【英语科技】“绿坝”撑不下去了？

Being named the sole providers of mandatory software must have seemed like the best deal a company could hope for, but it hasn't turned out that way for Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy Co. and Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co., the two Chinese companies behind Green Dam-Youth Escort.

In another sign the government's web-filtering project may be on its last legs, a project office set up to promote it has shut down because it lacked financial support, Chinese media reported.

The closure comes after the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, or MIIT, ordered manufacturers last year to ship PCs with the filtering software, called Green Dam-Youth Escort. The order was scaled back after being criticized as a heavy-handed attempt by the government to control its citizens' Internet use. Fanning the flames was the lack of transparency surrounding how the government procured the software from Jinhui and Dazheng and why a government order would force the use of privately developed software.

Making matters worse, researchers world-wide scrutinized the software and accused the companies of copying code from an American company called Cybersitter, which filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit for $2.2 billion early this year. Researchers also found security vulnerabilities in the software.

MIIT eventually said that use of Green Dam would not be mandatory and promoted the software for use in schools and Internet cafes instead, which would dash any hopes by the two companies of making huge profits from the future licensing and use of the software once it was installed in computers nationwide.

Jinhui and Dazheng were nevertheless required to provide tech support. According to a report by Beijing Times, Dazheng maintained a Beijing office to run the Green Dam website and promote the software, while Jinhui has an office in Zhengzhou providing support to some 20 million users--mostly students' parents, schools and Internet cafes.

Now, according to the Beijing Times report, Dazheng has closed its Beijing office, which employed nearly 30 people.

The report quotes Dazheng's general manager, Chen Xiaomeng, as saying the employees were dedicated staff for the Green Dam project and are no longer needed in the company, which never received additional financing from MIIT to keep the project open after an initial payment of 41.7 million yuan ($6.2 million) was paid for use of the software for a year. Chen said the company was losing money on the project and could no longer support it externally, but their requests for additional funds didn't receive a response.

Reached by phone, a representative in Jinhui's Zengzhou office said the company's services, including Green Dam software support, remain unchanged.

成为强制安装软件的独家供应商，应该说是一家公司能够指望的最好交易。但对“绿坝-花季护航”背后的两家公司来说，结果并不是这样。它们分别是北京大正语言知识处理研究院和金惠计算机系统工程有限公司。

又有一个迹象说明，这个旨在进行网络过滤的政府项目可能快要寿终正寝了。中国媒体报道，由于缺乏经费支持，一个负责项目推广的办公室已经关闭。

AFP/Getty Images中国政府要求所有出厂电脑必须安装绿坝软件，但由于招致广泛批评，最终取消了这一规定。去年，工业和信息化部要求生产商必须在出厂的电脑上安装这款名为“绿坝-花季护航”的过滤软件。此举被批为控制公民上网行为的拙劣企图，后来被工信部撤销。政府是怎样从金惠和大正采购这款软件的，为什么政府会强制人们使用民间开发的软件，这些方面都缺乏透明度，更是给舆论火上浇油。

更糟的是，软件被全世界的研究人员仔细研究，然后两家开发公司被指抄袭美国“Cybersitter”公司的代码。Cybersitter在今年年初发起了诉讼，告两家公司侵犯版权，并索赔22亿美元。研究人员还发现了软件中存在的安全漏洞。

工信部最后说不会强制使用绿坝，相反，它在学校和网吧对这款软件进行了推广。这样做，就会使两家公司无法指望在全国的电脑都装上绿坝之后，从软件的使用费和将来的授权费中获得巨额利润。

但金惠和大正还是被要求提供技术支持。据《京华时报》的一篇报道，大正保留了北京的一家办公室来运营绿坝网站，并推广这款软件；金惠在郑州有一处办公室，为大约2,000万用户提供支持，这些用户多为家长、学校和网吧。

而现在，据《京华时报》报道，大正已经关闭了雇员近30人的北京办公室。

报道援引大正公司总经理陈小盟的话说，这些员工是专门为了绿坝项目招聘而来的，而现在公司已经不再需要他们了；公司在获得工信部最初4,170万元（合620万美元）的一年软件使用费之后，再也没有从该部获得任何新的资金支持来让这个项目维持下去。陈小盟说，公司的这个项目正在赔钱，再也熬不下去了，而对更多资金的申请也没有得到任何回复。

金惠郑州办公室的一位代表在电话中说，公司包括绿坝软件支持在内的服务没有变化。