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The Great Firewall of China - Samples of Filtered Sites
Loligo writes "Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society has released a study listing some of the sites filtered by Chinese internet connections. Sites about Taiwan are maybe understandable, but Red Lobster?" We've mentioned the ongoing Berkman study before; one of their interesting findings is that the list of blocked sites is a moving target, and some sites are blocked only intermittently. Here are summaries from The New York Times and MSNBC, by way of The Censorware Project. Update: 12/04 21:03 GMT by T : Seth Finkelstein points to his report "Searching Through the Great Firewall of China," which "describes a simple technique which can be used
with some search engines to bypass censorware bans on searching for
forbidden words. Particular emphasis is placed on the situation of the
Great Firewall Of China."
I dunno if any research has been done, but is it possible that they are taking offers from Chinese companies to block competitors' sites? I'm probably wrong on this, but it seems like one of 2 main possible reasons to do so.
They don't want their children seeing prawn.
This is what happened to the Censorware Project (censorware.org), for anyone wondering why the domain name has changed.
Probably because of your secret connections to Red Lobster.
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From this perspective, I hope you can understand why they might find the idea of plunging a 'red' lobster into a tank of boiling water to be as offensive as any pornography our country has to offer.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
The US passes laws without much trouble that lets the gov't snoop on all citizens and arrest them at will.
Is the US that much better? At least in China I wouldn't be arrested (because I wouldn't be able to find the site).
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
And why wouldn't they?
Lobsters are commonly found in cold waters. This is symbolic of the cold war that the communists lost. Communism was founded by Marx in Vienna. Notice that Vienna is the same shape as a lobster's claw. Turn the first letter of the founder of communism's name upside down and you get a W - two V's. Just like a lobster.
In addition, when a lobster is boiled they turn red, and then are consumed - by western capitalists.
It's obvious that the communists saw through the thinly veiled allegory to the slanderous attack on their party and beliefs. The Red Lobster site is the western equivalent of 'We will bury you - in butter and lemon'.
You would have to be a fool not to see it...
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If all of these sites China was censoring were protected by the DMCA, and there was source code or illegal files on them, suddenly its ok to censor it!
Are we complaining about China because they are Chinese or because of their so called censorship?
China isnt the country locking people up for sharing files, in fact up until recently it was perfectly legal to share your files, they had freedom of speech in that area until WE the so called freedom loving Americans forced them to adopt our censorship laws to protect our intellectual propery from the evil warez pirates of China who cant afford to buy our software anyway.
Its funny how we complain about every nation, China, Afganastan, Pakistan, Iraq, everywhere but if anyone dares complain about the USA they are unAmerican.
I expect to get flamed by a bunch of patriots who will tell me that America is not a country of hypocrites but if you look throughout history, this country was founded by hypocrites who said it was all about freedom, freedom to enslave millions of people and rob the natives of all their land?
So should the masses have absolute freedom of speech? No more DMCA? Or should the elite few people who happen to have some kinda intellectual propery, should these people have freedom to protect it?
I think considering 95 percent of us dont own any intellectual propery, why should we try so hard to protect it? It reduces our freedom.
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I can understand why Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews and other "undersirables."
I can understand why Britain wanted to keep the American colonies under their control.
I can understand why Bush ended up president.
I can understand why my ex-girlfriend broke up with me.
I can understand why the police officer doesn't cut me any slack when he pulls me over for speeding on an empty highway at 3 in the morning.
In more than one of those cases that understanding involves realizing and accounting for the fact that the people involved were immoral nutcases (you can try to guess which is which if you wish =) but that doesn't prevent me from understanding why they choose to do the things they did, given their view of the world.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Quick perusal of the list showed that www.ski-red.com is also blocked, as is www.redhorserecords.com. Perhaps they are blocking sites that have red as a URL component.
Is it now unacceptable to criticise anything unless the critic is perfect? If so, I suggest you stop expressing your opinions, because I am sure you have some flaws, too. That aside, I think you are missing the difference in scope and degree that exists between your examples.
USA:
Miniscule control of contested content as part of an on-going struggle over intellectual property. This control is almost entirely public, and any punishment is delivered openly after proper trials. An open and energetic debate is taking place within the USA regarding the correctness of these actions.
China:
Sweeping control of political expression. This control is as covert as possible. Much of the punishment is delivered in an arbitrary and concealed manner. Public debate within China is limited because people fear arrest if they complain.
Neither situation is ideal, but equating the situation in the USA with the situation in China diminishes the situation the Chinese people must endure.
Filtering of taiwanese sites 'understandable'?
Never mind that you can't understand why China would block taiwanese sites.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I don't have children, but if I did, you'd better believe I'd set up a mandatory web filter until they reached a reasonable age.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I *do* have a proxy that blocks ads.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I have an email spam filter.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
My browser does not display ads when they're obvious.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I use google with the lowest level of filter (that isn't off) just to avoid the crap.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I use killfiles when reading usenet.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
Finally, I imagine I'll add you to my "enemies list" (hate that term - it's just a kill file) here at slashdot.
If I drank coffee, I'd use a filter there, too. Have a nice life - look out for the grinds...
No visible obstructions last time I looked
(the following is a slightly modified email that I sent to the people who did the study. I did get a response, but I will not post it since I didn't ask for permission.)
...Or perhaps to an increase of users in a particular layer of Chinese society?
******
It occured to me that this is only interesting because of the very large number of potentially affected people. If the same study was done about filtering in the country of, say, Morocco, I probably would not have bothered to read it. As such, I feel that the analysis sort of begs the question. How many people in China actually have Internet access, and what parts of the society are they in?
If only 1% of the country uses the Web on a regular basis, and 90% of those are "well to do", then the filtering has much less significance because the potential impact of Internet access is already minimalized.
(I have made the assumption that "well to do" citizens are less likely to want to modify the status quo, meaning that Web content would have minimal impact on their actions, filtered or not.)
Does an increase in filtering correalate in any way to an increase in Chinese Internet users?
******
(The gist of the response was that the study was not concerned with any implications of the filtering, just the filtering itself.)
Sourceforge probably hosts software that could be used to bypass such filters. But most importantly, they host the development of Freenet, a thorn in web censor's side =)
His response made sense seeing as the original poster took the word "understandable" out of context. As a response, the word "filtering" was taken out of context. Get it? Somebody should now take something I said out of context.
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Actually... They both point fingers at each other. Look at http://censorware.org/ or http://stalkedbyseth.com for Michael's side of it.
Personally, I think it this battle is an utterly childish act on both parts and its disgusting to see a perfectly good URL (censorware.org) used for this rediculous Michael vs Seth soap opera.
At this point, no one cares who is at fault, but many slashdotters would be very happy if one or both sides would just fucking grow up and quit furthering this war of egos and blame throwing.
Peronsally, I'd like to see censorware.org turned back into what it was supposed to be. Michael owns it, so he should be able to do what, even without Seth on the project. If he can't then he should turn it over to more capable hands, such as the EFF or Amnesty International or someone who actually wants to create a nice site which educates about censorware instead of pushing a personal grudge against someone else.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Even if you ignore what happened before, the current situation is that the Censorware project had to start up a new site at censorware.net, and Sims is using the original URL - censorware.org, as a rant page against Finkelstein.
Sims admits at the top of this page that many people visiting it will be hoping to find information pertaining to censorship. However, rather than do what most people who claim to be concerned about censorship would do (allow the visitor to get the information they are looking for), he just rants on about Finkelstein.
Seemingly, for Sims - ego and flaming Finkelstein gets a higher priority than educating people about censorship. Don't take my word for it, visit censorware.org and see for yourself.
Oh, also - be warned. Sims is known to use his Slashdot editor status to remove these discussion threads, claiming they are off-topic (he can't really use that excuse here).