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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."
that most of the Chinese people don't know/care about the firewall?
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It is irresponsible for people to post ways of bypassing the security restrictions a sovereign nation has enacted upon its people. If the Chinese people don't like the way their government is restricting their access to information then they have a moral obligation to overthrow that government, either peacefully via voting in the next election, or by force using a militia formed from the people. By showing the Chinese people ways to exist comfortably within the restrictions imposed by an immoral government we're not helping them to reach a better place in life.. namely a free and democratic Republic of China.
See the parallel?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The chinese internet doesn't belong to the chinese government, it belongs to the chinese people. When they have a real democracy then "they" (the people) can decide how to run it. Until then we shouldn't respect how "they" (the government) want to run the internet any more than we would if some bank robbers were holding hostages and "they" (the robbers) wanted to decide how to run the bank.
I am neither a lawyer nor a Chinese resident, so I am not sure, but I don't think that it is illegal. If someone in China wants to connect to a server in the USA, and that server happened to be told to ignore reset packets from China, then that can't be illegal. If a Chinese citizen's computer just happened to be configured to ignore reset packets, then I doubt that it will be illegal. Having said that, actually looking at forbidden content is probably illegal.
But how will they know? You cannot tell if a remote host is responding to reset packets from your firewall, at least not directly. This seems like it will work.
Currently hooked on AMP
Do you recall that little American Revolution way back in the mid 1770's? You know, the one the then-English colonies were LOSING? The U.S. would have been in quite a pickle without the French providing financial and military aid. Sure, it was in their own self-interest, but that makes their aid no less valuable.
Just because a Revolution receives assisstance from the outside makes it no more or less legitimate.
SirWired
> You cannot tell if a remote host is responding to reset packets from your firewall, at least not directly.
If you had to send multiple resets for the same port pair, they're ignoring you.
Why do you think that the only legitimate way to deal with a bad government is to overthrow it, by election or force? What's wrong with getting a bad government to change its ways?
Do you think that any time a government is doing something bad, that the government should be overthrown (or voted out)? What if a government is doing some really wrong things, but it's also doing some good things? Suppose you think that a President has done one thing that's very wrong, but that aside from that one thing, he's done a fantastic job. Are you morally obliged to vote that President out? Imagine it's 1948. You think Truman did a terrible thing when he used nuclear weapons in Japan, but you approve of everything else he's done, and you don't like Dewey. Are you morally required to vote for Dewey anyway?
Do you think that armed rebellion is the only way for a non-democratic government to become democratic? If so, why do you think this? There are examples in recent history of non-democratic governments becoming democratic without a shot being fired (e.g., most of Eastern Europe). Or think about the way the U.K. changed from a non-democratic monarchy to a parliamentary democracy with a figurehead monarch.
Have you thought about what would be involved in overthrowing China's government by force? For some period of time, China would be without any government at all. Think how wonderful it would be for a country with a population of over a billion and a large supply of nuclear weapons to find itself suddenly without a government.
One way to get a government to stop trying to regulate something is to make its efforts to regulate it spectacularly ineffective. This happened in the United States with Prohibition. Why can't it happen in China?
Why yes, I do. It is why I am a Libertarian. It is a huge waste of time, effort and money to stop drugs. Instead the government should regulate the HELL out of them like they do Cigarettes and Alcohol, and tax them into oblivian. Prolly would get rid of the Income Tax with the revenue.
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AND it would clean up the Drug Cartel Violence found in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
i am neither a lawyer nor a Chinese resident, so I am not sure, but I don't think that it is illegal. If someone in China wants to connect to a server in the USA, and that server happened to be told to ignore reset packets from China, then that can't be illegal. If a Chinese citizen's computer just happened to be configured to ignore reset packets, then I doubt that it will be illegal. Having said that, actually looking at forbidden content is probably illegal.
/. too much (especially if you are a foreign national simply visiting family there), but if they even begin to think you're a subvesrive engaged in treason or sedition, pO.of, you're done, no proof required. Stop, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Go with the nice men in blue uniforms directly to the "police van that looks like any other" parked right outside your front door.
The problem hinges on the fact that the is no (enforceable) law preventing the Chinese government from doing what it likes to who it likes that does anything they don't like. Remember, they require no warrants, no subpoenae, and no trial. They only have to notice that you have accessed something they don't like enough to pay attention to you, and you're toast (see above mentioned death vans).
Perhaps, as another poster mentioned above, the Chinese will restrain themselves up unto the 2008 Olympics, but I doubt it. Again, see the above death wagons, which "look like any other police van." Also, whoever said they haven't got the resources is deluding themselves. If the RIAA has the resources to track people downloading illegally (though the lack the resources to document and prosecute anywhere near the majority), there are 1.3 billion with a "B" people in China. Even though you don't hear about it much, they assault US networks (telecom and government) with regularity. I'm sure they have enough people to monitor home traffic closely enough to suit their purposes - remember, all it takes is a small app to parse logs for forbidden traffic in the past X days or whatever. Combined with random live monitoring and historical traffic analysis, I'm sure they can monitor more than enough to make it as unsafe to commit thought crime on the internet as it is for the average American to get away with hacking the average website hosted by a paranoid provider. I rather doubt they care about anyone posting on
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
Yes, we can mock the Great Firewall implementors for incompetence, but let's remember that the technical means are really only a reminder of the underlying law. Many laws don't have any built-in means of enforcement at all. My car has no speed governor to keep it under 65 mph, does that mean the government is just stupid? Or that I can't get busted for speeding? Almost all laws are easy to break; the real problem is getting away with it, especially if the government decides to target you for whatever reason.