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Bypassing The Great Firewall of China

Posted by timothy on from the subterfuge dept.

An anonymous reader writes "On the BBC website they have a article about bypassing China's firewall for those living inside the country. It covers the usual idea of proxies or sending the content by e-mails. But it also suggests that with enough proxies the goverment couldn't block them all."

27 comments

  1. Yeah but by MImeKillEr · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you're *in China* and they're blocking the BBC, how can this be useful?

    --
    Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
  2. empty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    But it also suggests that with enough proxies the goverment couldn't block them all.

    An empty statement. Government blocking them all? Well, then you don't have enough. Repeat as necessary.

    1. Re:empty by splortnik2003 · · Score: 1

      Um...

      Since the article actually talks about peer-to-peer networks of proxies, I think the point being made is that neat technological ideas can lead to orders of magnitude more proxies -- and it is unlikely that the PRC can follow with orders of magnitude more censors.

    2. Re:empty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then write a firewig worm: a worm whose purpose is to set up proxies to create breaches through firewalls.

  3. But if you get caught.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ..bypassing the big firewall or stating your opinion you will of course get executed.

  4. How Can I Help? by justanyone · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hello:

    How (specifically) can I help?

    I would like to assist with this process of free dissemination of information. If anyone has a suggestion how I might do that, please post here. I'm a normal user with an always-on DSL connection, run a normal webserver, and would like to assist with this.

    -- Kevin J. Rice

    --
    Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
    1. Re:How Can I Help? by Single+GNU+Theory · · Score: 3, Informative

      Check out the circumventor at http://www.peacefire.org/

      --
      Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
    2. Re:How Can I Help? by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 1
      I would like to assist with this process of free dissemination of information. If anyone has a suggestion how I might do that, please post here. I'm a normal user with an always-on DSL connection, run a normal webserver, and would like to assist with this.

      Why do you want to contribute to this obvious treason on the part of the Chinese people? If they didn't like the way their government runs things then they would have a revolution and change it. Since they don't we should only assume it is a very peaceful civilized and happy nation there. Why ruin it by trying to westernize them?

    3. Re:How Can I Help? by Xabraxas · · Score: 1
      Why ruin it by trying to westernize them?

      I didn't know freedom was a purely western ideal.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
    4. Re:How Can I Help? by 00420 · · Score: 1

      If they didn't like the way their government runs things then they would have a revolution and change it.

      Well, unfortunately since the advent of heavy weaponry, just having a revolution isn't that simple. Especially in a country that is as tightly controlled and policed as China.

      Obviously it's still possible (USSR), but it is surely not simple.

      --
      Have you tried Linux yet?
    5. Re:How Can I Help? by Troed · · Score: 1

      http://freenet.sf.net

      --
      it's in my head
  5. Great by arrow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just what we need to give the Chiniese people, an unlimited supply of open proxies to use!

    Don't you already get enough spam from them?!

    --
    symetrix. We are building a religion, a limited edition.
    1. Re:Great by aminorex · · Score: 1

      Most SPAM comes from the USA. Perhaps we should
      cut *them* off from the Internet.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
  6. Chinese governmentt by cloudless.net · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "But it also suggests that with enough proxies the goverment couldn't block them all."

    Then the government will simply block everything and allows access to "approved" website.

    The worst problem is the Chinese government heavily brainwash its people with controlled media etc, so most Chinese people don't believe in any information from the outside world. I'm glad Hong Kong still has uncensored Internet access, for now.

    1. Re:Chinese governmentt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That happens in the US too... ;)

  7. Pretty easy to block/control by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's pretty easy to block if you've a country like China.

    I'm sure there are a manageable number of ISP class international internet leased lines in China.

    Just stick transparent content filters on them and you'll be set for most stuff.

    Sure https/SSL stuff can be problematic, but not many big sites provide http proxies because it costs more in CPU and complexity. It's already easy enough to find normal http proxies and shut them down. You might even be able to automate some of it.

    As for peer to peer https proxies, what if the Chinese gov controls/subverts some of the "peer" machines? You're going to need some rather fancy tech - the simple method of identifying "trusted" proxies won't work coz that means the Chinese Gov can identify them and take action.

    --
  8. Ahead of the curve by smothra · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Back in my day, we didn't have no fancy peer-to-peer proxies. We tunneled through by force of will and we liked it.

    Actually, it's rather amazing how effective technologically enforced censorship is given the size of the tireless community dedicated to bypassing it.

    --
    Look ma, no tpyos^H^H^H^H^H^H . . . oh crap.
  9. *peek* by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't that what the Peekabooty project was supposed to fix?

  10. Blocked sites? by HeghmoH · · Score: 1

    Can anyone give some specifics about what sites are blocked? Are only very politicized sites against the Chinese government blocked? I ask because I never came across a blocked site while surfing the net in China, while I was half expecting to not have access to things like the BCC and CNN's sites.

    --
    Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
  11. Ahem... by DesScorp · · Score: 1

    "Hello: How (specifically) can I help? I would like to assist with this process of free dissemination of information. If anyone has a suggestion how I might do that, please post here. I'm a normal user with an always-on DSL connection, run a normal webserver, and would like to assist with this. -- Kevin J. Rice"

    Hi, this is the Government of the Peoples Republic of China. Just to let you know, Gwai Lo, you're one dead motherfucker. Sleep tight.

    Sincerely,
    The Commies

    --
    Life is hard, and the world is cruel
  12. Terrorist act? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Teaching citizens to break their country's laws? If that's not cyberterrorism...

    Someone give a heads up to the US.

  13. It varies by Perianwyr+Stormcrow · · Score: 1

    Sometimes, the blocking covers most big foreign news sources. Other times, only US stuff is blocked. Sometimes, blogspot and livejournal are blocked. This changes over time.

    It's really quite mysterious sometimes.

    --

    What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey

  14. Here's a list ... and a lot more info ... by wibblylemoende · · Score: 1

    Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China

  15. Freenet? by Greg+W. · · Score: 1

    Why haven't I seen any comments about using Freenet for this yet? Where's Ian hiding today?

    1. Re:Freenet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      becouse it sucks and is more a haven for kiddy porn then free speech

    2. Re:Freenet? by burbilog · · Score: 1

      Freenet is out of question. It's main idea of storing information on other peers with limited lifetime is flawed.

      Better system would be a network of p2p proxies. These proxies must work in chain so the original server is behind at least 5 proxies (with onion-like encryption it could be done securely). The only problem is routing requests to proxies...