For those unfamiliar with the Green Dam software, it is a program designed for use on PC’s in China that will prevent users from seeing unauthorized content. The word “green” in Chinese refers to web browsing free of porn and other “illicit” content. The announcement prompted a huge amount of attention from the international community, everyone from the Computer and Communications Industry Association to PC manufacturers to governments.

Aside from its contentious objective, Green Dam has also caused a series of other debacles. Severe vulnerabilities were found in the software by a group at the University of Michigan, proclaiming the software allows “any web site a user visits [to] exploit this problem to take control of the computer” and they “continue to recommend that users protect themselves by uninstalling Green Dam immediately.”

If all this weren’t enough, software firm Solid Oak Software, Inc. is alledging that Green Dam contains stolen portions of its own program, CyberSitter. The same group from the University of Michigan confirmed they did find keyword blacklists taken directly from CyberSitter, although those have been deactivated (but not removed) in the latest version of the software. Solid Oak Software is moving to stop PC manufacturers from distributing PC’s with the software.

As a final point of clarification, PC manufacturers are not required to actually install or activate the software on the PC. They must only include the installation file on the hard drive or provide it on CD for the end user to install themselves.

Source: [Multiple cited within article]