Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Internet Censorship Proves Difficult
An anonymous reader writes "BBC reports that despite incredible efforts by the Chinese government, online dissent and distribution of censored information continues and even influences government policies."
Yes indeed the censorship in china is quite ineffective, they dont run any filtering of content at all just various well known webaddress like cnn.com, bbc.co.uk, wenjiancity etc however this can be easily bypassed by using an oversease proxy or bouncing the web pages through akamai. I was shocked to find thay they dont even block taiwanese news sites! I guess all they can do is go after a few unlucky people and try to make examples of them.
Lots of people in the US subscribe to these guys for Internet censorship: N2H2
I know it's not quite the same as "Communist Country" censorship, but the US isn't without Government-influenced information suppression. Just google for CIPA. You filter, you get funding. You don't filter, you find funding elsewhere.
"False-positives" anyone?
The Hacktivismo group has been writing software to help the Chinese and others that are being censored. I was very interested when I heard about the "Six/Four" protocal that they were writing for anonymous browsing. Has anyone heard any news on the development of this or any other projects like it. (I'm aware of freenet) Anyway, here is their project page. They're an interesting group that seems to be pushing for free distribution of information.
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
If you want to get an idea on just how bad it is over there in terms of filtering, check out this article about a 2002 study by the Hardvard Law. There are about 19,000 sites listed there. Pretty much anything that has to do with the US and other western governments, "smut", anything even remotely related to Taiwan and so on.
I lived in China for six months last year teaching English at a University. What I found particularly amazing, was that the culture has taught people not to question things. Even my PhD students largely accepted whatever was told to them. So even though there may have been forums online for them to learn about political dissent, most wouldn't particularly have been interested (a few seemed more aware than most, but only a very few).
Add to this the location of these forums. Online. China does have internet cafes in the larger areas, but the bulk of the country is too poor to even go into them, let alone find their way to some hidden forum.
I'm all for more individual freedoms in China, but I think most westerners really don't have a clue about how our cultural upbringing has affected us, and how their culture has affected them.
Nothing in particular is communist about China. It's Confucianism dressed up in Marxist clothing. China is always Chinese and always has been, even when conquered. The "conquerers" always end up "going native."
However, Confucianism is based on a concept of society as being more important than the individual. An essentially commun-al idea. Kind of a fuedalism with an innate sense of ethics and true noblesse oblige.
If you really want to understand China today and have a lot of fun doing it read some of the Judge Dee mystery novels of Robert van Gulik. Set in the Tang dynasty (the golden age of ancient Chinese culture) the society it depicts is still very much relevant.
Then read the Little Red Book.
Overlay Mao's peculiarly Chinese "Marxism" with the tradtitional Chinese culture and there you are. Modern China.
It has more factories than the old China, but that's really the biggest difference.
KFG
Here is an article about how the Chinese have been blocking content from their citizens. What's interesting is how some American companies, like Yahoo, are cooperating to do business with them.
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
As of the most recent harvard Chinese censorship study, slashdot is not censored. (from their Emperical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China found here)
No evidence necessary, and 9 times out of 10 a search warrant will be issued due entirely to the nature of the allegations, no matter how baseless they are.
Do you even know how a search warrant is generated? Judging by the idiotic post, I doubt it. Let me explain:
I gather information. I get specific facts from my witnesses, facts which show not just what the witness knows but exactly how he knows them. Statements like "I personally saw X get into the car." Hearsay is typically of no value. It can be used only in very rare circumstances at trial (such as where the original speaker is dead or where necessary to catch the original speaker in a lie) and not at all in a warrant affidavit.
I then have my witness/complainant/informant put these facts in writing and sign it, after explaining to him the law and jail time associated with filing false police reports.
I then complete an affidavit with these facts and submit it to a judge.
If the judge agrees that the facts constitute probable cause to support the warrant, he issues one. If not, he tells me to get lost.
And before you post your next moronic spew, confidential (names withheld, but known to police and possibly the judge) informants are worth very, very little, and anonymous informants(names not even known by police) are utterly worthless.
The Pope may be infallible, but even he can't claim to have probable cause unless he can show personal knowledge.
It is always good to remember, and to be informed about the present situation.
Here you have some recent news.
My journal. Mainly about freedom.