Cisco and Abuses of Human Rights in China

[GregN]

EFF Briefing on Cisco's Involvement in the Great Firewall of China

Not exactly technical, but I found shocking Cisco's lead in building a system for the Chinese, a system that they knew would be used to make the life of anyone who expressed political dissent a living hell. Just found it appalling.

I'm not sure it is much different than say selling Phantoms to say Syria, but then I don't deal in warplanes, I do deal in network equipment.

Take a look, most notably at the leaked pdf document detailing the Golden Shield project where Cisco promotes their capabilities to include, from the doc:

The document shows that Cisco Systems had extensively evaluated the Chinese government’s needs for a censorship and surveillance system and even noted that the system could be used to target disfavored groups. The documents produced by Cisco specifically note that the Golden Shield Project would (exact quote) "'Combat Falun Gong' evil religion and other hostiles." It also specifically mentions China’s "forced labor" centers and "forced custody and education centers."

There is an online petition, and a letter writing campaign (largely to help insure the chinese defendant doesn't "disappear")

 

[GregN]

New York Times Article, detailing the updated legal case against Cisco as it progresses, including new evidence that they specifically made modifications to software to target Falun Gong network traffic, and both the sender and receiver.

According to one of the documents, the database would also contain data on Chinese citizens leaving the country, major criminal cases and motor vehicle information, and it would be connected to a video surveillance system. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Cisco was supplying some equipment for a citywide video surveillance system in Chongqing, China.

And

The suit contends that the authorities tracked Falun Gong members on the Internet using the Golden Shield and then apprehended them. Some were arrested and tortured, and one member was beaten to death, the lawsuit says.


Given the quality of their firmware, I'm not sure how much of a risk this really is, but it looks like they used this capability as a big selling point.