Below is a little teaser excerpted from an article on the increasingly prominent role of the internet and news media in China in shaping its political landscape.
The Chinese developed an extensive network for information sharing between remote sites during the Zhou Dynasty (1027-777 B.C.). The network consisted of many guarded watch towers scattering across the kingdom. The message was transmitted from one tower to another through smoke and fire. When one town was attacked during the day, people would burn dried wolf feces (it must smell worse than the spasm!) from the tower to send the stress signal, known as the ¡°wolf smoke¡±. Those logging onto the watch towers in nearby and distant towns would do the same (not through COPY/PASTE of course) upon receiving the message and forward it to other registered users while dispatching reinforcement troops. This information relay continued until the whole kingdom soon received the signal. When the attack took place at night, a fire would start to light up the sky to alert the adjacent towns. And the fire would spread at a pace faster than that of the Olympic torch. This network obviously is very primitive and the information transmitted (albeit in ¡°binary¡± format: either ¡°war¡± or ¡°no war¡±), aside from that it stank, is very limited. Worse still, similar today¡¯s internet system, it¡¯s subject to abuse and hacking.
In 770 B.C., Zhou Youwang, the King of the Zhou Dynasty, became the world¡¯s first hacker on an information system. The King had a beautiful queen, who was his recent upgrade from his one of concubines. The queen was perfect except for thing: she never smiled, despite the efforts made by all the king¡¯s clowns and all the king¡¯s men to amuse her. One day the King was bored, in a way veraciously shared by many computer hackers today who decide to start a computer virus or network worm, and wanted to do something exciting and fun. Since nothing could be more thrilling than to win the smile of a pretty young lady, the King decided to try out the idea from a sycophant minister. The King ordered to light up the watch tower and play a little harmless joke on the nearby nobles, like many internet users do nowadays.
Seeing the smoke arising from the capital of Zhou, the nobles from all directions hurried to King¡¯s rescue. When they finally arrived, panting and puffing, they saw the King and Queen sitting on top of the tower, sipping Zinfandel and laughing. Yes, the Queen finally laughed. But the nobles did not find it very funny, they left the capital in great dismay, disgust and disbelief.
Later that year, the kingdom was sieged by the barbarians. The wolf smoke was again seen hovering above the capital, but this time no one showed up. The nobles probably would rather stay home watching porns than playing the online game with the King again. The barbarians stormed the city and killed the King. Zhou Youwang paid the highest price possible for one single network joke: his life and his kingdom.
One moral of this famous historical episode is probably this: information network could affect the stability of a state and may even lead to its eventual fall and collapse. At least this must have been behind China's recent decision to shut down online discussion groups and forums this March.
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(c) 2010 Maya Chilam Foundation