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."
How can we help?
Good. Now can we guarantee that we can dissent in the uk?
I always find Communism funny. How can any government of the people be responsible for censoring the information they receive?
Email me if you need any dangerous info; be sure to include your public key and encrypt to mine/a.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
It is true, to a certain extent, but the use of strategic "choke points" on the network infrastructure can put a serious dent in the ideal...
It's only really true when you have high connectivity across all nodes - even in the US/Europe this is rarely significantly true...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I'm sure michael sims can suggest some good ways for the chicomms to censor everyone.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Just post the censored sites as links in Slashdot stories.
Censorship via the slashdot effect.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
It is totality and very bad regime but it seems to me very commercial and capitalist. Communism is something little different I think.
SHE does throw dice.
"Filters are used to screen out items containing certain pornographic or politically sensitive terms"
See, if they had stopped at stifling free expression and political opinion exchange they would have been allright. They went after porn, and in technology, porn ALWAYS win. An army of horny men will find a way through their defenses like a knife through hot butter.Reminds me of back when most of my friends in highscool had two floppy disks with them at all times. One to disable netnanny, one to put it back. Oh the good ol' days.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
I wish they's put as much effort at trying to keep the number of spamvertized websites hosted on Chinese ISPs under control. 90% of the spam I receive are advertising sites hosted on IPs that are allocated to Chinese companies.
outside-of-China business the more China will have to adopt to it. It's basic market principles. Sure, the average Chinese citizen will have a harder time accessing it but it will filter down, eventually.
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.
Maybe they should start working on propaganda - China rules and the rest of the world sucks. Non-Chinese news sources are fallacious and biased against China, that sort of thing. I've been kicking around the idea of fascism in our post-industrial world, but as yet I've not come up with an idea that would truly work. A closed media system is impossible to achieve, esp. in a country as large as China.
This is all, of course, for fun; the intellectual exercise is more interesting to me than applying my ideas to reality.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Does anybody know how much involvement the Chinese Government has with Red Flag? It seems to me that the principles of open source software sit uneasily with censorship.
well the best thing you could do is to not buy items made in china... of course thats just a good idea anyways
Yeah, don't buy their products, deny them benefits of global trade, nothing like condemning a nation to poverty and sustaining a disceptive self-sustaining government (rather than rewarding the transition China is in).
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FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
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?
Lets talk about censorship shall we ?, can you handle the truth ?, from where i sit China's is looking good at the moment compared to some places
Censorship is almost an impossibility now, especially in well-developed countries, thanks to the internet.
Thanks to new tracking techniques, once your government of choice tracks you down all they need to do is toss you in jail and have said tossing broadcast on every channel from coast to coast.
--
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
Watertight internet censorship is impossible as long as you don't have full control over all the computers used for access as well.
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.
Well personally, I think that's pretty relieving. The harder it is to censor the internet, the better, big picture wise. Although that means I'll be forced to accidentally run across "gems" like goatse mirrors occasionally, I suppose. c'est la vie
-1, "1337" speak
If this Chinese gov't attempts to block access to IP addresses that run web proxies outside their control. I can report my own servers to China, so their Big Red Firewall can block all the spam I get from inside China!
2) Profit!
-Charles Hill
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I think it would be interesting to employ some form moderation system that is currently in use on /.
The citizens could vote on which sites are offensive and the appropriate sites would be blocked.
Although a conflict of opinion would surely surface as it seems to be already
But this would essentially take control of the internet out of the hands of the government and put it in the hands of the citizens which is an oxymoron for communism.
Those who trade in their freedom for security, deserve neither.
"online dissent and distribution of censored information continues and even influences government policies."
Isn't that what the internet is for? To be able to discuss censored topics/information? I don't see how this is too much different than here in the states. There is all kinds of material that is censored from television and radio that makes it to the net. Seems like everything is working out to me.
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.
If it becomes increasingly hard to block "objectionable" messages, (which by the way the Cubans have effectively done - Cuban Government Toughens Internet Restrictions) would it come to a stage the Authoritarian Governments try to drown the messages.
The Govt could itself start sending out so much propoganda messages that they will drown the "rebel" messages, and most people will be unable to develop personalized filters to get to the "rebel" information. (A conspi-racist may think that the real purpose of the CAN-SPAM legilation was to pre-emptively acquire these capabilities.)
After all, if this is supposed to be the attention economy, all the govt has to do to prevent mischief is to keep your attention - almost like in Clockwork Orange. Does it really matter if the attention is directed to something worthwhile, or towards just delusion and deception - I mean from the Governments point-of-view.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
That you sat through watching all of that. This requires watching the shit-eating, THEN watching the puking, THEN watching the puke/shit eating...
I'd take tentacle porn over that any day.
Does anyone know if Slashdot is blocked or at all censored in China? A huge variety of news goes through here, as well as new technology (some of which could even prove helpful in evading the various filters...)
Thanks to projects like CameraShy these people can still send censored information around :)
While I'm NOT saying the RIAA is a pinko organization, this article reminded me of their tactics. They squash Napster, and Audiogalaxy flourishes. They get Audiogalaxy, and Kazaa gets big. The internet users are always one step ahead. Unless you're Lu Xiaobo or that 12-year-old girl; the Chinese censors and the RIAA both leave a wake of human detritus, whom one can regard as heroes or infidels. Once again, it all comes down to free speech or free beer.
"Den som vover mister Fodfaeste et Oieblik; den som ikke vover mister Livet." -Soren Kierkegaard
If China did join the WTO, the government could not censor information because it would be in violation of the agreement. Here is a resourceful link on this subject: http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/FreeTrade /WTO.asp
There are several papers here that argue that China should not be allowed to enter WTO and that support China's entry...you decide....
Jax
When I worked at GTE the company got the contract to lay the fiber optic cable around the border of China and put in the network centers that setup a ring around China. Total control of all the traffic in and out of the country, or so they hoped. A career limiting move came when I wrote Chuck Lee, CEO of GTE, and said we were helping the same Communist government that gave us Tianamen Square and would continue to repress the Chinese people using this technology. But Bean Counters only care about profit and damn the people that get get screwed over in the process.
As a side note, I knew a lad working near me from China who had been at Tianamen Square the day before and then the day after the massacre happened. When he saw what the army had done to their own people he went home, packed and left for Hong Kong and then to the US.
Censorship is only one way the Communists will use to stay in power and shooting another bunch of college kids can happen again.
Too lazy to create a sig...
I seem to remember stumbling across a web site a few months ago that had a list of "black market" ISPs that would allow a Saudi citizen to access the Internet in a non-monitored/non-censored way. Apparently accessing the Internet using "normal" ISPs means excessive content blocking, etc.
There may already be such ISPs in China for all I know. But it's interesting to see groups of people band together to circumvent the restrictions put on them by their governments.
No, you are supporting a country in transition (remember censorship doesn't have to be 'paid' for). If you don't buy Chinese, will the country change (compare the present leadership to the Shanghai Brigage 10 years ago or that of the Great Leap Forward when China was under sanction, if you think they are the same you are believing a fallacy)?
Likewise if you think a government will change into a lets-hug-each-other one from a totalitarian one over night (or even in 20 years) you are seriously deluded. Change takes time to feed through, or else there is volatile coup after volatile coup and everyone gets screwed (or nuked).
Not that I say you should buy Chinese specially, but denying buying Chinese for some up-in-the-clouds-political-fairyland ideology is madness. Global trade is great for sharing wealth and generating more wealth (read wealth as standard of living) amongst nations, and in terms of the trickle-down effect China is doing damn well compared to any other country's development (eg Agricultural Land Rights, mobility of labour and class, etc).
But if you would prefer to condemn the worker to starve as a serf on a farm rather than work in a factory getting a better standard of living for themselves and their family that is up to you.
--
FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
They're a Fascist Dictatorship with Communist Rhetoric. Communism makes for great posters and propaganda when you're nearly starving and working 16 hrs/day. But given that people at large in China seem to have very little say in how "their" resources are spent (if they did, would they allow sweat shops to exist?), I don't see how you can call them Communist.
That said, I don't think Communism is a viable system. You can never get past that whole "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" thing. China didn't, Russia didn't and neither did Cuba. I'm a Socialist myself. Violent or at least forceful revolutions like Communism is usually associated with almost always end with a brutal, Fascist government. I better solution is for the poor and disenfranchised to control their population so that the value of their labor increases (kinda like what happened with the Black Plague but minus the Plague). As funny as it sounds, I think birth control is the best hope for mankind. Now if we can only get those pesky religious and cultural factors to go away so the poor will use it...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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
Uh... maybe people are LESS likely to have sex if they watch porn? That would seem to be the logical conclusion to me.
Also, and perhaps sadly, I think the original poster may have a point about people not rising up against the government if they get their porn. I mean, you don't see many Americans rising up against George W.
How do you explain Japan, then? They have so much porno over there that it boggles my mind. And a population density of over 300 people per sq km. I don't get the "people have less sex when they watch porn" reasoning. I think an older applicable adage would be "out of sight, out of mind".
~D:
chinese government censors its citizens. citizens censor chinese their government back. censorship rears its ugly head when you least expect it. isn't life interesting?
No, wait...
And the brethren went away edified.
There's an interesting book called that looks at Internet censorship in China. Basically, the book is in response to the technodeterminists of the early 90s who believed that you could simply add the Internet to an authoritarian country, stir, and get a thriving democracy. The book makes a few flaws and omissions (most notably ignoring the impact of email), but the overall point is pretty sound. It's gross oversimplification to say so... but I will: the Internet is a tool, a tool that crafty people can use for control as much as it can be used to promote openness. I only mention this because frequently these articles still take a subtly (or not so) technodeterminist slant--"Hey, look what Internet is doing in China."--when really the credit belongs to determined individuals who are using whatever tools they get their hands on to challenge an oppressive regime. If you really want to promote democracy in China you need to find more ways to help these folks out, not just build bigger pipes.
4. You must be a Certified Patriot! In our view, it is exceptionally patriotic to be a member of Hacktivismo and to advocate civil liberties all over the world. And we don't view people who agree with George Bush, John Poindexter, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, or Don Rumsfeld as very patriotic at all. It is patriotic to disagree with Mr. Bush and other friends of Big Oil. But neither we nor George Bush can decide unilaterally whether you are a Certified Patriot merely based on your politics or point of view. A "Certified Patriot" has come to mean anybody (even communists, militia members, muslim extremists, animal-rights activists, tree-huggers, vocal critics of John Ashcroft, and card-carrying members of the ACLU) not listed as a "Specially Designated National" or "Blocked Person" by the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"). The OFAC list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons [PDF] is located here [PDF] or here [text file]. The most recent changes [PDF] to the SDN and Blocked Persons List are published here [PDF]. IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT LIST, THEN YOU, TOO, ARE A CERTIFIED PATRIOT! Congratulations! ;-)
They then make you agree to this. It's pretty funny
Censorship? In the 21st century with all the communications and the Internet? I guess not. The Chinese gov't can swim upstream if they want to but it's pretty silly anyways.
Try controlling radio frequencies never mind speficially laying pipe for conventional net access.
Jonathanjk.com
I would call that a "loaded gun" fallacy. :)
~D:
to all oppressors of the human spirit, your end is at hand.
... We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals."
The forces of freedom and technology now walk hand in hand.
There now exists the most powerful weapon in the war against ignorance since the printing press.
A weapon that has evaded, and will continue to evade, every attempt to control it that has ever been made, including by the country that spawned it.
Those who desire freedom will not stop until they attain it.
You can not stop them.
You can not slow them down.
Kill them, and more will rise in thier place.
Try to silence them, and they will whisper in secret and be heard the world over.
Stand in their way, they will go around you,
over you,
under you,
and eventually, through you.
Try to make criminals of those who wish only to think and say as they wish, and you will be exposed to millions as the criminal that you are.
Try to keep secret your evil actions, and you will fail miserably.
As someone said long ago " This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud.
No government whose survival depends on the oppression and ignorance of its people deserves to exist.
How long to you think you can keep your iron grip on your citizens when they begin to learn how much better thier lives can be and they rise against you?
This is the Information Age. The truth can be spread to all corners of the earth in the blink of an eye. How long can a nation survive which relies on disinformation and lies?
Technoli
It doesn't matter what people on the internet in Chinese cities think. The Party has access to an endless supply of young men from the hinterland it can arm and deploy to counter any kind of threatening popular movement.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Could this be why they want to support their own PC hardware and OS? To enforce censorship via DRM on the circuit board level?
Can NE1 help me find out if there's any porn in this 2GB torrent? http://www.edkeyes.org/choco/Choco_J-Pop_Videos.t
I might be risking my karma here, but how can you say that the people in China have the ability to choose the government they want?
I might be mistaken, but isn't their government COMMUNIST. The people of China have no say in how their government is run, they can only cower and hope that they don't say something that displeases a government official enough to throw them in a prison. You need a clue pal.
Also shame on the dope who moded his comments up as insightful.
Platinum Networks Hosting www.platinum-networks.com
well the best thing you could do is to not buy items made in china.
There ain't many alternatives anymore.
Table-ized A.I.
Let's see...what's wrong with this sentence (for those of you who didn't read the actual article):
But despite the help of several major international corporations and the use of the most sophisticated equipment, the Chinese government is finding the worldwide web much harder to censor than traditional media.
This seems to me like the most interesting point. If major American corporations weren't helping out, the large scale prosecution that appears to be happening wouldn't even be going on.
As to another comment regarding boycotting international corporations: sure, but that may mean living without television, soft drinks, cars, computers, and clothes. Let's face it, every single product which consists of more than five components has something, or some ingredient that was made in China. And most of the clothes - to pick a random example - which get imported to the US from Europe, and which are made by European manufacturers, are either too expensive or too weird to be worn constantly. The regular clothes (sweater and jeans type stuff) they make over there are pretty bad. That's why they don't send them over here. I know, I lived there for thirteen years.
Also, are you really prepared to start paying three times as much for clothes as you currently are? Every american consumer is at least partially responsible for this situation. The "evil corporate giants" are partially trying to increase their profit margin no matter what the cost but, currently, those profit margins are pretty tight as is.
I had a dream that I was dreaming about recursion.
If rulers take too much grain,
people rapidly starve.
If rulers take too much freedom,
people easily rebel.
If rulers take too much happiness,
people gladly die.
By not interfering the sage improves the people's lives.
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Sure, you hear about how the evil Chinese government is surpressing the poor Falun Gong practitioners -- but do you ever hear about how hundreds of Falun Gong adherents have sliced open their stomachs to try to find the "cosmic wheel" that their founder supposedly implants in them with his psychic powers? That's why the PRC has declared Falun Gong an "evil cult." China has more reason to ban Falun Gong then the US ever did to lay seige to some harmless nutballs in Waco, Texas.
But of course, China is a dictatorship, and they throw unwanted baby girls in rivers. :sigh:
(Oh, by the way, your references to "the proletariat" are completely off base. Maoism differed from Marxism in its emphasis on the peasantry rather than China's [at the time] non-existant factory workers.)
...more nukes than you can shake a stick at. For starters.
Repression is a gov't's knowledge that they are not wanted, that the only way that they can maintain power is to force it. Tienamien (sic) Square happened not just because of a few radical students, but because many others within China sympathized with them (see the Tienamien(sic) Papers - 2001). TS came from the knowledge that people didn't choose their gov't and wanted it to change against its will. While the gov't has tried to move China's economic system towards a more capitalistic system (no more "iron rice bowl") it still has a lot of control at local and higher levels (over jobs, housing, etc.). Capitalism asks its people to think for themselves and their own best interests - it is likely to be hard not to question your gov't when you are expected to question everything else. This would seem to make (although IANA China expert) an unstable equilibrium, even with cultural differences. The presence of a large army and lots of nukes means that a match could set off a very big spark.
Add to this that China has antipathies for Russia, India, and Japan in their vicinity, and cooperates with N. Korea (who isn't a paragon of stability themselves). They have needs for resources and territorial spats with various SE Asian countries over oil. A gov't requiring that kind of force to keep the lid and lots of volatility in and around is a matter of concern for a lot of people.
Oh, and their nuclear warheads can probably reach the US. A bonus.
"WHY Should I care in the least about censorship in China ?"
Ask someone from Tiananmen Square that. Oh, wait... They're mostly either dead or in prison for the remaining term of their lives.
Two words: "Tianamen Square" Would you really be seen in a demonstration against a government that will come and waltz a few tanks over you (and the thousands of others) without thinking twice about it. The whole point of the story is that just about anybody with any connections or education at all, is finding ways to fight. I think that means quite a bit considering what kind of stakes they're ignoring.
Millions of Americans were actively opposed to Gulf War II, but they didn't come out on the street - compared to Rome which brought up to five million to bear from all over Italy, New York, with a larger population got barely 500,000 -, because somebody made sure that every protest which exceeded X amount of people got teargassed. Colorado Springs is one example, where the cops didn't even bother making up a valid excuse until three days later.
MP3 sharing is down 80 percent because a couple of people got charged with copyright violation. The stakes: little more than a ruined credit rating.
All I'm saying is that a lot of incredibly brave people are protesting over there, despite the fact that dissenters routinely get shot. That means that the vast majority of them positively hate their regime. I bet you wouldn't be amongst the protestors either, because compared to that level of dedication, 99.99 percent of americans are utter pussies.
I had a dream that I was dreaming about recursion.
Why dont they ? Because they value security MORE than Freedom. Why the hell should I feel bad about some Marxist regimes censorship ? If THEY cared so much en-masse THEY would do something about it.
Because they don't know what to compare it to. You can't make an informed decision with slanted information. They are in essence in the dark. Besides, Tianamen Square taught them an object lesson.
Table-ized A.I.
My thoughts goes out to the chinese people. Keep on fightning the censorship. One day you will be free, until then, stay strong.
As main comments here coming from USA, where freedom is clearly a fact (humm ;-), it is difficult to understand how a small 200 million people country can give lessons to a 6 times bigger one (while at the same moment they don't accept any smaller/weaker country objection).
Where is freedom today? Just an example: Is it more easy today to travel to China or to USA?
Try to guess what is the most important for you and for your family. I simply hope it is not computers...
Hate to break it to you, but it looks otherwise to me, since the article's gone.
I had a dream that I was dreaming about recursion.
Well, I guess they could outlaw freenet as a protocol ...
The Raven
Or a "loaded gun" phallacy
True story.
...see here.
One more thing. How do you know that people in China were aware of what was happening there when the govenment assumed its current form? 1 billion people spread out over the largest country in the world, with shitty communication.
And even if they had had it, would it have made a difference? Some might argue that the same thing that happened to China is happening to us - in the US - right now, slowly but surely. Hell, Patriot Act II is coming soon, to a listening post near you.
I had a dream that I was dreaming about recursion.
Every time I receive unsolicited commercial email that advertises a website in China,I make sure to forward along information on Falun Gong or Free Tibet propaganda along with my LART.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
...to about the same extent that U.S. trafic enforcement is obliged to crack down on people failing to use their turn signals. I.e., hundreds of thousands of violations for every one warning, let alone citation.
I'd love to read about how censorship is failing in China but I can't access BBC from Beijing.
However, it's clear that China doesn't block HTTPS/SSL or even SSH, so any of the ordinary transport-layer proxies would do, as would simple ssh-based port forwarding.
Good luck - you are one GED from being able to give them the finger with impunity.
Or maybe you ought to ask them for their scores on the high school exit exams. Some districts require teachers and administrators to take them.
By my estimation, judging by similar occurences, there is a 99.999. . .% chance you are a sociopathic idiot. Your personal acquaintence with Bubba only serves to strengthen that likelyhood. But, at least while you are here, you are free to be so.
KFG
I just finished reading this fine book of Arthur C. Clarke (yes, he wrote 2001), what you describe has a striking resemblence of Diaspar, a city cut of from the universe where people were conditioned to fear the outside.. Just asking the question if there was anything outside the city would make the inhabitants flee in terror..
I really can recommend this book.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
I like it when someone introduces a note of reality into slashdot.
err :\
-------
FM Clan
Yes, it likely would have helped the US free slaves faster. In fact, a simple embargo of US farm products from the South would have very likely removed the economic incentive for slavery, and as it was primarily an economic institution, it would no longer have made sense for it to exist.
As to the question of economic strength today, I don't know. But the economy would likely not have been one of slavery for nearly as long as it was.
It's kind of ironic that here in China I can't access the main story referenced, being that BBC is blocked. Anyone care to put up a mirror?
If China really want to censor the world, it will have to nuke it first. Of course, that would never happen. But, they can try... Muahahhah.
Life is not for the lazy.
The Chinese are born and raised without ever understanding the concept of freedom. Thus, they do not miss it nor would the fully embrace it if suddenly it was available to them. Freedom does not just come from the goverment, but from a countries caulture as well.
Basically, trying to explain free to the oppressed is like trying to explain the concept of color to a blind person.
Life is not for the lazy.
Actually, I think you are "blaming the workers" when then fault is really in management.
Getting people to tell the truth is really hard. It's even harder if you are dealing with people who have been culturally conditioned to believe that very bad things will happen to them if they tell authority something that authority doesn't want to hear.
In managing groups of Chinese people, its very important to establish that nothing bad is going to happen to them if they point out a problem. It's also important to have channels by which people can privately and anonymously bring up issues without fear of retribution. Finally, its also important to have a sixth sense and realize that something is going wrong without having people tell you.
Getting back to the internet, one thing that is good about the internet in a Chinese context is that it makes it possible to post things more or less anonymously. (Yes you can trace the IP, but if it goes back to some internet bar which hundreds of people are using, then you are out of luck.)
non-compatible e-mail systems, incompatible HTML/XML markup, integrated browsers
And I know just the company to do it.
Tweet, tweet.
Not to be too harsh since your heart seems to be in the right place but.....
I think here GTE has helped free speech in China more than you have. A fiber system in and out of China which the government tries to censor is *far* better than no system at all. One reason that China is finding much harder to censor the internet than Cuba or North Korea is that there is so much traffic going back and forth that its impossible to monitor it all. Putting in fiber helps increase internet usage and makes it much harder for the government to censor it.
Something to keep in mind is that on the same weekend that Tiananmen happened, the Burmese government also shot a whole bunch of students. No one remembers or even knows about it, because there weren't a million television cameras in Burma that weekend.
Thank you...Slashdot, and all the comments that concern about all these sad facts, which are happening in a country far away from US/EU, at the same time, those hypocritical politicians and mercenary economic-alliance are happy to see a crony & bureaucrat capitalism growing...even the President of US and France are forgetting about Human Rights issue.
Thank you...Freenet, Six/Four, and other projects I don't aware. Thanks for the work and effort you guys made, which empowered a lot people you barely know, at the same time, at least 30,000 shameless tech guys are hired by Chinese Government to censor/filter/delete/report their neighborhood brothers and sisters.
Yes, Freedom, what a word...
-- A Chinese
Pirating CD carrying banned foreigner contents are sold on streets. Major international magazines and books are available in many book stores. Many people I know don't really care about foreigner contents. They are happy with the Chinese contents from several portals and news sites. Why should a typical Chinese really care about English content from BBC, CNN or any other news?
However, the blocking gives Chinese government a lot of power of foreigner media companies in China. Give Chinese bargain power over the media companies' entry and access to the vast Chinese market. Give Chinese power in the negotiation table. Time Warner who wants to access to this vast market, not for CNN or Times but for the studio contents, have to negotiate hard with Chinese government.
The Internet is the most important invention/discovery/whatever in the last 100+ years. It is more important than landing on the moon (overrated to begin with), invention of transistor, electricity, etc. Prior to the Internet, the most important discovery was the printing press.
Both of these are similar and will end up accomplishing similar things. The Internet will result in massive increase in the spread of knowledge. Most importantly, the Internet will shift power from the authoraties (usually the government) to the individual. It is already happening and this is just the start.
I have this theory that the internet will allow future generations to overthrow the government. I'm not talking about just China--I'm talking about ALL countries. It is THAT powerful! It is more powerful than any military; it is more powerful than having a billion dollars; it is more powerful than the Pope; and so on.
Needless to say, there are several threats emerging on the horizon. Hopefully the threats will be dealt with but it remains to be seen. The threats I have in mind are money/capitalism, and the government. Governments of all stripes have been trying to hard to control the Internet. The naive would say that it is impossible for the governments to control it but one should not be so confident. Already some governments have total control over the Internet. China probably doesn't because of its size. But smaller poorer countries have total control. This is mostly because there are only a few ISPs and the government monitors them. Even in larger countries, the governments are getting ever more smarter. Some countries already have tax laws passed. These laws are not enforced but the govt can do so at any time. There is already censorship against freedom of speech. Countries like China come to mind but there are many more which are worse. Some countries, like USA, already spend billions attempting to sniff through e-mail and websites. Let's also not forget that encryption technology is heavily controlled by governments. Sending encrypted e-mail is sure to land some in jail. It hasn't happened in countries like USA or Canada yet but it won't be very long before USA start jailing people because Al-Qaida or some other dark shadow is using encryption.
The other threat on the horizon is capitalism and its excesses. In particular, the greed and the power that comes with any new technology. The original Internet was largely controlled by the government. Even then, it was a scientific environment. Therefore, it was mostly free (in more than one sense). There is no doubt that capitalist entities, like corporations, helped the Internet, but there are some downsides too. The push towards profits can already be seen. One just needs to mention Verisign, which is attempting to control the most lucrative elements. Other companies are pushing proprietary technologies which will result in monopolies. Companies are also more likely to shut down websites for "offensive content". I suppose one can also count the actions of RIAA and others as a threat. It is within the right of RIAA to crack down on pirates, but some of their methods are highly questionable (eg. forcing ISPs to disclose people). Good thing similar organizations in other countries haven't cracking down. It would be worse in other countries because privacy laws are much weaker in other countries (compared to USA). Who knows what else will emerge from the brains of the corporations?
Having said all that, I am hopeful that the Internet will surivive with my vision. I think it will. The reason is simple. Just like the printing press, the Internet is too simple to be manipulated. Regardless of what the monarchs and the priests did with the printing press, they couldn't control it. I think the same thing will happen with the Internet. It is just too simple and too many people are involved for it to be controlled.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
A survey of internet user in China done by the Chinese Academy of Social Science found that Chinese people are quite interested in using the internet to engage in political discussions and interact with their government. Among the findings:
* 71% of Internet users and 69% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people more opportunities to express their political views.
* 79% of Internet users and 77% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people a better knowledge of politics.
* 79% of Internet users and 73% of non-users agreed that the Internet will give government a better understanding of the views of its citizens.
* 60.8% of Internet users and 61% of non-users agreed that the Internet gives people more opportunities to criticize government's policies.
Maybe the Chinese government does have something to worry about.
Another reason is that people see Burma (justified or not, I have no idea) as a hopeless shithole, whereas people actually see great potential for China. It's exactly the same reason why people get so upset when the US executes a 17-year-old whereas mass killings in Wherever, Africa don't even make the evening news. People get upset about things like that in the US because the US is, in general, a shining beacon of reasonableness, and we're also really big and powerful, so people are tremendously annoyed when we do something stupid. (Yeah, I'm sure people will laugh at that statement, bring it on!) It's not a double standard, more like an expression of disappointment.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I'm sure it will work for Microsoft
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.
Boycotts work when you know you can force a government into changeing their ways, not as a general norm. If you look at South Africa, the boycott there was effective, it sent a clear message and provided a clear incentive for change. I agree with you that the time is not right for a boycott now, but if the government backslides(the whole 'two steps forewrd, one step back' thing) Then a large-scale boycott would be just the thing. Yes it denies the citizens of said country the benefits of globalization, but it does more damage to the regime, people can recover, but governments often cant...
One of the things I've learned from traveling to 20 different foreign countries and living in about 10 of them over the last 25 years, is that democracy DOES NOT work in every country.
For whatever reason, some people prefer the strong hand of a dictator. Some people prefer a democratic solution, and some people prefer socialism.
To have the arrogrance to dictate that everyone wants or is better off as a democracy is committing the very thing you despise.
There are geographic, sociological, as well as biological reasons for the various political systems around the world.
It is high time we in the West get off our high horse, and let the rest of the world deal with their own countries as they see fit.
North Korea, China, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq et al are not the way they are because ONLY one person acting ALONE got them into their current political system. A lot of people were/are involved, including the complicity of the general population.
well the best thing you could do is to not buy items made in china.
of course thats just a good idea anyways
Yup, you're supporting virtual slave labour when you buy Chinese.FYI: WalMart single-handedly accounts for nearly 10% of China's exports to the U.S. Read the labels..
Trolling is a art,
OK, now I'm really confused. Your exemplary checklist is the way it should be, however, how did it work in the Branch Davidian / David Koresh case, which in fact may be more of the norm.
...A review of the evidence the BATF put forward to justify its first search warrant indicates that the case it had against Koresh was based more on his views than his actions... ...David Koresh had what most of us would consider strange religious views. However, there is no federal death penalty for believing oneself to be Jesus Christ. Koresh and his people owned firearms--more than one, in fact. There is nothing illegal about that. David Koresh didn't think much of the BATF. That appears to have been a crime. ...
...That this is the last charge made in the affidavit prior to the raid should be an alarm to every law-abiding gun owner. According to the BATF, it is suspicious for a citizen to believe in the right to bear arms, be knowledgeable about firearms laws and own video tapes critical of the BATF. If this is grounds for a search warrant to be served by an army, the rest of us had better step lightly...."
Waco Search Warrant
"...Criticism of federal law enforcement actions at Waco has not been in short supply...Missing from the discussion of how the federal government handled the Waco disaster is how the government got into the problem in the first place. In particular, how and why did the government procure the search and arrest warrants which the BATF was attempting to "serve" with its unsuccessful raid? A careful study of the Waco search warrant reveals numerous flaws, not just with the warrant application but with search and seizure law as it has developed in the 1990s."
Is a Search Warrant Your Death Warrant
"...The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures....However, the government can abuse the Fourth and Eighth Amendments to undercut the Second...
I am a native "Hong kong"er and one sentence from this article catch my attention.
"The more they do to block it, the more people want to get online,"
The fact is that, those chinese DO NOT REALLY WANT TO KNOW THE FACT. They feel so comfortable while living in such a less information place.
From the experience of SARS and the Fluid these days, we can find that those citizen living in China do not what is happening both inside china and outside. And the reporter ask them
"Do you feel safe at that moment?"
"Of course, government should be able to handle all the stuffs"
But in fact, the situation has NEVER been under China's govenment control.
Its not our job to help out other countries. They have the internet, we gave it to them. Its time for us to sit back and watch. Its our helping out that allowed al-qaeda to gain strength, its our helping out that caused 911. We are better off letting these countries solve their own problems. NONE OF THESE COUNTRIES HELPED AMERICA!
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
China is not the soviet union. What war? I think we need to end all of these endless pointless wars. The whole "give freedom to country X" does not work unless country X wants freedom. IF country x wants freedom let them take it themselves. Its because we want to liberate countries against their will that we keep making more enemies, which causes more war in an endless cycle. Most of europe hates us now, even though we stopped the soviet union. It seems that the world is less stable without 2 superpowers than it was when we had 2. Now every country hates us, theres no more playing sides, whats our best move? Get out of the spotlight. Why should we waste all our moneys helping countries who don't want our way of life? Let China be China, give China the technology and do business with them, and let them solve their own political problems. As much as we think we can somehow influence China through the internet, its playing a game by rules which we don't want or need to play. All of this focus on China is allowing China to consume all our jobs, all our technology, all our best features of America, and once that happens why stay in America?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
What company or government wants an uncensored internet? Our US government wants a censored controlled internet, no napster, no terrorist sites, no kiddie porn. Our US companies want a censored internet, think the RIAA, don't dare talk bad about SCO, don't dare talk bad about microsoft. The China government wants a censored internet. "Think of the Trojan horse. If you don't sell the Chinese these sorts of technologies, they are going to be less likely to develop internet infrastructure. If you sell the Chinese these sorts of technologies, yes the Chinese government will try to censor the content, but they'll fail miserably at it." The trojan horse will backfire just like it did with Japan. Soon China will lead the world in internet technology. Soon most websites will be Chinese websites. Soon China will be influencing us through the internet and our government will be trying to censor us from terrorist Chinese websites. This goes both ways you know.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
All of these pro freedom for China people do not realize that eventually when most websites are Chinese and those websites host warez, kiddie porn, and anti bush anti american literature, what happens then?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
That is not a sign of intelligence. You assume that all humans want freedom and democracy, or that all humans need it at this very moment. Sure most humans do want it, and most need it, but some just arent ready for it.
The middle east, Africa, China, these places just arent ready. They don't want it for religious reasons or cultural reasons, and they get pissed off when you try to tell them what they want.
Freedom comes with a price. We in the USA ourselves cant always handle the price of freedom. Freedom on the net means freedom to do evil as well as good, freedom to download mp3s, freedom to create hate sites, freedom to create terrorist sites.
Freedom is not something that every country is capable of handling at this time. You give absolute freedom to the middle east and they will use it to create terrorist hate sites. You give absolute freedom to Americans and the concept of intellectual property will be destroyed. You give absolute freedom to the Chinese and all our jobs will go to China.
This who pro-China stuff is lead and controlled by big corporations who want to hire foreign labor. They want to help China so they can get rich off China. They don't mind giving China all the jobs even if we all lose our jobs here. Someday China will surpass and what will we do then?
You cannot control China once you bring China into the market, and swell up their economy to the size of ours. Right now the only reason we are super power is because China lacks the money to go to war with us. Why on earth do we want to empower China is beyond me.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Why come here? Wasn't the Kent State Massacre pretty much the same thing?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Is there any chance that, without the work laying cable for the Chinese Govt, you might not have been working at all? I applaud the message to your CEO. I applaud the lad who went home. But is it possible, that it wasn't just the bean counters helping the Chinese Govt?