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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.'"

7 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. So.. by taskforce · · Score: 5, Funny
    It's not Spam!

    It's FREEDOM MAIL!

    --
    My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
  2. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder how they'll feel when some chinese people end up in jail for using their service.

  3. 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.
  4. 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
  5. Memo to Bill Xia from North Carolina by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Don't ever go to china

    This is one thing which has disuaded me from trying something similar. This is likely to be a serious offense in China and in the future it is actually going to be more difficult to avoid going there for one reason or another.

    I can see several chinese cities becoming transport hubs along the lines of Singapore or LAX before long. You don't want to have to spend the rest of your life avoiding places like that.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  6. 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?

  7. Re:Somebody will fall for this! by 808140 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're an idiot. I can access freebsd.org just fine, and I'm in China.

    Everytime a China-blocks-web-sites related article comes up, some moron gives a list of sites that are supposedly blocked in China. There are definitely blocked sites in China, and it's annoying as all get out, but at least 85% of the sites that Slashbots insist are "blocked in China" are perfectly accessible.

    Please, before shooting your mouth off, do a little research.

    Thanks.