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Outrunning China's Web Cops

Posted by Zonk on from the watch-out-for-replicants dept.

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.'"

5 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Very cool by MoxFulder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    My bicyles
  2. Could it not be a "honeypot" operation? by CyricZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  3. Re:Solution? by MoxFulder · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.
    --
    My bicyles
  4. Re:Somebody will fall for this! by nihaopaul · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  5. web2mail.com web email gateway by hutchike · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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.

    --
    Zen tips: Pay attention. Don't take it personally. Believe nothing.