Chinese censorware nukes any voicecall that contains the word "protest"

Censors at the Chinese politburo have ramped up their electronic surveillance and censorship efforts; some piece of spyware is now monitoring all voice communications, and will terminate any phone call in which someone speaks the word “protest” in Mandarin or English (and presumably in other languages):

A Beijing entrepreneur, discussing restaurant choices with his fiancée over their cellphones last week, quoted Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The second time he said the word “protest,” her phone cut off.

He spoke English, but another caller, repeating the same phrase on Monday in Chinese over a different phone, was also cut off in midsentence.

The Chinese firewalls are also blocking VPN connections, degrading Gmail connections, and randomly blocking access to sites from LinkedIn to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. One analyst quoted in the NYT claims that the politburo is being deliberately ham-fisted in this crackdown in order to convey the message that they are in total control.

China Tightens Censorship of Electronic Communications

(via Beyond the Beyond)

(Image: What’s That? (65), a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from jurvetson’s photostream)