He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.
I meant to post this a couple days ago when it was slightly more topical, but I was lazy (and/or attempting not to burn my eyes out any more). Here goes anyway.
According to this blog(and much speculated about by major newspapers, including the NYTimes(Time login needed for that link, you can get some from bugmenot)), He Kexin, a Chinese gold-medal winner in gymnastics, is underage. This in itself does not concern me. My interest in sports is minimal, and while I dislike cheating, it's hardly anything new. What is concerning, however, is that it appears that Google's cache of the document was modified to remove the incriminating age from a spreadsheet. We all know that Google's been censoring results on google.cn in compliance with government regulations, but at least they have (or so I've been told, I can't read Chinese), a label stating that the results may be filtered. Allowing the Chinese government to modify their cache would be another matter entirely. I cannot of course state with confidence that Google allowed this. We have only circumstantial evidence, and may likely never get a definite answer. Non the less, it's quite chilling.This slashdot comment said it well with a 1984 reference.
According to this blog(and much speculated about by major newspapers, including the NYTimes(Time login needed for that link, you can get some from bugmenot)), He Kexin, a Chinese gold-medal winner in gymnastics, is underage. This in itself does not concern me. My interest in sports is minimal, and while I dislike cheating, it's hardly anything new. What is concerning, however, is that it appears that Google's cache of the document was modified to remove the incriminating age from a spreadsheet. We all know that Google's been censoring results on google.cn in compliance with government regulations, but at least they have (or so I've been told, I can't read Chinese), a label stating that the results may be filtered. Allowing the Chinese government to modify their cache would be another matter entirely. I cannot of course state with confidence that Google allowed this. We have only circumstantial evidence, and may likely never get a definite answer. Non the less, it's quite chilling.This slashdot comment said it well with a 1984 reference.