Kung Fu film star Jackie Chan Monday admitted that he acted in a porn movie 31 years ago, responding to a report revealed by Hong Kong media, Information Times reported Tuesday.

"I had to do anything I could to make a living 31 years ago, but I don’t think it’s a big deal, even Marlon Brando used to be exposed in his movies," Chan said. "The porn movie at that time was more conservative than the current films," he said.

Hong Kong netizens tipped local media that Chan was in the porn movie "All in the Family" in 1975, with a porn movie star who was famous at that time.

The Hong Kong made movie, directed by Zhu Mu, was defined as a comedy. Dean Shek, Tien Chun, and Sammo Hung were also co-stars.

Photo: ifensi.com

The folks at Sanrio are hosting an incredible event in Hong Kong called Hello Kitty Black Wonder which is also advertised here in Sanriotown.

The general mission is to rescue Hello Kitty and Daniel in a series of clues and games that herald a little bit of Alternate Reality Gaming. It is actually like a theme park really but in a gothic, dark sort of halloween way.

The video above I got from Sanriotown, some slideshows of the event.

The Graphics and design is funky, some pictures from Apple Daily.

Here’s poor Daniel in Jail, you have to go rescue him! Looks sort of cowboy western like.

Special items are also on sale and looks like they are selling quickly!

Kowk Chun-wai changed his plea yesterday and admitted publishing 84 pictures of female stars in sex acts with entertainer Edison Chen Koon-hei by posting hyperlinks to them.

He was warned he would probably go to jail.

Kwok Chun-wai, 24, is one of three people charged in relation to the celebrity nude pictures scandal that gripped the city early this year.

With the support of his parents and friends, Kwok appeared calm when he pleaded guilty in Kowloon City Court to three counts of publishing an obscene article by posting the internet links on January 29 and February 6.

He originally denied the charges in another court on June 3.

Principal Magistrate Andrew Ma Hon-cheung said he would likely impose a jail sentence, noting the offences were serious and had occurred on several occasions.

They can attract a maximum fine of HK$1 million and up to three years’ jail. Kwok was remanded to July 24 for sentencing, pending a background report.

The court was told Kwok had first downloaded the celebrity sex pictures from the internet and saved them to a file storage server, http://w13.easy-share.com, and later posted 25 hyperlinks on the Hong Kong-based adult discussion forum http://new-3lunch.net to direct Net users to the site and allow them to download the images.

Prosecutor Hayson Tse Ka-sze said that of all the posted hyperlinks, police found that only five led to celebrity sex pictures, Of the pictures, 84 ruled obscene by the Obscene Articles Tribunal on April 23 were cited in the charges. Some of the images showed oral sex.

Police arrested Kwok on February 10 at his Ngau Tau Kok home.

Barrister Ody Lai said her client had not realised the seriousness of his actions. What had motivated his offence was the community interest that had already been sparked [many similar pictures had already been posted on the internet] and a statement relating to them published in a Chinese newspaper by the Emperor Entertainment Group on January 28.

The group claimed the pictures were fake, the court heard.

The court was told Kwok was a hard-working employee with a good work record who had started a logistics degree at Caritas Francis Hsu College in January.

He was very remorseful over what he had done, Ms Lai said.

The celebrity sex photos sparked a huge controversy in February when hundreds of explicit pictures of Edison Chen and female celebrities were distributed by e-mail and messaging systems.

The photographs were of Chen with purportedly Canto-pop star Gillian Chung Yan-tung, actress Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi, former actress Bobo Chan Man-woon, model-actress Rachel Ngan Wing-sze, former singer Candice Chan Si-wai, 2001 Miss Chinese International contestant Mandy Chen Yu-ju and Vincy Yeung Wing-ching, niece of entertainment tycoon Albert Yeung Sau-shing.

Gillian Chung and Edison Chen have since made public apologies in relation to the pictures.

Chen is expected to return to the city in October for the trial of the remaining two people charged over the incident.

The first man arrested in relation to the scandal, Chung Yik-tin, was freed on February 15 after charges against him were withdrawn.

Techcrunch has an interesting article on Google supporting and assisting the arrest of an Indian Man for saying he hated a prominent politician. More details on this story here entitled Techie held for posting derogatory messages against Sonia Gandhi on Orkut.

To quote from Techcrunch:

He was then charged under section 292 of Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act because he created a profile and then posted content in vulgar language about Sonia Gandhi in the community. If he’s convicted, he can be imprisoned for up to five years and may have to pay a fine up to Rs one lakh.

Now what is interesting is that for a democracy like India there appears to be no free speech issue issue for arresting a pan who said he hated a politician.

The Express Indian times said this:

Interestingly, the person who formed this community is not guilty as per the law. The police said that hating Sonia Gandhi is a personal opinion of the person who formed the community and having a personal opinion about someone is not an offence as per the law.

So he may not even be technically in breach as the law says he is entitled to a personal opinion.

So why is he charged and arrested?

Isn’t India a democratic country?

When China arrested people such as Shi Tao the media was abuzz, Yahoo was taken, in part, to congress on this, lots of reactions took place. The world was against China and its government, lots of protests took place. Yahoo was called a moral pygmie for supporting China by US Politicians because of this.

Don’t get me wrong, both is wrong, neither China or India should be arresting people for expressing their personal opinions or their free speech rights.

But the Internet has little  news about Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid from Gurgaon in contrast. Shi Tao in contrast was prominent news including the BBC.

China is not a democratic country yet, it is communist and has laws against certain areas of free speech and media. That they are not  agreeable to some, if not most is not my point, I agree that China needs to open up more and become more democratic which it is slowly embracing. What I find awful is that when a democratic country does the same thing, the world turns a blind eye. WHY?

Because you embrace ‘democracy’ therefore it is ok to break your own fundamental values? Countries that are called communist do not?

A dangerous polarization is taking place, like as was mention in this Pro-China or Anti-China video about the infamous torch relay.

China is viewed as simply bad no matter what it does, and if the media and individuals continue to display China poorly without recognizing that there are other aspects you will make us more suspicious. You will make us wonder more about your hidden agenda to hurt us. Are you afraid of China? Why can a perso be arrested in a democractic country for violations of free speech but not in China? What would happen if someone blogged "I don’t like Hu Jintao?" in China, it would be more than a mere footprint of online news, it would take the world by storm, Google would be asked to come in to congress to explain their actions like Yahoo did.

But for Rahul, he doesn’t seem to matter, because he is from India, or because India is "democratic" and endorses the western view of free speech?

Does the world really think China wouldn’t notice this type of treatment and be understanding of it? What does one really hope to achieve other than further polarizing and segmenting the chinese? If it was the intent of western media to garner sympathy and support for creating a more open society in China, your recent display was anything but.

China’s most devastating earthquake in three decades killed nearly 9,000 people on Monday, with the toll likely to soar as authorities struggle to reach casualties in large areas cut off from relief. The earthquake that hit China’s southwestern province of Sichuan killed 8,533 people, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday, citing the provincial government.

The epicentre of the 7.8 magnitude quake was in a mountainous region about 100 kilometres from Sichuan’s capital Chengdu, a bustling city of 10 million.”The road started swaying as I was driving. Rocks fell from the mountains, with dust darkening the sky over the valley,” a driver for Sichuan’s seismological bureau was quoted by Xinhua as saying, as he was driving near the epicentre. The quake hit in the middle of the school day, toppling eight schools in the region. Chemical plants and at least one hospital were also flattened, trapping many hundreds, state media said. About 900 teenagers were buried in the rubble of a collapsed three-storey school building in the Sichuan city of Dujiangyan. Local villagers had already helped dozens of students out of the ruins and five cranes were excavating the site as anxious parents looked on, Xinhua said.”Some buried teenagers were struggling to break loose from underneath the ruins while others were crying out for help,” the agency said. Nightfall, severed communications and blocked roads have hampered rescue efforts and the death toll was likely to rise significantly.Many buildings flattened An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County alone, state media said. As many as 10,000 in Beichuan were feared injured and 80 per cent of the buildings there had been destroyed, Xinhua said. There had been more than 300 aftershocks, state television said. Beichuan’s population is 161,000, meaning about one in 10 residents were killed or injured. The county is a part of Mianyang city, and about 160 kilometres from the provincial capital, Chengdu. Hundreds of people were buried in two collapsed chemical plants in Shifang in Sichuan, the online edition of the official Xinhua news agency said. About 6,000 people were evacuated, Xinhua said, adding that more than 80 tonnes of highly corrosive liquid ammonia had leaked. Hundreds of people were buried under rubble in Shifang in Sichuan as several schools, factories and dormitories collapsed during the quake, the official Xinhua news agency said. Hundreds were also buried under rubble in a collapsed hospital in Dujiangyan city in Sichuan. The quake’s epicentre was in nearby Wenchuan, a mountainous county of about 100,000 people, but its force was enough to cause buildings to sway across China and as far away as the Thai capital Bangkok. The Sichuan plain is one of China’s most fertile agricultural areas, but it relies heavily on an irrigation system linked to the 2,000-year-old Dujiangyan flood control works. Which means the quake could exacerbate inflation, already running at the fastest pace in 12 years. The quake is also the worst to hit China in 32 years since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in northeastern China where up to 300,000 died. It has come at a bad time for China, which holds the Olympic Games in August, and has been struggling to keep a lid on unrest in ethnic Tibetan areas and the heavily Muslim northeastern Xinjiang region. The US Geological Survey said on its website (http://earthquake.usgs.gov) the main quake struck at 02.28 HK time at a depth of 10 kilometres. In Beijing and Shanghai, office workers poured into the streets as the tremor hit. In the capital, there was no visible damage and the showpiece Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium was unscathed. ‘All-out’ rescue effort Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Chengdu and President Hu Jintao ordered an “all-out” rescue effort, Xinhua reported. Thousands of army troops and paramilitary People’s Armed Police carrying medical supplies were also headed to the region, state television said. But a landslide had blocked a mountain road leading to Wenchuan, preventing troops from reaching the scene, state radio said. In Washington, President George W. Bush said the United States was ready to help.”I extend my condolences to those injured and to the families of the victims of today’s earthquake. I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy.”The United States stands ready to help in any way possible,” Mr Bush said in a statement. At least 45 had died in Chengdu, Xinhua said, citing an official with the local seismological bureau. Another 600 people were injured, 58 of them critically, in the sprawling city.Some 57 have been confirmed killed in northern Shaanxi, 48 in northwestern Gansu, 50 in Chongqing municipality, and one in Yunnan province, Xinhua said, citing the national headquarters of disaster relief.”); document.write(tmpText); China’s most devastating earthquake in three decades killed nearly 9,000 people on Monday, with the toll likely to soar as authorities struggle to reach casualties in large areas cut off from relief.The earthquake that hit China’s southwestern province of Sichuan killed 8,533 people, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday, citing the provincial government.The epicentre of the 7.8 magnitude quake was in a mountainous region about 100 kilometres from Sichuan’s capital Chengdu, a bustling city of 10 million.

“The road started swaying as I was driving. Rocks fell from the mountains, with dust darkening the sky over the valley,” a driver for Sichuan’s seismological bureau was quoted by Xinhua as saying, as he was driving near the epicentre.

The quake hit in the middle of the school day, toppling eight schools in the region. Chemical plants and at least one hospital were also flattened, trapping many hundreds, state media said.

About 900 teenagers were buried in the rubble of a collapsed three-storey school building in the Sichuan city of Dujiangyan.

Local villagers had already helped dozens of students out of the ruins and five cranes were excavating the site as anxious parents looked on, Xinhua said.

“Some buried teenagers were struggling to break loose from underneath the ruins while others were crying out for help,” the agency said.

Nightfall, severed communications and blocked roads have hampered rescue efforts and the death toll was likely to rise significantly.

Many buildings flattened

An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County alone, state media said.

As many as 10,000 in Beichuan were feared injured and 80 per cent of the buildings there had been destroyed, Xinhua said. There had been more than 300 aftershocks, state television said.

Beichuan’s population is 161,000, meaning about one in 10 residents were killed or injured. The county is a part of Mianyang city, and about 160 kilometres from the provincial capital, Chengdu.

Hundreds of people were buried in two collapsed chemical plants in Shifang in Sichuan, the online edition of the official Xinhua news agency said.

About 6,000 people were evacuated, Xinhua said, adding that more than 80 tonnes of highly corrosive liquid ammonia had leaked.

Hundreds of people were buried under rubble in Shifang in Sichuan as several schools, factories and dormitories collapsed during the quake, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Hundreds were also buried under rubble in a collapsed hospital in Dujiangyan city in Sichuan.

The quake’s epicentre was in nearby Wenchuan, a mountainous county of about 100,000 people, but its force was enough to cause buildings to sway across China and as far away as the Thai capital Bangkok.

The Sichuan plain is one of China’s most fertile agricultural areas, but it relies heavily on an irrigation system linked to the 2,000-year-old Dujiangyan flood control works.

Which means the quake could exacerbate inflation, already running at the fastest pace in 12 years.

The quake is also the worst to hit China in 32 years since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in northeastern China where up to 300,000 died.

It has come at a bad time for China, which holds the Olympic Games in August, and has been struggling to keep a lid on unrest in ethnic Tibetan areas and the heavily Muslim northeastern Xinjiang region.

The US Geological Survey said on its website (http://earthquake.usgs.gov) the main quake struck at 02.28 HK time at a depth of 10 kilometres.

In Beijing and Shanghai, office workers poured into the streets as the tremor hit. In the capital, there was no visible damage and the showpiece Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium was unscathed.

‘All-out’ rescue effort

Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Chengdu and President Hu Jintao ordered an “all-out” rescue effort, Xinhua reported.

Thousands of army troops and paramilitary People’s Armed Police carrying medical supplies were also headed to the region, state television said. But a landslide had blocked a mountain road leading to Wenchuan, preventing troops from reaching the scene, state radio said.

In Washington, President George W. Bush said the United States was ready to help.

“I extend my condolences to those injured and to the families of the victims of today’s earthquake. I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy.

“The United States stands ready to help in any way possible,” Mr Bush said in a statement.

At least 45 had died in Chengdu, Xinhua said, citing an official with the local seismological bureau. Another 600 people were injured, 58 of them critically, in the sprawling city.

Some 57 have been confirmed killed in northern Shaanxi, 48 in northwestern Gansu, 50 in Chongqing municipality, and one in Yunnan province, Xinhua said, citing the national headquarters of disaster relief

Japan called for calm but braced for trouble with tight security on Friday, as low-key protests began ahead of its leg of the Olympic torch relay, following emotional scenes at other venues around the world.The global torch relay ahead of the Beijing Games in August has provoked protests against China’s rights record, especially in Tibet, as well as patriotic rallies by Chinese who say the west has vilified Beijing unfairly.

The flame is meant to transmit a message of peace and friendship, but its journey has been largely turned into a political event and the torch has been granted the sort of security usually reserved for state leaders.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura called for calm ahead of Saturday’s relay in the central Japanese city of Nagano, a former Winter Olympics site.

“I hope this torch relay will take place peacefully in an atmosphere where everyone can celebrate,” he told a news conference in Tokyo.

In Hanoi, Vietnam state-run radio reported that a US citizen of Vietnamese origin had been expelled on accusations of planning anti-Chinese protests at next week’s Olympics torch relay in Ho Chi Minh City.

Reclusive North Korea, for its part, vowed to “astonish the world” with pomp, ceremony and safety during its stage of the relay on Monday, Chinese state media reported.

“North Korea has fully prepared an Olympic Games torch relay in Pyongyang that will be high-quality, outstanding, safe and successful,” China’s official Xinhua news agency cited a North Korean official as saying.

The flame’s arrival in Nagano was greeted by right wing activist trucks roaming the streets, displaying hugh Japanese flags and blaring “go away”.

Yellow T-shirt-clad supporters of the Falun Gong religious group, outlawed by Beijing, marched down a Nagano street with a brass band and yellow banners.

Dozens of people carrying pro-Tibet and Japanese flags later marched near the City Hall, blaring “Nagano City, cancel the torch relay now” as two vans of riot police trailed them.

“It’s an embarrassment for Japan. To host the torch relay is the same as supporting oppression in Tibet,” said Atsushi Matsuoka, 37, who worked for a publishing company.

Kunihiko Shinohara, head of Nagano’s relay organising committee, tried to reassure ordinary Japanese who would be taking part in the relay. “I know some of you are worried, but we will do our best to ensure safety,” he told them.

The torch will be guarded by up to 4,000 police, media said, with riot police and another 100 regular officers set to shield torch-bearers in two rows, shrouding the runners from sight.

They will be joined by two Chinese “flame attendants”, although Japan has made it clear that their participation in security would not be welcome after criticism of the paramilitary guards as heavy-handed in protecting the torch elsewhere.

Spectators will be barred from the opening and closing ceremonies on Saturday in Nagano.

“The people of Nagano were so looking forward to cheering on the relay, but everyone is disappointed because no one will be able to see it,” said Nagano taxi driver Michie Higuchi.

About 2,000 Chinese students from across Japan were expected to travel to Nagano carrying Chinese and Japanese flags and wearing matching T-shirts to show support for the relay.

More than 560,000 Chinese nationals live in Japan, official figures show, making them the second largest group of non-Japanese after Koreans. Many are students.

Pro-Tibet groups were to hold a prayer service early on Saturday for all those killed in recent unrest in Tibet before the relay on Saturday at the historic Zenkoji temple, which earlier withdrew as the kick-off site for the event.

The pro-Tibet groups would then congregate for a peaceful protest near the relay.

China has called the global torch relay a “journey of harmony” but the flame has become a magnet for anti-China protests. In London, Paris and San Francisco, torch bearers were jostled by anti-Beijing protesters as they ran.

The demonstrations stirred nationalistic sentiment in China, and prompted calls from some Chinese to boycott foreign businesses. In the last leg in Canberra, more than 10,000 Chinese Australians staged a huge pro-Beijing rally.

The International Olympic Committee’s athletes’ commission said in a statement it was saddened the torch relay had ‘not had the peaceful passage it deserves”.

Or perhaps they do not want to understand us, from this post I saw this:

Sushipanda said that over half of my Chinese-Chinese friends on MSN have put the badge on their contact names, in defiance of all the anti-China bullying that they’re undoubtedly reading about in the Chinese newspapers, watching on the Chinese news, and scouring over on the hundreds of blogs and BBS’s peppering China’s cyberscape and devoted to propping up this country’s national pride.

TC suggested that outsiders are suggesting that the news in China is being censored and that Chinese citizens aren’t getting a balanced view of the reality of the international protests. But whatever the cause, this is a significant showing of Chinese nationalistic behavior, and a sign that they are paying attention to the outside world.

What is surprising is that the West and the western media appears to insist that things are bad in China, the Olympics is China’s call to the new century, about improvement, about progress, and about some pride. The only perception the West leaves us with is that you wish to deny this moment of glory to us, why would you do that? When South Korea had their Olympics from a corrupt and military state was there this protest? Infact you were all hailing the progress and hoping South Korea will improve after this, which it did, so why do you want to spoil it for China? Are you envious, jealous or feel that we do not deserve our entry into the word? Do you think us foolish or ignorant of the meaning of “freedom” or “democracy”?

Do not raise your false torch for your so called chaotic and revolutionary freedom that will bring misery and war. You claim the name of Tibet for an Olympic Boycott but the Da Lai Lama himself does not agree or advocate it.

There is much China needs to improve upon, nobody will disagree with you here. There is no question that human rights can be better, that poverty is a problem, that education is a problem, that censorship is a problem, but if you think boycott, revolution and drastic change is the answer, as your violent protests seem to indicate then you will have learnt nothing of China’s true bloodshed in its many revolutions.

Already known as the largest e-waste capital of the world and often discussed in various high profile news articles and blogs it would appear that Guiyu is however still not getting any real priority attention to fix this terrible situation.

image courtesy of http://coolthingsinrandomplaces.com/guiyu/ and reposted…

Most of Guiyu makes their living by tearing apart outdated Dells with their bare hands. To access the solder, for example, they roast circuit boards over coal-fired grills. Printer cartridges are attacked with paint brushes, sending black clouds into the air and lungs. Gold is obtained using acid strippers, whose sludge is later dumped into the local river.

Computers components, however old, are rife with bits of valuable metals - many savvy geeks strip their old technology of gold before leaving them on the curb. But they also contain enough other materials - lead, cadmium, barium, even mercury - that electronic waste qualifies as hazardous, which is why most western countries drop it off as waste disposal centers. From there, 80% of e-waste heads straight to Asia.

Some workers claim they can distinguish between dozens of plastics, based on how they smell when they burn. Workers here make as little as $100 a month.

Via CNN, an interesting article about how hackers in China are making the world unsafe.

ZHOUSHAN, China — They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world’s most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon.

In fact, they say they are sometimes paid secretly by the Chinese government — a claim the Beijing government denies.

"No Web site is one hundred percent safe. There are Web sites with high-level security, but there is always a weakness," says Xiao Chen, the leader of this group.

"Xiao Chen" is his online name. Along with his two colleagues, he does not want to reveal his true identity. The three belong to what some Western experts say is a civilian cyber militia in China, launching attacks on government and private Web sites around the world. Watch hackers’ clandestine Chinese operation »

If there is a profile of a cyber hacker, these three are straight from central casting — young and thin, with skin pale from spending too many long nights in front of a computer.

One hacker says he is a former computer operator in the People’s Liberation Army; another is a marketing graduate; and Xiao Chen says he is a self-taught programmer.

"First, you must know about the Web site you want to attack. You must know what program it is written with," says Xiao Chen. "There is a saying, ‘Know about both yourself and the enemy, and you will be invincible.’"

CNN decided to withhold the address of these hackers’ Web site, but Xiao Chen says it has been operating for more than three years, with 10,000 registered users. The site offers tools, articles, news and flash tutorials about hacking.

Private computer experts in the United States from iDefense Security Intelligence, which provides cybersecurity advice to governments and Fortune 500 companies, say the group’s site "appears to be an important site in the broader Chinese hacking community."

Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks of on-again, off-again e-mail exchanges. When they finally agreed, CNN was told to meet them on the island of Zhoushan, just south of Shanghai and a major port for China’s navy.

The apartment has cement floors and almost no furniture. What they do have are three of the latest computers. They are cautious when it comes to naming the Web sites they have hacked.

But eventually Xiao Chen claims two of his colleagues — not the ones with him in the room — have hacked into the Pentagon and downloaded information, although he wouldn’t specify what was gleaned. CNN has no way to confirm if his claim is true.

"They would not publicize this," he says of someone who hacks the U.S. Defense Department. "It is very sensitive."

This week, the Pentagon said computer networks in the United States, Germany, Britain and France were hit last year by what they call "multiple intrusions," many of them originating from China.

At a congressional hearing in Washington last week, administration officials testified that the government’s cyber initiative has fallen far short of what is required. Most alarming, the officials said, there has never been a full damage assessment of federal agency networks. Watch Pentagon bans Google from bases »

"We are here today because we must do more," said Robert Jamison, a top official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "Defending the federal system in its current configuration is a significant challenge."

U.S. officials have been cautious not to directly accuse the Chinese military or its government of hacking into its network.

But David Sedney, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, says, "The way these intrusions are conducted are certainly consistent with what you would need if you were going to actually carry out cyber warfare."

Beijing hit back at that, denying such an allegation and calling on the United States to provide proof. "If they have any evidence, I hope they would provide it. Then, we can cooperate on this issue," Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said during a regular press briefing this week.

But Xiao Chen says after the alleged Pentagon attack, his colleagues were paid by the Chinese government. Again, CNN has no way to independently confirm if that is true.

His allegations brought strenuous denials from Beijing. "I am telling you honestly, the Chinese government does not do such a thing," Qin said.

But if Xiao Chen is telling the truth, it appears his colleagues launched a freelance attack — not initiated by Beijing, but paid for after the fact. "These hacker groups in my opinion are not agents of the Chinese state," says James Mulvenon from the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, which works with the U.S. intelligence community.

"They are sort of useful idiots for the Beijing regime."

He adds, "These young hackers are tolerated by the regime provided that they do not conduct attacks inside of China."

One of the biggest problems experts say is trying to prove where a cyber attack originates from, and that they say allows hackers like Xiao Chen to operate in a virtual world of deniability.

And across China, there could be thousands just like him, all trying to prove themselves against some of the most secure Web sites in the world.

Visitors to the Beijing Games may be able to buy Playboy and a raft of other limited publications as China mulls relaxing its controls for the Summer Olympics in line with international practice.

Source China Daily.

All pornographic material is prohibited on the mainland but a temporary exception could be made for the Games, according to the biggest importer of foreign publications in the country. “Our law forbids Playboy and we should obey this, but we can’t rule out the possibility that it might make its debut. There might be a demand for it (from athletes or visitors) during the Games,” said Liang Jianrui, vice-president of China National Publications Import and Export Corporation, which will manage the nine magazine-selling kiosks sanctioned by Olympic organizers BOCOG during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Each kiosk will retail over 100 kinds of newspapers and magazines, including publications that are difficult to find in the capital like The New York Times, Newsweek and Britain’s The Sun famous for its topless Page 3 models. “We will provide most of the world’s top-selling newspapers and magazines,” said Liang. While Playboy, the brainchild of Hugh Hefner that is known for its “tasteful” photos of buxom beauties, remains a highly controversial choice at the Olympic Village, there is a growing trend in China to experiment with magazines that were once deemed dangerous or unsanitary.

China’s increasingly liberal political climate has seen sweeping changes hit the shelves of bookstores in the last 18 months, with a Chinese edition of edgy music journal Rolling Stone now deemed fit for the Chinese reading public. Other foreign media, like The New York Times, usually costs twice as much in Beijing as it does in Hong Kong - because of high tax rate and shipping costs, and is often restricted to five-star hotels, international compounds and special foreign bookstores.

Many expatriates in the capital consider this one of the “cons” of living in the city. “It is very inconvenient to buy foreign newspapers and magazines in Beijing,” said South African Jeremy Goldkorn, a 12-year China resident who founded a popular English blog about the country. “As a long-term resident of Beijing, I am already used to reading my favorite publications online, but even then, some foreign websites are inexplicably difficult to access.”

Beijing is going all out on a PR offensive to show the world next summer that it is an international city and is ready to bend the rules to give visitors a more comfortable stay. In addition to implementing a citywide clean-up campaign involving taxi-drivers and social etiquette lessons, it is ramping up English learning across the city, recruiting an unprecedented number of volunteers for the Games and doing its utmost to sanitize the environment and food hygiene levels in the city. The relaxation of curbs on magazines and newspapers follows Olympic protocol. Previous host cities like Athens, Sydney and Atlanta were also asked to ensure journalists and athletes had access to all leading international publications.

The move is also in line with a growing appetite among the Chinese public for foreign, and especially original, material, including novels. The final installment of the bestselling Harry Potter series, for example, sold 50,000 copies on its first print here despite a high retail price of 200 yuan per hardback copy. “This trend of releasing more foreign material stems purely from demand,” said Liang. “Before China opened up, expatriates were so eager to read their newspapers and books in Beijing that China made exceptions by opening foreign bookstores. Nowadays, Chinese bookstores sell foreign books.”

The good news for athletes, tourists and journalists during the 2008 Olympics is that they will be able to find many of their favorite paperbacks at downtown bookstores, while also being able to catch up on the latest news from the nine designated kiosks only hours after publications like the Financial Times are printed in Hong Kong. Popular Asian newspapers such as Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, Singapore’s The Strait Times and France’s L’Équipe will also be available, said Liang.

The kiosks got a pre-run this August at the Olympic co-host city of Qingdao when it staged the Qingdao International Sailing Regatta, an Olympic test event. Liang said his company is also talking with leading newspapers including The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times to keep down retail costs and make sure the papers arrive in a timely manner. These two dailies do not have access to printing presses in Hong Kong and must be flown from the United States to Beijing. “Our newsstands will respond to the practical needs of visitors during the Games,” said Liang. “We plan to release a list of what’s going to be available next April or May, but it may not be the final list.”

Six of the nine kiosks will be located in the media area for accredited and non-accredited journalists, he said. The biggest one, with a floor space of 68 sq m, will sit in the International Broadcasting Center. Athletes and coaches will have access to their favorite reads at the Olympic Village, while another store at the Olympic Green will cater to international and domestic spectators. The newsstands will be updated every three hours from 9 am to 6 pm, Jiao Guoying, president of the company, told local media recently.

On a newsstand at the University of International Business and Economics in north Beijing, several copies of a pink Financial Times stick out from behind piles of Chinese publications. The second-hand newspaper costs only 4 yuan (50 US cents), a fraction of its retail price in Europe, but is a must-read for finance majors at the college. Yet the fact it is even here at all is a mystery to many. “A man delivers the papers to me, but I’m not exactly sure where they come from,” said Han, a vendor at the school who refused to disclose her full name. A man who used to sell second-hand magazines during his college days told China Daily on condition of anonymity that he persuaded airport staff at Beijing Capital International Airport to collect used foreign magazines from the cabins of international flights, before carrying them to universities and crowded English schools like New Oriental in the capital.

As foreign publications, both in print and online, are still few and far between in China, used copies from “smugglers” like this form one of the limited channels for Chinese to (literally) get their hands on material that is easily available overseas. “When Time magazine published its Person of the Year edition last December, featuring a mirror reflecting the reader herself, I was eager to get one,” said Wu Yun, a senior student of Beijing Foreign Studies University. “It took me over a month to get one copy but in the end I did it,” she told China Daily.

Used periodicals like Time, The Economist and National Geographic, which are brought to the Chinese mainland from Hong Kong, are also among the best sellers, said vendors around Wu’s school. One vender there said he sold about 50 to 60 copies every month. Readers of foreign publications in China include students, scholars and office workers with some foreign-language skills.

During weekends, reading rooms for foreign-language periodicals are usually packed at the National Library of China near Zhongguancun, where more than 10,000 foreign periodicals are available. “I asked for leave from my company to come here and read foreign periodicals like I.D., Innovation, Design and Mono,” said a woman surnamed He, an industrial designer in her late 20s and a fine arts enthusiast. “Not many Chinese design companies can afford to subscribe to all these magazines,” she said. “But they are really useful.” Luo Huan, a 30-year-old librarian at the library, said that nowadays Chinese readers want to know more about what is going on in the world of international science, law and social affairs.

Many Chinese frequently read foreign publications online, using portals, search engines, proxies and RSS feeds. The Chinese websites of some western media have also experienced a growing readership on the Chinese mainland. “Reading more global publications certainly broadens the mind,” said Chen Lidan, a media expert at Beijing-based Renmin University. “But right now few people do that in China.”

“The driving force behind foreign publications in China comes from the coalition of the market and the policy. Policy follows demand,” said Liang Jianrui, vice-president of China National Publications Import and Export Corporation. “I often bought second-hand magazines at school. But since I left, I can rarely find them,” said Han Mingbing, a college graduate who now works at a tourism company in Beijing. “If the latest edition of Time was available around the corner, I would snap it up no matter how much it cost,” he said.