I teach English to Chinese Comp Sci students at what is considered a top regional university over here. Out of 30 students in the special low-entry-bar class for rich kids (I hate these, but they make up the bulk of my assigned classes -- regular classes with real students are quite a bit better), I could point out possibly two who are actually interested in computers. The rest have been pushed into it by their parents who want their child to be "rich like Bill Gates".

They have no interest in computers and hence little ability beyond punching in Textbook Java and C++ and the only thing they know about the global computer industry is that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and he owns Microsoft. I'm not kidding -- that really is it. I tried to build an entire Oral English unit around discussing current tech-industry issues (history, future directions, open- v's closed-source -- pros and cons of both models in different situations, computer security -- SPAM, viruses, spyware, and so on) and it fell flat on account of I actually expected them to spend an hour a week doing research on the internet (I even gave them the keywords to plug into the search engine) and learn something. They don't know and they made it quite clear that they don't care.

Who are Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak? They don't know. Linus Torvalds? Richard Stallman? Don't know, don't care. Who is Larry Ellison? Never heard of him (this is a several months after he did a major -- and heavily-press-covered -- tour of China). Keep in mind these are Comp.Sci. majors -- I wouldn't expect a lay-person to recognise all those names, though a good number of lay people -- even here in China -- would at least get the Larry Ellison one.

Funniest of all, they had absolutely no idea who Steve Ballmer is (I enlightened them with the MonkeyBoyDevelopers music video).

I had to refuse to assess the class as in 18 weeks they had learnt absolutely nothing. I even had the departmental director sit in on a few of my classes to check if it was my teaching, but he could only shrug and say-without-explicitly-stating-it "what do you expect, this course is just here to make us money and to fill the government-set quota on Comp-sci graduates for this year."

The number of graduates in ANY field in China is set by quota. The trouble a colleague in the physics department had in getting a student who was actively disrupting classes removed was astronomical. She wanted him out. The other students wanted him out, the department wanted him out. The university administration wanted to meet this year's quota for physics graduates.

-- "It takes love over gold, and mind over matter" -- Dire Straits

na dann lasst und mal da genug baeume pflanzen

nee scherz beiseite, ich halte davon auch nicht viel. und wenn man es mal so sieht, hier in D gibts welche wie ueberall auf der welt. und manch schlechtes hat auch seine vorteile...

aber diese news sehe ich als bloedsinn an... zuviel alias geguckt, wa?

Natuerlich wird im Moment viel ueber die boesen Nordkoreaner geschrieben. Ausserdem wird mit Angriffen auf IT-Systeme viel Staub aufgewirbelt.

Doch es ist wohl nicht zu abwegig sich vorzustellen, dass Geheimdienste nicht nur Agenten wie James Bond ausbilden. Mit Industriespionage ist viel Geld zu verdienen und jede Regierung hat doch Interesse daran, dass ansaessige Firmen internationale Auftraege erhalten. Was spricht dagegen, die Hoehe der Angebote der Konkurrenten durch Einbrueche in Computernetze zu bekommen?

Nein, ich bin nicht sonderlich paranoid. Infos dazu habe ich in Bruce Schneiers Buch "Secrets and Lies" gelesen.