Standards & Protocols, Open Source Code, Linux, WAPI -&- Please read and note

Speaking of Control & Hackers

"History can be erased along with free speech -- at the press of a mouse."




Standards & Protocols, Open Source Code, Linux, WAPI and Red Flag Linux

The following may be something to consider. The beauty of the free world is the freedom to search and, perhaps, to learn . . . or to bomb, as I have been known to do. You decide for yourself.

"If you're doing business with Beijing, better bone up on WAPI and Red Flag Linux, too." -- "homegrown Red Flag Linux, based on an open-code operating system."

I have mentioned hackers and/or spammers from a few countries including China, and "Beijing Waei Software Development" before. Subsequently, I searched "beijing waei software development" and found the following which is not current but may be of interest . . . even applicable. Would this have anything to do with current the technology partnerships and other business between Canada and Beijing?

Entry: "posted by minir Scallywag, Aug 2000, Ontario Canada -- The article mentioned is by Stephanie Hoo

BEIJING (AP) -- DVD? China's trying to do it one better -- with a technology called EVD.

CDMA? The digital cell phone standard is so 2003, the Chinese say. Give TD-SCDMA a try instead.

Intel Corp.'s Centrino and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows? If you're doing business with Beijing, better bone up on WAPI and Red Flag Linux, too.

These days, China's dominant message is this: We'll embrace the world -- but on our terms. And nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of high technology, where behind the acronyms is a battle of standards that could have global repercussions.

Pushed by their government, Chinese firms are shunning technological protocols invented abroad and developing their own.

[. . . . ] "Dependency on foreign technology and ways to escape it, I think, have been very important themes in modern Chinese history," said Richard P. Suttmeier, a University of Oregon professor who studies China's technology policy for the National Bureau of Asian Research.

[. . . . ] In some cases, China is tired of paying foreign patent fees for products made and sold domestically -- such as with DVD players, for which Chinese firms must pay $4.50 per machine to the six Japanese companies that developed the underlying DVD technology.

With computer operating systems, the secretive communist government is concerned about relying on a foreign-invented product like Windows. It has been promoting as more secure the homegrown Red Flag Linux, based on an open-code operating system.

While some of China's efforts appear iffy thus far, investors and companies around the world are paying close attention: Nobody wants to miss the boat in selling to 1.3 billion Chinese.

China has to plot a careful strategy, though, or it risks creating domestic standards incompatible with the rest of the world.

A classic example of the consequence is Sony Corp.'s failed Betamax video cassette recorders. Though Betamax is the pioneering technology, it lost out to VHS because Sony wouldn't let other firms make Betamax machines.

Chinese policy is already raising concerns.

In December, U.S. businesses reacted with alarm when Beijing said it would require wireless equipment makers to use a Chinese encryption technique known as WAPI, even though it fails to work well with chips based on the popular Wi-Fi used elsewhere. The U.S. government stepped in, and China agreed to delay the requirement.

[. . . . ] Datang, whose majority owner has close ties with the government, is pushing homegrown 3G technology called TD-SCDMA, following on the heels of CDMA standards used in the United States, Europe and Japan.

[. . . . ] As for shunning CDMA, not only is China already behind on its own version, but it risks isolating itself -- and falling behind the rest of the world. For example, the effort might hurt Chinese companies trying to export cell phones.

"It's a risky strategy," Suttmeier said. "It could backfire."

Has China found a way around this?

In the recent past, was it Bulgaria? Albania? that aligned itself with Chinese standards which meant that some countries in the Eastern Bloc were very limited in their reception of television? (I may have the exact details wrong but I do remember something like this; it would require some research and I have no more time.)

Anyway, as for wireless and cell phones, perhaps the Chinese have found a solution in aligning with Canada--think Nortel, RIM and a few other companies. Then, with so much outsourced to India in programming and in other areas, if China aligned itself with India . . . well, if enough countries get together, the open standards which have been agreed upon in the West and which have contributed to our freedoms -- of expression, democracy and the free flow of knowledge could be severely compromised.

Consider that the Big Cheese in operating systems, Microsoft, has already aligned itself with China to thwart those freedom loving Chinese who might use words like democracy in their communications (e.g. emails, blogs). If those with power and clout (think Canada's push to make deals in China) will sell out their and our birthright--openness, transparency, democracy, freedom--for a mess of pottage, what will come next?

Already, Canadian bloggers have noted items disappearing from our own websites (government, I believe, but check) -- bloggers who post at The Shotgun (westernstandardblogs.com), which is part of that beacon of press freedom out of Canada's West (www.westernstandard.ca )

Additionally, I noted yesterday what appeared to be Microsoft censorship in that, using their search engine to search for websites posted on Google's Blogger were futile -- though I tried only four, so check for yourself. Perhaps, if Microsoft doesn't include bloggers from its competitor, they don't exist? Is it competitiveness or is there an entirely more sinister alignment at work? You figure it out.

If all is simply a glitch, then, if nothing else, it is something to make you check and think. Consider the implications of allowing too much power to reside in:

* one person

* one political party

* one nation

* one hemisphere

* one company (Think of MS hegemony over the pc)

* one world body purporting to speak for most (Think of the UN, in itself corrupt, apparently--or should one say allegedly? Let's say there is compelling evidence of something amiss. Think of our government's turning to this same UN for our refugee policies -- for what to do about questionable "refugees" and the rights accorded aliens who arrive on our doorstep, aliens who have never contributed to attaining nor keeping those rights, and about which the citizenry have not been asked to make their wishes known through a vote. Yet, these same citizens must pay for what arises out of this. )

* one high court (Think of a world court and how that could be corrupted. . . Think of Canada's Supreme Court whose appointees are not subject to Parliamentary oversight before they are appointed -- a Parliament which is in turn subject to the oversight of the people, though that is eroding every day, as we see the PM and his government disregarding Parliament's votes, committees' reports, et cetera. Think of the pool of candidates from which this one group has made its appointments to our SCOC.)

* one standards / protocol setting body which is not free nor subject to oversight, along with openness and transparency (Think of a Chinese IANA -- In Canada, think of the Charter which is not subject to amelioration and improvement. Think of the notwithstanding clause which should have legitimacy but is unusable in effect. . . Received opinion bruited about by the usual suspects has rendered it unusable in most circumstances--PQ excepted in assymmetrical Canada. Think of how received opinion is pushed by mainstream media, our education system, and in myriad other ways -- almost like a Ministry of Truth . . . . . . )

Think of the implications.

The free world's governance and business models need more than one behemoth to keep tabs on the other and a jockeying back and forth so that no one is allowed to assume overweaning power if we are to preserve our freedoms.

Very disturbing.



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