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Adopt a [Chinese] Blog
malorkus writes "Here's a great way for bloggers and others with decent web hosting to help fight internet censorship in China and other restrictive countries. Adopt a Chinese Blog aims to match up censored bloggers with volunteer hosts."
Wouldn't their government then just block access to certain servers / sites / blogs?
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
What's to stop the government from arresting people who are trying to get around their censorship?
"Leave China alone for Christ's sake. You're not going to change things, especially if you are NOT IN CHINA!"
No way. This has gone way too far.
If there is truth to these accusations that the Chinese government is intimidating citizens of my country in any way for something such as practicing Falun Gong, then we have a serious problem that need s addressing.
I'm in no way in favour of military action, but this is clearly and act of war on their part if it is true.
Is there some law in China against circumventing the censorship laws? Like.... What is the potential punishment that you are probably incurring upon whatever China-person you "help out"?
I'd be scared shitless to visit China if I let some dissident bloggers use some of my hosting space. The Chinese govt. is probably paranoid enough to start putting together a list of individuals who have helped these "dangerous" individuals.
Another concern I'd have is that a blogger might have lots of harsh words about some local official, but how do I know it isn't simply slander? And what would my liabilities be in such a case?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
It's just a matter of time before Chinese agents sign up for this and starts giving the samaritan nice presents in form of viruses, trojan horses etc.
"If there is truth to these accusations that the Chinese government is intimidating citizens of my country in any way for something such as practicing Falun Gong, then we have a serious problem that need s addressing.
/. would say we should not have gone to war with Iraq.
I'm in no way in favour of military action, but this is clearly and act of war on their part if it is true."
yet Saddam Hussein can kill 2 million people and almost all here on
I don't think you are going to get much support for military action on this forum.
China is a safe haven for all sorts of internet activity which is illegal and reprehensible here, I guess it's only fair that we return the favor.
Nothing really stops them except the filtering that the adoption agency does. Since they're probably not trained in intelligence procedures, I'd guess they can't stop this from happening.
But if you're Chinese intelligence, the better method is to prevent people from getting to the adoption service in the first place. They don't want to throw people in lonely prisons after they publish damaging things, they want to prevent damaging things from being published. The best way to do that is to use the Great Chinese Internet Filter (AYB) to block the adoption service, and to block known sites that choose to adopt Chinese blogs. It's easier to make the blogger irrelevant or unheard than it is to throw them in prison.
Things like freenet have been developed to really help the Chinese out in this situation. And this is really sad to say, but true: sometimes you need someone to be made an example of, because it's the recognition of the injustice towards them that spurs others to really consider the issue critically and do something about it, since the same could happen to them.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
This isn't about blogging. Its a somewhat rhetorical, outside-of-the-box question -- "What if the Chinese government is using the right approach?"
Their economic growth has been much better than ours over the last decade. Their top-down economy can decide to build new nuclear plants when they need them without having to deal with environmentalists interfering for a decade or more. [One of the best prospects for eliminating dependence on foreign oil is relatively cheap electricity combined with hybrid and eventually full electric cars.] They don't have to worry about the "networks" trying to slip "broadcast flag" ammendments onto appropriations bills. Their politicians don't have to worry about catering to the money. Etc.
In short, is a top-down command controlled political system (and economy) better than a system run by a bunch of special interests elected into place by people who vote based in large part on how someone looks [according to results of a recent scientific study]?
The internet is no longer safe for many of the activities that we once liked. Slapping a band-aid on one little piece of it won't fix the problem, and it can only serve to provoke a crackdown. Does no one remember Tiannamen Square?
We need a new network. An anonymous one, one where no one can figure out if you are even connected to i, let alone the one that wrote a blog that appears on it. It isn't Freenet. It needs to be IPv4/IPv6 capable... we got rid of all the old layer 3 protocols because nothing less would suffice. It can't be Tor, we got rid of host files, because we want real, human-readable domain names, rye932hj2h3.onion doesn't count. Sadly, everyone seems to have missed out that anonymity isn't some phd-level cryptography puzzle. We have all the software tools we need, off the shelf.
Take your favorite vpn software, freeswan, openvpn, hell, even pptp. Once you use it to connect to a friend, you have your own (2 host) IP network. It can't be eavesdropped on. But you're not anonymous to that person, you have to know his internet IP, right? So make sure that person is always in another nation than your own. If they wiretap your internet connection, they'll see ipsec packets going to that IP, make sure he is beyond the reach of your law enforcement authorities (and you will also be beyond the reach of his!). Now, if you connect to a second person outside your own country, that person can communicate with your other partner, and they are anonymous for all intents and purposes. They can ping each other, lob UDP packets at each other, any number of things, that we take for granted, each and every day on the internet.
Still, it's a lame network, with just 3 people. But it can grow. Every person that connects that is willing to set up a router (even a crappy little 486 will do) can invite yet more people. It could scale to thousands of people, tens of thousands. IRC, webpages, email, everything that works here. And at best, you only know the identities of a few people on it, all of whom are safe on the other side of an international border even if you are forced to reveal who they are.
What keeps you people from doing this? Does it sound to simple to work? Is the end result too polished, you want to spend the next 2 weeks trying to insert a file on freenet? Does openvpn and bgp intimidate you?
Go on, ignore me. Spend the next 5 years whining about this strategic withdrawal, and that EFF holding action, slashdot.
Anyone that is interested, reply to this post with a method of contact. Tell a friend (who resides in nation other than your own) about it, get him interested. Everyone who brings in another person gets to connect, no other requirements.
I've read hundreds of posts on slashdot that were wrongly modded down (censored) as trolls because people didn't like what they had to say, and others modded up as 'insightful' with content like 'MS SUCKS' and nothing else to say. Now this community is bitching about China?!! The looking glass is a mirror.
BTW, -1 as a troll. To hell with my karma.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll wipe out the species.
They should consider themselves lucky that the US gives them billions of dollars of weapons to fight enemies that are equiped with rocks and primitive explosives.
WTF? Do you think they use all of those weapons on the Palestinians? The best thing that can happen for Israel is for he world to acknowledge that it *IS* a war. The fact is, if they used those weapons in an all out war, the Palestinians wouldn't have a fucking change.
And to describe palestinian as poor enemies with only rocks and primitive explosives is nothing short of fuckign ignorant. A suicide bomber who can disguise himself, walk into a nightclub and blow himself up is far more dangerous than the restricted actions of the IDF. Especially since it creates a situtation where liberties (including those of Palestinians) have to be exchanged for security.
Enemies that they imposed upon, and enemies that they threaten and steal from when they attempt to expand their borders.
I invite you to read some history and get damn a clue.
A country like Israel, despite being attacked repeatedly by its neighbours, being built up of people who have had their lands stolen off them (in both Europe and Arabia) has managed to develop into the only multi-cultural, multi-ethnic democracy in the middle east. Israel is responsible for inventions ranging from the MRI to ICQ to the Pentium-M.
When was the last time you saw a Jew blowing himself up in Saudi Arabia or Germany demanding their land back? Nope, they just get on with their fucking lives and contribute to humanity instead of becoming career refugees like a certain group of people.
The fact is, they should not have those weapons at all. I find the idea of giving someone weapons and calling it humanitarian aid offensive
What? Israel has been attacked by its neighbours who have sworn to "push israel into the sea" and the US shouldn't help Israel defend itself? it is in the best interests of the US and the world that Israel -- a stable multicultural democracy in the middle east -- survives.
Suicide bombers are attempting to show how hopeless they feel about their situation in the very loudest way possible
No, they do it cause they believe they are stupid and think they will get rewarded (sex etc) in heaven. They are idiots and it's no suprise that they generally are very young.
The best thing the world can do at this point is look on with sorrow I'm afraid
You know, there is *much* worse happening in the world. The Israeli/Middle-east conflict is so popular because it's the only place of conflict where the reporters can sit down and have sushi whilst they wirte about how horrible Israel is.
What country/world do you live in?? You're really contemplating the possibility that the Chinese government is going to hunt you down, "snatch" you away, and do horrible things to you?
Listen, America has a number of problems, but keeping its citizens safe from foreign aggression while on their own soil is not one of them. And I'm including "terrorism", even though that's not remotely the point here.
Furthermore, "...the United States (US) lacks extradition treaties with over fifty nations, including the People's Republic of China and North Korea." So even if they asked the US politely to hand you over, our government would just laugh at them.
How paranoid do you have to be to think that not only is the government of China going to notice you, but send somebody over to get you? Wow.
Doug