China is watching

Earlier in the day I mentioned the closing technology gap between the US and China. And while it's not inherently bad for technology to spread to every corner of the globe (in fact it's pretty damn good on balance), it's a bit scary to see a regime as morally flexible as the ChiComs with the power to, say, monitor all of your communications.

BoingBoing has it here.

Skype, the online text messaging and voice service, said Thursday it was "extremely concerned" by monitoring of Internet chat by its Chinese partner reported by Canadian researchers.

Skype said it learned just Wednesday that a previously disclosed text filter operated by TOM-Skype, a joint venture between Chinese mobile firm TOM Online and Skype, had been altered.

This is something only one candidate even approached last week, and I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn it wasn't John "I don't know how to use an email machine" McCain. Now, that doesn't mean Obama will address it correctly when the time comes, but at least when briefs cross his desk he won't respond "WTF is a skype?"

And yes, this is something that needs to be brought to the president's attention. The whole point of opening trade with China was to prevent stuff like this from happening, using the leverage of our market to pressure them into behaving with a shred of civility. If they can't manage as much, shouldn't we rethink our trade policy?