Month: June 2006

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For your own safety – beware of Chinese net-ware

Nart Villeneuve has discovered that Skype’s partner in China, Tom Online, has implemented filtering of Skype’s text chat for Chinese users without informing them.

Actually, that is not a surprise to me. According the recent Yazhou Zhoukan‘s interview with Mr. Feng GuangChao, a Chinese internet safety expert, the Chinese MSN messenger and QQ have such good feature. (I wonder the Chinese Yahoo messenger does not fall behind in this game either.)

Mr. Feng also suggests not to use free Chinese web mail services, such as Sina.com, 163.com, or Tom.com, because all of them have implemented self-censorship in scanning the e-mails.

Furthermore, if you want to have a better privacy when you are surfing net in China, Mr. Feng advises to use encrypting proxy service such as Freegate.

Here is the list of software or services Mr. Feng recommends to use for a safe internet experience in China,

email　　　　 Hushmail　　　　　　www.hushmail.com

即時通訊(IM)　　 Gtalk　　　　　　　www.gmail.com（在gmail中即可開通）

網絡電話(IP phone / Net phone)　　 Skype　　　　　　　www.skype.com（非TOM.com版本）- Not the Tom.com version

防火牆(Firewall) 　Blackice　　　　　　www.blackice.com

加密代理(Proxy server)　　 自由門、花園網等　　 www.dongtaiwang.com

播客宝典的国外的月亮和中国的月亮很有意思。他提到Skype的Tom版本自动加载了聊天文字过滤器。

国内软件商确实是用心良苦，照顾周到了。

再读读以下亚洲周刊的专访，道高一尺，魔高一丈。

话又说回来，中国那么大，要真正的全部封锁还确实不容易。我很多朋友在中国就都能够访问到wikipedia.org，或者是其它的很多“出名”的网站。

專訪﹕中國互聯網專家、香港大學研究生馮廣超
你不能不知道的網絡安全　．張潔平

Continue reading “For your own safety – beware of Chinese net-ware”

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I am half Marxist, half Buddhist – said Dalai Lama 達賴喇嘛宣稱自己是「半個馬克思信徒半個佛教徒」

Last week’s Yazhou ZhouKan made a special report on Dalai Lama.

In the interview with Yazhou ZhouKan, Dalai Lama shared his views on varous issues, including the independence of Tibet, three missions of his life, Marxism, Chairman Mao and more.

亚洲周刊

The following are some excerptions from the report.

達賴喇嘛往何處去﹖
Where is Dalai Lama going?

Continue reading “I am half Marxist, half Buddhist – said Dalai Lama 達賴喇嘛宣稱自己是「半個馬克思信徒半個佛教徒」”

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Rambling on my trip to Indonesia – 1

“The market is picking up. Your business must be doing very well now.” I asked a businessman in a gathering.

I saw quite a number of new construction projects going on when I visited Tg. Pinnang recently. Building new houses, I reckoned it was a good indicator for local economy.

Who will build new houses without extra money? If the economy is not growing, what are these new houses for? Furthermore, new construction projects bring in more jobs for local people.

“NOOOO…” A big no and frustration, “Nobody wants to invest after the new labour law.”

The Indonesian new labour law was implemented in 2003. It went too far to protect the workers and was being abused by the workers, according to this businessman. During the time I was in Indonesia, there was some big protests against the revision of the labour law. The Indonesian government expected the revision would bring in more investment into the country.

“Oh, but I find so many new buildings in town this time.” I asked.

“That’s not because of good economic.”

Since the President Wahid (1999-2001), the Indonesian government has started loosing the restrictions on Indonesian Chinese. The Chinese communities in Indonesia are more comfortable to spend now.

This reminded me the horrible and disgusting Jakarta Riots of May 1998. Many Indonesian Chinese were killed; women were mass raped; many shops were looted and burnt. (See some pictures here. Reminder: Some of the pictures were not taken in the roit, but from other incidents of Indonesia.注意：该网上的图并不全是98年印尼暴乱的。)

Tg. Pinnang has a large percentage of ethic-Chinese; it is close to Singapore; it has not experienced any big riot during that time. In fact, it was a safe harbour to many Jakarta Chinese businesspersons.

Still, many Indonesian Chinese there are living in fear.

They have already accustomed to such fear years after years.

They just feel a little bit relief now.

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A washroom with Da Vinci Code

I went across a newly renovated hawker center and saw this sign yesterday.

WashroomDavinciCode.jpg

Which side for man; which side for woman?

To solve the puzzle, you got to have some basic knowledge of symbolism, or to see the Da Vinci Code movie/book.

The fad of Da Vinci Code has left its mark in front of this toilet.

Singaporean really have a sense of humour here, though it is a bit stressful for those running around to answer the nature call.

I wonder if a person sees a star of david outside a washroom, what should s/he do?

My advice is,

Do your research before do your business!