Between 3am in the morning to 11:45pm at night, a total of 221 new photographs appeared on the Internet.  Four female were involved.  Three of them had previously been involved: Cecilia Cheung, Gillian Chung and Bobo Chan.  The fourth and new person appears to be Vincy Yeung, the current girlfriend of Edison Chen and the niece of Emperor Entertainment Group chief Albert Yeung.

Vincy Yeung would be the seventh female in the Edison Chen photo collection.  Previously, Hong Kong Assistant Commission of Police Wong Fook-chuun had said that there were only six females among the 1,300+ photographs.

(The Sun)

When the photos first began to appear, the mainland Chinese forum Tianya gained the reputation as one of the principal assembly points for information on new photographs.  Hundreds of thousands of netizens gathered at the special Tianya section, and it accumulated more than 20 million page views.  As a result of the high profile, the Tianya forum drew the attention of mainland authorities.  However, the proliferation of information was not just restricted to this one forum alone.
 
According to information, the Guangdong provincial public security bureau brought in more than one hundred Internet police officers during the Lunar New Year period to monitor and stop the circulation of the photographs.  But this was apparently futile, because one Internet police officer said:  We have to monitor thousands of websites.  Even if we don't sleep or rest, it is hard to stop the re-posting of the photographs."
 
On the Lunar New Year's Eve, more than 200 photos appeared.  This made all those mainland Chinese websites that carried them quite popular.  On the second day of the Lunar New Year, the special section at Tianya was deleted for a period of two hours, and this drew a huge response from netizens.  The section was restored.  Then early yesterday, several hundred more photographs were released and they were even more explicit.  This caused the special section at Tianya to be deleted for a second time.  Although it has now been 'revived,' some netizens are finding it hard to post comments.
 
According to a source with the Guangdong provincial public security bureau, they are monitoring the developments carefully because they are afraid that the actions of certain Hong Kong netizens (such as the demonstration march) may be "infectious" to the mainland netizens.

(Apple Daily)

The seventh person in this series of photographs is Vincy Yeung, the current girl friend of Edison Chen.  There are three photographs of her in the shower.  According to Edison Chen's own statement on a television program, his romance with Vincy Yeung began in 2004.  At the time, Vincy was still a high school student and may not yet be 16 years yet.  This means that anyone who posts the photos of Vincy Yeung runs the risk of breaking the child pornography laws and the consequences are much more severe than distribution of obscene/indecent materials.

(Apple Daily)

While the Hong Kong police are searching for the person responsible for distributing the obscene photographs of the artistes, the netizens have adapted by changing their method for distributing and obtaining those photographs.  The preferred method is via the peer-to-peer software FOXY.  A FOXY user simply designated certain files on the computer to be shared and then everybody can immediately download/upload.  This meant that a huge number of people will have the files.

Previously, the Hong Kong police were successfully in the prosecution of an individual for intellectual property rights violation via the BitTorrent software, which is another peer-to-peer method.  However, under BitTorrent, the initial person must place a 'seed' on the Internet so that other users can follow up to download/upload.  Thus, the police can find the source who produced the seed.  FOXY is different because a seed is not required.  This makes it hard to find the source.

(Ming Pao)

Gillian Chung will emerge to face the public tomorrow.  When the photos first appeared, the Emperor Entertainment Group had filed a police report.  EEG also told the press that the photos were computer modifications.  When more photos appeared, EEG said that they will make no further comment because the matter is presently in the hands of the police.

According to an experienced public relations consultant, Gillian Chung will have to face the public eventually unless she intends to retire completely from the entertainment field.  The case is 'hot' now, so the media will be 'hostile.'  Therefore, it is best that Gillian Chung makes "a public appearance without taking any questions from the media."  On one hand, she can control the situation.  On the other hand, this will communicate that she is back to work. As to when Gillian Chung will actually speak out on this affair, it will depend on the public reaction to this appearance.

This public relations consultant also advised that if the photos were not computer modifications, then Gillian Chung should adopt the role of "victim."  "This is a private matter between him and her.  Just like everyone else, she may have some intimate photos taken and she never thought that these photos would be shown in public.  Outsiders cannot judge her.  So this should not impact her image.

But if she continues to deny that the photos are real, there will be a blowback.  For example, Britney Spears "insisted that she was a virgin while the paparazzi kept showing her drunk with her many boyfriends.  As a result, her image took a dive."

互聯網討論區前日出現兩張色情照片，驟眼看來與鍾欣桐和陳文媛十分相似，兩張照片中的兩名女子均與疑似藝人陳冠希有猥褻的行為，其中貌似「阿嬌」者躺在床上，張開雙腳，圖片左上角出現一名男子，貌似藝人陳冠希。另一圖片則是「陳文媛」和「陳冠希」，正在發生性行為，但明眼人一看，已斷定是經移花接木製作的圖片。

On the day before yesterday, two pornographic photographs appeared at the Internet discussion forums.  At first sight, the two female resembled Gillian Chung and Bobo Chan and they were engaged in obscene activities with a man who appeared to resemble Edison Chen.  The person who resembled Gillian Chung was lying on a bed with her legs split apart and the man at the top left corner of the photograph resembled Edison Chen.  In the other photograph, the persons who resembled Bobo Chan and Edison Chen were engaged in a sexual act.  But clear-eyed people can determine immediately that these photographs are computer modifications.

As more photographs appeared, the theory of computer modification became untenable.  The photographs were real, but where did they come from?  The Sing Tao commentator Cha Siu Yan then wrote (via Yahoo! Hong Kong):

一個版本是指陳冠希將手提電腦交人維修，有人乘機盜取了絕密照片放上網，如此有可尋，警察早已拉人封鋪破了案。
 
別說陳冠希，在下家中電腦故障，也有專人上門維修，貴為CEO的陳冠希公司沒有技術支援人員，也不至像中學生般，提電腦落MK或黃金修理吧，此說可信度極低。
 
第二個版本是有人拾獲手機，發現內藏超友誼照，名副其實的「執到」。作為一個整天有狗仔隊亦步亦趨的惹火藝人，身懷激照，豈不是挑戰自己的運氣？
 
相信以上任何一個版本都是侮辱智商，不如將層次推高，稱是有少年黑客黑入陳冠希電腦或其Facebook盜取激照，可信度會提高點。

According to one version, Edison Chen handed his computer over for repairs and someone copied the top secret photographs and then posted them on the Internet.  This would leave a track and if this were true, the police would have arrested the person, searched the store and solved the case.

If Edison Chen had a computer problem at home, someone would have come over to his house to fix the machine.  As a CEO, Edison Chen could not be like a middle-school student bringing his computer down to Mongkok or Golden Shopping Centre for repairs.  This version has very low credibility.

The second version was that someone found a mobile telephone with those photographs.  As a popular star who is pursued by paparazzi all the time, he must be tempting fate by carrying a mobile telephone with these photographs of passion.

I believe that both of these two versions insult our intelligence.  One is better off going to a higher level and claiming that some young hacker broke into Edison Chen's computer or Facebook to steal the photographs.  That would be more credibile.

It would turn out that the police would later raid a computer store, arrest a former employee and charge him with distribution of obscene articles.  Even more interestingly, Apple Daily (via Wenxue City) asserted that Edison Chen had taken his computer (nicknamed Cotton Candy Mac) to another computer store for repairs.  So much for the young CEO and his intellgence quotient.

About this development, Sing Tao reported (via Yahoo! Hong Kong)

據知，陳已把電腦內的機密檔案加以上鎖，倘證實有人藉修理電腦，擅自以高超技術攻破密碼，從而抄錄資料流出相片，全部人即屬違法。

According to information, Edison CHen had encypted the confidential folders in his computer.  If someone had employed high technology to break the encryption to extract the photographs during the process of computer repair, then all those involved have broken the law.

There is no hint as to where that 'information' about the encryption came from, since Edison Chen is away from Hong Kong right now and not taking interviews.  Sing Tao is the only Hong Kong newspaper that has this story.

How hard did Sing Tao/Headline Daily try to assist the artistes?  On February 4, 2008, the Sing Tao News Group paid for an advertisement themselves to support the "victimized female stars." 

Little Oslo quotes a friend: "A clear-eyed person can determine with one glance that this is an announcement that is like getting rich off dead people."

That does not mean that Sing Tao/Headline Daily are unreadable for the story about Edison Chen's photographs.  On the contrary, they are compulsory daily reads because you never know what surprises they have in store for you about what the so-called media would do.

[in translation]

(February 8, 2008, 20:13:00)

I just received the news that the post had been deleted.  I was totally unaware of it.  The forum master did not receive any notice.  Afterwards, we checked the operational log and the field for the operator was blank.  We could not even find out who deleted the page!

This was a tall building with more than 600 stories, and it was deleted without even a hello!  The forum master refuses to accept the blame!

I have raised hell within the organization.  I have decided to go against the operational rules and restore this post.  I may lose my job as forum master, but I will seek justice for the Entertainment Gossip section.

Going against the rules will get me fired.  But as long as I hold this job, I will protect that post.  If Tianya should fire me, I will just have to say sorry to everybody.

Meanwhile, at 1:56:00 February 9, 2008, Tianya user heyaohui wrote about the HK Golden Forum:

[in translation]

I read some of their posts and I was displeased.  I also learned that their forum master turned over user information to the Hong Kong police who effected some arrests.  This is too fucking harmonious and immoral.  I can't stand it.

My sense of justice and responsibility rose and I would like to call for a group of sex-obsessed warriors of the motherland to "liberate" them and bring the light of dawn for freedom and democracy in Hong Kong!

Based upon my preliminary estimate, there are usually only several hundred people online at the HK Golden Forum.  If we can get 1,000 people to assault them, we can break them down!

So I want us to go to the HK Golden Forum at midnight tonight.  It is going to be fun.  Anyone who wants to do that should leave their name here ...

ORZ, is this idea too crazy?

It is uncertain just what happened after midnight.  It would appear that HK Golden Forum1 had gone down at one point, but Forum2 and Forum3 were holding up.  In any case, the point was moot because all attention was turned to the 170 new photographs of Cecilia Cheung, Gillian Chung and Vincy Yeung.

The Vincy Yeung angle is covered in this third story, which is partially fictional but contains certain known facts.

In Hong Kong, there are two artiste agencies -- Emperor Entertainment (headed by Albert Yeung) and China Star Entertainment (headed by Charles and Jimmy Heung).  Bot companies have triad backgrounds.

In the Edison Chen photographs affair, everyone can see that it was aimed at Emperor Entertainment and Albert Yeung.
 
Who is Edison Chen?
A. A popular singer+movie star idol
B. The proprietor of a small clothing shop
C. The bedfellow of Gillian Chung, Cecilia Chung, Bobo Chan, etc.
D. The son of a wealthy businessman
E. The boyfriend of Vincy Yeung, the niece of Albert Yeung
F. All of the above.
 
You don't need me to tell you the answer.  Of all the identities, D. and E. are most likely to be related to this affair.  "Kira" began with the release of photographs of Emperor Entertainment's Gillian Chung and China Star Entertainment traitor Cecilia Cheung.  It is for certain that many people would think that China Star Entertainment is a likely suspect here.

... When the Edison Chen photographs came out, the Emperor Entertainment Group and the Hong Kong police were in disarray and the entire Hong Kong underworld was shaken up.  A newspaper reported that the reward for capturing "Kira" was as much as HKD 3 million ...

Given that many people believe that Albert Yeung is involved in triad activities, it is no wonder that as soon as the nude Vincy Yeung photographs appeared, they would be asking: Is Albert Yeung going to 'fix' "Kira", Edison Chen and/or the Heungs?

The United Nations conducts its business in six official languages, including Chinese, and will from this year accept only the simplified form of characters used on mainland China. The UN no longer uses the traditional form it has accepted since 1945.

"We are appalled by the abolition of traditional Chinese in UN documents," said an online petition to the UN, signed by more than 400,000 people. "This is an act of annihilation of the culture and history of the Chinese people. Both traditional and simplified Chinese are of extreme significance and should be recognised equally on the international level and by the UN."

Here is what appeared in the same newspaper in 2006:

(SCMP via ESWN)  HK activists join fight against UN use of simplified characters. Donald Asprey. May 21, 2006.

Thousands of Hong Kong activists have signed an online petition against an apparent attempt by the United Nations to purge traditional Chinese characters from its documents by 2008. As of yesterday, there were 156,188 protest votes worldwide on Gopetition.com. Taiwan led the way with 105,785 votes, while Hong Kong contributed 11,905. 

But the petition comes several decades too late. A UN spokesman said the organisation had been using simplified characters since the 1970s, when Chinese representation on the world body switched from Taipei to Beijing. "The UN never used both forms simultaneously. We saw media reports about a switch to simplified characters that would happen in 2008, but they are not correct. We already use simplified characters," said Brenden Varma.

While the other large discussion forums such as Uwants and Discuss.com.hk were deleting all related posts, HK Golden Forum continued to have a laissez-faire policy that deleted only direct postings using the [img] to show the photographs.  Everything else goes (including hyperlinks).  As a result, large numbers of curious netizens rushed over to HK Golden Forum to find the latest news and photographs.

On January 2008, "HK Golden" became the third most popular search term at Yahoo! Hong Kong, just after the principal characters Edison Chen and Gillian Chung.  Thus, HK Golden was the most popular forum, ahead of Uwants and Discuss.com.hk, which had been more restricted.

HK Golden is organized into Forum1 and Forum2 for administrative reasons.  During this period, there was a time when Forum 1 and Forum 2 had more than 100,000 and 150,000 users at the same time.  This caused massive jams, delays and crashes.

In order to alleviate the server loads, the HK Golden resident netizens began to use creative approaches to reduce traffic.  For example, there was a rash of June 4th 1989-related posts around the time, because the posters thought that this could cause HK Golden Forum to be blocked by the Great Firewall of China.  On January 30, some of them also wrote that no photographs were going to appear that day; or even if it happened, it would not, HK Golden would not the first to do so; and besides, elementary/middle school children and mainland netizens should not be there anyway.

On the afternoon of January 31, 2008, certain HK Golden members predicted the website will shut down due to traffic overload.  On that evening, the 'lights went out' at Forum 1.  Forums 2 and 3 struggle on with occasional freezes.

As an important technology/current affairs discussion forum, HK Golden forum began on February 2, 2008 to organize a resistance movement along with the other major forums.  The activities include raising money for advertisements and demonstration marches.  The main purpose is to protest the double standards in police actions, oppose the injustice of the judiciary and express dissatisfaction with the entertainment artistes.
 
This affair is like the Article 23 episode.  The incident itself was just a trigger that released the repressed discontent of the netizens.

At the smaller HK Galden Forum, visitors are now required to register.  But the registration form includes the following option at the bottom: "I am willing to receive any electronic publication from the DJY Peope's Electronic Newspaper."  This is just a device to scare away mainlanders who don't know what the forum is really about.

When the new batch of photographs appeared yesterday, there were three folders containing photographs of females identified only as Unknown 1, Unknown 2 and Unknown 3.  These were initially identified as Candice Chen, Cathy Leung and Rachel Ngan.  These three minor starlets suddenly became objects of interest.  When Cathy Leung was contacted, she said that she had never met Edison Chen in her life and there was no reason to disbelieve a definitive statement like that.  Further investigation pointed that the person was really Mandy Chen, a former Miss Chinese International contestant.  Reporters have so far tracked down Mandy Chan as having married, immigrated to Brisbane (Australia) and is running a beauty salon.  Where did the information come from?  Facebook.

(The Sun)  

According to the Hong Kong police, the photographs have spread across computer servers all over the world, thus making this a "globalized" affair.  About 70% to 80% of the servers are in the United States, with the rest in places such as Germany, Australia and so on.  There does not appear to be anything that the Hong Kong police can do.  Meanwhile, netizens are boasting that they will continue to distribute more bedroom photographs and hyperilnks to "friends."

Why can't the Hong Kong police get to these overseas servers?  Because the activity of posting pornography at these specialized websites is not against local laws.  In fact, these websites exist precisely in order to distribute pornography.  As such, the Hong Kong police cannot request the FBI or other local law enforcement agencies to take action solely on the basis of distribution of pornographic materials.  Instead, they would need other causes (such as the photographs being purloined).  But they do not have any other probable cause at this time.  This is not exactly a new insight, because freedom of speech/expression is guaranteed in the United States and covers politics as well as pornography.  If there is such a thing as a ring of overseas websites for Chinese political dissidence, why shouldn't there be a ring of overseas websites for Chinese pornography?

But the story is not so straightforward, because of "one country, two systems."  In Hong Kong, political dissidence is very much protected as anyone can tell by the booths around the major tourist spots (such as Star Ferry, the Wong Tai Sin Temple, etc).  However, pornography will be hunted down by the Hong Kong police, Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority and the Obscene Articles Tribunal.  In mainland China, political dissidence is very much out of bounds.  However, the Edison Chen photographs are posted in full at major Chinese website portals (note: I won't provide a link here but I must say that I was truly astonished when I reached one such photo album at NetEase.  And it was not a netizen posting it without the knowledge of the forum master, because it was a catalogued sub-directory created solely for these photographs.).  In summary: in Hong Kong, YES for political dissidence but NO for pornography; in mainland China, NO for political dissidence and YES for pornography.
 
So how is this "one country, two systems" thing going to work?  What will happen in 2047 when the two systems are supposed to have converged?
 
Related Link: Hong Kong: From Sex to Police Scandal  Oiwan Lam, Global Voices Online

Alternately, another set of faithful believers began to draw an analogy with the Japanese manga/anime/movie <Death Notebook>. In that classical story, a vigilante nicknamed Kira was killing off criminals by writing their names into the magical death notebook. Eventually the police arrested him and held him under maximum security detention. Everybody assumed that all the killing would stopped. But suddenly, another Kira surfaced and continued the murder spree using a second death notebook. So if the original Kira of this case has now been apprehended by the Hong Kong police, will the second Kira emerge to continue the cause?

Then beginning midnight, compressed archived files containing photographs were suddenly being routed around in email as well as peer-to-peer sharing services such as Foxy. These alternate methods were used because the Hong Kong discussion forums will no longer post information about those photographs due to legal concerns. After a while, unknown persons posted the photographs at overseas pornographic websites and published the links at overseas Chinese-language forums. These overseas websites are beyond the reach of the Hong Kong police. During the process, the keyword 251 became part of folklore as the shorthand term for the number of photographs in the current collection (as in, "Do you have 251?" "Desperately seeking 251").

What was in this latest batch? More photographs of Gillian Chung, Bobo Chan and Cecilia Cheung. The quantity and quality of the photographs were incredibly damaging. It is hard to imagine what how Gillian Chung could face the public again, or Bobo Chans planned marriage next place would take place, or Nicholas Tse would remain married to Cecilia Cheung. There are also photographs of three more entertainers (Candice Chan, Rachel Ngan, Mandy Chan) who were hardly known to the general public before this but are now household names. Their names are probably now among the top ten search engine terms. In the evening, the word came out that there is now a 600+ collection of photographs plus a 13-minute video out there.

For the tenth day in a row, the Edison Chen photographs were featured on the front page of the major Hong Kong newspapers:


 

At least six new nude photos purported to be of celebrities - including a new face - spread like viruses across the city last night, a day after police said they had traced the source of the spate of scandalous pictures that have appeared on the internet in recent days.  The pictures, sent through e-mails and internet messaging systems, were seen as a challenge to police, who said on Monday putting obscene photos on the internet, a public domain, was an offence but sending them to friends was not.

The new photos included three graphic images purportedly of Gillian Chung Yan-tung of girl duo Twins, actress Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi and former actress Bobo Chan Man-woon - all of whom have been rumoured to be romantically linked to singer-actor Edison Chen Koon-hei. Another photograph was of a woman who could not be identified. All the pictures included a man whose face was not revealed.  Also included were two solo shots of a partially-dressed woman who looked like former singer Chiu Chung-yue, whose photographs had not been circulated previously.

Apple Daily and Oriental Daily characterized this action as the shaving of the eyebrow of the police, while The Sun said that it was a slap in the face.
 

Assistant Commissioner of Police Vincent Wong had remarked publicly yesterday that it is not against the law to share these photographs with friends but it is illegal to publish the photographs on the Internet such that strangers can view them. This leaves open the question of the meaning of friendship in the Internet era. In the real world, a friend is someone whom you have met, spoken with and/or corresponded with. In the virtual world of the Internet, an Internet friend may be someone whom you have never met and you have never spoken with; you may not know the name of the person (except as a nickname such as the cat which doesnt cry or the senior cadres little daughter or cgx200801); and so on. So does such an Internet friend satisfy Vincent Wongs requirement?

One proposed model for future distribution of the photographs is for people to signal an offer and then require an email address to send to. If photographs are sent to an email address, then this can be taken to be a friendly gesture to another person who has just reciprocated on an offer of friendship. In other words, this is a friend.

Singer-actor Edison Chen Koon-hei made a public apology yesterday to anyone affected by the distribution on the internet of nude pictures purported to show him and female celebrities and called on anyone who had copies to destroy them.

His video statement was released to the media last night as observers were predicting that complaints about indecent photographs on the internet would rise further because of what is being dubbed the "Edison Chen incident".

"I hereby use this opportunity to apologise to anyone who has been affected by this strange, strange ordeal. The lives of many innocent people have been affected by this malicious and criminal conduct. And in this regard, I'm filled with pain, hurt and frustration. I now call upon anyone to help and assist the victims of this case. If you've ever downloaded any of these images, please do not forward them to anyone. Please do not send them to anyone. If you are still in possession of these images, I urge you to please destroy them immediately. Let's help the wounded heal their wounds. I urge you to help the victims and not make it any worse."

edc: My Statement

YouTube: 陳冠希現身向受害人道歉 TVB; 陳冠希 女藝人裸照事件道歉

(SCMP)

Assistant Commissioner (Crime) Vincent Wong Fook-chuen said six women appeared in the photographs, most of which were obscene. He would not say if more than one man appeared. "We are quite confident to say that the source [of the photos] is confirmed. Someone had sent his computer for repair and the pictures [stored inside] were stolen without the consent of the owner."

Mr Wong said the probe would focus only on whether the photos were obscene articles, not on their authenticity. Four of the six women involved were publicly recognisable. Police would contact everyone who appeared in the photos but they would not necessarily have to testify in court.

"What we need to do is to prove that someone stole the data or that someone distributed obscene articles. I do not see the need for them to come to court," Mr Wong said.

Mr Wong rejected suggestions of selective police enforcement in the case, saying there was evidence that all except the suspected source had distributed the photos. He also denied that the force had allocated extra manpower to investigate this case due to the involvement of celebrities.

"This impression has been created because of the extensive media coverage and society as a whole is very concerned," Mr Wong said, adding that only 19 officers from the technology crime division had participated in the probe.

While keeping such photographs and sending them to friends was not an offence, Mr Wong said, it was illegal for anyone to upload such photos onto the Web, as cyberspace was the public domain.

Wong has overturned the comment by his boss Commisioner of Police Tang King-shing (aka Big Brother Number One) on radio last week: Even possessing the pictures might be illegal, but of course, we will look at the numbers The quantity might reveal the intention. It is illegal to have a lot of these pictures, as they might be used for publishing or selling. What is a lot? One hundred pictures? Two hundred pictures? I don't think it is a matter of numbers, but we also have to look at whether the number is reasonable.

Tangs words led to calls for his resignation because he is evidently ignorant about the existing law and therefore unqualified to lead the Hong Kong police as such. Tang did not come out to repudiate his own statements, but his underling Wong was sent out to put out the fire instead.

And now for a famous saying of the day:

(The Standard) 

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Vincent Wong Fook-chuen urged anyone whose nude pictures had been posted on the internet to report to the police. "In my 20-plus years as a policeman, I have not come across such an issue," Wong said in response to questions as to why police had not acted against other obscene photos circulating on the internet.

Twenty years ago, the Internet as such did not exist and there was nothing to see. Today, the Internet is everywhere and it is hard to imagine that the Hong Kong police is unaware of nude photos on the Internet. A new website specifically directed against the Hong Kong police has more than 500 photographs of nude artistes. Granted that most of those photographs are computer modifications, but that is irrelevant because the Hong Kong police has stated that they are not interested in the authenticity of the photographs they will handle any case of an obscene/indecent photograph, authentic or modified. 

Another man has been arrested on suspicion of posting on the internet nude photos purportedly of local celebrities, as publicity surrounding the case began raising questions among the public about whether they could be prosecuted for downloading the images.  Police said they arrested a 29-year-old man, the eighth suspect arrested in the investigation, at about 4am yesterday in Ma On Shan.  They also said three men and a woman arrested last week had been released on HK$20,000 bail each.  Another two men and a woman were still being detained by police last night.

You read the above and you only have more questions: Who are these people?  How are they related to each other?  How did they come into possession of the photographs of naked artistes engaged in naughty conduct?  How did they go about distributing those photographs (13? 21?).

(Sing Pao)

According to an informed source close to the person who was the source of the photographs, several months ago Edison Chen sent his pink Apple Powerbook laptop to a Central computer shop for repairs.  The technician made the accidental discovery that there were several hundred photographs and videos of Edison Chen and/pr more than a dozen celebrities/artistes (many of whom were listed by the media and netizens as prime suspects after the first photographs of Gillian Chung, Bobo Chan and Cecilia Cheung appeared), and he downloaded them onto his own computer.

The informed source said that the technician only intended to keep the material for his own enjoyment.  Then one day he invited some friends over to his Ma On Shan apartment to play mahjong and he casually mentioned that he had some "good" stuff to show them.  When his friends saw the material, they were astonished and lobbied him to post to the Internet.  He did not want to do so himself, because he knew that Edison Chen has his contact information.  So finally a female friend agreed to undertake the task of posting onto the Internet.  That was how it happened.

Point #1: On the front page of The Sun, there was a photograph of Cecilia Cheung wearing a police uniform.  The photograph is not indecent/obscene in itself, because no naughty body parts are shown.  But this is part of the collection.  Why release it now?  Because it is now certain that the photographs are not computer modifications which smear the reputation of Cecilia Cheung.  Instead, this is a true photograph without any modification, and the truth cannot be a smear.
 
Point #2: Meanwhile, someone has set up a website that contains all the 21 previously released photographs plus several hundred computer modifications of celebrities/artistes.  The quality of the latter is pretty poor and can be immediately recognized as computer modifications.  Here is an example of Joey Yung:

Her head is in an awkward position with respect to her neck, her teeth-flashing smile is totally inappropriate to her situation and the lighting is wrong.  By comparison, a photograph such as Bobo Chan performing fellatio on Edison Chen was immensely difficult to modify on computer because there is unlikely to be an original photograph of her looking downwards with her tongue sticking out. 
 
Does my posting of this photograph cause harm to Joey Yung's reputation?  Well, this website is registered and hosted in the United States, so the Hong Kong police will have to seek the help of the FBI/Interpol on this.  Besides, why chase after me?  After all, I got this photograph from another website which has a much bigger circulation than mine and therefore has wrought much more havoc.  Would the Hong Kong police dare to do anything about that website (click here)?  No, I didn't so ...
 
Point #3: (The Sun)  Probably every newspaper in Hong Kong covered the news from Jilin province (China).  Last Friday, thirteen Jilin provincial departments including the Public Security Bureau and the provincial Supreme Court held a joint audio-visual conference about running a full campaign to purge the Internet video websites, blogs and mobile telephone services of any obscene, pornographic, vulgar and/or harmful sections, subjects and videos.  Furthermore, all forum webmasters, administrators and chatroom moderators will be registered by their real names and all forum comments must be reviewed before publication.  The Jilin public security bureau also reminded all netizens that "it is illegal to touch, view, duplicate, post, download and/or disseminate the currently popular obscene/pornographic photographs of Hong Kong artistes."

On January 28, two Hebei lawyers filed suit in Beijing against the State Administration of Radio, Films and Television to demand the removal of the exhibit permit for <Lust, Caution> and impose a ban for its distribution and exhibition in China.  Both complainants are descendants of martyrs in the war of resistance against Japan, and they believe that <Lust, Caution> distorted history, smeared the anti-Japanese resistance fighter-martyrs, promoted the image of Chinese traitors and blur the distinction between right and wrong.  As a result, they claimed to have suffered tremendous mental anguish.

 ... When these two lawyers assert that <Lust, Caution> is a movie for Chinese traitors, they are suffering from a relapse into dualistic thinking.  In reality, not praising the resistance against Japan is not the same to praising Chinese traitors; to show the negative aspects amidst the resistance against Japan is not to denigrate the entire effort.  In contemporary Chinese history, there were many glorious heroes and heroines just as there were traitors and betrayers.  There are also complex situations such as good people doing bad things, bad people doing good things, good people becoming bad people, bad people becoming good people and so on.  None of this can be explained solely through the invocation of the two terms "martyrs" and "traitors."  In particular, one must not pass out the "traitor" label as soon as someone offers a different opinion, because this is in neither the spirit of tolerance nor the requirements of a democratic society under rule of law.

Art and scholastics are the two social domains in which "hidden rules" and traditional customs are challenged most often.  We ought to protect freedom of speech and academics, especially exploratory studies.  When the two lawyers assert that <Lust, Caution> "damaged the national reputation, trampled upon the dignity of the race, hurt social morale, subverted the values of truth, goodness, beauty versus lies, evil and ugliness and confounded the fundamental differences between righteousness versus wrongfulness,"  they are overstating their case.

From the mid-19th century, China experienced a century of humiliation but many revolutionary martyrs gave up their lives for the rebirth of an independent nation.  The two lawyers should realize that I also hold the greatest respects for these revolutionary forebears.  But I also believe that these forebears wanted to create a nation that is free, democratic and modern one, as opposed to a totalitarian society in which "you go my way or no way."  If we should ban the exhibition of <Lust, Caution> on the grounds that it is a "Chinese traitor" of a movie, then that would be the greatest sacrilege against those revolutionary forebears who gave up their lives.

Let me tell you one last time -- get lost!  Or else I'm going to send your IP addresses to my dad so that he can notify the provincial public security bureau to issue a national warrant for your arrests.  This may even go to the Interpol.  You better be careful!  Think about your parents.  They must work hard to send you to study overseas.  I don't want my dad to arrest you.  So all of you just get lost!!!

Damn, what do your fathers do?  Stop telling me to be careful about what I say, or I will have your parents arrested as well.

So you can have your say now.  I'll tell my dad later.  You people are overseas, but your parents may be arrested in China.

Comment #47: your dad is the person who is really a dog.  My dad is working overtime today.  When he gets back, you'll be sorry.  All you overseas student trash!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Overseas student trash, do you think that I am kidding?  You don't believe me?  Let me tell you.  I've recorded all your IP addresses.  None of you will get away!!!!  You may be having fun abusing Gillian right now.  But when you come back to China, my father will make you cry at the airport!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You are just a bunch of trash.

You overseas student trash should not be too happy!!!!  My father and the county party secretary are meeting with the provincial leader tonight.  When he gets home, you'll be sorry.  Some of you pretend that your parents are senior officials, but you better wake up and reflect!!!  I am the child of a senior official, so how could I not know what the children of senior officials are like?  So stop acting.

Yawn.  I've just called my dad on the mobile telephone.  He said that he'll deal with you people when he returns home.  If you are brave enough, don't run away!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, your parents must work hard to sent you overseas.  If you don't smear Gillian anymore, I will beg my father not to arrest you and your parents,, okay?  Why don't we settle this amicably?

I'm saying this one last time.  I am very magnanimous.  If you promise not to smear Gillian anymore, I will do everything that I can to beg my dad not to make this a big deal or to arrest you and your parents.  I repeat this one more time: You parents work hard to sent you out to study, so please do not hurt them by saying ill-considered things.  Most of you are plain ignorant.  I believe that if Gillian were here, she would support my decision not to chase after you.  Big people don't mind the mistakes of small people.  This would be the best result for you.

Stop being stubborn.  I just called my dad on the mobile telephone and I told him all about this.  Frankly, I'm sorry that I told him ... when he goes into a rage, I may not be able to hold him back.  Are you pretending that you are not scared?  Actually, I know that you must be quaking in fear!!!!  Let me tell you about some insider story known only to the children of senior cadres like us (it is risky for me to say this here, but I don't mind for the sake of educating all you overseas student trash trying to smear Gillian and I just hope that it won't affect my dad's career).  At the bureau where my father works, they have a piece of equipment where if you input an IP address, it will immediately show all the information about you and your family.  You better stop what you are going, or else I will let my father use that machine to find out all about you and then ask the provincial public security bureau to issue arrest warrants for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I advise those who are using their friends' computers to log off immediately because you may be causing trouble for your friends and their families.  Nobody wants to have arrest warrants on them!  This is what you get for smearing Gillian!  In other words, I repeat once again that I am doing this for your own good!!!  My father is a senior official and he has a foul temper!!!  Please do not get him mad!!!!

Six more people have been arrested and computers and hard disks containing hundreds of pictures seized, as police widen their investigation into the online distribution of nude photos of local celebrities.  Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Wong Fook-chuen said last night that four men and two women, aged 23 to 30, had been arrested in the past two days for possessing nude photos for distribution purposes.  Hundreds of pictures, including some never circulated on the internet but related to the photos previously uploaded, were found in computers and hard disks seized from the man in Central.  "Even if these [people] are not the principal sources, we believe they are very close to them," Mr Wong said.
 
Commissioner of Police Tang King-shing repeated a warning against possessing such photos during a radio interview. "Even possessing the picture might be illegal, but of course, we will look at the numbers," he said.  Acknowledging that many people were worried that they might have committed a crime, Mr Tang said: "The amount might determine the intention. It is illegal to have many of these pictures, as they might be used for publishing or selling.  "What is the meaning of many? One hundred pictures? Two hundred pictures? I don't think it is a matter of numbers, but we also have to look at whether the number is reasonable. Also we have to consider other factors as evidence."
 
Mr Tang said the police had contacted their counterparts on the mainland and overseas when he was asked if Hong Kong could investigate websites based across the border. He denied police were paying disproportionate attention to the case.  "We're not doing this because the case is related to celebrities. We also look at how serious it is and the concerns of the public. In the past, we have arrested people on similar charges."

So SCMP reports: "Hundreds of pictures, including some never circulated on the internet but related to the photos previously uploaded, were found ..."  Are we being conned here?  This collection could be the thirteen photographs that have already appeared, plus the known computer-modified photogarphs of Gillian Chung, Cecilia Chung (see the photograph of her in the bathtub on the front page of Oriental Daily is an old one), Joey Yung, etc, plus many more other obscene photographs.  These are the 'other factors' that Comissioner Tang talks about, but will not provide in this most recent case.
 
Will Comissioner Tang's remarks led to panic hard disk purges all over Hong Kong?  All pervious assumptions that possession is not illegal have gone out of the window.  Tang has just stated that possession = distribution, depending on his own opinion.  The resulting maximum penalty is HKD 1,000,000 in fines and 3 yaers in prison.  Which among Hong Kong citizens should already be identified as a prime suspect?  Edison Chen!  He took hundreds of these photographs, he stored them on his pink Apple Powerbook and it is now know that some of those photographs were distributed on the Internet.  Isn't he the most obvious suspect for the crime of possesion/potential distribution?  Why haven't the police arrested and detained him with no bail?  Did he leave for Canada because he was anticipating the problem?  Have the Hong Kong police asked Interpol and/or Royal Canadian Mounted Police to interrogate Edison Chen?
 
Who else has a lot of obscene photographs with the likelihood of distribution?  Hong Kong blogger Life is but an empty dream ... wrote about the night before the story broke that the workers at Apple Daily congregated around the computer monitor to look at those photographs.  So the photographs are definitely present at Apple Daily.  Today, Apple Daily also published the name of an America-based Chinese-language overseas student website on which the photographs continue to be available for viewing and commenting.  You copy the name of that webpage from the Apple Daily, search for it on Google, read a few pages and you will arrive at those photographs conveniently compressed for downloading.  But you don't expect the police to search Apple Daily, do you?  I mean, it might damage the Olympics ...


In Sing Tao, the headilne makes it clear where the photographs came from: "Secrets believed to be leaked when Edison Chen got his computer repaired in Central District."  Apparently, the computer repair person scanned the hard disk, found the photographs, made a copy for himself and shared with friends.  This person may be guilty of theft.  But if the copies were shared and distributed among friends, then who is the person who posted the photographs on the Internet?
 
Sing Tao has shifted its position.  When the story first broke, it (and its free sister newspaper Headline Daily) were adamant that the photographs were computer modifications.  Headline News wrote (via Dukedom of Aberdeen blog): "Any clear-eyed person can see that these are computer transplants."  So why was the bilnd one now?  As of today, nobody is saying that anymore because of the immense difficulty of engineering hundreds of computer modifications flawlessly.  By the way, if the EEG company lodged complaints with the police on January 27 and 28, did they say "computer modifications"?  If so, they were guilty of filing a false report even as Edison Chen left for Canada in order not to be questioned by the Hong Kong police and be caught in a perjury.  If they were misled by the principals, then at what point did they realize that and why won't they come out to correct the record?  Or are they still deadenders all the way?
 
Related link: Hong Kong: The Big Brother is Watching You!  Oiwan Lam, Interlocals.net

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