China Bans Windows 8 From Government Computers

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Since they liked Windows XP so much and refuse to upgrade to Windows 8, I guess the next step for the Chinese government will be an upgrade to Windows ME.

The Chinese government has officially banned Windows 8 from use on all government computers, reports out of the country claim. The Xinhua news agency, one of the government's media mouthpieces, reported that the move was designed to improve security on government computers.
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MrGuvernment said:
Makes sense with MS trying to shove the store and skydrive down your throat.
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Gee, it only took one post to start the 8 Hate bandwagon. :rolleyes: Perhaps, just maybe, they do not want to put an untested OS on their networks? Nah. :D
 
They allow XP, and ban Windows 8, because of security? Yea, commies ain't too smart...
 
ManofGod said:
Gee, it only took one post to start the 8 Hate bandwagon. :rolleyes: Perhaps, just maybe, they do not want to put an untested OS on their networks? Nah. :D
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Or maybe they're worried about the insecurity of the pirated software they were going to install?
 
Given the NSA's recent actions and Microsoft's eagerness to help them this makes perfect sense however I bet this is just a response to the US Government crying to mommy about some bully hackers a few days ago.
 
Yeah, I'd guess it's nsa Backdoor related ...
 
I'm suprised they don't have their own OS. I wonder how much money they spend on tech support?
 
That was my first reaction. I'm surprised they use windows. I would have thought they had their own OSs. I say this because of their language, and lack of an alphabet.

I'll admit I know jack diddly do about asian languages - how exactly do they type and use computers? Do they have an on screen keyboard that has all their symbols categorized or something? Do they have an alphabet that works like ours for computer use only? (which is strange because it means they essentially have to learn another language to use a computer). Or does everyone just know engligh/french/spanish/latin based alphabets and they use them that way.

Edumacate me :)
 
They are going to deploy PRNKLinux. Cause North Korea OS is best OS! Dennis Rodman is their lead coder.
 
Kongar said:
That was my first reaction. I'm surprised they use windows. I would have thought they had their own OSs. I say this because of their language, and lack of an alphabet.

I'll admit I know jack diddly do about asian languages - how exactly do they type and use computers? Do they have an on screen keyboard that has all their symbols categorized or something? Do they have an alphabet that works like ours for computer use only? (which is strange because it means they essentially have to learn another language to use a computer). Or does everyone just know engligh/french/spanish/latin based alphabets and they use them that way.

Edumacate me :)
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Most of the popular OS's have conversions to foreign languages including the layout of keys on the keyboard. So they are typing and using the OS in their natural language, they don't need to learn anything new to use it. This has been true for decades now. Why do you think there are options when you install an OS for your language and keyboard layout?
 
But isn't there like a million bajillion symbols in chinese? There's not enough keys on the keyboard to have one for the symbol for "raspberries"?

Or are you saying they do have an alphabet like English? I thought all their words were symbols, not assembled like ours is with an alphabet.

And yes, I know there are language options - I'm just wondering what it does when you pick it.
 
Kongar said:
That was my first reaction. I'm surprised they use windows. I would have thought they had their own OSs. I say this because of their language, and lack of an alphabet.

I'll admit I know jack diddly do about asian languages - how exactly do they type and use computers? Do they have an on screen keyboard that has all their symbols categorized or something? Do they have an alphabet that works like ours for computer use only? (which is strange because it means they essentially have to learn another language to use a computer). Or does everyone just know engligh/french/spanish/latin based alphabets and they use them that way.

Edumacate me :)
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Here, let me Google that for you...
 
They want to improve IT security by going to WinXP?

Every hackers wet dream...
 
Armenius said:
Here, let me Google that for you...
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Thank you - your contribution to this conversation, on an internet forum (that's designed for conversation) has been invaluable. It was a legitimate question that was relevant to the conversation at hand. I figured we'd talk about it. Sorry to have bothered you! I did in fact, go google it and learned about pinyin prior you stepping off your golden throne to mingle amongst us commoners.

For those commoners that don't know everything - there's a phonetic alphabet and they start typing the "sounds like" on the keyboard. Then an on screen keyboard pops up with the actual symbols.

So back to the original topic - I guess it wouldn't be all that strange for them to use windows if everyone is taught pinyin at some time in their schooling.

You can understand their hesitation about an OS made in a foreign country, that has a bit of a spying scandal going on right now. Known security issues (XP) may be better in their minds than the unknown security issues (what new NSA backdoors are in win 8).
 
Probably just more difficult to pirate Win 8 than it was to pirate XP/Vista/ 7. They need to develop their own Linux distro.
 
Please remember that when Microsoft claims more security in their OS'es, they are not only talking about the end-user and online hacking, but also that it is more secure for developers to prevent end-users from stealing/blocking/changing/whatever their products, literally make developers decide how you use your computer, with you having less and less control over what you are doing.

Back in the good old XP/IE6 days, when you cleared your browsing history and temporary internet files they were gone, not anymore, there are so many leftovers in logs and registry that it can easily be reconstructed what you have been doing, crap left over everywhere or even intentionally kept, I'm not only talking internet/browser, but also the OS'es themselfes, everything is being buried deeper and deeper for every OS release that the average end user has near no control over it.

My guess is that that's what pisses china off, annoying intruding spying OS where you are not told what developers are capable of doing with your computer.
 
Pantalaimon said:
There's no bandwagon for it.
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More like a few thousand of these, eh? :D

whLFFlN.jpg
 
Kongar said:
Thank you - your contribution to this conversation, on an internet forum (that's designed for conversation) has been invaluable. It was a legitimate question that was relevant to the conversation at hand. I figured we'd talk about it. Sorry to have bothered you! I did in fact, go google it and learned about pinyin prior you stepping off your golden throne to mingle amongst us commoners.

For those commoners that don't know everything - there's a phonetic alphabet and they start typing the "sounds like" on the keyboard. Then an on screen keyboard pops up with the actual symbols.

So back to the original topic - I guess it wouldn't be all that strange for them to use windows if everyone is taught pinyin at some time in their schooling.

You can understand their hesitation about an OS made in a foreign country, that has a bit of a spying scandal going on right now. Known security issues (XP) may be better in their minds than the unknown security issues (what new NSA backdoors are in win 8).
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Glad I could help! Mingling with the commoners helps to keep things in perspective ;).
 
Armenius said:
Glad I could help! Mingling with the commoners helps to keep things in perspective ;).
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Ha, I actually thought it was funny, first time I've seen that Let me google it for you page and the resulting page I followed offered a great explanation.

While off-topic, imagine if they Chinese were the ones that developed computers and the major operating systems and interface hardware.....the rest of the world would be confused as hell trying to figure out how to type in them, lol.
 
It's most definitely about MS making newer OS's with easy to use NSA backdoors and China sticking to XP (the devil it knows) until it can abandon it altogether for some other (pirated) OS. ;)

Let the 'cyber wars' enter phase 2!

Fight!

china-US-cyber-warfare.jpg
 
I'm in the process of starting a new install of Win8.1 Pro alongside my long-running Win 7 Ultimate (also: Linux), hopefully eventually making 8.1 my main Windows install and reformatting the drive that used to hold 7.

Between what we know about the Snowden revelations, the state of major advertising and data mining on the Internet (especially that by big companies like Microsoft and Google etc..), and the catastrophe of poorly-documented privacy vulnerability settings in Windows 8.1, I don't blame China, or truly anyone who is wary of Windows 8+. Compared to Win7, Windows 8.1 has a ton more invasive info-gathering and less documentation on exactly what needs to be done to turn the majority of it off. For instance "SmartScreen" is worded in such a way that it seems applicable to Internet Explorer and is for checking against hostile URLs, but in truth it is woven into the desktop, all the "Metro/Modern" apps, and the fact that by default Bing searches your desktop and sends information online as well, and SmartScreen could be sending all matters of your data to Microsoft if it finds them "unknown in the database. This is to say nothing about all the pushing you to integrate with a "microsoft account" and much more. When installing Win8.1, there is actually NO field for "Use a local account" on the main "set up your login screen". There's either enter your existing Microsoft account, or create a new one. You have to click "Create a new Microsoft account" and then look for the text at the bottom of the screen to "opt out" of doing so, wherein you are warned against creating a local account - this is needlessly complex and obtuse, clearly with the intent of encouraging most to capitulate. There are a ton of options that are points of vulnerability that just shouldn't be there as part of the OS, and doing things like enabling spell check or indexing can also grant relatively unfettered access to your data unless you're aware of the minutia and turn them off.

Combine this with things like the confirmations that US intelligence agencies intercepts hardware and software headed for "persons or nations of interest" and modifies them with hardware, firmware, and software made for spying (which, coincidentally is exactly what the US gov't freaked out and accused China of having the potential to do, thus banning the use of Lenovo and other Chinese hardware in gov't situations), I don't think China is being unreasonable here.

Windows 8.1 does have some under the hood improvements, and I can even see how some of the new "features" in Metro could be attractive to some users, but having to search around and hunt for minutia, turning off tons of features, figuring out the obtuse language etc... that are licensed in such a way that grant massive possible privacy invasions, shouldn't be a normal part of installing an operating system. I shouldn't have to feel like I'm picking through Facebook's notoriously complex and poorly worded "privacy" options, looking for any "gotchas" that I could have missed. Nobody should have to do so.

China is right tto be wary methinks - we all are.
 
ManofGod said:
Gee, it only took one post to start the 8 Hate bandwagon. :rolleyes: Perhaps, just maybe, they do not want to put an untested OS on their networks? Nah. :D
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Yeah, but who needs a government mandate for that. Windows 8 is banning itself from networks by being windows 8 and pretty much a turd.
 
Windows 8 really is a lot closer to creepy cyberstalker OSes like Chrome and Android than many other operating systems out there. I'm guessing that China is just getting ready to move to something else and is hanging onto older Windows versions until they can get away from Microsoft products. I mean really, the only point in having an MS OS is for Office and Office hasn't really added anything useful feature-wise in a long time. I think the only big thing it included was the non-feature of OneNote that's basically a clueless person's way of organizing a directory structure in their documents folder, but inside a stupid file format instead.
 
You know what also improves security? Not using a pirated copy.

You know they do it. You can't walk 10ft in China without being offered a cracked version of something.
 
Term-X said:
This. As much as I could care less for using Wiif this'dn8 myself... what they said just does not compute.
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Then you just don't know anything about it. Example, Wireshark reveals that Windows 8 is constantly phoning home, even with privacy options at their supposed max. That's not the case with XP. So all the phoning home and backdoors in Win8, they are rightly concerned about. XP is a much simpler OS in that regard.

And ofcourse the ugly Metro interface didn't help either I'm sure, especially when pretty much nobody in China has touch screen PCs.

I do wonder what they'd have a problem with in Win7 though, if anything. If it's about giving the u.s. the finger after they were recently charged with hacking and espionage then why not beer grownups and transition to Linux instead of pouting...
 
DPI said:
And ofcourse the ugly Metro interface didn't help either I'm sure, especially when pretty much nobody in China has touch screen PCs.
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Wait...what? The last few exchange students from China I met all had touchscreen devices, phones, tablets, and PCs.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
I think the only big thing it included was the non-feature of OneNote that's basically a clueless person's way of organizing a directory structure in their documents folder, but inside a stupid file format instead.
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This description of OneNote is completely false.
 
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