More on F(u)ck Nortel & F(u)ck China's Golden Shield & JungleMUX

[Matthew Gaylor]

[Note from Matthew Gaylor:  I purposefully choose the "F" word to 
describe my utter contempt of Nortel for supplying the technology to 
China used to suppress free speech and freedom. Several of my readers 
did the usual hand wringing worrying about getting the "F" word in 
their Dilbertized corporate business environments. Of special 
interest to the Brin watchers out there is "the promotion of 
JungleMUX which allows video surveillance data to be transported from 
remote cameras back to a centralized surveillance point at the 
Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS)".  Naturally several of my 
subscribers didn't get an opportunity to even read my original 
uncensored post due to their filtering software catching the dreaded 
"F" word and rejecting my post.  Here are a couple of examples:

At 12:04 PM -0400 10/22/01, postmaster at bellsouth.com wrote:
>From: postmaster at bellsouth.com
>Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 12:04:59 -0400
>To: freematt at coil.com
>Subject: Re: Fuck Nortel & Fuck China's Golden Shield
>
>WE CANNOT HANDLE ANY REQUESTS THAT DO NOT FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS IN 
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And

At 11:47 AM -0400 10/22/01, <MAILER-DAEMON at picker.com> wrote:
>Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 11:47:58 -0400
>X-Autogenerated: Reply
>From: <MAILER-DAEMON at picker.com>
>To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt at coil.com>
>Subject: Bad words..
>
>Matthew Gaylor <freematt at coil.com>!
>We got your message <v04220804b7f9e8a91d7c@[198.4.94.208]>
>on Mon, 22 Oct 2001 11:27:59 -0400.
>With the Subject:
>Fuck Nortel & Fuck China's Golden Shield
>Please remove the bad word from the Subject and send again.


Nortel helping China to overhaul state surveillance architecture
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/22401.html>

By John Leyden
Posted: 22/10/2001 at 16:40 GMT


Human rights activists have launched an attack on Nortel Networks, accusing
it of contributing to human rights violations in China by helping the
country overhaul its ageing surveillance technologies.

The "Great Firewall of China", which controls content entering the country,
is failing, largely due to the increased volume of Internet traffic in
China, so the Chinese are looking to build a more sophisticated system
involving content filtration, and the monitoring of individual users.

That's one of the main conclusion in a report by The International Centre of
Human Rights & Democratic Development (ICHRDD) which states: "Old style
censorship is being replaced with a massive, ubiquitous architecture of
surveillance: the Golden Shield."

"Ultimately the aim is to integrate a gigantic online database with an
all-encompassing surveillance network - incorporating speech and face
recognition, closed-circuit television, smart cards, credit records, and
Internet surveillance technologies," it adds.

Many other Western firms are also involved in the development of China's
state security apparatus but Nortel, which like the human rights group, is
based in Canada, has come in for particular criticism in ICHRDD's report.
Among the Nortel projects singled out for criticism are:

Nortel's joint research with Tsinghua University on speech recognition
technology, for the purpose of automated surveillance of telephone
conversations

The Canadian firm's support for FBI plans to develop a common standard to
intercept telephone communications, known as CALEA, in conjunction with
technology transfer through its joint venture, Guangdong Nortel (GDNT)

The promotion of JungleMUX which allows video surveillance data to be
transported from remote cameras back to a centralized surveillance point at
the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS)

The deployment of Nortel's "Personal Internet" suite in Shanghai, "greatly
enhancing the ability of Internet service providers to track the
communications of individual users"

A US$10 million project, involving Nortel, to build a citywide fibre-optic
broadband network in Shanghai (OPTera) enabling central authorities to
monitor subscribers at the "edge" of the network, principally through the
Shasta 5000 firewall.

Nortel's integration of face recognition and voice recognition technology in
collaboration with AcSys Biometrics, a subsidiary of Canadian firm NEXUS

Nortel is no stranger to controversy with its Personal Internet technology,
which was criticised on its announcement in February by consumers activists
and anti-junk mail campaigners, and has rejected ICHRDD criticism.

"Nortel Networks categorically rejects in the strongest possible terms the
notion that we are collaborating with any government to repress the human
rights or democracy of its citizens," a statement by Nortel said.

"Nortel Networks is a longstanding supplier of advanced telecommunications
products and technology in China where we have a broad range of customers.
Nortel Networks sells the same range of products and solutions in China as
we do elsewhere."

This response cut little ice with ICHRDD which believes Nortel's technology
will be used to clamp down on political dissent.

On September 28, four Chinese citizens were tried for subversion for
participating in an on-line pro democracy forum. The four are but the most
recent of several arrests in recent years for Internet-related crimes.

Pacific rim leaders are expected to announce an "anti-terrorism" pact at the
APEC summit this week which human rights advocates fear could be used to
excuse increased crackdowns on Internet privacy and human rights,
particularly in authoritarian states such as China. R

---


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