Shanghai Daily reports:

CHINA blocked access to 18,401 illegal Websites during a nationwide campaign against online pornography that started in April, an industry newspaper reported today.

The campaign also required major Chinese portals, including sina.com, sohu.com, 163.com and qq.com, to conduct self-examinations and shut down problematic channels.

It’s not my place to criticize what or what shouldn’t be available on the internet in China. If the government thinks that online pornography is something worth fighting, then that’s their business. However, as long as the government is requiring content providers to enforce the law, it would be nice if they looked into something that has far more consequences for a harmonious internet society: sites hosting malware.

Malware is a catch-all category for malicious software such as viruses, worms, and trojans. The most common means of infection is through attachments to emails or internet messages or installation via a script on a website. Sometimes both: clicking a link will bring you to an infected website. The install script will usually exploit a known vulnerability in a browser or try some form of social engineering to trick the unsuspecting user into installing the software.

According to Sophos, an anti-virus company, China has 44.8% of the world’s malware-infected websites. Sophos doesn’t provide the methodology, or even the total number of malware-infected websites, but they said China was number one.

Now there are a lot of numbers that get thrown around about China - most of them are questionable at best. But in this case there’s too much data from too many sources to deny the fact that China (as an IP address block) is ridden with the digital equivalent of thieves and con men.

The Chinese government, and their proxies the ISPs and content providers, are going after all the naughty pictures on their patch of the internet. That’s all well and good, but it’d be nice if they were to spare a moment for larceny as well as lasciviousness.

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