China Orders Patches to Planned Web Filter

A designer of censorship software that the Chinese government requires to be preinstalled on computers sold in China has been ordered to fix potential security breaches in the software, the newspaper China Daily reported Monday. The report was an indication that the government still supports use of the software despite heated debate over it. The software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort, has come under attack by many computer users in China for both political and technical reasons. Critics say that although the Chinese government insists that the software will be used only to block access to pornography Web sites, the software's actual use will be to block any site with content deemed politically objectionable, like the Tibet issue or the 1989 Tiananmen killings. The government says all computers sold in China must have the software installed by July 1. Some computer experts who have studied the software said last week that it was so flawed that it could allow hackers to monitor a user's Internet activity, steal personal data or plant viruses.