Green Dam-tan’s Popularity Soars
- Categories: Manga, News
- Date: Jul 5, 2009 16:59 JST
- Tags: Censorship, China, Image Gallery, Internet, Made in China, Otaku, PC Software
China’s “Green Dam” censorship software has been released, providing a key element of the government’s draconian censorship policies. The software will be a pre-installed program shipping on all new computers sold in the mainland, with the express purpose of filtering pornography and other “harmful” material, particularly that injurious to the state.
However, Chinese otaku have already begun to prove their mettle by moeifying the software, creating a twin-tailed moe “image” character for the software named 緑bar娘, but more commonly known in English as Green Dam Girl.
In case a short introduction is needed, the “Green Dam Youth Escort” program is a filtering program designed to block pornographic and violent websites (along with “politically harmful” material) and is scheduled to become a mandatory pre-install on all new computers being sold in mainland China.
The Chinese government was not originally clear on whether or not the program would legally be required to be run on all new computers, but the widespread protests against it have at least forced a clarification by a government official that the program will “not be compulsory.”
It still unclear on if removal of the software by end-users would be illegal or not, but the security vulnerabilities posed by having such a blocking software installed on millions of Chinese computers is indeed troubling, as the program reportedly contains several flaws that might put users at risk to hackers, or could even pave the way for for a government controlled botnet in the future.
The software also stays true to established Chinese tradition, by reportedly including pirated code from a U.S. software manufacturer.
As if to cap this farcical structure, the software apparently escaped inclusion on 64bit operating systems due to programming constraints, though this is presumably a temporary omission.
As might be expected from developers whose selection probably owes more to guanxi than to merit, its filtering abilities are also said to be questionable.
Chinese otaku have scornfully responded, creating a wealth of art based on the optimistic notion that the software is well represented by a bishoujo character, albeit one bearing subtle elements of protest, going by the name of 緑bar娘 (Green “bar” Girl):
Her chained alpaca companion is something of a mystery…
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so if i did fanart nudity of Dam-tan, it would be contradicting?..
no it would be that you have strip out it's source code
and if you put a sex scene with Dam-tan mean that you had mod her ^^
wat?
well it's just a view of the software perspective
strip her = source code ^^
change her or do her = alter the code = mod the software
well just my blabbering ^^
Just wait for the H pics of this girl in Danbooru or Pixiv :D LOL
Seconded xD
On a side note, Green Dam Girl #3... isn't that Nitori from Touhou, just with a different hat?
In the best traditions of China, I guess. One of the variations on the design could be called a mash-up of Saya from Saya no Uta, Suwako and Koishi.
2-D Hentai is not allowed? 3-D Rape then...
lol'd hard
well uh...huh...
Jean-Claude Van Dam.
Imagine Chinese user turning on the computer in the morning:
-Login message:
"Have no fear...the Chinese government is here"
The Government has you.
Follow the little red book.
Knock, Knock
You mean Rittur Led Book..?
All should fear this! This could happen in your country too. Especialy in america at the moment. Once the goverment get's done telling us what diseases we can have cured and when we can turn are heating on they will tell us what we can view!
BEWARE!
wtf , democrats arnt comunists , we just would perfer to not have a bankrupt nation because of standerds not seen scence the 1800's (ps . 4 all the history failures out there they were so bad butter was like 70% meat fat and 30% butter ) and if any 1 disagrees then why dont you ask our thriveing auto industry...
o wait , we dont have 1 any more because the evil gov didnt try to make them do proactiv things like new fule standards.
ok fine im done ranting
Hmmm, 2k-tan or Dam-tan.
how 'bout 2k-tan with dam-tan?
and then when Miku Hatsune VOCALOID2 is installed an instant battle will occur inside you computer.
Thanks to me (God) I did't born in China and I'll never live or work there PERIOD !
god fails at grammar apparently.
he obviously didnt write the bible
the 1st bible was not written in english btw
It was written in Chinese!
PLOT TWIST :O
Damn you, M. Night Shyamalan!
Well, if God doesn't speak English well, I'd expect his Hewbrew and Koine Greek aren't that hot, either.
You should change your name to TheTrueFAIL.
So from what I can surmise, it's what would happen if Nitori and Meiling had a child.
Interesting.
Besides, I forget to mention, that censoring is nothing BUT an excuse to SPY hard on you. You first know the true here, from God.
what country "did" you born in then? cause I can tell it's not an English speaking one.
PEASANTS dont need privacy to export goods!!!!@l41
信绿坝，原地满状态复活
it should be “信春哥，得绿坝”
信春哥，不惧绿坝……
信绿坝，得绿坝娘……
If you're wondering about the alpaca and possibly the crab that's in many of the pictures, here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_10_Mythical_Creatures
Apparently it's a Chinese internet meme.
how about the bunny?
The bunny is the Green Dam's software's mascot. The menu screen, for example, is a large green field with two bunnies in the bottom right corner, if I recall correctly.
I officially love the Chinese language after reading that page. The puns possible using it seem endless! I'm laughing so hard from the "Singing Field Goose" it's not funny. Thank you so much for supplying the link.
your welcome
Couldn't they just format the HD on the computer and get rid of it?
I don't know how intensely China monitors the peoples' internet activity, but if you are discovered visiting a site that you shouldn't be able to view because of Dam-tan, they will know that you deleted the program. If deleting the program was illegal, you'd have gotten yourself into trouble by then.
I thought a preinstall wasn't required but it was merely to be supplied with the computer free of charge?
So just giving a cd-rom with the Green Dam program on it without a preinstall on the actual computer would be sufficient?
Anyways, the deadline for this was the 1st of July. and only sony made it on time. [http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2009/06/some-more-green-dam-documents.html]
Their purpose is to FORCE us to use green dam, not provide convenience to us. In any case, it's a consership software, not a secure software...
Go Miku! Kick Dam-tan's ass!
006 is not Green Dam-tan, it's Nitori. While other pictures make a joke out of Green Dam-tan looking like Nitori, that one is actually her.
Another Tsundere,,, :P
chinese otaku ftw
wow...anti-trust, anti-trust computing! ey, that's what you get in communist china. oh well...
LOL there's a red gorilla on your avatar xDDD
hope u r not ur avatar
I hope the chinese otakus would prevail against this one. :D
I pay my respect to the Chinese otaku for such this plehtora of images. *hats off*
I still think they ripped off the character design from Nitori~
for this plethora*
Damn, I need sleep.
Go chinas otaku.
more like china pervs
like you are not
Is that girl Dam-tan is stripping supposed to be a from an anime? Or maybe a moefication of windows XP -_-
just askin, havent seen that specific character yet O^O
How can you not know know xp-tan :(
Oh well, go watch some more xp-tan or just read up a bit
Yeah, that's XP-tan as far as I can tell.
It's just stupid. You can buy porn DVDs on every street corner here (Shanghai) and thousands of little shops. :P
Those crackdowns on illegal DVDs are just a show for the foreign media. :P
Why buy something when you can watch it for FREE
Ah, the wonders of the Internet
And "this" is delay of entire hentai and anime production.
Malaysia is nothing different,dude.
Pick an Asian country.
Any Asian country.
Bootlegs are everywhere.
Japan
man.... another beako
LOL U TK HIM 2DA緑bar娘?
Kinda looks like Kawashiro Nitori from Touhou 10.
no, no, can't you see, her clothes are blue, that's totally different.
So the Chinese Youth will remain pure and innocent while we are corrupted by pornography? I cannot accept that! Where can I download this Green Dam software?
Yeah and at honeymoon night you'll find them sleeping when they are suppose to be doing something together.
Why an alpaca?
Scroll up where someone linked to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_10_Mythical_Creatures
I'm more puzzled about the rabbit references.
The rabbit is a reference to the green dam software itself; if I recall correctly the software's mascot is a bunny.
it's a secret...... don't say too loud...
Last one is 3pic
China, the land of the free. They even make censorship look cute.
Suck for them, no porn.
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/wp-content/gallery/china-green-dam-girl/chinese_green_dam_girl_08.jpg
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/wp-content/gallery/china-green-dam-girl/chinese_green_dam_girl_10.jpg
Saya from Saya No Uta..?
That is exactly what I thought too.
No need to think, it IS Saya.
Not to mention many are pics of Nitori as well.
Stop stealing Nitori, goddamn China
No kidding. The first time I saw her, I REALLY thought she was Nitori. Show of hands, who else mistook Dam-tan for Nitori when they first saw her? Shouldn't have been made to look so close to her...
Srsly, we dont need the government. The life would be much more dangearous, but more interesting without them
Judging from it's birth place..will it even work?
It's times like this where I'm glad that live in America.
Happy belated July 4th! Say what you want about America, at least we don't get Green moe characters monitoring our every move on the internets.
You get Big Brother Google instead. Enjoy!
Does this law include Hong Kong?
let's hope not
Oddly enough, the green-haired versions of the character like vaguely like Ranka Lee... except a little smaller...
What's up with the claw?
Same thing as the crab on the hat. The crab with watches refers to the chinese government. So, her having the claw just relates her to the government or w/e.
I love the title picture. Remember China wanted to force companies to open their source code? Well here we see Green Dam-tan stripping poor XP-tan...
Censorship has never been... so sexy, and moe.
ROFL'd at "The Big Brother is watching you" xD
I wanna "HACK" Green Dam-tan... i.e. say hello in japanese ;)
I'd "abuse" her "filters"...
And "install" a "cleaning agent" via her "backdoor"...
Well all you have to do is keep an older computer for looking at porn right?
the last image is better
because communist repression is so moe~
" It still unclear on if removal of the software by end-users would illegal or not, but "
lol, not that it matters, but you forgot 'be' after would and before illegal.
mmm chinese otaku eh...? Such a vast market for chara goods and profit! =) Dam-tan cho kawaii.
Thanks...
The “alpaca” in the pictures refers to the “Grass Mud Horse“, a very popular dirty pun on China Internet.
from http://www.chinasmack.com/more/green-dam-girl-chinese-netizens-art-ridicule/
awwwwz! sheez so cyuuuute! i like the way she looks when sheez crying and policing our thoughts. DUCKROLLLLL!
Hahaha, oh man, the last one made my day.
The day this shit gets an erotic doujinshi or dakumakura released, Green Dam will be pwned.
Just how accurate is a computer program anyway?
LOL, I run Windows 3.11, your Damn software doesn't work. What if I use Mac? Hmm, how about my Linux server?
Or how about I just reformat the entire machine, and install Windows XP x64 on it? It's an OS that's been forgotten... What a shame, and it was Microsoft's best OS too.
Or, what if I get a US proxy for browsing?
I swear, this thing has so many holes in it. Fail.
seriously the first thing i thought after seeing the first pic was:
China isnt going to give anyone privacy
even "xp" was bereft of her privacx.
(or XP-tan)
lookat tihs one
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6978/greendamgirl.jpg
That one's amazing.
a chinese moe loli...<3
I want some little help here.
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/wp-content/gallery/china-green-dam-girl/chinese_green_dam_girl_38.jpeg
What does Dam-tan is saying?
I...I won't let you see these ero/H stuff!!
I most hate those ero/H stuff!!
literally that is what she said, it is hard to include the expression when translated to english, the 2nd sentence in japanese would be something like : ecchi no nani ka, dai kirai!!!
Hなんて大嫌い!!!
I hate Mr. Hentai!
^^;
Dam-tan must have a taser and pepper spray hidden somewhere around in her body... -__-
I wonder what Dam-tan says about the revolt in Xinjiang. Now Tibet just has to follow and the chinese civil war can start. Down with the dictators!
green dam fever can't survive longer,cause she is a total joke at the very beginning.
BTW,there will be no civil war here,cause we deal them with 7.62mm bullet.
people who kill innocent civilians should get shoot with out any reason,any mercy.
People who kill innocent civilians should get shot without reason and mercy. You're completely right. Start with those bastards who form the so called gouvernment in china who order most killings, then go to the so called police who execute most said killings.
Better get everyone who is a member of the party, just to be sure.
then twenty years ago?
Glad to meet a 5-Mao here, No More "We", Please.
I use "we"cause I stand for the Han nationality,not some fucking party
Nitori, is that you? With Suwako's hat?
Lol
Artefact, you silly, you mistook Nitori with Dam-tan in
chinese_green_dam_girl_03.jpg
I made several such errors, as I can't read Chinese and these all came off Chinese forums.
Apologies for the mistakes!
Sorry Quen, I mistook you with Artefact.
Sorry Artefact too.
A few clarifications based on what I've read:
1) The requirement is for the PC maker to provide an installer/CD for Green Dam instead of actually preinstalling it; the former is a concession to popular pressure, the latter is because the Green Dam software is compatible with only Windows (but not Mac or Linux).
2) Since the clarification was made about a month ago, the furor seems to have been focused on the fact that the government paid 4.17million yuan for such a piece of junk.
3) The graphic filter, innovative as it is, has ridiculous problems; it is based on recognition of skin-colour, which is apparently set off by Asian/Caucasion skin colour tones (as well as those of pigs) but dark skin is not recognized as such.
4) The text filter is actually overly restrictive, seeing how it depends on identification of short character strings in a character-based language (translation: lots of false positives). It apparently also recognizes many innuendos that appear just often in legitimate works: examples include "father", "long/grow" (one character), "life", "climax", etc...all of the texts I've tested use at least some phrase on the restricted list, including the Little Red Book and the Arts of War, and also letters written by a widely known Children's author (Bing Xin). lawl.
5)The software is not well-protected against analysis, termination, or modification. Apparently it can be killed if two processes are terminated simultaneously. There is also an unprotected file with the password; replacing the contents with a certain string will reset the password to default.
6) The list of forbidden sites was unencrypted, and was found fairly quickly. One of the "otaku writings" made the analogy that "[the Green Dam Girl's panties] was the legendary noble phantasm containing the URL of all pr0n sites, which rivaled even a certain goldie's noble phantasm in power".
7) Oh, and there is a fan-made game out there about the Green Dam Girl.
8) The worry is not so much about the government exploiting the vulnerabilities--if it had wanted to do so, the government would have formed its own task force instead of choosing a random company apparently based on favouritism. The worry out there is that a hacker (Chinese or foreign) will use the vulnerabilities in the software to steal private data for personal gain. Or to collapse the Chinese internet infrastructure, for that matter.
9) Nitori is indeed the original model for the Green Dam Girl