After some tests, Long discovered two flaws in Tencent's authentification procedures which likely allowed his attackers to crack his QQ password. The attacks didn't stop there, but escalated on Sunday [zh] to included a DDoS attack on servers for his blog, williamlong.com, large amounts of spam sent to various e-mail addresses of his, constant harassing phone calls from people who answer his callbacks but won't speak, and attempts to guess his mobile phone PIN. For the time being, Long is blogging between his Sina blog and QZone.

A gallery of Honker website defacement trophies.

Long says the attacks come in response to a blog post he published on Saturday. In the post, he doesn't touch on any of the things which typically Honkers off, but he does launch some heavy criticism their way, calling them, among other things, the cyberspace equivalent of Boxers.

Long writes:

话说几天前，我在腾讯网看了一则新闻《中国黑客元老9月推自律公约 欲重拾黑客精神》，我当时在腾讯微博里针对该新闻的评论是：“我不看好所谓‘黑客自律’，所谓的黑客早已经商业化，形成了一条黑色产业链，通过挂马、病毒来威胁网民的利益，这种环境和条件下，一个商业化的安全卫士软件比‘黑客自律’更有现实意义，更有可操作性，网民的利益是通过斗争获取到的，不是那些黑客施舍的。”

之后有些黑客界人士进行反驳，说黑客有很多种，有的是Hacker，有的是Cracker，我的看法是，没有所谓的“好黑客”，无论是骇客、黑客、红客，以及所有利用系统安全漏洞进行攻击破坏的群体，都是坏的，在美国这些人早就进了监狱，中国因为法律不完善，观念落伍，很多人以为“窃书不是偷”，才导致现在中国黑客的嚣张，肆意通过安全漏洞攻击他人以获取经济利益，这些黑客本质和小偷强盗没有区别。

所谓的“红客”更是一个怪胎，是极端民族主义和无政府主义的结合体，其本质与早年的“义和团”没有什么区别，成事不足，败事有余。从技术上讲，红客的所谓战绩，基本上没有什么拿得出手的，几乎没有攻破任何一个美国商业网站（例如Google、Youtube、Twitter等），而名不见经传的伊朗黑客在2010年1月12日成功让百度停止服务至少一个上午（通过攻击百度域名服务商实现）。美国黑客就更别说了，我们用的美国思科入侵检测系统IDS没准都有后门呢。

[...]

以前所谓的黑客精神，应该是建设性而不是破坏性的，是一种专注和执着的精神，是对技术近乎疯狂的追逐；是善于独立思考、喜欢自由探索的一种思维方式。这种精神如果在国外，我相信是可能有的，但在中国，目前看是没有的，中国的所谓黑客大多数是无脑的“义和团”和“网络黑社会”，根本没有独立思考能力，他们对网络的只有破坏没有贡献，在任何民主国家，这些人都应该在监狱里接受惩罚。

实际上，目前国内的媒体对于黑客圈子的负面批评也一直络绎不绝，从各式各样的盗号木马，到恶意的熊猫烧香病毒，还有那些以支付宝、网银为目标的恶意攻击，直到最近中国黑客竟然针对国外从事政治目标的网络钓鱼，引发了国际社会对中国的谴责，给我国的外交带来重大的麻烦，美国甚至立法规定，网络攻击威胁到美国国家安全，将不惜动用军事力量进行反击。这一切的一切都证明目前的中国黑客已经失去了自制力，演变为以自身“高超”的技术为手段对网民进行要挟和攻击的恶意群体，成为一个不折不扣的“麻烦制造者”，稍有独立思考能力的人都会对黑客群体产生负面印象，而一旦黑客们遇到媒体或网民对他们恶行的揭露，就会像小孩掐架一般的幼稚和歇斯底里地进行反击，从另一方面，这类举动正好应印了人们对黑客流氓本性的指控。

On a lighter note, when Long reached out to his Twitter followers for methods to fend off a DDoS attack, the suggestion most people gave him was: just get your site blocked [zh].

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Nine months too late, but thanks to the same gracious individual who translated GVA's Anonymous Blogging guide, we are now able to present you with the Chinese version of Blog for a Cause!: The Global Voices Guide of Blog Advocacy:

博客有理! 全球之声博客声援指南

“[T]o inform and to inspire,” for that is the point; and to further quote author of Blog for a Cause! Mary Joyce:

It explains how activists can use blogs as part of campaigns against injustice around the world. Blogging can help activists in several ways. It is a quick and inexpensive way to create a presence on the Internet, to disseminate information about a cause, and to organize actions to lobby decision-makers.

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This morning Mr. Peng came looking for me; I'd recommended his Missing Persons blog a while back. He's pretty helpless, but there's not much I can do for him. At 8:30 while we were chatting in the lobby, someone was watching us.

I gave him Liu Xiaoyuan‘s phone number, thinking he'd be needing it.

An hour later, he was taken away. He's being held at “Fuyou St. police station detainment center, across from #18 Xirongxian Hutong“. He sent me an SMS saying, “one of our parents has been beaten and is injured, I've been beaten too,” and “they've burnt some of our papers.”

The weather's great in Beijing today, the sky's really blue.

Peng Wenle runs a well-known blog dedicated to helping parents find their children who have been kidnapped and sold.

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Previously Zeng Jinyan had posted a photoshopped picture of the Adidas ad showing former Olympic diver Hu Jia wearing a t-shirt showing Zeng and her husband made by a friend of the couple. There was also a birthday celebration held for Hu Jia on his 35th birthday last month which was ‘attended’ by a small number of Chinese and foreign Twitter users who changed their avatars to display headshots of Hu, but Zeng's post today, titled simply ‘The latest situation,’ shows there hasn't been anything of late worth celebrating:

On August 7 I was taken to Tianjin to see Hu Jia, taken to Dalian on the 8th, and brought home to Beijing on the 23rd. Sixteen days I've been out of the loop, and I'm thankful to all friends who have been looking out for us, but the baby and I have safely returned home. Things are still the same here, there are plainclothes police officers in the courtyard and at all the exits.

August 7 I met with Hu Jia and learned that letters he'd been recently sending home were getting confiscated by the prison. I still haven't received those family letters, so it's possible the situation has not improved.

One of the staff at the prison affairs office told me that while a public trial meeting was being held for one of the convicts (based on what that prison staffer said, public trial meetings are a way of maintaining total control over convicts who make mistakes or break the law once they've already landed in prison; all convicts are made to watch and learn, as a kind of education), and Hu Jia had said that the prison's methods infringe upon convicts’ dignity and human rights. He didn't just make his disagreement known to the prison, he also began spreading his views around among other convicts, which created difficulties for the prison staff; they hoped that his family members would work with the prison and persuade Hu Jia to stop looking at things so one-sidedly, to stop repeating the same things, and to stop having “undesirable influence”.

Then I found out that Hu Jia had been “arranged” to go rake up leaves in the sun by himself, for seven hours every day, later with another inmate being sent out to assist. A book I'd sent Hu Jia before, “International Human Rights Treaties and the Protection of Prisoner's Rights” (a legal book, published by China Procuratorate Publishing House), had been confiscated by the prison and was returned to the family. The letters that were confiscated were not returned to Hu Jia.

Hu Jia normally writes at least one letter a week each to his mother, me, and the baby. But from August 1 until now, we haven't received a single letter. which is very unusual. Right now we don't know when we'll be able to meet again with Hu Jia, we can only fight for that to be as soon as possible. Even to this day the prison has yet to send our family the notice needed to arrange a visit; on previous visits, the guobao would only say each meeting was a “special occasion”.

Zeng also today uploaded a picture of her baby, Hu Qianci, to TwitPic:

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The incident was live-blogged here, where on Zuola's return to his computer it was revealed to us (and just shortly before, himself) that Zuola is now not allowed to leave Meitanba. In tidier form, here are the tweets Zuola sent out before and after his encounter:

15:52
@zuola: Head of security at Meitanba Mining Group Director Liu w/ 3 others taking me now back to Meitanba Village, scared my parents.

16:02
@zuola: I've been made to get into their car. I want my parents to confirm what has happened today, what time and place and w/ who, the license plate number of the car I was taken away in. I'm fine, in their car, it feels a bit like I'm being intercepted.

16:08
@zuola: The two people who came this morning under the pretense that I'd violated the one child policy are here with Security Dir. Liu now. Turns out they've forced me to go with them.

16:28
@zuola: Thank you everyone for your attention. I'm still in the vehicle.

[Word spreads quickly across the Twittersphere...]

17:16
@zuola: Changsha Mining Group Security Director Liu has taken me from Fengmuqiao back to Meitanba. They've demanded that I stay in Meitanba and that if I do, they'll leave me alone. If I leave, they'll bring me back. I stated that that I am not an employee of Changsha Mining Group, although my dad was until he retired from there 13 years ago.

17:20
@zuola: I'm in vehicle 湖A 94369 on the way back to Meitanba, there were four people in the vehicle just now.

17:23
@zuola: It seems they were a joint task force from the Ningxia Guobao squad, Changsha Mining Group, Fengmuqiao Village government, pretty effective work. First they checked to see that my mobile phone had left the Meitanba area, then they sent Fengmuqiao government people to stand guard, later notifying the Changsha Mining Group Security Division to drive over and pick me up, and take me back to Meitanba, and that was it.

17:25
@zuola: I'll just state that aside from having been forced into their vehicle to be taken back to Meitanba, my person is free now. However, I do hope that a journalist will be able to accompany me to Beijing, they won't know what to do then and I expect that it will make for a very vivid story.

17:31
@zuola: Changsha Mining Group Security Director Liu took me from Fengmuqiao back to Meitanba. They've demanded that I stay in Meitanba and that if I do, they'll leave me alone. If I leave, they'll bring me back. I don't work for the Changsha Mining Group.

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And today, a protest held by a group of American Free Tibet activists has been streamed live on Qik.com by intrepid citizen reporter @noneck; further footage is being uploaded as this is being posted:

Most recent tweet from @noneck (aka Noel Hidalgo) came less than an hour ago; the video he mentions appears to be this clip:
I'm qik'n an awesome video of a protest i saw in t sq. The frosting came from a cbc camera man who got his passport stolen by police

Lhadon Tethong from Students for a Free Tibet did something similar this time last year when she also went ‘underground', hiding from Chinese authorities as she continued to livevlog her quest to get IOC president Jacques Rogge's attention.

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We've reported here on Sohoxiaobao before; some of you might remember the story of Chinese police officer and artist Wu Youming who lost his job due to his blogging, and then there was the time the highly-read blogger ProState in Flames found his Sohoxiaobao blog shut down “for non-technical reasons.”

ProState in Flames has since started blogging at independent portal Bullog, and not that posts don't often get harmonized there as well, but it was at Bullog that ProState brought us the news of Sohoxiaobao's closure by posting the official notice that can now be seen on the site's front page, of which Flickr user Shizhao has also taken a screenshot:

Notice of SOHO Xiaobao's temporary closure

Due to lack of self-discipline of the part of a few netizens in posting sensitive information to their former blogs not in accordance with the discussion requirements, SOHO Xiaobao is temporarily closed. We are currently in the process of applying to have it reopened.

Service has now stopped; all data will be saved, and usage will resume upon further notice. Thank you everyone for your understanding and support!

At the same time, everyone is asked, in their care for SOHO Xiaobao, to be cautious of what they write during the Olympic period, and the posting of illegal information is strictly forbidden.

SOHO Xiaobao
July 18, 2008

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Volunteers at his well-known website 64Tianwang.com (English) have been actively posting all news coverage and details surrounding Huang's case, but the campaign to have his charges dropped gained a lot more momentum when, following his formal arrest on Friday afternoon, three of China's better-known social issue bloggers, all from Sichuan, Wang Yi, Ran Yunfei and Linghu Buchong*, joined up with two other intellectual-writers, Liao Yiwu and Li Yadong, to take the brave step of issuing a letter of protest. The letter has been posted not just on their own blogs, but also on the more mainstream My1510, IndyMediaCN, among many others.

A translation of the letter, the original of which has since been read and spread widely online, can be seen below. Of particular note, however, is the online support yet another highly-read blogger, Mo Zhixu, has been providing on his own and in his own way, centered around his blog at independent portal Bullog.cn.

In early June, he posted the content of Huang's Chinese Wikipedia entry, which at the time had far more information than its English counterpart, in a post at Bullog which although has since been deleted, can still be found elsewhere.

In a June 15 post titled simply, ‘One less person on MSN’, Mo reposts a Chinese-language RFA news report with the details of Huang's arrest and earthquake relief/writing activities in the few days prior. On June 17 he posted a picture of the official document first used to detain Huang nearly a week earlier on June 11, along with the legal definition of what constitutes “possession of a state secret” in China:

Then on Saturday, July 19, Mo returned to Huang's case with a picture and transcription of the official notice of Huang's formal arrest, addressed to Huang's mother, a post which in just a few hours had received over 11,000 hits and many supportive and outraged comments:

Below is the text of Wang, Ran, Linghu, Liao and Li's statement on Huang's arrest:

To Chengdu City Police, government, NPC representatives and the general public

On July 19, 2008 while at a friend's party, we learned that Mr. Huang Qi, who since June 10 has been criminally detained by Chengdu Police, as of this afternoon, was formally arrested for the crime of “illegal possession of state secrets”.

While we have never been acquainted with Huang Qi, we respect the “Tianwang” which he founded to devote himself to upholding the rights of citizens. We know that he has served jail time, that he was mistreated while in prison, and that he came out with pains in his chest and other lingering conditions. Out of respect for him, we maintain our firm support for his civil rights-upholding activities through “Tianwang”, particularly his efforts in helping Mother Tang, relative of a June 4 victim, fight for compensation from the government.
As several Sichuanese intellectuals who experienced the earthquake, we especially respect Mr. Huang Qi for his participation in the civil society relief effort work following the earthquake. We know that he did everything in his power to provide supplies and aid to the earthquake victims in the disaster area, and was in contact with the parents of children who perished in the earthquake.

But what we really don't understand is what a common citizen's participation in disaster relief and understanding of the true situation in the disaster zone have to do with “state secrets”. We have also, as common citizens, taken part in some of the disaster zone relief work. We're no different from Mr. Huang Qi, or any of the thousands of civil volunteers who went to the disaster zone, and in being there came to learn some unofficial information, or news which differed from what was reported in the media. So is any information that a citizen receives via means other than the media then supposed to be a “national secret”? Or does the state now naturally have ownership over all societal information? So is any citizen fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to see or hear any information inconsistent with government talking points then in “illegal possession of state secrets”?

If that is the case, then that would suggest that every single earthquake victim who spoke with Huang Qi is also in illegal possession of state secrets. Put another way, at the same time they became earthquake victims, they also became “state secrets”, or began carrying some sort of state secret virus. The Chengdu and Sichuan police should go arrest every single earthquake victim who came in contact with Huang Qi, and not only just Huang Qi himself. Or at least, all earthquake victims should be put in isolation, to keep any of us from speaking to them, and coming across any state secrets.

Given the common sense of rule of law, we know that all so-called state secrets, first off, are not known to average citizens. Second, the state takes measures to keep them confidential. In other words, anything that can be seen on the street, is not a secret. If nudity were to be seen on the street, the problem would certainly not be the people who saw it, but the person who was seen. Which is to say, any common citizen not part of any state organ, unless he were to use illegal means to pry into or steal information given prior protection by any state organ, any information of which he is aware, could not possibly touch up on the crime of “illegal possession of state secrets”.

As such, we have no choice but to express our strong suspicion, opposition and protest to Chengu police's arrest of Huang Qi under the false pretense of his participation in post-earthquake disaster relief. Although we have seen that the local government was not happy to see volunteer-based civil society relief rescue efforts, the Chengdu police's arrest of Huang Qi is all the more shocking. We can only understand this as a sort of negation of municipal society, a cruel and arrogant provocation aimed at civil society, as well as a humiliation to this province which only just suffered an earthquake.

Based on experience and conscience, we do not believe this to be a just arrest. We do hope that Chengdu police will be able to respect the rule of law and respect civic rights, at the same time, respecting their own methods used in handling a case. We advocate for and support the media, internet and civil society to be able to freely report and comment upon this case. Even more, we encourage intellectuals, urban residents and media in Chengdu and elsewhere to stand up and question and criticize the Chengdu police for this, using the legitimate means of a citizen to help the government in respecting the laws it itself established.

We call upon the Chengdu police that they not use any torture tactics to extort a confession or any other such barbaric means which violate the rule of law. We call upon the Chengdu police to allow Mr. Huang Qi to meet with his attorney. We call upon the Chengdu police to refrain from using illegal methods to continue to harass and threaten Huang Qi's volunteers at Tianwang.

We would hate to see this case become yet another dismal human rights record raising international attention in the midst of this Olympic year. We regret to suspect, however, that the Chengdu police are at present committed to doing as much. As intellectuals of China, we also hate to see China's human rights situation always being criticized by people from other countries, which is why we can only be hard-headed about this, and begin first and foremost by criticizing our own government.

We hope the Chengdu police and Chengdu judicial departments take the initiative in their response to this case. May our criticism, protest and response to the government prove to be a blessing for Chengdu, and for China.

2008-7-19
July 19, 2008

Just a brief description of Huang's website Tianwang: put online in 1998 as a platform for reuniting families with missing persons, a year later it had expanded its focus to larger social issues, exposing several corruption cases and one major medical scandal, during which time Huang Qi was beaten while his website garnered heavy praise in commercial and official Chinese (as well as foreign) media. Less than two years later, the website was shut down. Two weeks after that, Huang Qi had it up and running again, this time hosted overseas, only then to be blocked within China as it remains today. That same summer, Huang Qi was sentenced to five years in prison for subversion of state power. All this and more can be read on Tianwang here.

*Linghu Buchong has informed GVA that while he in fact did not sign his name to the letter, he was the first person to have posted it to Bullog.

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In a PDF document dated simply July 2008 from the Shanghai Branch of China Netcom hosted on the Shanghai-based IDC GEIS technology website, we find the ‘IDC Entry and Exit Management Regulations for the Olympic Period Server Lockdown‘:

Dear Client, Hello!

Thank you for your support of the company. We are delighted to provide you with the most satisfying and speediest service.

To ensure China Netcom network stability and safe operation of existing IDC server farm equipment during the Olympic Period, the company's Shanghai branch has drawn up management regulations for the Olympic Period Server Lockdown to be uniformly implemented beginning on the day of The Server Lockdown until further e-mail notice. Your company is is hereby informed of the IDC Management Regulations for the Olympic Period Server Lockdown, please comply.

1. Business Operations and Visitations

1.1 During the Server Lockdown Period, the IDC will stop all new business operations.
1.2 During the Server Lockdown Period, the IDC will stop all client visitation activities.

2. Regulations on Entry and Exit of IDC Client Equipment

2.1 If during the Server Lockdown Period there occurs system breakdown or hardware malfunction of client equipment, clients may carry out emergency replacement. Clients need to explain the nature of the breakdown and China Netcom Operation Maintenance will carry out sampling checks. Standard replacements will be of identical equipment or the equivalent quantity.
2.2 The processing of routine incoming or outgoing equipment transactions will cease for the Olympic Server Lockdown Period.
2.3 No pre-appointments need be made for emergency equipment replacement and can be handled same-day by fax.
2.4 Equipment replacement during the Olympic Period requires specially authorized personnel for on-site processing.

3. Maintenance Guidelines for Personnel

3.1 Clients are encouraged to make utmost use of remote operation for server maintenance.
3.2 All clients, aside from needing long-term authorization for the Olympic Period, also need to update their Olympic Period Specially Authorized Personnel List with Netcom, as Netcom will be making uniform display IDs. Specially authorized personnel must bring their own shenfenzheng and be wearing their display ID before they will be allowed to enter the IDC server maintenance room.
3.3 Maintenance details will need to be written down on-site and approved, explaining the reason for malfunction, the situation, and recovery plan.
3.4 Equipment manufacturers and other non-Olympic Period Authorized Personnel wishing to enter the server room need to follow company special approval procedures with the corresponding sales manager.
3.5 For the duration of the Olympic Server Lockdown Period, every client company is restricted to no more than three maintenance personnel in the server room at the same time.

For further assistance, please phone the China Netcom Key Client Service Hotline: (8621) 10069 or via e-mail: acceptsh@cnc.cn

Moving west, a similar notice dated July 14 has been put up on the Chongqing-based IDC CANIDC:

Notice Regarding Olympic Period IDC Server Room Lockdown

Dear All Users and Partners,

In accordance with the relevant National Olympic Safeguard requirements and instructions for telecommunication and internet companies, Chongqing Telecom (including Fuling Telecom) will from July 20, 2008 begin a complete server lockdown of all IDC server rooms, to conclude at further notice. For the duration of the server lockdown, all operational activities and all network-related operations (such as: network adjustment, machine replacement, IP switching, installation of new servers etc.) will cease, though mainframe breakdown repair procedures will not be affected.

Also: for the duration of the Olympics, all users and partners are asked to reinforce information safety management and prevent the appearance of any illegal or illicit information, with strict attention paid to Olympics information.

Thank you for your cooperation and support!

And back to GEIS in Shanghai, we find yet this other notice apparently straight out of Beijing, dated July 15:

Olympics Server Lockdown Notice for all Server Rooms

In accordance with the work arrangements set out for China Telecom, China Netcom and China Mobile in “Notice Regarding the Carrying Out of Beijing Games Server Lockdown Work”, in order to ensure smooth communications and network information security for the duration of the Beijing Olympic Games, from the opening through to the closing of the Beijing Olympic Games, the clear-cut network lockdown management work to be carried out on information networks goes as follows:

1. Server lockdown period: For China Netcom and China Mobile, July 20-August 28, 2008. For China Telecom, August 1-25, 2008.

2. The above server lockdown plan is the server lockdown plan for the duration of the Beijing Olympic Games.

3. For the duration of this server lockdown period, except for network-related malfunctions, no requests for equipment or personnel entry or exit will be accepted. If equipment damage occurs, this company will assist in arranging for a replacement.

4. All clients are asked to place high importance on Beijing Olympic Games information security safeguarding work, base work plans on the actual situation, and ensure the smooth completion of information security safeguarding work for the duration of the Beijing Olympic Games.

You are hereby informed!

All users are asked to understand and be supportive for any inconvenience this brings!

While we can only wait and see just what “smooth communication” inconveniences are in store for the Olympic Games, tech blogger Ruan Yifeng today brings us this personal experience in his post, ‘One scene in the data center’:

This afternoon, I withstood the 35 degree heat and went to Shanghai Telecom's server center to take out a server that I've had stored there for three (four?) years already, and I came across something I never imagined.

There, unexpectedly, at the gate, were police! Four in total, all in plainclothes, one of which was in the process of filling out a “notification to collect evidence” form. I snuck a peek,and the sending danwei was the Beijing Haidian Office Criminal Investigation Squad.

A bit later, I removed my server, and was prepared to leave. The police were watching me, and one of them said to another one, “that's not ours.”

This incident scared me. Before this, I only knew that servers could be ordered to be unplugged by “the higher authority departments”, but I never thought I'd see with my own eyes a maching being taken away by police.

Yet, how on earth could a server be evidence for anything?

Afterwards, I was thinking it over, and for them to do this there can only be two possibilities: one is to prove that illegal material exists on the server, and the other is to prove that a certain person has visited this server. The way I see it, unless fraud is somehow involved, regardless of which of those possibilities it is, it couldn't have been something illegal.

To run a website in China is truly sad; your server can be taken away at any time, and you go through every day never knowing what could happen next.

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This comes at a time when even major commercial web 2.0 sites with tens of dollars of foreign venture capitalist funding can drop dead on the spot with no explanation.

The notice appears to have originated at the Beijing [zh] Communications Authority and was then spread by its local counterparts from Jiangsu to Zhejiang and, further south, Guangdong province:

Special rectification notice for the Olympic period

Dear customer:

We've just received notice from upper management that for the duration of The Olympic Period beginning June 20 and ending August 25, the appropriate departments will be carrying out strict investigations to check that websites are on record, that BBSes have been specially recorded, as well as checking for illegal information on websites. If your website meets any of the following criteria, please immediately carry out the appropriate operations, or else your website will be ordered by the upper administrative departments to be shut down:

1. Website is not on record: please immediately proceed to the Ministry of Information Industry website and submit your information to be recorded. Once recording has been successful, please open the Virtual Host Control Panel -> ICP Records and submit your registered record number there.

2. If your website has a BBS or blog, etc., which has obtained a Specially Recorded Forum license, please first close the the BBS or blog, etc., to prevent the forum resulting in the entire website being closed. For details on the procedure of having a forum specially recorded, please contact your local Communications Administration [zh] to enquire. Only local Communications Authorities are clear on how to handle the special recording of local BBSes. Your questions regarding the special recording of forums cannot be accurately handled here.

If there are dynamic information distribution components to your website, such as comment boards, reciprocal information distribution, categorized information distribution, news….etc., please be sure to active a pre-screening publishing mechanism so that all information is screened before it is released and all illegal information is subject to strict screening.

Speaking of regionalization, one tech BBS in northwestern China's Xinjiang province has reworded the notice such that the website sounds desperate for users not to go beyond the above guidelines, and even defines “illegal information” as the words ‘handgun', ‘air gun', ‘dart gun', ‘shotgun', ‘bomb’ and other weaponry/explosives-related vocab, stating that all such words will be filtered without exception.

On July 2, someone at the Feelings BBS and claiming to represent it added this at the end of the notice in an attempt to clarify the rules for users:

PS: For the duration of the Olympic Period, all major BBSes are already undergoing widespread rectification, and this forum will severely strike at any and all illegal speech and advertising behavior, and IPs will be locked down and reported if any illegal behavior is noticed!

You are not to discuss the current political system (including current military situations, the Ti*be* is*sue, the Tai*wan is*sue, domestic situations, etc.) and it is not allowed for there to appear in any posts any text or image jokes about national leaders! It is not allowed for baseless, unproven news to be reposted, and all that is posted must come from Xinhuanet and other mainstream websites! Are members are invited to self-screen before posting, thank you!

A post last month on the ChinaGFW blog shows that severe measures were also put in place from the end of May to the end of last month as the Olympic torch continued to hobble its way around the country.

Written by John Kennedy · comments (11)
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