Beijing (China) - A group of computer security researchers and human-rights activists based in Canada at the University of Toronto recently found a gigantic surveillance system in China that is being utilized to monitor and archive Internet text conversations that contain politically charged wording. The system is capable of tracking text messages that are sent by TOM-Skype customers. TOM-Skype is a joint venture between eBay and a Chinese wireless provider.
This discovery puts the heat on the Chinese government’s capabilities when it comes to monitoring and filtering on the internet. This isn’t the first time this topic has sparked controversy- a prime example is during the Beijing Olympics.
Chinese researchers have estimated that there are over 30,000 individuals responsible for policing the internet and monitoring online traffic, websites and blogs for political and other offending content in what is called the Golden Shield Project, or also the Great Firewall of China. The Canadian activists of Citizen Lab stumbled upon the surveillance operation last month. They stated that a cluster of eight message-logging computers in China held over a million censored messages.
The activists examined the text messages and were able to reconstruct a list of restricted words. Researchers have concluded that the list includes words related to the religious group Falun Gong, Taiwan independence, and also the Chinese Communist Party. Among the words are milk powder, earthquake, and democracy. Currently Chinese officials are getting flack for the way they handled earthquake relief and also chemicals that have tainted milk powder).