Slashdot Mirror
Defeating China's National Firewall
Bruce Schneier is reporting on his blog that a recent paper is discussing how to defeat China's national firewall. From the article: "However, because the original packets are passed through the firewall unscathed, if both of the endpoints were to completely ignore the firewall's reset packets, then the connection will proceed unhindered! We've done some real experiments on this -- and it works just fine!! Think of it as the Harry Potter approach to the Great Firewall -- just shut your eyes and walk onto Platform 9¾."
But even in the west I feel more comfortable using Tor, a (well, close enough) anonymizing proxy.
I used to use JAP (a similar project but the client was Java based and less transparent) but Tor is considerably faster. Throughput up to 60K/sec on a 512k/sec DSL line (as fast as it ever goes with no proxy) means that it's practical to use for all traffic and makes the needle much harder to find in the haystack.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
From reading the article it's not just a hole, it's the primary basis of their "firewall". Their system is apparantly built the way it is because any other method would be too expensive and/or slow. TO prevent this workaround will require enourmous expenditures in reworking their network structure.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Exactly. When I was teaching a Chinese girl this time last year as part of my TESOL course I couldn't help but ask those questions. She said that most people she met in the uk had asked her about the firewall and censorship. She told me that most people she knew didn't really notice or care, even her father who teaches at a university. Make of that what you will. I'm not sure what to make of it.