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Study Shows China Tightens Internet Filtering
Torrey Clark writes "China is the world's leading censor of the Internet, filtering web sites, blogs, e-mail, and online forums for sensitive political content, according to a study released Thursday. The OpenNet Initiative said that China employs thousands officials and private citizens to build a 'pervasive, sophisticated, and effective' system of Internet censorship. 'ONI sought to determine the degree to which China filters sites on topics that the Chinese government finds sensitive, and found that the state does so extensively,' said the study. 'Chinese citizens seeking access to Web sites containing content related to Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama, the Tiananmen Square incident, opposition political parties, or a variety of anti-Communist movements will frequently find themselves blocked,' the report said."
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There are tons of anon proxies people can connect to to mask what sites they're going to. I'm sure the tech-savy are just using one them and surfing anyway.... The only way around that is to block all access to all ip ranges outside China's blocks.
For those who don't know much about Falun Gong. Here is a link to an interview with Li Hongzhi (the leader of Falun Gong) by Time in 1999 (just before Fa Lungong was banned in China). The following conversation on the 3rd page is particularly entertaining:
TIME: Where do they(the aliens) come from?Li: The aliens come from other planets. The names that I use for these planets are different . Some are from dimensions that human beings have not yet discovered. The key is how they have corrupted mankind. Everyone knows that from the beginning until now, there has never been a development of culture like today. Although it has been several thousand years, it has never been like now.
The aliens have introduced modern machinery like computers and airplanes. They started by teaching mankind about modern science, so people believe more and more science, and spiritually, they are controlled. Everyone thinks that scientists invent on their own when in fact their inspiration is manipulated by the aliens. In terms of culture and spirit, they already control man. Mankind cannot live without science.
The ultimate purpose is to replace humans. If cloning human beings succeeds, the aliens can officially replace humans. Why does a corpse lie dead, even though it is the same as a living body? The difference is the soul, which is the life of the body. If people reproduce a human person, the gods in heaven will not give its body a human soul. The aliens will take that opportunity to replace the human soul and by doing so they will enter earth and become earthlings.
When such people grow up, they will help replace humans with aliens. They will produce more and more clones. There will no longer be humans reproduced by humans. They will act like humans, but they will introduce legislation to stop human reproduction.
TIME: Are you a human being?
Li: You can think of me as a human being.
TIME: Are you from earth?
Li: I don't wish to talk about myself at a higher level. People wouldn't understand it.
TIME: What are the aliens after?
Li: The aliens use many methods to keep people from freeing themselves from manipulation. They make earthlings have wars and conflicts, and develop weapons using science, which makes mankind more dependent on advanced science and technology. In this way, the aliens will be able to introduce their stuff and make the preparations for replacing human beings. The military industry leads other industries such as computers and electronics.
TIME: But what is the alien purpose?
Li: The human body is the most perfect in the universe. It is the most perfect form. The aliens want the human body.
TIME: What do aliens look like?
Li: Some look similar to human beings. U.S. technology has already detected some aliens. The difference between aliens can be quite enormous.
TIME: Can you describe it?
Li: You don't want to have that kind of thought in your mind.
TIME: Describe them anyway.
Li: One type looks like a human, but has a nose that is made of bone. Others look like ghosts. At first they thought that I was trying to help them. Now they now that I am sweeping them away.,
Obviously he was inspired by The Alien, Man In Black, Species, and Matrix.
There are also other end-user (working) anonymous-p2p programs such as:
The site Anonymous-p2p.org has a good list of anonymous p2p programs as well.
Insightful?
Americans gloss-over cowboys genociding 20,000,000 native Americans over 20 or so years
This is the myth passed around by europeans and arabs as a way to justify their own atrocities.
From the Indian Wars wiki
"citing figures from a 1894 estimate by the United States Census Bureau, one scholar has noted that the more than 40 Indian wars from 1775 to 1890 reportedly claimed the lives of some 45,000 Indians and 19,000 whites.1 This rough estimate includes women and children, since noncombatants were often killed in frontier warfare"
Rob Gifford, who is the NPR correspondent in China (and speaks Chinese) did a segment on the impact of the internet (I forget if it was on Morning Edition or All Things Considered).
He said it is having an absolutely revolutionary impact in terms of people being able to like up with other people, also businesses. China is a traditional society, so you could only contact people though your kinship network. Now everyone can get together with everyone.
Another thing I have heard a lot is there is a huge impact on internal politics. People are communicting about corrupt officials, environmental degradation, government waste, and other relevant topics. An example from last year is there was a huge explosion at an elementary school. It turned out the principal had all the student working making fireworks.
Normally the principal would have just paid off the mayor and that would have been the end of it. Instead, the people in the town communicated by e-mail, set up a web site, printed out flyers, and notified the national media. There was a huge national scandal, and the principal went to jail.
What is happening, then, is that the internet is helping democracy in China develop from the inside. The Chinese don't need to learn about it from the West, they just know they want a clear, responsible, effective government.
Using a publicly available proxy in china I was able to access slashdot. But when loading this article it loaded the sidebar and title but stopped with "document contains no data" popup.
The same thing happened from a remote terminal.
One of my company's clients has recently opened up a factory over there and we are the ones handling the IT. The Chinese ISP replaced the factory's router and locked us out; and we have been having trouble getting working DNS from inside the factory.
Okay... 100% Access Back Open Again
Oops! Nooooooooooo They Blocked Port 1701!