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China Regulates the Internet

Posted by michael on from the sun-rises-in-east dept.

The_Myth writes "The Sydney Morning Herald today published an article on China's regime to curtail the Internet. Basically they control the one gateway to the net from their country and screen anything they deem to be undesirable. Full Article is here. Are any other countries doing this?" Well, this is nothing new - China has been doing this for years, and periodically announces crackdowns, which is what I think this is.

13 comments

  1. So,.. by Anagon · · Score: 2
    How do you pronounce 'Carnivore' in Chinese / Mandarin?

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    Linuxisforcommunists.org
  2. Wall of Tears?? (or something) by SanLouBlues · · Score: 2

    Does anybody remember Mao at all? All the times people were encouraged to express themselves. There was always a crackdown. If I were in China, I would run like hell from any computers which were online.

    1. Re:Wall of Tears?? (or something) by Tackhead · · Score: 4
      Actually, the US solution is probably smarter - just as with Mao's "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" - if you don't block your wackos, but merely let them think they're not being monitored, they'll continue to be wackos.

      You then accumulate reams of data on your subversives and lock 'em (and their friends) up, or infiltrate their networks with agents provocateur, or whatever you like. Carnivore with a hard drive (60G) instead of a ZIP disk (120M) would make this pretty easy.

      You Euro folks don't get snooty - on the other side of the pond, you just wade through the petabytes of stuff the Brits are collecting from their ISPs.

      China's doing it the old - and dumb - way. The problem with filters is that they don't tell you who's "loyal but curious about what those damn Falun Gong subversives are up to" and who the real activists are. Data collection, mining, and profiling does.

      The Western equivalent would be "give [your enemy] enough rope to hang himself".

  3. What can we do.. by bluelip · · Score: 1

    What can the people on the outside do to help? It can't be that hard to smuggle info into China. Look how easy it was to get US nuclear plans. Anyhow, Does anyone know what they use to filter? Can we set up anonymous proxies for them? There has been than dang /. banner about "Protecting the privacy of your users". Any idea know how to implement this on a large scale. (And probably low budget) Are there any organizations working on this? What about wireless? During wartime, we love dropping leaflets/flyers. Any modern day equivalent? I doubt the casual end users will be able to purchase a DirecPC style system. (Even if Hughes coverred that area) Are there any underground clandestine pipes/routers in China? Freenet or the like available?

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    1. Re:What can we do.. by TheLionMan · · Score: 1
      Well, it depends on how far you wish to go.


      If you don't mind breaking a few laws, you can hack a few machines and set them up as dummy proxies for anybody to use. There are a lot of unattended unix boxes in China (proof: see how many .cn boxes have insecure relays). Down side here is if someone looks at connection logs, anybody using from an isp can get into serious trouble.


      If you happen to know someone in China and want them to get around the filters, you could set up a unix account for them. However, the danger here is I'm sure telnet connections are logged and authorities can get suspicious. Ssh I'm sure isn't well liked there since authorities hate encryption there more than in our own countries.


      Inevitably, any such system that is created must be very low key and can easily be disguised as normal net traffic if you wish to keep authorities from becoming suspicious.

    2. Re:What can we do.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Chinese citizens are not rich. Chinese citizens cannot afford two-thousand dollar PCs. Chinese citizens cannot afford wireless networking. Chinese citizens do not want leaflets/flyers polluting their ground and Chinese leaders wouldn't allow it. China wouldn't be to happy to have American planes peppering the streets with information encouraging illegal activity.

      Feel free to set up an anonymous proxy, and feel free to watch China block all proxies since they control the only pipe into China.

      What can people on the outside do, you ask? Can it be that hard to smuggle info into China, you ask? FUCK YES is can, and you can't do jack shit about it. The point is China is suppressing all information it doesn't like to all people. There's little difference between oppressing Democratic principles and religious beliefs from a few thousand people and blocking some hard core porn from one person.

      You want to help? You can't. You can't stop the machine in China from doing what it wants with a few anonymous proxies or freenet or by setting up some "clandestine pipes/routers." I don't even know how you'd believe something like that would exist.

      Remove the communists from power in China or forget it.

  4. Controlling the only gateway SHOULD work... by 11thangel · · Score: 2

    At least until some crazy American smuggles a wireless net setup into the country. The most fitting quote i can think of is "The tighter you squeeze, the more star systems will slip through your fingers...". -Princess Leia, Star Wars

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    I am !amused.
  5. Who says China is the only country doing this? by multicsfan · · Score: 1

    How sure are you that china is the only country doing this? I would not be surprised to discover that the US and other governments don't have filters/scanners on all lines/connections crossing boundaries.

    1. Re:Who says China is the only country doing this? by autocracy · · Score: 2
      That would be so impracticle as to be impossible. The US has such an incredible number of lines running out of the country via trans-oceanic fiber, landlines to Canada and Mexico, satelite uplinks, and then the trans-oceanic fibers running out of other countries that we have landline links to.

      So how do you propose that the feds would block access? Block one route, the whole internet dynamically changes to accomodate via RIP.

      The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...

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      SIG: HUP
    2. Re:Who says China is the only country doing this? by texbig · · Score: 1

      I believe Singapore is also taking this approach.

  6. Not news by autocracy · · Score: 1

    This was posted just a while ago, with all that info in the replies (I know, I posted a reply with that info!). This might pass as an Ask Slashdot story, but that's 'bout it...

    The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...

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    SIG: HUP
  7. Post Communism Communism by taojow · · Score: 1

    This isn't the first time there has been a release regarding the Chinese government and the internet. I can still remember an article that spoke to how the Chinese government wanted to control all the hardware, therefore controling content on the whole internet before they will let consumers to it.

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    Ice age cometh...
  8. Re:So,.. [OT] by BlackHat · · Score: 1

    Nee-do bok-yue hai shuen-gay.

    And yes my Cantonese phrase book was published by A. Yacht Jr.