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07.01.09
Is Country Wide Internet Filtering Totally Viable?
 By Dan Morrill
Green Dam, a tool that has been mandated by the Chinese Government to help filter porn and violence sites, is delayed. But what is really intriguing is the idea that the country wide filtering systems in use by China, and many other countries and companies might not be up to the task of filtering all the content. Green Dam should be seen as a tool to self monitor on the actual PC, meaning China is having problems keeping up with the speed that the internet adds and removes web sites.
While Green Dam is generally being protested, and security engineers have discovered flaws in the program that would allow a hacker to take over the computer, along with a plethora of other issues, the only real reason to issue a mandatory desktop based filtering system is because the bigger filtering system isn't working as intended. While the Chinese Firewall and filtering system is robust, and has been quite capable of being used politically (such as shutting down access to the BBC and CNN) as well as technologically (blocking access to dissident movements) by requiring a desktop filtering system, China is basically saying there are too many web sites for them to accurately monitor. A desktop solution will effectively take care of those sites that the Chinese filtering system cannot keep track of and push the processing issues down to the desktop rather than on the bigger country wide appliances.
The Green Dam initiative coincides with a tightening of government controls on Internet use. Last week, the Health Ministry ordered health-related Web sites that carry research on sexually-oriented topics to allow access only to medical professionals. Also last week, the government issued new rules on "virtual currency" used by some game Web sites, saying it can't be used to purchase real goods. Source: WSJ
With the new bans in place, the only real effective place to start filtering is going to be at the desktop. Architecturally this makes sense if Green Dam is part of the larger country wide system with updates (assumed) that are shared from filter to filtering system. Using a cloud computing backbone to help support the lists, the updates, and other procedural processes much like some of the more advanced virus scanning software also makes sense. The only way to make this architecture work, and truly stop people from going places is the combination of cloud, country wide filtering systems, and desktop filtering systems. That is why this is interesting that China would be using this, even with the controversy, the architecture and processes point to a saturation point for the countries filtering systems, and it is now time to push the processing power down to the client/desktop level.
The viability of filtering a huge (300 million users) user base at the national level might not be viable, and the use of the internet is only going to grow in the future. Something to think about, the other thing to think about on this one as well is if there is a remote control or remote management section to the software package as well. Being able to push updates, monitor, and shut down remotely is something most governments would really like to be able to do. Green Dam is important in so many ways, and watching the push back from various communities about its use is something to note. But the real issue is just how saturated is the country wide filtering system, and how does China (or indeed any country like Britain who implements a similar country wide filtering system) plan on reducing the load on their country wide systems.
Comments
About the Author:
Dan Morrill has been in the information security field for 18 years, both
civilian and military, and is currently working on his Doctor of Management. Dan shares his insights on the important security issues of today through his blog, Managing Intellectual Property & IT Security, and is an active participant in the ITtoolbox blogging community.
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