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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Well all you have to do is keep an older computer for looking at porn right?
the last image is better
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"...
awwwwz! sheez so cyuuuute! i like the way she looks when sheez crying and policing our thoughts. DUCKROLLLLL!
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/
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...
ROFL'd at "The Big Brother is watching you" xD
Censorship has never been... so sexy, and moe.
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
Judging from it's birth place..will it even work?
Srsly, we dont need the government. The life would be much more dangearous, but more interesting without them
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...
Oddly enough, the green-haired versions of the character like vaguely like Ranka Lee... except a little smaller...
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...
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.
Hahaha, oh man, the last one made my day.
I use "we"cause I stand for the Han nationality,not some fucking party
Nitori, is that you? With Suwako's hat?
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.
then twenty years ago?
Glad to meet a 5-Mao here, No More "We", Please.
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.
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
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!
a chinese moe loli...<3
lookat tihs one
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6978/greendamgirl.jpg
That one's amazing.
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)
Dam-tan must have a taser and pepper spray hidden somewhere around in her body... -__-
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!
^^;
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.
Go Miku! Kick Dam-tan's ass!
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...