The “Green Dam Youth Escort” (GDYE) -is- the monkey trap for the Chinese government. They want the control it promises, but they’ll reap the whirlwind. I’m pretty sure that within a few months of the GDYE, several things will happen:

1. An open source “patch”, spread widely on the Internet, will make a home computer look like the GDYE is working and functional from the government thought police’s p.o.v., but won’t actually report any activity. This patch will also shield the computer from being hacked through any open ports created by the GDYE, possibly by creating a virtual system.

2. A whole slew of cyber criminals will exploit the poor saps which haven’t installed the above patch, leading to widespread identity theft and other mischief in China.

3. Some enterprising hackers will use the GDYE against the Chinese government, and functionaries within the Party will not be able to access government websites.