Outrunning China's Web Cops

conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interesting story on an outfit, DIT, that provides people in China access to censored sites. To do this, 'the company distributes software, called FreeGate, which disguises the sites a person visits. In addition, DIT sends out mass e-mails to Chinese Web surfers for clients such as VOA, which is banned in China. The e-mails include a handful of temporary Web addresses that host off-limits content and springboards to other forbidden sites.'"

Comments

Re:So..

[CyricZ]

Indeed, this does bring up a very curious issue amongst those who take a stance against unsolicited email. Is it acceptable to send unsolicited email in the name of "freedom"?

Of course, many would say that this isn't a case of "spamming", since there is likely a political, rather than a commercial, nature to the emails. But then it can also be said that political issues often revolve directly around commercial and economic issues.

Regardless, what we will likely see is people take a hypocritical stance to the issue. On one had they'll decry getting spammed by others, while at the same time be willing to do it in the name of "freedom".

Very cool

[MoxFulder]

This is great news, I think. I've often wondered when someone would start an agressive, concerted effort to bypass the Great Firewall of China. Having a native speaker of Chinese working on this is a big asset.

Props to Bill Xia and co! Sounds like his company is doing a lot to promote Internet freedom in China, and for all the right reasons.

Re:Very cool

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has lived in China for a while, and has a lot of experience with the Chinese internet experience, there are a couple of problems here.

First of all, when you guys outside the PRC find out some way to get around the censors, you should shut the fuck up about it...because we already know. Chinese net users are EXTREMELY savvy about this because we USE IT EVERY DAY. You're finding out AFTER we do, so please, shut up so you don't increase the chances that a given method are disrupted by the censors. You are NOT HELPING.

Second, whoever is paying this guy to send VOA into China is getting ripped off. You can find VOA and BBC broadcasts all over Chinese-hosted BitTorrent websites. We have NO TROUBLE finding that stuff, and I don't know anyone in China who has ever heard of this guy in North Carolina. He may think he's making a big difference, and I appreciate anyone who wants to contribute their efforts, but for BusinessWeek (and Slashdot) to make a big deal about this just shows that both of you have no idea what life is really like inside China.

So, kudos to this guy for ripping off the US government to send content into China that is already available to everyone. As for banned websites, we all know how to use proxies, thank you very much, and have programs to keep track of multiple proxies, switching them when one gets slow or goes down.

Every time I see an article like this it pisses me off. Everyone outside seems to think that we're all blind in here. We're not. Our eyes are wide open, no thanks to the west that so quickly jumps into bed with the censors, koutouing to the mighty yuan.

Could it not be a "honeypot" operation?

[CyricZ]

How are users in China supposed to be assured that this isn't just a honeypot-style operation, meant to catch users who wish to access content the government there wishes them not to access?

Not that I'm suggesting this is the case, by any means, but one would have to be quite trusting (or at least willing to face the consequences of getting caught) to use such a system.

Solution?

[OneBigWord]

There are many way to proxy around firewalls. IMHO the solution would be to stop the censorship, not find other way around it. Although the more ways people can get around the censorship the better.

Re:Solution?

[MoxFulder]

IMHO the solution would be to stop the censorship, not find other way around it.

Unfortunately, that doesn't usually work in countries ruled by repressive Communist regimes :-) That's why people take up dissident activities like subverting the Great Firewall.

Independent Satellite Television

[Via_Patrino]

What those people need is an "Independent Satellite Television" broadcasting all over China. There are no firewalls in the air.

And for internet some sort of low orbit "Satellite Internet".

Who wants to pay for all that? :-)

Re:Somebody will fall for this!

[nihaopaul]

why would anyone block http://freebsd.org/ ?? china does, why would anyone block sourceforge.net?? china does, why would anyone block news.bbc.co.uk and not cnn.com ?? ask china... so many sites are blocked, i speak of this from inside china.

and why doesn't slashdot.org provide https://? so we can post these comments without tor?

web2mail.com web email gateway

[hutchike]

I've been offering a free service to China, Cuba and other closed states for many years whereby people can email www@web2mail.com including a URL as the subject of the email. My servers will automatically read and reply with the page. For example a subject of "bbcnews.com" would reply with today's BBC News front page.

The page links in the emailed page are automagically morphed into email links so the user can continue browsing in email-slow-motion.

VPN Railroad

[bergeron76]

Why not create a VPN Railroad? It worked to get American Slaves to Canada.

Using strategically placed vpn points, it may be possible to access an "internal" Chinese server that actually has a tunnel to a northern/European internet portal. From there, the world is open...