back to article Chinese Green Dam pilfers open source too

After claims that China's "Green Dam" filtering app includes code pirated from an American software maker, it should come as no surprise that the People's Republic censorshipware is also using open-source code without displaying the proper license. According to multiple coders at Sourceforge, the Green Dam Youth Escort package …

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  1. vincent himpe

    duh ..

    that software is for usage in china only. there is no such thing as copyright law in china. besides. that stuff is open source right .. as in 'free'.. the chinese reasoning is: 'tank you vely mush'

  2. Simon Painter

    Copyright

    The problem with copyright is it's only copyright in countries which have copyright laws. Software licenses are basically toilet paper unless there are national laws to recognize their legitimacy.

    Can't remember which company it was but I did read a lovely story about the Chinese buying a german rail system from a german company. They got a few trains and some track, a station or two and some signals. They decided they liked it but the germans were charging a shit load for more of it so they just got their engineers to measure and copy every single component.

    Every single one.

    They now have as much railway as they like and enough know how to make more.

  3. Tom Chiverton 1
    Black Helicopters

    *Bwuh*

    Why is a, we're told, IP-based blocking tool, including 'human face detection' components ?!?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so the problem is...

    They want this pre-loaded. Unless the mfg is somewhere that ALSO disregards copyright law, the mfg is up effluent creek without motive power.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Actually makes calls back to Solid Oak servers"

    For what purpose, I wonder? If it's for updates that would certainly put Solid Oak in an interesting position.

  6. noodle heimer

    @Tom: dunno who gave you the spec

    it's a combo of ip blacklisting, ip whitelisting, probably some amount of feeding unknown URLs back home for categorization, and also skin blocking. Early press reports had a user looking at piglet photos, and see that they were blocked; looking at nude photos featuring black girls, and see that those were unblocked.

    I'm thinking that last bit is probably what relies on face detection.

  7. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    How much of a problem is that?

    How much of a problem is that? "Unless the mfg is somewhere that ALSO disregards copyright law, the mfg is up effluent creek without motive power."

    I've seen a few posts speculating on this... what are the odds though? Motherboards are made in China. Power supplies are made in china. Cases are made in china. Keyboards, mice, and monitors are made in China. Unless I'm mistaken a few CPU foundries are in China. Would even Gateway or Dell actually get all the raw parts from China (which they do...), ship them to the US (or Europe), put the parts together, then ship them back to China? Doubtful, I think Chinese-consumption computers are probably all put together in China.

  8. Jedi Name Germinator

    Elementary my dear Watson

    "Why is a, we're told, IP-based blocking tool, including 'human face detection' components ?!?"

    To filter out porn image search, etc....

    "Actually makes calls back to Solid Oak servers"

    To update the filters, IPs, image tags etc....

    You know it really is unfair that the Chinese are able to do this (and countless other copycat crap).

    The WTO (or some other .org) should do something

  9. Martin 6 Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Probably a very happy copyright holder

    The original copyright holder is Intel and since OpenCV is licenced under the BSD+Disclaimer clause, all the distributor is required to do is put a note in the documentation disclaiming any liability for Intel if the the software doesn't work.

    Since Intel probably doesn't want it's name splashed all over China's new 'go directly to jail , do not pass go, do not collect a trial' system - they are probably doing them a favour by leaving the clause out.

  10. cexcells

    Green dam(n)

    There's an old piano and its playing hot behind the green dam (Green damn)

    Don't know what they are doing but they shout a lot behind the Green Dam (Green damn)

    Green Dam whats that secret your keepin!

  11. PPPie
    Unhappy

    Sad to see reg publish lies

    Solid Oak only said the filter lists look very much like theirs. The lists are fairly complete, so two filter lists will look fairly much like each other if they are nearly complete right?

    The software is not yet finished. It's amazing how many people are ready to pick faults with it before it is finished.

    Open license content is always finalized and documented in the final stage of development. Anyone who has worked in software development knows this.

    So hypocritical to make such a fuss about Green Dam. The gov has announced clearly on the news in China it's free software that users may remove if they want. It's just to protect the children. Just a shame the Western media is so hell bent on lies. An so Sad to see reg, a normally bi-partisan news outlet fall foul of the bs.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Copyright

    German trains? Are you not thinking of the mag-lev train the Germans built in Shanghai, which goes very fast all the way from the airport to ... somewhere 30 minutes' drive away from the town centre. I'm not saying their planning isn't particularly joined up, but...

  13. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    So, piss on their picnic.

    "Actually makes calls back to Solid Oak servers"

    Dear Solid Oak. When a call comes in from a Chinese IP, send it back a set of suggested safe links to "subversive" Western news sites, Falun Gong and porn. Block anything from the Chinese government or Jinhui software. Ok, you won't get any cash, but it'll be funny and probably get the thieving little shit who ripped you off sent for some extensive "political reeducation".

  14. asdf
    Thumb Down

    bah Mao starved 30 million, lets worship

    WTF is wrong with this country? Mao was arguably the worse leader in history (killed more of his own people that even Stalin, mostly through incompetence but still). He was so bad that even his own party had to basically say in the 70s he was a patriot but had the leadership skills of Nero. And yet people there still worship him. This story is so wrong on so many levels and shows why China will not be able to keep the current status quo for another 50 years. Free market capitalism is incompatible with inept starve beat your people Communism government, long term.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    FACE Detection software...

    unfortunately won't stop chinese people from staring at goatse.

  16. PPPie
    Jobs Horns

    asdf living on planet pluto?

    You have a lot to say about China but obviously have never been here. Your opinion is the typical spoon fed diet of rubbish from your UK proven to lie media sources. There is more food in China than I have ever seen in the UK. Ask anyone from the planet Earth about food and they won't mention the UK, unless of course they are of your type who have never explored the world.

  17. Wabberjocky

    @PPPie

    You seem to be confusing melamine with food. We don't feed babies with melamine here..

  18. TeeCee Gold badge

    @PPPie

    "It's just to protect the children"

    Ah, the "just think of the children" defence. I find a strange irony in this classic straight from the Daily Heil being used to defend the PRC's latest strategy in treating its population like mushrooms*.

    *Something else traditionally kept in the dark and fed shit.

  19. David Neil
    Thumb Down

    Re. the train copying

    They tried the same thing with the South African Rooivak attack helicopter.

    Basically they said, we are interested, but if you could send us one then we'll let you know what we think and we might buy some more...

    Pretty sure Sukhoi are having the same issue with one of their development fighters, the Chinese bought one, measured it and are now knocking out replicas

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Bunch of GPL tarts stoking a shit storm

    Have any of you hacks actually read a typical 2 clause BSD license?

    1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright

    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

    2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright

    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the

    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

    So you've received the shipped software have you? Checked every single piece of paper that came with the software?

    Typically, there is only one reason for using a BSD license - it allows any one to use your work, in any situation and without any requirement for releasing source, changes etc. The people who decided to use a BSD license for OpenCV did it so it could be used in this manner in _exactly_ this scenario. If they wanted to be restrictive, they would have chosen a freetard license like GPL.

    BTW, China is quite nice, don't quite agree with their political system, but hey, people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @PPPie

    I know, it's dreadfull how the shelves of my local supermarket are empty these days. And the queues for bread!! Sheesh, don't know how I'll cope...guess I'll just have to resort to drinking my melamine enhanced food suppliment you've so generously shipped to us poor starved Brits.

  22. Wortel

    @Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 16th June 2009 12:39 GMT

    Nice troll! care to update yourself? self-polishing turds are the next best thing I tell you.

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