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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Suit Says 2 Chinese Firms Stole Web-Blocking Code




BEIJING — A software company in California has sued two Chinese technology firms, charging that they stole its computer code to make an Internet-monitoring program that China’s government sought to install on every computer in the country last year before backing down.
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Associated Press

Seven computer makers are accused of helping the government spread a program used to block selected sites on the Internet.

The lawsuit by Cybersitter also names as defendants seven computer makers, including Sony, Lenovo and Acer, accusing them of willingly joining a Chinese government plan to spread the software, known as Green Dam Youth Escort, throughout the country. The Chinese government was also named in the suit.

Cybersitter said the two Chinese software companies had pirated 3,000 lines of its code to create Green Dam, which was ostensibly designed to block Web sites that featured pornography and violent content.

But critics and computer experts said the Chinese version was tailored to enable Chinese government censors to block some political and religious speeches and other content, like references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, that the government deemed unsuitable.

Cybersitter’s suit, filed Tuesday in the Federal District Court in Los Angeles, claims that the pirated lines of code “include the heart of Cybersitter software: its proprietary content filters” that tell a computer to block sites containing banned keywords.

The chief defendants, Zhengzhou Jinhui Computer System Engineering and Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy, developed and marketed the software. They could not be reached for comment.

Each of the computer makers complied with a Chinese government requirement to install Green Dam on new computers, or to include a CD containing the program with each new computer. The lawsuit claims that the computer makers eventually found out that the software included pirated code, but continued to comply with the government directive.

The government originally sought to require that Green Dam be installed on every new computer sold in China. But authorities backed down last summer after an outcry from computer users.

“They were conspiring to distribute an illegal program to millions of users. They continued to distribute even after everyone knew they were stolen programs,” Gregory Fayer, a lawyer for Cybersitter, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “There were reports just last week that some of the defendants continue to distribute in China.”

The theft by the firms was so shoddily executed, Mr. Fayer said, that some of the software code directs users to the Cybersitter Web site.

The suit seeks more than $2.25 billion in damages, a figure attained by multiplying the number of Chinese computers using Green Dam by the price of the Cybersitter software.

David Barboza in Shanghai contributed reporting.

Open Source and Security

Thursday, January 14, 2010

The main problem in programming internet security, security. A good website is a secure website, impenetrable by the action illegal. This version of the security experts. Experts said another design, good web is a wonderful website. Sure we know a good website is a secure website and beautiful. This is a challenge in every open source project. Bagimana presents a user friendly program, powerful, easy, cheap, beautiful, free, but still safe.

It is what it is about open source security? If you are a user of open source web sperti drupal CMS, Joomla, Wordpress, or sperti used this blog, blogengine.net, you will face the threat of "security gap", vurnerability exploits. Anyway, a gap that can be used by the illegal user to enter the system and make changes. Look at the forums, there's posting: for example, a bug in joomla 1.5x, which can reset the administrator password.

Why opne source tend to have security holes? Because many people are wearing, source code can be downloaded for free. There we can see the structure of the database table, the script used. A agrees to analyze possible security hole where it lies. Open source projects that together, so many people involved, his name is also human, there must be wrong and not closely. Programmer classmates windows pierced only by the action often the virus makers, who like the chase. New product, new virus, new patch, new antivirus. And so on.

Advantages of open source: easy to use, community woke up, a lot of resources, open source code so as we can mepelajari, and mostly free. Weakness, because it used a lot of people, there is always a security hole that must be wary of. So be diligent updates or patches to patch vulnerable.

how to script homemade, hand coded? This is also relative. If you have expert programmers, programming itself akanlebih safe, with activities tidakdirepotkan patched patch. This is because the database table structure, code files, we just knew. Weaknesses, to build a hand coded website is secure, difficult, complicated, and long. Especially if the ability of our programming right-of-fit, more ekomonis use open source.

How to use open source safe? opensource is a community of shared Sciences, so if you already use one of the open source web engine, then what to do: open eyes, open ears. Do not miss the information about the latest patches, the latest security holes, etc.. Come forums that discuss open source. The more information you up to date, more secure.

Open source still the best option for the website regular classes. Easy, quick, cheap. Open source recommended: drupal, wordpress, joomla, blogengine.net