old Alexander Song of Fulton, MD was arrested yesterday. Song, a sophomore student, is a member of exclusive Gemstone program at University of Maryland's flagship campus.

Song is alleged to have posted a message about shooting rampage on campus the next day. A student saw the message, and alerted the police.

Top 10 Chinese Internet Events in 2011

• Detail account information of more than 600 million users of CSDN was released for download in December. Other sites Tianya, Renren, Kaixin and Weibo were followed. It is notable that all password are in plain characters without any form of encryption. It is suggested websites store plain password information because of censorship regulations.
• Sina Weibo started 'real-ID' in major cities.
• A young woman Guo Meimei showed off her luxury belongings on the Internet. She also claimed to be a manager with the Chinese Red Cross. The online community were outraged and many vowed never to donate a penny to the Red Cross.
• Jobs' death was censored in China, after people raised the question, why China did not have such figures.
• Chinese knock-off of Paypal, a division of Yahoo, was transferred to a domestic holders group, without go-ahead from Yahoo, citing national security concerns (VIE).
• Pro-democratic netizens made numerous high profile attempts to visit blind lawyer, who was jailed in his own house in Dongshigu Village in Shandong.
• The Chinese knock-off of Twitter, Sina Weibo, has become the de facto news media of the time. With over 300 million registered users, celebrates such as actress Yao Chen have as many as 15 million followers.
• The bullet-train accident on July 28 ignited anger among Netizens.
• School bus accidents in many places further saddened the online community, especially when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a donation of school buses as foreign aids.
• Many Chinese Internet companies went IPO in overseas stock markets.

China Red Cross Clarified on Restaurant Receipts

A snap shot of a restaurant receipt was posted on the Internet by anonymous people. It showed Red Cross paid $1,600 (Y9859 RMB) for a meal on 2/28/2011 in a private club 'Hui' in Shanghai. No other information was revealed. Many Chinese netizens were shocked by the bill, and demanded an explanation as well as an investigation on government corruption.

The Shanghai Red Cross clarified on Saturday that the money was from its own operating budget, rather than from accounts of donations. Also, as many as 17 persons, including clients and collaborating agencies were involved, therefore the per person bill was not high.

To read the figures with perspective, Shanghai's local poverty line is $75 per month for urban and suburban residents and $55 per month for rural residents, or about $2 per day per person.

On the other hand, the Communists Central Propaganda Department argued, comparing to the per diem rate published by the US State Department for Shanghai was $131 for meals and $229 for lodging per day for government employees, the exposed dining expense was by and large within this range.

Tencent, No 4

In a recent Goldman Sachs report, Tencent, an Internet company of China, was placed No. 3 in innovation capability, next to Apple, Google and Amazon, but ahead of Microsoft.

Indeed, Tencent is No. 9 on Google's Top 1000 Internet sites in terms of unique visitors, and No. 8 in terms of page views. Started as a Chinese version of ICQ, for many younger generation less-educated Chinese, QQ, Tencent's messenger service, is the alias of Internet. In March 2010, the simultaneously online users of QQ reached 100 million.

Tencent, too, is a pioneer in self-censoring of 'sensitive words'. The range of 'sensitive words' varies, depends on the eagerness of the vendor. For Tencent, there are many, many, many. For example, 'memorize'.

First Man-in-the-Middle-Attack on a Root Level DNS Server

The first ever man-in-the-middle-attack just took place on a root level DNS server, and of course, that would be in Beijing, China.

China had long been arguing that the top level DNS management must be de-centralized (to China, from the US) for varies reasons. They got one, and they used one.

ISP in US and Chile noticed when their customers tried to visit sites such as YouTube, Twitter or Facebook, they ended up at Chinese sites instead of the real ones. An investigation revealed that inquiries made to a root server in Beijing (one of 34 in the world) were intercepted and altered by the communists government's Great FireWall.

Blacklist Whitelist

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the Communist Party announced on a conference held in Beijing on Dec 16, 2009 that the entire overseas Internet would be blocked. Instead of past practice of using a blacklist (on the list: Flickr, YouTube, Picasa, Wikipedia, Blogger, Twitter, to name a few) to filter out unhealthy information, a whitelist will be used to allow only selected sites going through the Great FireWall (GFW). Overseas websites must file a record to be white-listed.

The measure is hailed a critical step to protect our children from harmful information such as pornography and gambling, and to shield adult Internet surfers from junk EMails and computer viruses.

Top 10 Chinese Internet Incidents in 2009

• The Terminal reality show
  Chinese citizen Mr. Feng Zhenghu was kidnapped by Air Japan with brute force from Shanghai in November 2009. Feng refused to enter Japan and chose to camp in the airport. With one cell phone, Feng was able to update his twitter feeds to allow thousands of fans real time update of the development. Feng is a social activist who help poor city dwellers in Shanghai. The Chinese government was annoyed by Feng's frequent criticism and asked Japanese government to take Feng out of the country.
  
• Persecution of online criticism
  Multiple lawsuits were filed by prosecutors across country to deter online criticism to government officials. Some posters were thrown into jails.
  
• Caonima
  In defiant to the government's censorship in name of cleaning out indecent Internet contents, Chinese Netizens created new words by composition of forbidden characters.
  
• Qishima
  PedXing safety was brought into attention after Hangzhou police faked the real speed of the car which caused the death of a new college graduate. Qishima literally means 70 km per hour.
  
• Deng Yujiao
  Waitress Deng Yujiao was sentenced when resisting gang rape from communist officials. Deng became an icon of a lower level people's courage to stand off exploiting from the government.
  
• Officials behavior scrutinized
  A Henan senior official was quoted asking a reporter, 'Who do you stand by, the Party or the People?'
  A Nanjing official was singled out when one of his work picture was put online, in which he was seen smoking a $1000 dollar cigarettes.
  
• Mass network blocking and the defeat of 'Green Dam'
  All Web 2.0 sites were blocked in China, including Wikipedia, Twitter, Youtube, Pacasa, among others. The government also requires all computers sold in China must have a filter program Green Dam pre-installed.
  
• Under water traps
  The country was stunned after two college students died trying to safe drowned kids. It turned out each segment of the Yangtze River was controlled by a local savage company, who made money by killing swimmers than asking high price to savage their bodies.
  
• Farmsville popular among white collars
  Government employees are indulged with an online gardening program (usually found as add-on component at social networking sites), in which people plant in virtual world.
  
• Citizen challenge unfair treatment with help from the online community and courage to cut open own chest
  A Henan man opened up his chest to show journalists his miner's lung after denied treatment by government agencies.
  A Shanghai resident cut his fingers to vow he was innocent after being wrongfully caught a government sting operation.
  A Sichuan entrepreneur set herself on fire (and died) to protest government eviction for commercial development
  

Chinese Doctor Helps Kids Stay Away From Internet

Mr. Yang Yongxin is director of the 'Internet Rehabilitation Center' of the Forth People's Hospital of Linyin of Shandong Province. His center has helped near 3,000 kids to stay away from the Internet in the past 3 years. His weapon is the shock gun seen in the photo.

Kids who are obsessed in Online life are checked in by their parents, mostly local farmers. They will stay in the center for two weeks, during the period usually they would be shocked by electricity multiple times a day. A student described his feeling as 'you would rather die'. Some was shocked into vomiting. The Chinese word 'electric shock' was masked by a white cloth tape (as seen in the picture). The electricity range of this device is from 10 mA to 200 mA.

Although Yang claims the center has a heal ratio of 100%, there are many kids who have been checked in multiple times by their parents. Parents welcome the center. Some paid 2000-3000 Yuan RMB ($500) just to get in.

The host of the center, the Fourth People's Hospital of Linyi, was a mental facility. Although parents do not think their kids suffer from mental problem, they agreed with Yang's treatment. Many observed their kids started following their orders after being shocked by Yang. Some would ask for more shocks.

In year 2008, the Chinese Ministry of Health recognized obsession of Internet Usage a mental illness.

Top 10 Chinese Internet Events in 2008

Fuzhou Marina Affairs Director tried to grab a teenage girl into the man's restroom. When confronted with the girl's parents, Lin threatened the parents when they refused to take his money offer. The entire incident was caught on tape by surveillance camera. Lin was removed from the position.

A few foreign websites, such as New York Time and the Wikipedia was unblocked during the Olympic Game in the summer.

A local official lost a new appointed position after the information was leaked online. A Nanjing Housing Director was placed under investigation after network pictures showing him wearing luxury watches.

Explicit pictures depicting sexual adventures of Hong Kong actor Chen Guanxi with many other actresses were spread online.

Concerned citizen used Internet to investigate the motivation led to the slain of Shanghai cops by Beijing resident Yang Jia. One person was arrested after leaking the information that Yang Jia had been wrongfully tortured by the police.

Netizens were divided by the authenticity of a photo taken by a peasant of a wild tiger in Shannxi. Citizen Reporting an innovative idea;

First Online slander case ruled;

Popular new jargons:
1) Push up
2) Buying Soy Sauce;
3) Five Times Better;
4) To be Suicides;
5) Very Yellow, Very Violent

Duke University freshman Wang Qianyuan was criticized for appearing with Tibet Independent Parade

Top 10 Chinese Internet Events in 2007

• Property owners Yang Wu and Wu Ping resisted real estate developers from demolishing their home with martial art, 5 star flag, barrels of gasoline and netizen support
  
• Online video revealing Beijing high school students mocking their instructor in classroom
  
• Naked photos of a white collar office lady sleeping with foreigners were leaked online. Shi Jing, assistant to CEO of Electrolux, was exposed with nothing on her young body when her foreign playboy sex-mate's online photo albums were cracked. Shi's naked pictures were among hundreds naked pictures of some dozens of other Chinese women.
  
• Good Samaritan sentenced by Nanjing court. A citizen who tried to help an old lady fell at a Bus station was ordered to pay her medical expenses by a Nanjing court. The court questioned if he hadn't caused the old lady's problem why did he offer the help;
  
• Shanxi Slave Labor. It had been many years that brick factories owners in Shanxi abducted young boys, mostly from Henan province, to be slave labor until a desperate father revealed this online and thus caught the attention of the higher ups in Beijing. Many earlier rescue attempt, even those made by TV stations were omitted.
  
• The Information Ministry and Broadcasting Bureau announced 12/29/2007 that Video websites, (Youtube alike) will have to be stated owned, or state controlled before 1/31/2008. Many news spread by homemade videos shot by widely available video cell phones. Now the channel is closed;
  
• Oversea Chinese discriminated for opportunities in China, as trivial as involuntary blood tests, as absurd as senior research position recruiting. Online revelations of these kind of discrimination had provoked mass demonstration in the past;
  
• Mass shutdown of websites by the CCP propaganda department, including servers operated by oversea service providers before the Party Congress;
  
• Bakers lost guardianship of Anna Mae He. Jack He, a self-promoted national hero, is collecting more money after acquired Mae;
  
• Nightmare in Nanjing, a homemade documentary depicting the massacre of 400,000 Nanjing residents by Japanese occupation, was rescued for a permanent presence on Youtube by prompt donation from oversea Chinese students and scholars. The author Dr. Rhawn Joseph and his Chinese co-producer Haiyan Wu, however, were also put under spot lights of many of their conflicts with other scholars and anti-Japanese groups.
  

Top 10 Chinese Internet Events in 2006

Top 10 Chinese Internet Events in 2006

1. Great Fire Wall accomplished;
   
2. Government further tightened control over Internet communications;
   
3. HYSIS scandal and Cell paper retraction
   
4. Oversea Chinese students use Internet in fight with school administrations;
   
5. MIT Chinese students protested Academic Fraud of Asian history professors;
   
6. College students villains haunted down by Net mobs;
   
7. A daughter accused her father of having mistress;
   
8. Celebrity Blog Wars;
   
9. Fast-made Internet Beauties;
   
10. Net cop lost defamation cases;