Sony has begun shipping personal computers equipped with the Chinese-government mandated filtering software days before the July 1 deadline. Shipments of the PCs equipped with Green Dam software also include a disclaimer that Sony is not responsible for damage from the software, according to a University of Hong Kong journalism professor and blogger, Rebecca MacKinnon.
She posted a photo of the disclaimer, which says Sony is not responsible for the authenticity, legality and functionality of the Green Dam software. Sony also said the software does not work with a 64-bit operating system.
Sony didn't respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Cracks In Green Dam
The Green Dam software has stirred up much controversy since the directive was sent to PC manufacturers by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in Beijing nearly six weeks ago. China says the software is to block lewd content  such as pornography from the eyes of young Internet users in China.
Others, however, say the software was developed to censor other content, including political propaganda.
Sony's disclaimer may be based on recent reports that the software can be dangerous. An independent analysis by the University of Michigan's Computer Science and Engineering division found vulnerabilities that coauthors Scott Wolchok, Randy Yao, and Alex Halderman said were due to programming errors.
"Once Green Dam is installed, any Web site the user visits can exploit these problems to take control of the computer," they wrote. "This could allow malicious sites to steal private data , send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet."
"In addition, we found vulnerabilities in the way Green Dam processes blacklist updates that could allow the software makers or others to install malicious code during the update process," they wrote.
China Does U-Turn
Not long after researchers announced their findings, Chinese officials said the use of Green Dam would be optional. They said PC makers like Dell , Hewlett-Packard and Sony are only required to save the setup files of the software on the PC hard drives or include the Green Dam CDs in the packaging.
While Chinese officials were dealing with the backlash from their requirement, they were also faced with an additional challenge. Solid Oak, publisher of the Cybersitter software, filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against the Chinese government, Green Dam developer Jinhui Computer System Engineering, and any PC maker that installs the software.
Researchers Wolchok, Yao and Halderman said that although the software originally had Cybersitter blacklists, updates now use open-source code developed by Intel.
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