back to article China moves closer to a smut-free internet

China, which last week effectively ended its citizens' right to register a .cn web address, will now only allow access to websites which have been fully registered with the authorities. Individuals will now need a business licence to register a web address. The Ministry of Industry and Information released more details of …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mandy...

    must be wetting himself at the prospect and pushing his little brain to think how he could bring such control here!!!

    1. Scott 19

      He's lagging

      behind the times first the Ozzie's now the Chinese.

      I bet he wanders around mumberling under his breath 'if it weren't for those darn Euro's in there Brussel's i could do this', sorry Mandy it was your lot that signed up for the EU without asking us, it's your own fault if they keep getting in the way of your new China republic with there darn Human Right's thinge.

      1. Richard 22
        Thumb Down

        @He's lagging

        Sorry, that post made no sense. Heavy lunch at the boozer?

        1. brudinie
          FAIL

          @@He's lagging

          Err, the post made sense to me - Mandy is a proper tw*t!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Chapple

    Hmmm, reminds me of Apple. Can't get your App listed unless we approve it, therefore we know you've got a safe environment as we control everything you can see and do.

    I guess the Chinese only use numbers for there food, so the users can't just use the IP address to access any sites.

  3. Andrew Moore

    Hmmm...

    Satire is at it's most brilliant when it cannot be distinguished from reality:

    http://www.theonion.com/content/news/internet_adds_12th_website

  4. Clay Landis
    Big Brother

    Just plain sucks to be them

    I thought that porn was what the interwebs was for?

    Gah, no fun to be had. Booo BB

  5. Martin 66
    Paris Hilton

    what will be left...

    not much...The interwebs will be a desolate place.

    And what will Paris do then ?

  6. John Savard

    China On-Line

    I'm just surprised they ever had internet access in China. Instead, one would have expected them to simply have their own network, with Internet access only available to top government and military officials, and - under tight controls - to senior researchers at top academic institutions.

  7. lglethal Silver badge
    Joke

    Out of curiosity

    Is the register registered with MIIT?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    FAIL COMRADE, FAIL!

    Governor Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, you will join me at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.

    Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Quick!

    someone post a complete drivers\etc\hosts file to a torrent!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Why

    Don't they just ban all non china net traffic and call it a day. TBH if they want to act like complete morons let them.

    Overpowering, control freak govermnents like this should frankly be wiped off the face of the earth.

    Oh wait, that would get rid of all governments.....

    1. Renato
      Stop

      Because I said so

      At least the number of hosts trying to discover my root password on my server will fall. I don't care about China's traffic, so why not null route them?

      1. Allan George Dyer
        Flame

        @Renato

        Why does a host need a registered .cn domain name before trying to discover your root password on your server?

        You don't null-route China's traffic because, if you have more than one user, some of them will have legitimate reasons to communicate with the place... like, their business depends on Chinese manufacturers, or sells to China, or they have relations there or...

        Or maybe your users are running a website they can't register in China.

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge
      Pirate

      Re: Why

      Erm, well, yeah. I think if you come back in a few decades you'll pretty much conclude that that is what did happen. Pretty much every government on the planet was replaced. The good governments went peacefully, with the incumbents allowed to finish their terms, retire and go to their graves with reputations largely intact. The rest, well ... it was "more abrupt".

      You almost feel sorry for them. Any government that turns its back on the internet will simply go bankrupt. Any that lets it in will have to clean up its act. What's a kleptocratic dictator to do?

    3. Alan Newbury
      Big Brother

      re: Why

      It may not get rid of all governments, but it might just rid us of Conroy and Rudd (won't hold my breath though...)

    4. Shady
      Pirate

      I thought...

      ..we already did that? As long as said government was sitting on a bazillion barrels of oil...

  11. Inachu
    FAIL

    One good thing is.......

    No more Falun Dafa crap in China! :-)

    Mr. Li wrote his own website when he came to USA and stated that if you truly

    practise Falund Dafa as he does then you can float through walls.

    Of course that original paticular website no longers exists that was hosted by a NY Isp.

    Because they are losing membership they are trying to get more exotic with information and interviews from members who have been abducted by UFO aliens.

    How do I know this? A practitioner at work should be doing their job but they installed http apache services on the company network and I am about to get them fired for using company hardware and bandwidth not in accordance with IT policy serving up Falun Dafa crap on company time.

    I am building up my own evidence against her.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Welcome

      @Falun Dafa

      Someone that dedicated to something they cannot tangibly observe (and soon to be jobless) is right up there on my list of possible dates...

      Would she mind relocating to the colonies? :)

  12. ElReg!comments!Pierre

    Presumably not that bad

    The license to register domain names is a rather good idea (look at what the web has become); as for the unregistered addresses not resolving, it's bad but can be solved by using a non-Chinese DNS. Or typing the IP address.

  13. Greg 36
    WTF?

    Priorities

    So, let me get this straight. Prwn is an issue, but China can still incarcerate, torture and on at least one occassion ( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,537076,00.html ) kill teenagers in Internet addiction "camps"?

  14. Robert Hill
    FAIL

    This is GOOD NEWS...

    The only good news is that now guarantees that English will continue to be the dominant language on the Internet - not that I wish to be racist, but because it is the language spoken as a first or second language by the most people on earth. This walled-garden of China's will cement the English language as a method of making content semi-universally accessible for a longer period of time.

    Thanks commies.

    Of course, all Chinese internet navigation will now be via dot quads...no need for DNS resolution then, ehhh my precious? Good thing all the Chinese are really good at math...lol.

  15. Peter 43
    Thumb Down

    Smut no, spam yes!

    Now if they'd just use the same zeal to smack down the ever present Chinese fake drugs spam...

  16. Big-nosed Pengie
    Unhappy

    For Kriste's sake

    Don't show this to Australia's Stephen Conroy - it'll only give him more ideas.

    1. Big Pete
      Thumb Down

      Great Minds Think Alike

      I was just about to post the exact same comment.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Ozzie effects?

      Actually it might be good to note for the Oz plans... This shows that despite the extensive blocking (from facebook and everything containing the word "blog" to indeed the porn sites they use as excuses) it's still quite easy to get to see prn or whatever if so desired here in China. Hence they need to go to this kind of extremes -- so assuming Mr. Conroy has any semblance of reason (a big assumption, I know), he'll see the much milder blocking they're devising has no chance of success and won't waste money on something unpopular that is doomed to fail and destroys Oz credibility on free speech.

      But yeah, one more reason to leave China soon, as if more would be needed. Don't think they'd let people get in by just remembering the IP addresses either, surely they'll block all the non-registered ones. The Chinese are *really* good at remembering number sequences after all.

    3. blackworx
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Conroy

      Ideas? It'll give him a bloody hardon.

      Paris, because, well, there's this video right...

  17. F.

    Behold!

    Pure evil.

  18. Tony Paulazzo
    Dead Vulture

    Oh well...

    It was good while it lasted. See you on the dark side of the moon.

  19. shawnfromnh

    side effects

    In other news from China. Hand cream companies are going out of business, Illegal pregnancies are at an all time high, prostitution is booming, and venereal diseases are out of control.

  20. Whitefort

    Mao Tse Mandy...

    Is it true that when Mandleson grows up, he wants to be Chinese?

  21. Chris 96
    Grenade

    looking on the bright side

    this will invigorate the Chinese hacking community to produce the necessary code to circumvent such censorship. So when UK.gov does implement net-censorship here at least the apps will be around to render the filters useless.

  22. F Seiler
    Happy

    it's just saving domain names

    So the next round will be uncounted former site owners looking to get a rooted server at one of the 12 registered companies? (pardon me while i rofl at the thought)

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