Should We Spam Proxies to China?

Frequent Slashdot Contributor Bennett Haselton is back with a story about fighting censorship with spam. He starts "Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users in China, Iran, and other censored countries, telling them about new proxy sites for getting around Internet censorship? I hasten to add that I have NOT done this, am not planning on doing it and would not have any idea how to go about it anyway. Between the various companies that offer proxy services, I don't know of anyone who is doing it (no, not even people who swore me to secrecy about it). But I think the question involves ethical issues that would not apply to most discussions of spam." Hit that big link below to read the rest of his words.

Lest there be any doubt, I hate spam, getting about 10,000 of them a week with no way to filter them without blocking at least some of my important mail as well; I've tried suing some spammers mostly without success, and humbly proposed one anti-spam algorithm which caught on like wildfire, if the wildfire were spreading through a... rainforest, in the... rain. But I am not against spam a priori (Latin for "unless they are telling me I need to add extra inches"), I'm against spam because that follows from other principles, and in some situations there is some question as to whether those principles still apply. (It is not as simplistic as saying that it is OK to spam "for the greater good". Stay with me!)

Getting back to basics: Why is spam a problem? Because the cost of receiving a message, however minor, is more than the benefits, which are usually microscopic considering the probability that a typical recipient would buy what they're selling. Take a small cost that exceeds a small benefit, multiply by millions of messages per day, and the cost exceeds the benefit by about $70 billion per year.

But, just as a thought experiment, could you conceive of a kind of spam that would not be a nuisance? Suppose you sent an e-mail to millions of people offering them free $20 bills. And you actually followed through and sent the money to anybody who claimed the offer. Then the conventional argument against spam no longer applies, because the e-mails are benefitting people more than they're costing them. It's hard to think of any real-life examples, but if you had sent out mass e-mails telling people about the refund checks for anybody who had bought a CD (it was real, I got my $13.86 in the mail in 2004), I probably wouldn't have come to your house to egg your windows.

"Aha!" some spammer is thinking, "my product does benefit people more than the e-mail costs them! I can help them refinance their homes at a low rate, to take out money they can multiply many times with my new stock tip, and then spend at my friend Tiffanee's new site to help pay her way towards her physics degree!" Wait. Let's just say that you're offering some miracle product at a low price, conferring some huge benefit on each person who buys it. The only costs of spreading your bounty to the world, are whatever advertising costs are incurred in getting the word out. But if your product is really the miracle you say it is, then the benefits to people (even after subtracting the price they paid for it), exceed the costs of the advertising.

Then you have several choices. You can spam to advertise the product. In this case, the costs of the advertising are passed on to unwilling recipients. But if the benefits your product confers are greater than the cost of getting people's attention, then you've still arguably done more good than harm to the world, even if the net effect on some individual people was harmful (on annoyed recipients who didn't end up buying your product). By forcing the advertising costs on other people, you've saved that much more money; you can pocket that benefit yourself, or if you pass on the savings in the form of reduced prices (which you may have to do in a competitive market anyway), you've basically transferred that much benefit by stealing it from the spam recipients and distributing it to your customers. So the main benefit to the world was the wonderfulness of your product, and on top of that, you stole some small benefit from a large number of people and redistributed it to other people, which has no positive or negative net effect.

But, because the benefits of the product outweigh the costs of the advertising, that means in a mostly-free country where your product is legal, you can also buy advertisements to get people's attention, pass the costs on to the customers in the form of slightly higher prices, and have benefits for them left over (otherwise they wouldn't still buy what you're selling). The customers still get the major benefit, the benefit of owning your awesome product. What's missing in this case is the small extra benefit that they were getting before, from you stealing from all the spam recipients and passing the savings on to them.

So for that reason, spammers are prohibited from saying "The benefits of my products exceed the costs of people's attention span to read about it, so it's OK for me to spam", by the reply: "If the benefits really exceed the costs, then you can buy advertising to tell people about it like everyone else."

But now the big question: Would that argument still hold if you wanted to advertise proxies to people in China and Iran?

It doesn't seem that you could use conventional channels to advertise proxies to Chinese and Iranian users. If you bought ads on Google AdSense or a similar ad-serving network, China might threaten to block all ads served from that network unless they started screening out ads for anti-censorship services (especially in the case of Google, which seems to comply with most Chinese self-censorship demands). Then there's the question of how to charge Chinese and Iranian users even small amounts for the services. It would not be a good idea to have the charges show up on their credit cards issued by Chinese banks. Paying small amounts with PayPal would be a little bit better since the charge would simply show up from "PayPal", without revealing the recipient. And since all traffic to the PayPal site is encrypted over SSL, Chinese censors wouldn't be able to detect or block users who were paying to circumvent the Great Firewall, unless they blocked all traffic to the PayPal site. But could PayPal be leaned on to provide the identities of Chinese users who were paying for circumvention services, under threat of having their site blocked otherwise? And the biggest impediment of all would be that once you start charging even $1 for a service, there's a huge dropoff in people willing to sign up, even if they would have to spend much more than $1 worth of effort to find a free alternative somewhere else.

So, if circumvention services provide enough benefit to Chinese users, maybe spamming proxy sites would do more good than harm, and if the lack of freedom in the country means that you could not sell or advertise the services to Chinese users by conventional means, maybe that means spamming the proxy locations would be the only way to do this.

Reading over this, I just realized that if you also believed that pot was beneficial to society, this could also justify spamming to advertise pot. I expect we'll all start getting marijuana spam just as soon as the pothead reading this gets around to it... on, like Tuesday... maybe. Just make sure they don't really get their act together enough to get pot legalized, because if that happens, they lose their rationale for spamming to advertise it! (Thinking about the pot question more seriously, I'd say that if the government banned sales and advertisements of something beneficial like milk, then spamming to advertise milk would be a good thing. The only real argument against spamming for pot is that it isn't as beneficial as milk.)

So that's the mathematical argument in a nutshell:

1. Spam is bad because the costs to society are greater than the benefits. This would not be the case if you were spamming to advertise something whose benefits were greater than the costs of the spam.
2. However, in a mostly-free country where your product is legal to sell, #1 should never be used to justify spamming, because if the benefits of your product are really greater than the costs of the advertising, you can pay for the advertising, add the costs on to the cost of the product, and still have benefits left over to split between the seller and the customer.
3. #2 is not true in non-free countries like China, in which case if a product conferred more benefits than the costs of the spam but was not legal to sell, it might be OK to spam it.

Perhaps this logic is flawed, and I'm sure some people will tell me why they think so. The other question is whether these circumvention services really provide as much benefit to the Chinese and Iranians as those of us who run the services would like to believe. Earlier I argued that the real obstacle to most anti-censorship services is apathy on the part of the target audience, and that it was an unpleasant surprise, when I found some Chinese users on MSN Messenger to ask for help with some technical issue, to find that most of them either supported the Chinese government's censorship or didn't care enough to do anything about it. So for proxy spam to be defensible, it should -- come on, all together now, I can't believe I'm quoting the members of the industry that is the bane of my existence -- include an unsubscribe link that users can click to stop receiving any further e-mails. And a postal return address! Because who could have any cause to complain about an unsolicited e-mail that includes the sender's full mailing address in the footer?

Comments

Responsibility

[Verteiron]

Hasn't China, in the past, executed people who were convicted of intentionally bypassing the Great Firewall and proving the means to do so to others? Will the people who receive lists of proxy servers be punished for possessing them? If not, could China begin to use such punishment as a deterrent to those sending the lists out?

Re:Responsibility

[Verteiron]

Proving=providing. I should have previewed.

Re:Responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

They only executed those who were turned over by Yahoo and Microsoft.

So just need to send them vmware player with something like Linux or BSD on it that allows them to bypass both.

Re:Responsibility

[sBox]

Add a truecrypt hidden volume to that...

Re:Responsibility

[1u3hr]

Hasn't China, in the past, executed people who were convicted of intentionally bypassing the Great Firewall

Where did you hear this? On talk radio perhaps? Please cite something authoritative (a news agency, or even a human rights group) to support this allegation.

China can be pretty oppressive, but this is far beyond anything I've ever heard -- and I live in Hong Kong, which is not censored, but we do hear a lot of what goes on in the mainland.

Anyway, as to TFA's suggested spam to tell people about proxies: What an idiotic idea. Anyone in China with the ability and desire to use a proxy can find it for themselves easily, without some naive dogooder sending lists of sites out that will just alert the authorities which sites to block.

Re:Responsibility

[Verteiron]

Actually, I had two facts mixed up in my head.

1) China executes computer-using criminals (media reported as hackers) who embezzled money:
http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6095/student-papers/fa ll97-papers/kim-crime.html (search for "Shi Biao", or just Google "hacker Shi Biao")

2) China treats those who bypass its censorship harshly:
http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/147/

Somewhere I got the idea that the "hackers" were executed for bypassing the Great Firewall. My mistake. However, China -does- punish those who bypass its censorship controls and thus I think my original point remains valid; anyone that receives lists of proxy servers is in danger of being harassed by the government for it.

Re:Responsibility

[Anonymous Coward]

totally DISAGREE!
I have been using proxy for several years since 1997(at that stage, there were very few networks in China and is much easier to monitor than now I guess) before I came to USA. never got harassment or heard of any such problem.

Don't make general conclusion when you only have a special case.
Also, as far as I know, many friends of mine are using proxies to access foreign sites daily.
However I don't think they care a lot about free speeches, democracy,etc. craps or not.

Re:Responsibility

[frankenheinz]

We can fake them out by using misleading subject lines such as "New size for Men especially for new feelings of women at once!"

Re:Responsibility

[1u3hr]

, China -does- punish those who bypass its censorship controls and thus I think my original point remains valid

Punish, execute, all the same really. Why bother to differentiate?

Re:Responsibility

[shutdown -p now]

Hasn't China, in the past, executed people who were convicted of intentionally bypassing the Great Firewall and proving the means to do so to others?

Has it? Seriously, can you give a reference (not necessarily a link even) to any such story?

If only it were that simple

[rastoboy29]

The problem isn't that there aren't any technological workarounds to censorship.  The problem is that the governments are allowed to get away with it, and users have to _know_ that they are breaking the law by circumventing it.

The problem can only be properly resolved by changing the law in those countries which do this.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Aim Here]

But one way of changing a law is to make it completely unenforceable by a mass civil disobedience campaign aimed at breaking that law, so that the authorities give up on the massive waste of resources needed to enforce it. For that, you'd probably want everyone and his dog to be using these censorship workarounds, rather than just the select elite cognoscenti, so finding some method of advertising the workarounds would be in order.

To answer the original query, though, I reckon that 'Spammers against censorship' is probably a bad idea. To attempt to counteract obnoxious behavior by a government with obnoxious behaviour aimed squarely at its victims seems to be both counterproductive (people will hate you for it and might oppose your cause) and unethical (you're doing a big pile of harm to the people you want to liberate). So no.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Attila Dimedici]

"The problem is that the governments are allowed to get away with it" Exactly how can the government of Iran or China be prevented from getting away with it? Unless of course you are advocating either that those countries should have a revolution, or that the US should invade them. I'm not going to say that you are wrong if you are advocating revolution in those countries, however, it is important that it be remembered that, unlike in most first world countries, the people of China and Iran (and most other countries with strong internet censorship) do not have the ability to change the laws of their country without some sort of violent revolution or outside intervention.

Re:If only it were that simple

[MrNaz]

I don't suppose anyone would agree with me if I said that we should just let the people in that country deal with their government the way they see fit? There are many places around the world right now that see the inbred offspring of the private sector and government in the US as a de-facto totalitarian state, but if anyone decided to assist in freeing the American people from the yokes of the capitalism cum fascism system, they'd get labeled "terrorist" on short order. Here's a novel idea: Leave other countries and societies alone. It didn't work in Vietnam, it resulted in untold misery and suffering in Chile and its causing the same suffering in Afghanistan and Iraq. Interfering in other peoples' lives, even if you *do* mean well (which governments never do), very rarely works, if ever.

Re:If only it were that simple

[evilandi]

But one way of changing a law is to make it completely unenforceable by a mass civil disobedience campaign

Never, ever, assume that "not being able to execute huge numbers of people fast enough" is equivalent to "unenforcable".

Re:If only it were that simple

[nuzak]

> But one way of changing a law is to make it completely unenforceable by a mass civil disobedience campaign

You first. I suggest a nice busy and visible public space, like Tianmen Square.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Znork]

"finding some method of advertising the workarounds would be in order."

Of course, advertising the workarounds may quite likely be the best way to get any such workarounds quickly and throughly shut down.

If I were a nefarious government out to block such bypasses I'd simply thank those spammers for the blocklists and auto-blacklist every such proxy (except the ones I was setting up myself to observe who were using them in case I needed to make some examples in the future).

Mass distribution is pointless as a way of censorship avoidance; darknets are the way to go, as you fundamentally have to solve the trust issue.

Dont worry tho, the MAFIAA has put sufficiently strong evolutionary pressure on the technology that various forms of darknet communications will become the norm rather than the exception, which will make monitoring and control of any communications near impossible for anyone anyway. For better or worse.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that would be a good place... my google.cn search of Tiananmen Square says that nothing like this has ever occurred there before.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Well, if its never been done there, then maybe it should! I'd go if I could afford it , really I would.

On a side note, I think slashdot may just have been made inaccessible in china due to this thread. Or has it always been that way?

Re:If only it were that simple

[dgatwood]

Remember, kids, you don't have to kill everyone who breaks the law. You just have to kill a handful as an example to the rest of them, and the others will fall in line like sheep. Sad, but true.

Of course, the reverse is also true. You don't have to bomb the capital of every country that violates the basic human rights of its citizens to make a point. You just have to bomb one (pick a small, easy target like Iraq) and then tell China "keep this crap up and you're next". Of course, with China being a nuclear power, that's probably not a good thing to insinuate. That probably means it will happen soon, and we're all screwed.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Vancorps]

So you're saying World War I and II didn't work? You did rarely so we could call them exceptions to the rule. The problem is your statement is that your advocating isolationism and that simply doesn't work as it gives an economy no direction for it to grow. That is why the U.S. is involved in so many countries because our economy depends on growth. If companies with public share holders weren't required to make the most profit then we could probably find something sustainable within our own borders. Until the underlying greed is vanquished this will never happen.

Also, the people in North Korea I think see fit that their government is good for them and is serving in their best interests because they aren't educated in the alternatives. While the U.S. is far from perfect we are still free to see any and all alternatives and talk about them openly. It would be great to be able to leave other countries alone but when you depend on them for food on your table that is what you get.

Look at all the people calling for us to intervene with Darfur. A great cause and one we could probably do a lot of good in but it is us butting into another country's business. You had Somalia and Kosovo in more recent history. Neither situations resulted in a complete turn around but don't people have to try? Same goes with Afghanistan. Iraq is a different sad issue. War is never successful but it almost always leads to some pretty massive changes for good and bad.

Isolationism didn't work for us before, I don't think anything has changed that would make me thing is would work now. Picking our battles more intelligently would be a better move in my opinion.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

being a devil's advocat, what would you do with a country known to be carrying out genocide, like nazi germany? Would you have the right to invade that country and "correct" its peoples' behavior?

Re:If only it were that simple

[cliffski]

In world war two a dangerous power that had invaded numerous neighbouring countries and was armed to to teeth posed a threat to world peace. This is not true of china.
You may consider the people of North Korea to be ignorant of what is wrong with their govt and the better system that you have in the US, but there are people in scandinavian countries with high systems of state welfare who would consider the USA to be barbaric in some ways, and assume that its brainwashed citizens just aren't aware of how much better a socialist government can be.
Looking at other countries, and saying they need to all be like you, rarely works out well. Empires do not last, regardless how many guns you have, and attempting to interfere with the way other countries are run tends to breed resentment.
People in Texas went ballistic at a UK letter writing campaign prior to the last US election, where UK liberals asked them not to vote for Bush. I can only imagine how Americans would react to spam for Venezuella telling you whats wrong with your government.

Re:If only it were that simple

[timeOday]

I agree with your point, though not because China has the nuclear bomb in particular. Their strength is their economy. In the long run this is all that matters. With money you can develop or buy arms and other technology, buy limited natural resources (oil), and a louder voice at the UN, etc. Much has been made of specific transfers of sensitive technology to China. But the bigger picture is that all this is inevitable so long as their economic growth is outstripping ours; they will come closer to parity with us in all other respects. And we are so helpful in assisting them with our massive trade deficit, each year bringing our nations closer to economic parity. Maybe it will turn out well and the hypothesis that capitalism breeds democracy will be proven correct; on the other hand, maybe not. It seems like an awfully big gamble to me, so I'm surprised there isn't more concern and debate about it.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Vancorps]

I didn't mean to suggest we should intervene in China, when I said we should pick our battles more intelligently I was implying that we should stay out of frivolous pursuits such as that. I did not say it outright. I was also similarly not implying that we should do anything with North Korea, only an example of a populous that has no hope of rising against their government to change anything. Their culture seems to accept their reality so let them be. Afghanistan, Somalia, and Kosovo were examples I provided where we should be involved given that Afghanistan at the time was posing a clear threat harboring internationally wanted criminals.

I was merely suggesting that isolationism doesn't work and that there are legitimate reasons to get involved in another country's affairs. Picking those battles in not an easy task. I'm not suggesting the current course of action is anything close to perfect but I can't accept isolationism. The Scandinavian countries have been doing a lot of things right, of course they aren't perfect either as you don't see a whole lot of new research and technology come from there. That is changing of course as well as the current atmosphere in America doesn't exactly promote intellectualism which is unfortunate to say the least.

Of course as an American I can freely converse with anyone in any country so the mechanism exists for outsiders to educate me in the wrongs of my country and despite what you think, I don't hate them for informing about things I didn't know were happening. Of course more often they are shouting complete fabrications and it is up to me to correct them. It's like all those people that visit NYC or go to Disneyland and think the whole country is the same. Some things you can only learn from an outsiders perspective, and some things you really have be an insider to know. Gotta love the fuzzy world where things are clearly right and wrong.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

'Interfering' in other countries may be necessary sometimes, eg in WW2, or in former Yugoslavia. China is our biggest trading partner, and the cultural direction and public policy there does make a big difference here as well as the rest of the world. I will not claim to be an expert on global politics. I grew up listening to Voice of America, and BBC Urdu in Pakistan (beamed from outside the borders), which were meant to infleucnce local opinion and go around govt censorship. I welcomed this 'interference', otherwise I'd have a very narrow world view now. The Vietnam style examples you quote maybe relevant, but wouldn't you agree that if we could, in a not-so-dramatic way, help Chinese users access banned internet sites, it'd eventually prove to be good for America, and the rest of the world?

Re:If only it were that simple

[poptones]

You don't have to bomb the capital of every country that violates the basic human rights of its citizens to make a point. You just have to bomb one...

ROTFL.

"Everybody stand back or the nigger gets it!"

Re:If only it were that simple

[quanticle]

So you're saying World War I and II didn't work?

World War I didn't work. The victorious Allies, in an attempt to teach Germany and Austria a lesson, imposed penalties so harsh that both economies were crippled for the entire interbellum period, greasing the rails for a demagogue to take power. The Allies also did a horrible job in splitting up the Balkans, the Middle East, and numerous other portions of the world that had been previously ruled by Germany/Austria. Heck, if it hadn't been for the Treaty of Versailles, we probably wouldn't have had the bloodshed in the Balkans that we did. After World War I, the US entered one of its most isolationist periods because the American public could see that the US had wasted thousands of lives and billions of dollars for little strategic gain.

World War II was different. It much more about self-defense. Japan could (and did) attack US soil. Germany was on the verge of owning the vital Atlantic trade routes. America had to fight or submit.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Er...both China and Iran already have had revolutions which installed the current governments. If anything, it would appear that a large number of the population of both countries is not only quite happy with the current state of affairs, they could, would and did fight for it to be that way!

Re:If only it were that simple

[Vancorps]

Japan attacked America because we cut off their oil. If we had been isolationists we wouldn't have been dealing with them in the first place let alone cutting off a vital supply we knew they needed. We had plenty of oil, we cut off their supply to slow their growth and to allow us to continue our western expansion. Isolationists we were when it came to matters in Europe but certainly not on the Pacific side.

As for protecting our trade routes, we were giving guns and ammo along with medical supplies to the British during that time and that is why the Germans attacked our ships. For quite a while our trade routes were uninterrupted until we started aiding our allies.

World War I did work, it ceased the violence and as you stated, the reason why it fell apart was because the two countries couldn't survive under the imposed conditions. The reasoning for entering the war was sound. The aftermath was not handled properly. Sounds an awful lot like what's happening in Afghanistan right now. We went there for all the right reasons but then allowed ourselves to get sidetracked into Iraq which did not have sound reasoning. Congress really dropped the ball on that one, amazingly so.

World War II was more straight forward but no one was bringing the war to American soil. It wasn't until after we started involving ourselves in the politics of the world that they turned hostile towards us. Fortunately it looks like the lessons of WWI were learned and applied to WWII as opposed to the lessons of Vietnam being applied to the Golf. Sad when people don't learn and even worse when people that should know better don't say anything to stop it.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Of course, the reverse is also true. You don't have to bomb the capital of every country that violates the basic human rights of its citizens to make a point. You just have to bomb one (pick a small, easy target like Iraq) and then tell China "keep this crap up and you're next".

And we know how well that worked.

Re:If only it were that simple

[rastoboy29]

It worked in South Africa.

Re:If only it were that simple

[vertinox]

So you're saying World War I and II didn't work?

To be fair, WWI did not work and resulted in WWII.

And to be really fair, the Imperial Kaiser parliament was more democratic than our Tsarist allies and on par with the British Imperial colonial rule. (Ask anyone in India and Pakistan if the British Empire was democratic)

Had Germany won WWI, then WWII would have never happened. Germany would have migrated towards a more democratic government due to its pressures from the German parliament to move towards a more constitutional government.

Hitler would have no impetus to get into politics nor would the Nationalist Socialist party would not have gotten the disenfranchised veteran support it needed to win the 1933 elections and the holocaust would have never happened.

Lastly, Imperial Germany would have guaranteed the independence of Finland, Ukraine, Baltic states against Soviet Occupation keeping them from having to suffer 60 years of communist rule.

Oh and lastly... Imperial Germany was at odds with Imperial Japan over its Pacific holdings. If Imperial Germany was around then they would be at war with Japan way before Japan would with the US.

So maybe... Just maybe that interventions we had during WWI had some blowback that was unintended. Of course when we do this we get into the game of what-ifs? I mean what if Franz Ferdinand didn't get shot? Who the heck knows... The the truth is that WWI caused WWII and more suffering because of bad politics and foreign policy.

Re:If only it were that simple

[MrNaz]

Worst example ever. I am South African, and the events there are the very reason I believe what I believe. International pressure had little to do with the 1994 bloodless revolution, it was all internal. Sure, black activists sought refuge elsewhere, but the apartheid government was not put under much real pressure from outside. Yes, there constant reprimands from overseas, and there were sanctions, but none of these led to the downfall of the apartheid state, as it was (giving credit where credit is due) incredibly good at being self-sufficient, was immensely rich from diamond and gold exports as well as weapons sales (South Africa was and still is a major exporter of arms) and manged to get everything it needed from the quiet dealings it had with the same governments that decried its domestic policies. If you really think that South Africa fell because the US made a few movies about how bad the apartheid regime was then you probably also think that Saddam got all his weapons from the commies.

Re:If only it were that simple

[n dot l]

So you're saying World War I and II didn't work? The USA's involvement in WWI was a reaction to an attack on America's trading partners. Pushing the Germans back was a success. Post-war Europe was a failure because the reparations imposed on Germany resulted in WWII - not that this is the USA's fault, America had achieved its stated goals at that point.

As for WWII, America didn't do much more than sell guns to the Allies until after the Japanese attack and the German declaration of war. Let's not confuse self-defense with "being good people" and "policing the world" because the two are really quite unrelated.

As for Kosovo - I'm amazed that everyone's already forgotten that both the Serbs and the Albanians hold a grudge against us over that (the Serbs because we fought them and the Albanians because we won't sponsor their revenge). It may not be a majority of either group that hates us, but this is a region where small, motivated, minorities have always and will always rule. History has not ended in the Balkans, I assure you (nor has it ended here - but that's another issue).

Speaking of people hating us over Kosovo, have we also forgotten Russia threatening to attack if NATO didn't pull out of the region? Or the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy and the amount of rage that generated in China?

As for Darfur I don't care how bad it is we could and probably would make it worse - for evidence see Iraq, which went from totalitarian oppression to a very bloody civil war (yes, the civil war is worse than Saddam was, both for the Iraqis and for us).

That is why the U.S. is involved in so many countries because our economy depends on growth. If companies with public share holders weren't required to make the most profit then we could probably find something sustainable within our own borders. Until the underlying greed is vanquished this will never happen. Here, let me fix that: Until the government grows some balls and reigns in the underlying greed that's destroying the domestic economy and undermining our security this will never happen. Of course we could predicate that with: Until people stop supporting the export of our major industries to China and force our government and corporations to act like responsible adults with an interest in their own country...

Isolationism didn't work for us before, I don't think anything has changed that would make me thing is would work now. Picking our battles more intelligently would be a better move in my opinion. I couldn't agree more. I have no problem maintaining a large military and using against our enemies. I certainly have no problem stopping future Hitlers. What I have a problem with is the tendency to confuse every tin-pot tyrant with Hitler and go to war on "moral" grounds. This is a terrible waste of human life and resources.

But it's not just staying out of wars we have no real interest in (beyond the feel-good notion of "helping" people) - it's also winning wars by crushing our opposition and then getting the hell out of there. Trying to beat freedom, democracy, free markets, good will towards man, peace on earth, and whatever other insane philosophy we like to think is true into people that hate (make that really hate) each other doesn't work and we'd be much better off if our leaders understood that.

Of course, until people stop turning every national election into a referendum on irrelevant issues (like which candidate is a nicer person) this will never happen.

Re:If only it were that simple

[dbIII]

Much has been made of specific transfers of sensitive technology to China

A lot is built there in the first place. For the rest there are anecdotes like the classified tank weapons control system given to Israel as part of an aid deal that on-sold to China and is now installed in tanks in Iran (information source was US senate hearings in 2001). Before anybody misses the point and plays some sort of racist angle what I am saying is that once you give it away you do not have control of what happens afterwards - there's not a lot you can do about criminal activity in another country.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Bearing in mind that the entire mobile phone industry was pretty well invented in Scandinavia (Sweden and Finland)I think you are being a bit hard on them when you claim that "you don't see a whole lot of new research and technology come from there". On a population basis I suspect they do pretty well.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Starcom8826]

Yeah...the US cut off its oil after the Japanese refused to continue their imperial expansion in China and the like. Oh how evil of it, forcing the Japanese to declare war on us by making them choose to either back off from a war they couldn't fight without oil, or to go take it by force. Worst reasoning ever.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Morkano]

On a side note, I think slashdot may just have been made inaccessible in china due to this thread. Or has it always been that way? I imagine if it were accessible we would occasionally get people from China chiming in with insightful comments on these sorts of stories.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Antique Geekmeister]

Who bombd the LAPD?

Re:If only it were that simple

[humpy101]

In world war two a dangerous power that had invaded numerous neighbouring countries and was armed to to teeth posed a threat to world peace. This is not true of china YET

There, fixed it for ya

Re:If only it were that simple

[xophos]

Maybe the "human rights activists" here posting from the USA should first take action against their own government. I'm thinking in the lines of Guantanamo...

Re:If only it were that simple

[jamar0303]

And hope that the people you decide to make examples of aren't foreigners. Very easy way of causing international incidents that way, and reducing foreign investment in the country to 0.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an American and I agree wholeheartedly with you (with the exception of the wholly gratuitous slam in the second sentence).

Do-gooders and world-improvers (American and otherwise) need to spare the world from their genius, and the world might be a better place.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Loosifur]

Actually, I've heard a revised theory about capitalism and democracy. It's not the classic "free markets make free people" deal, because China is a great example of that. People in China have tremendous access to markets and pretty considerable economic freedoms given the state that they live in. However, political freedom is still pretty much nonexistent, although that's beginning to change for the following reason: the presence of a middle class. The newish idea is that there isn't a direct link between capitalism and democracy so much as the growth of a substantial middle class and democracy. It may seem like a distinction without a difference but the important implications are that a.) you can't just institute market reform and have a functioning democracy the next week, and b.) you don't necessarily need to adopt a capitalist system as long as resources can be distributed in such a way as to allow the formation of a middle class (although it seems to help).

Re:If only it were that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Who bombd the LAPD?

That would be redundant.

Re:If only it were that simple

[quanticle]

As for protecting our trade routes, we were giving guns and ammo along with medical supplies to the British during that time and that is why the Germans attacked our ships.

And why were we giving guns and ammo to the Brits? That's right, they were protecting our trade routes.

World War I did work, it ceased the violence...

The main reason that the violence ceased was that both sides were nearing their economic limits. Neither side had the resources to continue the struggle. You can't go on losing millions of men per year and still hope to have a sound economy. The entry of the US hastened the end, but it would have ended one way or another around that time.

The reasoning for entering the war was sound.

What was the reasoning for entering that war? The US had no horse in that race.

World War II was more straight forward but no one was bringing the war to American soil.

American soil was invaded. The Japanese invaded the Philippines, which were under American control at the time. They also invaded the Aleutian islands, hoping to get the natural resources there.

Re:If only it were that simple

[MrNaz]

"economy depends on growth"

You, my friend, know nothing of economics. You talk of growth, when all that has happened in the last hundred years is work hours have lengthened, disposable incomes as a fraction of total income have dropped, national debt has soared, retirement age has increased etc etc. Growth has nothing to do with it. It's about re-instituting global slavery, only this time they call it "market forces" and the slave-masters are the rulers of the private sector.

As for the supposed interventions that you talk about that were necessary, it's total BS. Ask yourself how the US government decides *which* countries to intervene in, and why. Take a look, a close honest look, and you'll find that no country is invaded and no action is taken unless there is political, economic or strategic capital to be made. There is no such thing as altruism in global politics, and anyone who thinks there is, is a fool.

Re:If only it were that simple

[cliffski]

it's not true of sweden yet either. or Andorra. You consider every nation that's not the USA a threat?
No wonder the US seems paranoid.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Vancorps]

Your timelines are a bit off there. The Aleutian Islands were invaded after hostilities had already began in an attempt to divert our forces away from Midway. That was after we forced Japan into a conflict.

As for reasoning to enter World War I it was pretty simple, our allies requested help and in return were willing to give us more say in world affairs. A pretty sane reason to fight for a country if there is sanity to be found in war.

As I said in my post as well, when we were shipping non-military items to Britain our ships were not being destroyed. It was until we started shipping specifically guns and ammo that they started sinking everything that moved.

Also in regards to the Philippines MacArthur was supplying Filipino guerillas with weapons to fend of the Japanese advancements. We were not controlling the Philippines at that time. We actually moved up our schedule to go back there because of Japanese aggression with MacArthur blockading New Guinea cutting off Japanese resources.

As I said, your timelines are off. Japan was hungry for oil because of invading China which had no diplomatic relations with us at the time. We saw what Japan was doing and chose to hinder their efforts.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Vancorps]

Honestly this reply makes no sense, the sarcasm is rank but completely misguided. The only reason we ever tangled with the Japanese was because their ideas for expansion collided with the U.S. ideas for expansion and the two were mutually exclusive. Japan didn't refuse to continue imperial expansion in China. They had to stop because they were running out of oil and couldn't protect their tiny island which is why MacArthur made such gains initially.

You can argue bad reasoning but the last three words of your post have no relation to the the rest of it.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Vancorps]

Surely if you're in the what-if game then you might have considered the what-if we didn't impose such hard conditions on Germany and Austria after WWI. If that would have happened both countries would have prospered along with the whole of Europe and WWII wouldn't have happened either. I think we both agree that the U.S. didn't make the right move. Where we disagree is probably in our opinion of what the right move should have been.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Vancorps]

Considering Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Sun, Cisco, HP, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and a myriad of other companies with massive reach into other countries your statement about growth is simply asinine. There is no slavery in this country. I grew up with a middle income family bordering poverty at times; I wanted a car, I got out and found a job so I could buy the car. I bought the car, started a business with no initial capital. I financed myself through high school then went to college where I flew into debt. Now I'm out of college making damn good money with a clear view of what's ahead being debt free in two years and starting my company back up now that I'm 3000 miles away from where I grew up. To call that slavery is absurd.

As for Somalia and Kosovo sure we had other motives for intervening but it was to directly help one side getting slaughtered. Just like WWII only on a smaller scale. Deciding which countries to intervene in should be a public debate. No one suggested all moves were right or even that most were. Only that doing something is better than doing nothing. Isolationism doesn't work.

The U.S. government directly decides who we get involved with but when enough people disagree with this they get voted out and course slowly shifts. Takes time to convince enough of the 300 million people in this country that action should change course.

Re:If only it were that simple

[MrNaz]

Considering Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Sun, Cisco, HP, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and a myriad of other companies with massive reach into other countries your statement about growth is simply asinine. There is no slavery in this country. I grew up with a middle income family bordering poverty at times; I wanted a car, I got out and found a job so I could buy the car. I bought the car, started a business with no initial capital. I financed myself through high school then went to college where I flew into debt. Now I'm out of college making damn good money with a clear view of what's ahead being debt free in two years and starting my company back up now that I'm 3000 miles away from where I grew up. To call that slavery is absurd.

I think you've completely missed my point. While you very well may be happy with your life, and I'm sure there are many like you as well, the vast majority of people arent aware of just how repressive the entirety of the system is. You may be debt free soon, but you'd be in a tiny majority once you get there. A man wiser than I once said that "debt is the slavery of the free". It was also said that "None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."

As for Somalia and Kosovo sure we had other motives for intervening but it was to directly help one side getting slaughtered. Just like WWII only on a smaller scale. Deciding which countries to intervene in should be a public debate. No one suggested all moves were right or even that most were. Only that doing something is better than doing nothing. Isolationism doesn't work.

I'm not sure how you managed, but you've completely missed my point again. I am not advocating isolationism. I am advocating a non-invasive, non-exploitative foreign policy. I'll put this as simply as I can: Stopping massacres is good. Interfering to secure your own resources is bad.

The U.S. government directly decides who we get involved with but when enough people disagree with this they get voted out and course slowly shifts. Takes time to convince enough of the 300 million people in this country that action should change course.

Oh come on. You're not one of the fools who thinks that democracy is still functional in the US are you? The last election showed the rest of the world that the US is not a democracy at all because the vote is so easily manipulable by indirect means. Even if it wasn't the rest of the world is now aware that US citizens do *not* know whats good for them, and should have their country taken over and a new system of government instituted. Kinda like what the US is doing to Iraq at the moment. Before you get all huffy, that's not a serious comment, but a throwback to my initial comment in this thread.

Re:If only it were that simple

[Starcom8826]

Japan never stopped expansion in China (or anywhere for that matter) until they were defeated. They would have had to due to lack of oil, this is true. And they would have either have had to source it from somewhere else, negotiate an end to their expansion, or seize resources for war by force. They chose the last option, and consequently attacked the US to make it feasible. That in no way is forcing Japan to attack the US. Any suggestion of that reeks of horrible revisionism.

Re:If only it were that simple

[boltik]

Never, ever, assume that "not being able to execute huge numbers of people fast enough" is equivalent to "unenforcable". Actually "Being accustomed to execute or punish huge number of people" is tied to "unenforceable"

This is like the pro-christian spam I get

[eodmightier]

Look spam is spam. I'm sure when the christian folks spam me about the lord or whatever nonsense, they really feel they are doing the right thing. I still don't want it though.

The people over there who know about the proxies don't want to see your spam. If anything this would do nothing more than make the situation worse and you'd probably see a tighting down of their firewall system.

Re:This is like the pro-christian spam I get

[obergfellja]

so basically, no matter what the cause or the email message, if the receiver does not want the email, (even if it is from a friend, it is considered SPAM. I totally agree with that.

Re:This is like the pro-christian spam I get

[couchslug]

The OP was really asking the wrong question.

The question should have been "What are the best ways to help interested Chinese find information the help them circumvent government censorship?.

One way might be to make such information available on websites visited by Chinese. Instead of a proxy IP address, a picture of that IP address might help evade automated searches. Remember how the "Devils Own" XP key was distributed as a .jpeg? Sites could carry "informative pictures" and update them frequently.

Re:This is like the pro-christian spam I get

[evanknight]

Shutup and accept jesus already.

Re:This is like the pro-christian spam I get

[fm6]

The question should have been "What are the best ways to help interested Chinese find information the help them circumvent government censorship?.

It's traditional on Slashdot to go directly to the fun "how do I use this technology?" skipping the boring "what do I want to do?"

Re:This is like the pro-christian spam I get

[quenda]

> Instead of a proxy IP address, a picture of that IP address might help evade automated searches.

Automated?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_firewall

"It is estimated that around 30,000 police are employed in this gigantic project."

Re:This is like the pro-christian spam I get

[Antique Geekmeister]

It's even more traditional to go directly to "troll the readers" when there's not going to be any more SCO news for a while.

Re:This is like the pro-christian spam I get

[Yvanhoe]

I don't know about this "Devils Own" XP key, but I could see a webserver giving a different page depending on which IP it gets its requests from. From Chinese government-owned IPs : a neutral website, from any other IP : "here is the link to the proxy server".

That could puzzle some human enquirers with low technical knowledge for a while.

except it doesnt matter if the legit gets there

[wizardforce]

the problem is that it isn't below China and Iran to just block EVERYTHING that remotely resembles a method around the great firewalls they set up. the power to filter what people see overrides any consideration for getting legit emails/ads to the user. and unlike in many countries in the western world the government has no problem delving into technology to fix this little problem.

Re:except it doesnt matter if the legit gets there

[aldousd666]

I think you're right, I mean, perhaps they ban any and everything (only chinese ranges/subnets allowed, etc) they don't already know about, then proxies are good for jack shit... I mean you can make rules for ipaddress ranges and subnets, or even coming from/to specific hosts, so it's simple enough for them just to
A) stop your spam from coming in.
2) Filter out attempts to connect to proxies
D) Kill the people trying to do it in the name of the Republic.
My tongue-in-cheekness aside I think the OP is quite possibly chasing his own tail up a red herrings ass on this one. Kinda like one might when they've been smoking a little too much pot....

No for two reasons

[Sycraft-fu]

1) It is still unsolicited e-mail. You may think that there's something I really, really want. You may believe to the core of your being it is something I care about. You may still be wrong. There may well be people in those restricted countries that just don't give a shit. Perhaps all of the web they care about is allowed through the filters. Thus they really don't want to hear from you.

2) More importantly e-mail is not secure. The government will find out, they will monitor the spam, and they will use that to either block your proxies or arrest those that use them or whatever. Sending an unsecured plain text message advertising something illegal in a country known to monitor the Internet is, well, stupid.

Re:No for two reasons

[metlin]

Or worse yet, they may monitor those who receive the spam and pick them out for "preferential treatment" - and the next time one of them uses the proxy, their family maybe sent a bullet and a bill.

Are you ready to take the responsibility for that?

Re:No for two reasons

[Ajehals]

You could add to your second point that the government, if it wished, could produce these emails and claim that they indicate intent to do something illegal and therefore arrest anyone who received one, whether they acted upon it or not.

I doubt that totalitarian regimes require help in fabricating or identify evidence of arrestable offences, but there is no reason to make it easier for them.

Re:No for two reasons

[UbuntuDupe]

It is still unsolicited e-mail. You may think that there's something I really, really want.

Do you believe that in general (going beyond email here) it is wrong to solicit a non-free good or service to someone who has not explicitly invited that kind of offer?

And is there any clear way to ask that question with only one negative?

Re:No for two reasons

[kimvette]

1) It is still unsolicited e-mail. You may think that there's something I really, really want. You may believe to the core of your being it is something I care about. You may still be wrong. There may well be people in those restricted countries that just don't give a shit. Perhaps all of the web they care about is allowed through the filters. Thus they really don't want to hear from you.

Or maybe, just maybe, Chinese citizens will discover that there are countries where freedom of expression without fear of reprisal exists (it used to here in America but now can supposedly land you on a no-fly-list or worse) and they may discover things that they do care deeply about once they're exposed to it, and no, I am not referring to pr0n.

Re:No for two reasons

[malsdavis]

3) Do people in those countries actually desire uncensored internet?

Although I personally hate the idea of censorship, the one thing I hate even more (or maybe equaly, but the two are closely related anyway) is others pushing their ethics and morales on me (e.g. Religious spam which is some of the most irritating around).

In the case of Iran in particular, there is no doubt that the current government was democratically elected by a large majority, despite the clear implication that the internet would be censored. Is there evidence that the average lay person (i.e. spam recipients) in these countries desire uncensored internet access?

If we start spamming them saying how they should all use methods to bypass censorship because we consider censorship immoral than we have to expect and support Iranians sending us spam saying how we should use censorship proxies (along with a plethora of "change your immoral, infidel culture" crap).

Re:No for two reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

-snip-Or worse yet, they may monitor those who receive the spam and pick them out for "preferential treatment" - and the next time one of them uses the proxy, their family maybe sent a bullet and a bill.-/snip-

Hey, it works for me - start sending the emails asap, because the more citizens their government offs, the fewer they will have to conscript into their army. And you know we will have to fight them sooner or later, because they want the same things we do - oil, metals, etc. And it should be sooner, because they are starting to get too cozy with the Russians, who still want to "reeducate" western populations... it is our duty to make it happen! don't delay!

Re:No for two reasons

[An ominous Cow art]

1) It is still unsolicited e-mail. You may think that there's something I really, really want. You may believe to the core of your being it is something I care about. You may still be wrong. There may well be people in those restricted countries that just don't give a shit. Perhaps all of the web they care about is allowed through the filters. Thus they really don't want to hear from you. That's how I feel about Slashdot sigs. Funny quotes, etc: those were ok. Then more and more people began putting advertising crap there (free iPod,/gmail account anyone?), so I turned off sigs in my preferences.

Then, people started using browser plugins, or just cutting and pasting, to add their crap to every message in a way that turning off sigs won't stop. So, my only recourse here is to mark those people as a Foe. I think some of these people genuinely think they're doing people a service. One in particular had something to do with solar energy, for example.

I don't care how positive your message is, if you attempt to force it on me by bypassing the filters I have in place, you have earned my contempt.

So, to answer TFA's question, No, it is not ok to spam people about your proxies, even if it's to advance the cause of freedom.

Re:No for two reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, spam sucks, but what makes people in Iran so different?

The answer to your question may lie here:

In the case of the USA in particular, there is no doubt that the current government was democratically elected by a large majority, despite the clear implication that the internet would be censored. Is there evidence that the average lay person (i.e. spam recipients) in these countries desire uncensored internet access?

Re:No for two reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

"In the case of Iran in particular, there is no doubt that the current government was democratically elected by a large majority..."

Perhaps you are young, or, if older, didn't follow their last election, where the religious leaders of Iran banned every moderate candidate from running. Their current President is the only one among those that remained who had any public support at all. It was basically a complete farce, a long and roundabout way for the self-appointed unelected religious leaders of the country to appoint a figurehead.

It is sort of like having both a King and a Parliament, except the King can both enact any law he wants AND veto anything Parliament does, and has his own private army that is bigger and better trained than the official national army. In other words, it's like not having a Parliament at all, but claiming to for PR reasons.

Re:No for two reasons

[Sycraft-fu]

Well I'd be careful about calling Iran's government democratically elected. There's no question they had an election, but that doesn't mean the people were free to choose their government. Many a dictatorship has been known to hold phony elections for political reasons. Freedom House rates Iran as being not free and a 6 of 7 (7 being the worst) in political and civil liberties. In particular what happens is the Council of Guardians (who are not elected and are appointed by the Supreme Leader) disqualifies candidates, and in the latest election disqualified reformist candidates. Also, the president isn't the head of Iran's government, the Supreme Leader is, and he's not elected by the people, he's elected by the Assembly of Experts. That body IS elected, but only from government approved candidates.

Just because a country goes thorough motions of elections, doesn't mean that the people are actually free to choose their government. Often, it is just for show.

http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&c ountry=7196&year=2007

Re:No for two reasons

[pete-classic]

You weren't addressing me, but I'll chime in.

Take, for example TV or a magazine. There's an implicit contract. The TV station or the magazine publisher uses advertising revenue to subsidize the cost of the product. I know this going in, and tacitly consent to this arrangement. Or don't.

I have email for personal and/or business purposes. (This applies equally to telephone.) I don't approve of anyone subverting my means of communication to sell me something. No matter how much they think I'll benefit from it. Ever.

When I read a magazine I agree to spending some of the time being exposed to ads. I don't agree to have to weed through my inbox to get to my actual messages.

-Peter

Re:No for two reasons

[Sycraft-fu]

Or maybe they come to the conclusion that countries with those freedoms do nothing but spam the crap out of you, and thus they are better off without them.

Making proxies available to help people in oppressive countries is one thing. Spamming them about those proxies is another. It is no different than anything else. If you make something available that I want, that makes me happy. If you bug the crap out of me I am not happy, even if what you are advertising is something I want.

Re:No for two reasons

[UbuntuDupe]

Thanks for your reply, but you anticipated the wrong trap.

What do you think about dating? Should guys only ask out/hit on those girls who have explicitly announced that they're "opting in" to such requests? Should girls who accept dates despite not having made such an announcement, be punished somehow, just as people propose punishments for those who buy things advertised in spam, or feed animals? (cue joke about "feeding the trolls")

Should there be a "do not hit on" list, such that anyone else is fair game?

Lest you think I'm giving a contrived analogy, I really do think that one's mentality about one of the cases affects the other.

Re:No for two reasons

[pete-classic]

I actually have a shitload of rules about approaching women for just this reason. (And probably because I want to avoid it, due to anxiety.) For example, I won't hit on a woman at her place of employment.

If I had a woman's phone number or email address for a non-dating related reason I would not use it to pursue her in that way. I think it is very much the same.

And I think there is a tacit opt-in to being hit on or asked out by being in certain social situations. Being at a party without a date is opting in for being hit on.

There is an opt-out list. Wear a ring on your left ring finger. (And like all opt-out lists, the most scummy will ignore it!)

-Peter

Re:No for two reasons

[triffid_98]

I believe our current strategy involves opting out. Check their left ring finger for an identification crystal.

What do you think about dating? Should guys only ask out/hit on those girls who have explicitly announced that they're "opting in" to such requests?

Re:No for two reasons

[mqduck]

Well I'd be careful about calling Iran's government democratically elected. There's no question they had an election, but that doesn't mean the people were free to choose their government. Many a dictatorship has been known to hold phony elections for political reasons. This is true, but it's a fact that there are real contests in elections and that the republican government runs things for the most part.

Also, the president isn't the head of Iran's government, the Supreme Leader is Also true, but it's a bit like a constitutional monarchy. It's becoming increasingly questionable whether the Ayatollah really has the political authority to e.g. dismiss parliament anymore.

Freedom House rates Iran as being not free and a 6 of 7 (7 being the worst) in political and civil liberties. Freedom House is US propaganda, pure and simple. Always has been, always will be.

Re:No for two reasons

[Sycraft-fu]

Sorry but if you consider Freedom House "US propaganda" and Iran's government to represent the will of the people and not to be repressive, I've really no time to listen to you any further since your views on reality are skewed to the point of making discussion rather pointless.

Re:No for two reasons

[UbuntuDupe]

Thank you again for your reply, which was helpful in discussing the issues I brought up.

I think the parallel between spamming and romantic advances carries over in other ways: there are men who get dates despite acting in contravention of your rules. They do so, because it's successful often enough. It's successful often enough, because enough women are not operating under the opt-in/opt-out understanding that you are. Why not? Why can't we all come to an understanding for clearer "rules of engagement"?

And,

(And probably because I want to avoid it, due to anxiety.)

I would say more than "probably". Not to insult you -- I'm the same way. That was how I came to the realization that my mentalities on dating and spam were connected.

Re:No for two reasons

[malsdavis]

While I agree Iran is no model democracy by Western standards and apologize if my original post implied that, but Freedom House is hardly unbiased either. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House:

"As noted in the section on organization above, Freedom House receives most of its funding from the US government, and prominent US government officials reside on its board, most notably neo-conservatives."

Given that if some of those same neo-conservatives that "hold sway" over Freedom House had their way we would probably be fighting a war in Iran right now, I think Freedom House can be referred to as propaganda to some extent; although it's neo-conservative propaganda rather than US propaganda. Most other sources do not give quite the same "the country is in desperate need of a regime change" assessment.

I do not claim to be an academic expert on Iran but I know a little about the country and although I agree it is most certainly repressive, it is incorrect to claim that the government does not represent the will of the people. Certainly, their president has far more public support than ours currently and his main detractors tend to argue that his government is not repressive enough rather than being too repressive!

Re:No for two reasons

[shutdown -p now]

This is true, but it's a fact that there are real contests in elections and that the republican government runs things for the most part.

What's the point of having a "real contest", when all represented parties have been heavily filtered before that by the Council of Guardians, half of which is appointed by the Supreme Leader directly, and half indirectly?

GP is absolutely right, this most closely resembles the local elections in the USSR. The elections themselves weren't phony, but the list of candidates was approved by the Party beforehand. Granted, they allow a bit more freedom in Iran - as in, the canidates actually differ on some points. But fundamentally, the system is the same.

Re:No for two reasons

[mqduck]

I'm not going to argue that Iran isn't less free, but your argument isn't very good. Lord knows all our candidates are filtered by the elite in the USA. Yes, it's every bit as true here as there.

I'm no fan at all of the Iranian government, but I'm a very, very big fan of the truth.

Re:it's still spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. What a fucking tool. Hey, millions of people are suffering from serious health issues because of a poor diet: let's spam all of North America and Europe with information on how to eat healthy! Then we can spam all of Africa and Asia with information on how to avoid contracting AIDS.

SPAM isn't O.K just because you agree with the message.

Short answer

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users [...]

No.

no

[jmyers]

People who want to find information on the internet will find it. The "spam" will just be a great way for the censors to find and block the proxies.

Re:no

[BiggestPOS]

Precisely what I was going to post. The problem with SPAMMING the list of proxies is you've made the list ubiquitous and easy to come by. It only takes *one* government official to see the list and forward to the right place before all those proxies cease to function for the everyone they were meant to help, the users in China!

DUH.

Consent, not Content

[Kelson]

If they didn't ask for it, and you still blast it out to a bunch of people, it's still unsolicited bulk email -- in other words, it's still spam.

Besides, think of the unintended consequences: You'd be making users used to accessing random proxies. How long before the malware writers start spamming "Hey, use our proxy!" and advertising their fake proxy which will send most traffic through, but will sniff usernames and passwords, and redirect certain sessions to phishing sites?

Re:Consent, not Content

[hachiman]

Go one step further... You, the governtment of a country that employs censorship, set up your own proxy and start spamming people in your own country about it. They log on to use it and, hey presto! You have their name, IP etc and can subtly keep an eye on what they are getting up to. After that, it's child's play to send out the heavy mob with the mini-van to go and collect the subversives.

Mind you, that's just being plain cynical. Surely no govertment would ever dream of doing something so sneaky or as bad as trying to entrap its own population so that it can quash people that think differently from the people in charge.

Hang on...

Re:Consent, not Content

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unsolicited bulk email. Spam is by nature commercial.

Re:Consent, not Content

[AAWood]

"If they didn't ask for it, and you still blast it out to a bunch of people, it's still unsolicited bulk email -- in other words, it's still spam." I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, for the sake of discussion. The argument above loses some of it's strength when you consider the people involved don't ask because they can't ask; this isn't like you or I not wanting information on mortgages or Viagra or whatever the spam of the month is. So 99% of recipients aren't looking for mortgage information... but what if the other 1% literally couldn't find out any other way? We're talking about e-mail as a person-to-person communication channel that shouldn't be used any other way; what if we drop that basic premise and rethink it for cases where where communications have to be sent TO you because there's no way for you to go to the information? Or should we lump in PSA's on TV for subjects that don't relate to you, road signs for locations you never drive, and any other methods where information is made present to us, whether we want it or not, and whether it directly applies to us? Should these pieces of information be directed also? What's the difference? A lot of the statements in this thread are based around the content and context of the spam being irrelevant to whether it's right or wrong to send it, and I'm not sure that's true. Many of the statements are also based on the concept that if many of the individuals wouldn't want the information that it shouldn't be sent, and I'm not sure that's true either; we can all think of situations in which governments, organisations and individuals have made decisions which are were seen as right (objectively or subjectively) for the populace at the expense of groups of individuals, rightly and wrongly. We don't like spam. Hey, it's Slashdot, of course we don't. I think the question is whether there are shades of gray where perhaps spamming would be acceptable... or, perhaps, situations where unsolicited mass-mailing isn't spam at all. In this case, it's worth considering that spam is spam because it's not information we chose to get, and which we could do ourselves if wanted... but when that choice is not given freely, and someone else, this fundementally changes it's nature. The Chinese government has chosen to restrict that access... the question is whether that choice should be over-ridden, and whether it should be left to the governments to do so by pressure, or the worldwide public to do so by subversion.

Absolutely not

[eln]

What you are essentially asking is if it's okay to share information you think would be valuable to oppressed people by spamming them. Your thought is to share proxy site information with them. That's all very noble, but you are talking about is essentially using spam as a tool to give people you don't know information you personally believe they will find valuable.

So, who is to say this information is the most valuable thing they could receive? What if I believe what these people really need to change their lives is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Would if be okay in your view for me to spam them with religious messages? Why not? What if I think they would really benefit by hearing the word of Allah?

You argue that the big problem with spam is that the benefit is small and the cost is large to the recipient. But, you say, this information is enormously beneficial to the recipient, so it's worth the cost they pay. The problem is, you as the sender are not the one who gets to make that call. The value of the email is determined by the recipient, not by the sender. As a sender, I may think that my discount C1al1s is enormously beneficial and far outweighs the miniscule cost of receiving an email, but I doubt the recipients of my message feel the same way.

There's also the problem of just how oppressive these governments are. Will recipients of these messages be subject to punishment by their governments just for having it in their inbox? Will the governments use the emails as an excuse to crack down on proxies and block even larger swaths of the Internet, thereby defeating the purpose? There's no way you could blanket spam a country without its government noticing and taking measures to defeat your efforts.

Your heart may be in the right place, but this method just isn't a good idea.

Re:Absolutely not

[charlesbakerharris]

What if I believe what these people really need to change their lives is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Would if be okay in your view for me to spam them with religious messages?

I guess we could just call this guy a Good Spamaritan.

No, I don't want your farmed gold.

[charlesbakerharris]

Reported.

Charlie Brown

[obergfellja]

It is the Great (fire)Wall of China, Charlie Brown.

Outsource it

[biocute]

would not have any idea how to go about it anyway

If India is too expensive, consider hiring Chinese to do this spam.

Re:Outsource it

[Tablizer]

If India is too expensive, consider hiring Chinese to do this spam.

Or just purchase a bundled deal with the v1a9ra people. They're pretty effective at getting thru (too effective).

Re:it's still spam

[Anonymous Coward]

And now he's spammed slashdot. Troll, anyone?

No

[Leto-II]

The people who really want to know already know.

The people who don't will just be annoyed by your spam.

And, by the way, the people who don't really care to know vastly outnumber those that do.

It won't work

[Spy der Mann]

It's most probable that the authorities will end up receiving the spam - after tweaking their filters a bit, they'll update the Great Firewall to block the advertised proxies.

Um .. how does this work again?

[OzPeter]

So let me get this straight ..

You want to advertise a service (proxy server) to a bunch of people in a foreign country.
But you don't want the authorities of that country to know because if they did they would just shut you down.
So you intend (in thought only at this stage) to spam everyone in the country telling them where the proxy is.

So where in your magical spamming service is the option that allows you to spam to the opressed people without sending the same spam to the authorities?

Re:Um .. how does this work again?

[AaxelB]

Thank you, I was hoping someone would post a nice summary of that long-ass essay. Sometimes I feel like reading, but sometimes it just doesn't seem worth my time.

Re:Um .. how does this work again?

[OzPeter]

I'll let you inot a secret .. I didn't read it all .. after about the first paragraph it started to seem like pointless justificataion - so thats about where I stopped really reading and then just skimmed over the rest.

Re:Um .. how does this work again?

[AaxelB]

Oh, that's more than enough. Judging from the other comments, it seems like your summary pretty much hit the nail on the head. Good job!

Re:Um .. how does this work again?

[Deanalator]

Seems like you didn't even read the into paragraph :-)

There is nothing in there that states they they are trying to hide the location of the proxies from the authorities. The point is that everyone knows that proxies exist. I still think it's pretty pointless though. Better to spam with the actual information that is being censored.

Is it ok for them to spam you?

[nurb432]

If so, then by all means go ahead. If not, then 2 wrongs don't make a right. ( or is that 2 lefts make you go backwards? )

Longer answer

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It is not okay to send things to people just because you think they need it. That includes instructions on how to avoid internet censorship, penis enlargement devices and democracy to middle-eastern countries.

Let's take an example: what if some chinese dude gets your email, and the chinese police raids his house because he's now on a dangerous dissidents list for having been in communication with, and detaining computer data from dangerous anti-censorship groups? Still think your kind email would be welcome?

Re:Longer answer

[mrogers]

It is not okay to send things to people just because you think they need it.

You just described all email. When I send someone a job application, or a photo of a cat with its head stuck in a jar, or a love letter, it's because I think the recipient wants to read it (of course I want them to read it too, but I wouldn't send it unless I thought they'd be interested). Email is inherently push-based, so it's always based on an assumption about what the other person might want to receive.

Re:Longer answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Email is inherently push-based, so it's always based on an assumption about what the other person might want to receive.

Not always. Some e-mail is sent to harass people. For example, the first spam king, Sanford Wallace, was known for massively increasing the amount of spam sent to people who complained about it. I'm sure this wasn't to increase sales.

Re:Longer answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Email is inherently push-based, so it's always based on an assumption about what the other person might want to receive.

Well sure, and when I walk down the street I make certain assumptions about gravity but for all I know gravity might just suddenly stop working and I might suddenly fly up off the street into deep space. Fundamentally, you can never really know anything with complete certainty.

On the other hand, patterns of factual observations can give you more than enough certainty to get through life. In the case of individual email, there are usually plenty of factual observations to determine to a high degree of accuracy whether the recipient wants to receive the email (e.g. a company posts an announcement soliciting job applications or you ask your friend whether they'd be interested in some of the funny photos you've seen on the web- and the friend says yes).

Essentially, there are two key points here. First, only send an email if there is reason to believe that both the sender and the recipient want the email to be sent. Second, if there is insufficent information to determine the recipients preferences (e.g. with most spam) then don't send the email.

Re:Longer answer

[Sigma 7]

You just described all email. When I send someone a job application, or a photo of a cat with its head stuck in a jar, or a love letter, it's because I think the recipient wants to read it (of course I want them to read it too, but I wouldn't send it unless I thought they'd be interested). In instances of sending a job application, it's usually semi-solicited or related to known business concerning the recipient. With the exception of Bernard Shiftman, cold-contacts such as these is not spam. In the instace of sending a cat with it's head in a jar or a love letter, there's probably some existing friendly relationship - and thus the assumption can be assumed.

The main issue with spamming is sending unsolicited bulk messages.

Email is inherently push-based, so it's always based on an assumption about what the other person might want to receive. The types of spam I receive don't make that assumption - they are blindly sent out. In particular, I receive several spams for online pharmacies, and "Get your 'free-as-in-pyramid-scam' $500 Visa gift card.", neither of which most reasonable people are interested in. In addition, at least two of my e-mail addresses were flooded with spam to a degree where legitimate messages were bouncing.

There is one batch of spam that I'm interested in, but it more to do with messing with their order system rather than the products behind the orders. I'm perfectly fine with it, since the site in question is unquestionably a scam (e.g. claim to be secure, but don't use https for credit card numbers - other clues give thins away as well.)

Re:it's still spam

[Sorthum]

Spam is Unsolicited Bulk Email.

Unsolicited-- you didn't ask for it.

Bulk-- Multiple copies of the same thing.

Email -- Self explanatory.

Plus I haven't yet heard of a good way to identify which country an email address terminates in. Spamming someone in Wisconsin with free proxy addresses is unwanted.

um, yes!

[snarkasaurus]

"Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users in China, Iran, and other censored countries, telling them about new proxy sites for getting around Internet censorship?"

I think any lengthy agonizing over this question reveals the agonizer's ignorance of life under totalitarian rule. Anything which destroys the government stranglehold on information is good. Its actually one of the only legitimate uses of spam I can think of.

Re:um, yes!

[dave420]

And when the authorities get a hold of this spam, block the proxies, and then punish those trying to use them? How does that fit into your idea of reality? Most folks in China don't give a rat's ass their internet access is blocked - they've got more important things on their minds than being able to surf the net without limits.

Who defines "the benefit"?

[Colin Smith]

This would not be the case if you were spamming to advertise something whose benefits were greater than the costs of the spam. Who defines what the benefit is? As far as I'm concerned that'd be me, not you. I choose what I value, not you.

Spamming about giving away money would simply increase inflation if followed through. Giving everyone a million dollars simply makes a million dollars worthless.

Re:Who defines "the benefit"?

[Bloodoflethe]

Not true. Giving away money in such a fashion and in such small quantities would be zero sum. The spammer would just lose lots of money to people that actually read the spam *and* bother replying to what would no doubt look like a ploy.

Re:Who defines "the benefit"?

[Tom]

True, but that does not mean nothing changes. Among other things, millionaires would then only be 2, 5 or 10 times as wealthy as everyone else, instead of 20, 50 or 100 times.

I've not thought that through, just a quick thought I had.

getting around censorship

[circletimessquare]

is a cat and mouse game. and it has to remain that way. subtlety is sometimes the better tactic to fight an enemy. and in the case of a powerful central authority, subtety is necessary

in other words, to be effective, undermining authoritarianism has to be on the downlow, subtle. you have to understand the nature of the enemy here. the problem with a big bully sitting in the cat seat who is ready to do evil things in order to further his grip on power is that if you want to undermine him you can't do it loudly and in the open

or he'll simply kill you

a loud full frontal assault will fail, as you only reflexively empower the kind of minds and the power structure at work here: paranoid, nationalistic demagogues

the analogy here is that the internet is begrudgingly accepted by authoritarian regimes as sort of like television: it placates the masses. now, television is easy to control. someone says something on it you don't like to hear, you cut the signal. there are at most a few channels. with the internet, it is not the same: thousands of channels, some of them discreet and not well known. you need to KEEP IT THAT WAY

if the noise about how to get around censorship was too loud, the powers that be would simply shut off access. or build a stronger firewall. or simply announce with great fanfare that from now on, the internet would be iran-only, or china-only. that the decadent corrupt evils of the west would no longer be allowed to pollute young pure iranian and chinese minds. stoking the fire of nationalism is the surefired way to get anyone to approve of anything you want to do, no matter how backwards or brutal

so no: keep it quiet, keep it subtle. those who are interested in uncensored ideas will find a way, and those who wish to shut up contrarian voices and criticism, and do so frequently, and have no problem doing it with a gun or a cage, they will be one step behind

but stick it in their face, loud and proud, and you only invite the beast to do something beastly. the beast must be killed when it is asleep, and it's back is turned. you can't kill it head on. you must kill authoritarianism in subtle and gradual ways. put it to sleep, and slit it's throat. you can't kill authoritarianism head on, it lives on adrenaline, you only stoke it back to life, and begins the usual paranoid nationalistic rallying cries to have the public circle the wagons, and by then you've lost the fight

Solution looking for a problem

[eli867]

Do you have any evidence that people in oppressed countries need help finding proxies. I'm under the impression that word of functional proxies gets around very well via word of mouth.

I HATE SPAM

[GodCandy]

I am against spamming anyone. However if sending this mass volume of e-mail to china and other countries will slow down the quantity of e-mail coming into my inbox by flooding the connection I am all for it.

If we are doing it to tell them how to get around a firewall that will end up blocking all the proxy sites anyway we are simply waisting our time. I think it could be better spent doing something constructive, like reading slashdot.

by the same argument, spam americans...

[Anonymous Coward]

America has almost no independant/unbiased media, which effectively amounts to right wing censorship. Apply the same argument there, and then you would believe that you are justified in spamming americans. This is however utter nonsense. I work with several people from mainland China, and if anything, they are far more politically aware, and rational thinkers than most americans. No government can censor everything in a connected world. Why single out China. The Chinese government is doing more for the living standard of ordinary Chinese people than the US government is doing for ordinary Americans. Both countries are terrible human rights abusers, but at least China doesn't pretend to be a 'democracy'.
Keep you spam to yourself. Spam is a crime that deserved to be punished by a slow and brutal tortured death.
Die spammer. Die, die, die.... die, die, die.

I think Bennett Haselton needs a wang pump

[everphilski]

your wife tells me your having problems in bed ... how about some c14li5?

No, spammers think you want what they are selling, what makes you think the Chinese want what you are peddling?

Re:I think Bennett Haselton needs a wang pump

[charlesbakerharris]

Man, if I had mod points, I'd be modding this +1 for AWESOME subject line.

pfft...

[djupedal]

"Would that argument still hold if you wanted to advertise proxies to people in China and Iran?"

There is this one small problem that might be a factor, pretty much right from the start. The 'net police in China can read, just like your target population.

You might as well translate it into Chinese and gift wrap the info, for all the good this scheme would do.

Also, the Chinese using the internet are doing pretty well against the authorities - I'd not lose any sleep over them being able to pull their own weight when it comes to communications...thanks just the same.

Re:it's still spam

[Bigjeff5]

You sir, are a moron. He asked if there were any instance where spam could be considered a "good thing". Your only argument against him is that it's spam. I'm sorry, but I think he knows that. You seem awfully proud that you can tell when someone is talking about spam, and so that I pat you on the head and give you a treat. Who's a good boy? Yes you are! Look it's spam! Find it! Sick em! Good boy! Anyways, what about the case of a mass murderer? I would think spam could be very useful in a case like that, so long as it is a potentially imminent threat to those who receive the spam. I.e. people in Alaska shouldn't be getting spam about a murderer on the loose in Orange County. That's still kinda iffy though.

The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[Presto Vivace]

Would that argument still hold if you wanted to advertise proxies to people in China and Iran? Just getting email like that could get the recepients thrown in jail. Want to help people in countries like that? Read up on their INTERNAL human rights movements and work in solidarity. Give them credit for being able to lead their own struggles. Nobody likes an interfering nosy parker.

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT UP!

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

If the people of China wanted to be free, the 1.3bn of them would rise up and free themselves.

It's fine to help people who want to be free once they've attempted to free themselves. But they have to want it enough to be willing to die so their children can have it.

You can't GIVE someone freedom, but if they want it you can help them get it.

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[Presto Vivace]

If the people of China wanted to be free, the 1.3bn of them would rise up and free themselves. Where were you in June of 1989?

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

And did they give up or are they still trying? If you want something that your government says you can't have you need to TAKE it and defend it.

I talked to a nice girl from China who had no idea there were places you could have multiple children. She thought that everything her Government did was good and for her protection. If they want their freedom, they're sure not trying to get it. They seem to be happy to live under the control of their government.

And I was 4 years old in 1989.

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[coaxial]

Read up on their INTERNAL human rights movements and work in solidarity. Give them credit for being able to lead their own struggles. Nobody likes an interfering nosy parker. This reminds me of an article I read about internal Iranian human rights groups. The US State Department I think, or it could have been just a US based human rights group, I don't remember, went to it and asked how they could help. The Iranian response? Stay away. If even the whiff of American help was near, the group would be accused as being an American pigdog shill.

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[Merls the Sneaky]

June 1989 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_prot ests_of_1989

Read it and learn.

BTW wikipedia and many other sites are unreachable from china due to government censorship.

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I have read about it, and I do know about it. As I mentioned, I spoke to a girl in China and she thought the idea of the American Bill of Rights was quite interesting.

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[dbIII]

I talked to a nice girl from China who had no idea there were places you could have multiple children

Like for instance the NE of China where the population is relatively low. It's a big place and hard to understand from outside.

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[jamar0303]

I'm in Shanghai, China. Wikipedia is now unblocked. (sarcasm)Gee, does it have anything to do with the upcoming Olympics? (sarcasm over)

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[pangloss]

I talked to a nice girl from China who had no idea there were places you could have multiple children. She thought that everything her Government did was good and for her protection. If they want their freedom, they're sure not trying to get it. They seem to be happy to live under the control of their government.

Using a sample size of 1 out of 1,321,851,888, you were able to deduce what the other 1,321,851,887 Chinese people want?

Moreover, most Chinese know there are places you can have multiple children, as China is included among those places. The one child policy has only ever applied to Han Chinese living in urban areas, and even then, having a second child usually only requires one pay a fine.

Re:The road to hell is paved w/ good intentions

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I'm using a sample size of *The people who aren't in open revolt* to determine that the Chinese people aren't willing to fight for their right (to party).

My opinion

[ExE122]

First of all, my issue with spam is not that the "costs to society are greater than the benefits". My issue is that it is being sent to me without any consent in my part. The only reason I get half of it is because someone's spamming script realized that exe121@ and exe123@ returned the mail as 'undelivered', but mine worked just fine. Sure I can open the email with it's viral attachments and click the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom, but I never wanted it in the first place.

As far as the issue of spamming proxy sites... I think the author is misinterpreting "benefit to society". I don't think this is a factor that should be interpreted by the spammer. Just because some pothead thinks spamming me with ads for internet homegrown is benefitting me doesn't mean that I agree. And just because our "uncensored" (/restrain_political_opinions) country thinks that censorship is bad and yadda yadda yadda doesn't mean we can justify it as a benefit to Chinese society. China's governement and a majority of their citizens apparently think censoring information is a benefit to their society. Just because we disagree with them doesn't necessarily give us the justification to circumvent their law just to make a few bucks on an ad-ridden proxy site.

I know this is making me sound like a blind sheep within the herd, so don't get me wrong, I totally disagree with censorship as well. Yet the point I'm trying to make is that I've argued with enough republicans to realize that just because I think something is good/bad doesn't mean everyone else will.

However, if you are actually trying to start some kind of eye-opening social revolution with China, I wish you the best of luck. I just wish you wouldn't fill up my inbox in the process.

--
Capitalism: when it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called facism.

Trust

[bigattichouse]

They don't know you, and by default cannot trust you. What prevents the government from doing the same to entrap users (even allowing them to proxy, so they can watch their activity). Bad idea, you have to establish networks of trust first. Someone would only use your server if they got the address from someone they know personally. Well, someone who isn't a complete idiot.

Re:Trust

[porpnorber]

Indeed. The trust problem should be clear from the start: all issues of the message aside, it's proposed that it will somehow help matters to have a working opt-out system. How can an opt-out on a blind probe be useful? Spammers are by definition crooks (whether or not we believe that their hearts are in the right place); they are thus, a priori, dishonest and disrespectful of contracts, social and otherwise. So, what is the recipient's most likely interpretation of an opt-out link? That this is a means to validate the receiving address, that's what - a one-bit phishing attack. So no thoughtful person will click on it. Like everything else in the article, it's an attempt to assuage the author's own conscience over an impulse to bullying, and not a contribution in the least. Because bullying doesn't cease to be bullying merely because you think you're right....

Totally unneccesary

[Anonymous Coward]

Though it might sound surprising, the majority of Chinese internet users don't feel "oppressed" by the Great Firewall - just inconvenienced and maybe annoyed some times.

Anyone in China who feels he has a need to use proxy servers to access blocked sites knows where to find a good proxy list. Those lists aren't no secrets - they're not even forbidden.

Turnabout is fair play

[sshore]

The question can be easily turned around - is it okay to send unsolicited emails to the US, UK, and other similar countries, encouraging users to engage in subversive acts for which they could be fined or imprisoned, because you disagree with a policy of their government? What would you think of a foreigner or foreign agent who did that? What impact might it have? Think of all the people who say "I block all email from China because I receive spam from there." A closely related question is whether politically- or idealogically-motivated spam is okay, if one assumes that commercially-motivated spam is not. My feeling is that unsolicited bulk email is never okay - it raises the noise floor in an already noisy medium.

Flawed reasoning

[Billosaur]

As you might note, most of the comments are negative to the idea, for the simple reason that it's dumb. You stand to become the Jehova's Witnesses of the Internet. But it's not the method, or even the fact that it seems like a reasonable idea that makes it truly flawed. The flaw is in the audience you are trying to target. The people of China have been living with this form of government for quite a while now and despite dissension by a vocal but oppressed minority, there are no signs of change in the way that country works. We are talking a total population of 1.3 billion people, of which a tiny fraction actually have Internet access or even a reasonable idea what the Internet is. In many cases, you'd be preaching to the choir, the techno-savvy Chinese who understand the intricacies of the Net and who yearn for the freedom to use it as anyone else does. But if you're planning to fient some kind of revolution and bring freedom to the Chinese, then you are wasting your time and marking yourself for reprisal.

Revolution, any revolution, must come from within. Enough people must want change to make it reasonable. Chinese society is not built that way, not will it change any time soon.

Enforcing others our own values through violence

[La Gris]

What you suggest is enforcing your own cultural vision and values though massive and anoying spam. This is violent and inappropriate.

Having stong enough self awareness and values on what's good, or right or meaningfull regarding our own cultural reference may make you stronger.

Perpetual vigilence is requiered to defend and preserve our liberties.

I don't think this has to be faught outside... Unless you intend to bring in your onw interests in the load. History, past and current is full of this. One group, government, find self good reasons to fight against another group or state because it believe it has self rights, power and interests in doing so.

But, as usual, real society improvments, progress comres from the inside. If chinese think having limited access to the net, and beying jailed by their government is bad enough, they will fight it from the inside. I believe they will do it more appropriately and in conformance to their cultural values and references. Not yours or mine nor anyboty from the outside.

What would you think about the chinese, the russians or the europeans, or the africans... jamming your local network policies, endlessly critisizing your government, down valuing your own abilities to defend yourself or define yourself whats right, whats good...?

This is some cultural violence for the least.

Truly, I hope chinese will find themselves the way they'd like to go. I wouldn't want my own government going theyr ways and would be happy for them if it could or would work there more as it is in my own country. But, I know very little about chineses, and there are probably many reasons I ignore about what makes their government work the way it does. I guess sincerely they are the most aware and able to instituates changes if they feel they need to.

Not well thought out

[ILikeRed]

Talk about making it easy for Chinese secret police as well - we will train Chinese internet users to trust proxies sent to them in anonymous spam. Their government will NEVER think to make their own proxies and anonymous spam to catch users attempting to break the law and bypass their filters.

Re:Not well thought out

[h4rm0ny]

And there, in a single post, is the best argument that it isn't ethical to do this. Not because the intention or the aims are wrong, but because the effect is likely to be detrimental.

There's a qualitative difference between the spam you receive and the "spam" that he's talking about sending to China. With our spam, it is trying to direct us to something that we are free to find ourselves if we so want to. With the China "spam" idea, it is trying to provide something that the recipient is not free to find for themselves. In other words, it's increasing the recipients freedom of choice. There's also a difference that what is contained in the "spam" is something that is useful, as opposed to the amount of viagra adverts I receive.

But if what was sent would just make things worse for the recipient, as the parent says, then it would be wrong to send it.

Re:Not well thought out

[1u3hr]

. With the China "spam" idea, it is trying to provide something that the recipient is not free to find for themselves. In other words, it's increasing the recipients freedom of choice. There's also a difference that what is contained in the "spam" is something that is useful, as opposed to the amount of viagra adverts I receive.

No, it IS almost exactly like Viagra spam. The spammer in both cases claims that it's something the recipient needs, and doesn't know where to find. And in both cases they're wrong. 99% of Chinese on the net don't care about censorship (except perhaps of porn) and the 1% who do are perfectly capable of finding proxies without the help of some American crusader, who is just going to stir up the authorities like an evangelical Christian in Afghanistan.

If you do happen to want either viagra or a proxy server, the last and least trustworthy way to find it safely is from spam.

Re:Not well thought out

[p7]

I was thinking along the same lines. This plan gives the government a lot of options. Subvert it as you mention, block it, monitor who uses it, and the list goes on. It would be like advertising a dead drop site and what signals to use, in the newspaper. It is compromised from the start.

Re:Not well thought out

[poena.dare]

Good point and we might as well mod everything else down as redundant.

Re:Not well thought out

[dwater]

Wow. Could a post get more insightful that this one? I doubt it. I am surprised that /. moderators are insightful enough to actually rate it appropriately too.

The majority of people here simply do not trust the information from the west because it is completely biased, so they don't care about it being sensored. As far as they're concerned it is just noise and the net is a little less noisy because it is blocked.

The main people who care about things not being accessible are foreigners working in China who are used to being able to access such sites - or where the sites are blocked by mistake (like http://www.swimman.com/ was a while ago - though it is working just fine now).

Re:Not well thought out

[Antique Geekmeister]

Quite right. I swear, pot is cheap again, because the article reads like the political beliefs of the stoned kids from my college dorms.

I can just picture them now, half-covered in pizza stains, "D-o-o-o-d! If we just, like, just, all put our money in a big pot and only took what we needed, like, dude, we'd all have enough to be, like, rich! And that goldfish has, like, amazing colors!"

Re:Not well thought out

[h4rm0ny]

No, it IS almost exactly like Viagra spam. The spammer in both cases claims that it's something the recipient needs, and doesn't know where to find. And in both cases they're wrong. 99% of Chinese on the net don't care about censorship (except perhaps of porn) and the 1% who do are perfectly capable of finding proxies without the help of some American crusader, who is just going to stir up the authorities like an evangelical Christian in Afghanistan.

I think I can justifiably argue that in the case of the viagra spammer claiming it's something that the recipient needs, the spammer knows that he is lying.

As regards your 99% of Chinese do not want to get round the censorship - 1. How would you know they don't want it? 2. How would you know that those that do can easily find it? 3. If you've been subject to censorship all your life, might not you be unaware of the benefits of bypassing it?

It is not "almost exactly like viagra spam."

Re:Not well thought out

[1u3hr]

As regards your 99% of Chinese do not want to get round the censorship - 1. How would you know they don't want it? 2. How would you know that those that do can easily find it? 3. If you've been subject to censorship all your life, might not you be unaware of the benefits of bypassing it?

I live in Hong Kong. I have a little more knowledge of the subject than most people pontificating here.

Re:Not well thought out

[h4rm0ny]

Not good enough. You're one anecdotal person on the Internet who may or may not live in one small (and very atypical) part of a colossal nation. To say that the vast majority of Chinese don't care about something, and that the 1% who do care can easily find ways around it is a huge and unsubstantiated statement. Nor do we know what bias you might have, what demographic you typically associate with, whether or not you are Chinese yourself and if not, how trusted and integrated you are with the communities there. Nor do we know what the reaction of the Chinese people would be if uncensored media were available without threat in comparison to the nation as is, that has never known it in the living generation.

It is sound logic to say that a choice made between multiple options represents greater volition than a choice made "between" one option. A decision's validity depends on the information available to make that decision upon. A free, uncensored media offers greater choice and you're surely not arguing against that. You can only argue that the state of things in China is a result of active choice on the part of the Chinese people if the people have freedom of information. Without that, it can't be said that it's a real choice. That's the qualitative difference between viagra spam and help in bypassing censorship. The latter is offering greater freedom. The former does not.

Re:Not well thought out

[1u3hr]

That's the qualitative difference between viagra spam and help in bypassing censorship. The latter is offering greater freedom. The former does not.

Spoken like an evangelical spammer. "My viagra offers freedom to have sex all night long."

My point, and many others', not just my lonely anecdotal self, is that the proposal would not "offer greater freedom". It would annoy, and possibly frighten, many recipients. If any started to act on it, it would very quickly become a focus of attention for the authorities, who would simply add it to their blocklist, and track any attmpots to use them.

Nor do we know what the reaction of the Chinese people would be if uncensored media were available

It really is available for those who want it. But I'm just an anecdotal person who happens to live in China, so what would I know compared to you, who no doubt have a vast body of study to draw upon in making your prescriptions on how they should run their lives. Or possibly, just voicing prejudices that went out of date in the 50s.

A free, uncensored media offers greater choice...

I'm not arguing against freedonm of inquiry, expression, etc. I'm saying this proposal would be actually counterproductive in achieving this. Under the current regime, a great deal of freedom in personal life and business is possible, but any attempt to directly challenge the governemnt is still met with harsh retribution. People who want to can quietly route around the censorship while not broadcasting the fact are not harassed. Those who make a crusade of it are.

I'm not at all in favour of the regime, I'm just trying to explain how it actually works.

Re:Not well thought out

[h4rm0ny]

I'm not arguing against freedonm of inquiry, expression, etc. I'm saying this proposal would be actually counterproductive in achieving this.

And this is what I said. If you re-read my first post, you'll see that I said this would be counterproductive. Where we disagree is where you state that this is "almost exactly like viagra spam." Offering (your words) "freedom to have sex all night long" is not the same as providing assistance in obtaining uncensored news and information, and I find it hard to believe that you are equating them. If you want viagra, it is readily and easily available and, importantly, you're not putting yourself at risk by seeking it out. Each of these qualities does not exist with trying to get around China's censorship. Qualitative difference. If this could be made to work, I would consider it ethical behaviour.

Re:Not well thought out

[1u3hr]

Offering (your words) "freedom to have sex all night long" is not the same as providing assistance in obtaining uncensored news and information, and I find it hard to believe that you are equating them.

Sorry, but in many respects they are. In both cases, the sender (aka "spammer") imagines that the recipient wants what he is offering. In both cases, only a small percentage do, and most of the rest are just annoyed or even angered by the unsolicited offers of how to improve their intellectual/sex lives.

And as I think you know, the spam would not really be "providing assistance in obtaining uncensored news", despite its intentions. It would in fact do the reverse, provoking a tightening of restrictions. Good intentions do not ensure success, as GWB has found in Iraq.

Re:Not well thought out

[h4rm0ny]

Sorry, but in many respects they are. In both cases, the sender (aka "spammer") imagines that the recipient wants what he is offering. In both cases, only a small percentage do, and most of the rest are just annoyed or even angered by the unsolicited offers of how to improve their intellectual/sex lives.

Do you really believe that the viagra spammer "imagines that the recipient wants what he is offering" as you say? I find it hard to believe that you think the spammer that naive. But in the case of the censorship bypassing spam, this seems to be the case on the part of the proponent. We are in agreement that the anti-censorship spam will not be effective, but I'm really not getting your argument that they are ethically equivalent. And as said, in the case of viagra, this is something anyone can get, but the anti-censorship spam actually [i]is[/i] offering something that is thought to be hard or dangerous to obtain. And again, I can't accept your statement that "most of the rest are just annoyed or even angered." It may be the case, but we have no way of knowing. That's one of the things about censorship. When it's as pervasive as it is in China, how do we know what degree of tolerance the populace has of it? There's a fundamental difference in nature between tolerating an action and tolerating a control of information. In the latter case, the decision as to whether to tolerate it is affected by the thing itself. Only with free access to information can we say that the actions or tolerance of actions of a people are a conscious decision. Tolerance of control of information can never be a conscious decision once that control is established.

Re:Not well thought out

[1u3hr]

Do you really believe that the viagra spammer "imagines that the recipient wants what he is offering" as you say?

Some people at least must be stupid enough to buy from them. Though I'm sure they know that most people hate their guts.

viagra, this is something anyone can get, but the anti-censorship spam actually [i]is[/i] offering something that is thought to be hard or dangerous to obtain.

Dodging censorship is easy, not "hard or dangerous". If the information you are so desperate to send a secret? Any one in China who wants to sidestep censorship KNOWS ALREADY. They can ask a friend to instruct them on the details and give them the URLs. Why on earth would they trust a spam from a foreign country tellng them to do something that could get them into trouble?

The idea is well intentioned, but foolish, naive and counter-productive.

On merits of subversion (Re:No for two reasons)

[mi]

1) It is still unsolicited e-mail. You may think that there's something I really, really want. You may believe to the core of your being it is something I care about. You may still be wrong. There may well be people in those restricted countries that just don't give a shit. Perhaps all of the web they care about is allowed through the filters. Thus they really don't want to hear from you.

Well then, the whole idea of subverting (covertly, overtly, or even militarily) a nasty government (even when its nastyness is not in doubt) is wrong — because there are always people, who agree with and support it and who will be annoyed, inconvenienced, or even killed in the process.

2) More importantly e-mail is not secure. The government will find out, they will monitor the spam, and they will use that to either block your proxies or arrest those that use them or whatever.

I really wish a method to reliably do what you describe existed. It would an end to the spamming problem, at least. Then I'll accept subverting the oppressive governments the old-fashioned way — via radio and TV broadcasts...

Re:On merits of subversion (Re:No for two reasons)

[Billosaur]

Has anyone ever done a study, I wonder, on whether or not Radio America broadcasts were the reason for Cuban refugees to leave Cuba? I'm going to posit a guess that the answer is no; they left Cuba because a) they were tired of being poor, b) they were tired of being oppressed, or c) they had family already in the US.

I think the point is that whether or not this is a good idea may be subject to debate (though I still think it's a bad idea), but the underlying premise, that enough people will get the information to somehow cause the Chinese government problems is flawed. The Chinese people will have to begin any kind of revolution from within, just as the American colonies did. Outside sources could perhaps provide subtle influence, but it takes the internal determination of a people to make the ideas a reality. I don't think an email or a TV/Radio broadcast is going to bring about the fall of the Chinese government.

Re:On merits of subversion (Re:No for two reasons)

[mi]

The Chinese people will have to begin any kind of revolution from within, just as the American colonies did.

That's a wrong view. Excusable, but wrong. American colonies faced a fairly benign oppressors (the King and the Parliament), who would shy away from mass-murder — the list of greivances, while exposing the rule as ineffectual, mentions little bodily harm.

Cuban and North Korean governments, on contrast, are determined to apply whatever violence may be necessary to stay in power, which makes them stable in their rut. External agitation may or may not be enough kick them out of that stability, but it is certainly not wrong to try.

And yes, at some point, more tangible help may be needed. It was not just French King's money, mind you, but also French naval force and artillery that helped American colonies win their independence. And that would not be automatically wrong either.

Re:On merits of subversion (Re:No for two reasons)

[SIIHP]

"Well then, the whole idea of subverting (covertly, overtly, or even militarily) a nasty government (even when its nastyness is not in doubt) is wrong -- because there are always people, who agree with and support it and who will be annoyed, inconvenienced, or even killed in the process."

No, it just means that certain levels of risk are acceptable for us to impose on others.

Convincing people to take up arms and revolt is a far cry from placing a spam email in their inbox without them knowing, and then having them get killed for it.

What is with the propensity of people to attempt and split everything into all or nothing scenarios? You can subvert the government without putting people's lives in danger without their consent.

Re:On merits of subversion (Re:No for two reasons)

[Sycraft-fu]

"Well then, the whole idea of subverting a nasty government is wrong"

No, but forcing me to join the revolution is. If your world view is "This government is evil, so everyone must oppose it, and anyone who doesn't we are going to harass/imprison/kill," well then you aren't really any better than that government. My point isn't that it is wrong for people in an oppressive government to want to get around censorship. My point isn't that it is wrong for people to provide them the means to do so. My point is it IS wrong to try and force it down their throats. If they don't care that's their own business.

Re:On merits of subversion (Re:No for two reasons)

[aldousd666]

you can reliably block spam from a pessimisitic network, ie one that says 'no unless you're on the whitelist' which means that the whitelist would be of course china's sites and any that they allow you to see. Obviously there is such a list or else they wouldn't be able to get google to go along with only showing results on this list. The reason we can't do it in the free world is because we aren't starting in a cage, we're starting in an open field where everything is allowed to come in unless shown to be bad. Not so in china, they own everything, and can stop everything but what they send out.

Re:On merits of subversion (Re:No for two reasons)

[notamisfit]

What claim do the Cuban or North Korean people (or for that matter, the Chinese, the Iranian, or daresay the Iraqis) have that must be paid for with our blood and tax dollars?

For that matter, the degree of oppression sounds like a red herring to me. What was fundamentally true in the American Revolution, and considerably less so in our modern-day nation building boondoggles, is that the ideas of personal liberty and democracy (as an extension of liberty, not as an axiom in and of itself, which is something neither the Right nor the Left seem to get nowadays) were well-entrenched. The philosophical and sociological ideas of writers like John Locke and Thomas Paine were widely read and understood. Can one say the same for China (not just under the CCP, but also the KMT and Imperial governments)? Or North Korea? Cuba? The Middle East? Really, any attempt to intervene in the name of "freedom" where the ideas of personal liberty and individual rights are seen as ludicrous (or even blasphemous) is a complete waste of time.

Re:On merits of subversion (Re:No for two reasons)

[mi]

"This government is evil, so everyone must oppose it, and anyone who doesn't we are going to harass/imprison/kill," well then you aren't really any better than that government.

Of course I am better. Because what I wish to bring them is better — in both mine and your opinion. "Better" is in the eye of the beholder, but, I trust, we both agree, that government with free elections and freedom of the press is better, than China's system — however improved it may have become in recent years.

My point isn't that it is wrong for people to provide them the means to do so.

Uhm, well, put things into perspective. Spamming — any spamming — as "the means" is far less invasive, than an armed conflict, for example...

My point is it IS wrong to try and force it down their throats. If they don't care that's their own business.

Who are "they"? China's population is over a billion. They have not had free elections nor even opinion polls for, uhm, ever. Democracy is not sufficient for decent governance, but it is required — if only to be certain, that the people really do have the government they want. (The sentiment may be too Neo-Conservative for this forum, but it is still observably true...)

Back to the particular example of spamming, well, it may just be, the key — if the entire Internet-using population of the country gets the spam, it stops being a crime to posses the message... People may be able to click on it with impunity. Not sure — but I can't dismiss it off-hand the way you do...

Then, again, even if the majority is "happy" now, it may well be because they just don't know any better. An isolated activist in China may be able to persuade fellow citizens and connect with other activists...

while you're at it...

[Anonymous Coward]

tell all the chinese spammers to use the smtp relay at 207.46.232.182

Why this is a bad idea

[FuzzyDaddy]

The problem is tying your legitimacy to the rest of the spam. There are two possible consequences:

1) People see your message as a scam or a trap, like the rest of the crap they receive, or

2) People see your message as legit, and it raises the reputation of spam to the point where more people will be taken in by scams.

Duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail . . . ?"

No.

Typical American Hubris

[Dusty00]

I can't fathom why Americans haven't gotten over the idea they everyone else always needs our help. Here in America, neither FOX nor CNN provide news, they provide whatever version of the story will generate the best ratings. There are millions of Americans out there who don't realize that other news sources will provide a more accurate picture of what's going on, like Reuters or AP. So why should these news sources not spam the world and show us the light, because we don't want it. Those of us who want their product will go and find it, those who don't will not. Same with what this article is proposing. Those who want information the government is censoring will find a way to get it, those who don't will not.

RE: Typical American Hubris

[hackingbear]

I agreed with you. I found the news from these American mainstream media (and British ones like Economist.com) is just no better than those rubbish from China Central Television. You can even find better and more balance coverages in censored sites like sina.com.cn. For long time, the only issues American media consider news worthy are the human rights, taiwan, tibet and fa lun gong. Not until recently they start covering issues like product safety which have been exposed in Chinese media for years.

And by the way, most English media sites like CNN and CBS are not blocked at all in China; the government is more aggressive blocking Chinese media sites (from Hong Kong and Taiwan).

As long as the topic of China is concerned, I would consider news coverage from Hongkong being the most balance, revealing the best and worst of what's going on in China.

Re:Typical American Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you really just cite

Reuters
and the Associated Press
as
examples
of
accuracy
in reporting?

Wow, just wow.

Re:Typical American Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because we keep being ASKED TO BAIL EVERYONE OUT pretty much constantly for almost the past century? That includes you most likely whether you know it or not.

Re:Typical American Hubris

[RyoShin]

I can't fathom why Americans haven't gotten over the idea they everyone else always needs our help.

Because lots of countries lambast us when we don't give the help to places they think need help. The police often escort the ambulance- in the global infrastructure, it is hard to seperate the two.

I'm not saying I agree with this plan, or I don't think we should send assistance to, say, Darfur, but the majority of Americans might stop seeing themselves as saviors of the world if other countries stop calling on them to be just that.

Re:Typical American Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

{{citration required}}

you're full of shit

No

[gorbachev]

No

Finally, non-abusive spamming!

[multipartmixed]

Just hire a Chinese spam gang to spam the mail server at 127.0.0.1!

Spam for illegal?

[WPIDalamar]

So... spam should only be ok for advertising illegal activities? Yeah.. that makes sense.

We don't have a right to break other countries laws because we have moral objection to those laws.

Re:Spam for illegal?

[PeterBrett]

We don't have a right to break other countries laws because we have moral objection to those laws.

Actually, we have a moral obligation to break any country's laws when we have a moral objection to those laws.

By this I mean that we must always follow the moral, rather than the legal. Note that I'm not saying that we should go out of our way to break laws that we consider immoral, which is what the grandparent was implying.

From my point of view, there is no moral argument in favour of the course of action proposed by the submitter. The amount of possible benefit to "oppressed" people[1] is outweighed, in my opinion, by the certain damages caused to those whose zombied systems are used for sending spam, and whose ISP drops them; those system administrators who have to deal with the extra load on their systems caused by this spam; and to those people whose lives are made that little bit more miserable by the spam clogging up their inboxes.

Terry Pratchett, as usual, expresses it quite clearly:

"Now we art all here," said Hastur meaningfully, "we must recount the Deeds of the Day."

"Yeah. Deeds," said Crowley, with the slightly guilty look of one who is attending church for the first time in years and has forgotten which bits you stand up for.

Hastur cleared his throat.

"I have tempted a priest," he said. "As he walked down the street and saw the pretty girls in the sun, I put Doubt into his mind. He would have been a saint, but within a decade we shall have him."

"Nice one," said Crowley, helpfully.

"I have corrupted a politician," said Ligur. "I let him think a tiny bribe would not hurt. Within a year we shall have him."

"They both looked expectantly at Crowley, who gave them a big smile.

"You'll like this," he said.

His smile became even wider and more conspiratorial.

"I tied up every portable telephone system in Central London for forty-five minutes at lunchtime," he said.

There was silence, except for the distant swishing of cars.

"Yes?" said Hastur. "And then what?"

"Look, it wasn't easy," said Crowley.

"That's all?" said Ligur.

"Look, people "

"And exactly what has that done to secure souls for our master?" said Hastur.

Crowley pulled himself together.

What could he tell them? That twenty thousand people got bloody furious? That you could hear the arteries clanging shut all across the city? And that then they went back and took it out on their secretaries or traffic wardens or whatever, and they took it out on other people? In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselves. For the rest of the day. The pass-along effects were incalculable. Thousands and thousands of souls all got a faint patina of tarnish, and you hardly had to lift a finger.

But you couldn't tell that to demons like Hastur and Ligur.

Fourteenth-century minds, the lot of them. Spending years picking away at one soul. Admittedly it was craftsmanship, but you had to think differently these days. Not big, but wide. With five billion people in the world you couldn't pick the buggers off one by one anymore; you had to spread your effort. But demons like Ligur and Hastur wouldn't understand. They'd never have thought up Welsh-language television, for example. Or value-added tax. Or Manchester. He'd been particularly proud of Manchester.

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (Ace Books, 1996), pp. 8-9

[1] Of course, many of these people who we consider to be "oppressed" do not think of themselves as oppressed. This is a different philosophical argument, for another time.

Re:it's still spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be correct to say that the GP's reply to the submitter is "begging the question"? I always get confused about the pedantically correct way to use that phrase.

Too many words

[LordKaT]

Needs more pictures of cats and bunnies.

Re:it's still spam

[InsaneProcessor]

Since most of the spam that I get links to web sites in China, and come from China, spam to china may not be a bad thing here. Let them get a dose of what they spit out.

Should we drop the (email) bomb?

[peter.stocking]

Is it better to spam these people to help them with an oppressive circumstance, or just let them go and wait for something else to happen? This is the rational for war. Yeah, war is teh sux, but the alternative is worse. Spamming this one country would benefit for the rest of the world in terms of freedom. Making proxy information ubiquitous would hinder the rational of possession=crime.

The base of the argument is flawed

[Anomalous Cowbird]

Spam is bad because the costs to society are greater than the benefits.

No. Sorry, but the "costs to society" don't enter into it. "Spam is bad because" the costs are borne by the recipient without his consent. This is why spam is fundamentally different from junk mail (with which it is often -- but erroneously -- equated). If someone sends me unsolicited mail, he bears the cost of its postage. I can choose to read it or discard it, but the cost to me is nil. However, if someone sends me unsolicited email, I am paying to receive it, without the choice of whether to do so because I have no knowledge of it until the transaction has already been made.

This is why spammers are evil; they are parasitic thieves, stealing bandwidth and storage from every single one of their addressees.

-1, RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

nt.

Well, it's not exactly Soviet, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Communist China, firewall bypassing proxies spam YOU!

No.

[doyoulikeworms]

Bringing any unnecessary attention to a "bad" thing can lead to many bad things happening to said thing, especially in a place like China. Let the people earn their information. Plenty of people that want to get around the firewall, do, from the Chinese i've spoken to.

Okay if it's free

[5pp000]

I don't have an ethical problem with spamming, as you describe, to advertise a proxy service as long as it's free. In that case I think the benefit to the world clearly outweighs the cost.

Whether such a frontal assault on the censors in those countries is likely to work, as someone else posted, is another question entirely. I'm not sure it will. But I don't have a problem with the attempt, should you choose to make it.

water torture

[tanktop]

You're not doing it, you're not planning to, you have no idea how to do it and you absolutely don't know anyone who is doing it. (what are you afraid of exactly?) Then you go on saying that maybe spamming proxy sites would do more good than harm(not afraid anymore?). And conlude by saying that your logic might be flawed. If I were you I'd research my subject a little better before I felt the need to write an article about it. My grandma who has never seen a computer up close can offer more insights into this subject.

International Incident

[WED Fan]

With all apologies to Stan Freberg...

A private group would be ill advised to spam Chinese proxies. While China remains an outcast, they are a heavy-weight U.S. trading partner (I'm assuming the same for most EU nations have trading relationships with China as well).

When they weild that much power, China can basically "order" the U.S. to find and prosecute the "spammers". This is basically what happened with the U.S., Russia, and AllofMP3, except it was Russia being told by the U.S. to handle the problem.

Does anyone seriously think the U.S. Government, under these circumstances, would not fold to Chinese pressure?

Think very hard before doing this one.

Re:International Incident

[jamar0303]

It would probably be much less likely given the recent mass recalls that all point back at China. America might not want to be associated with such actions directly.

Sorry, but

[notorious ninja]

If you're going around spamming about these proxies, wouldn't the information eventually get to the authorities and tip them off about new proxies to ban? If you're trying to keep a secret, isn't trying to tell the whole world about it a bit of a contradictory?

Spam is spam. Keep spam away!

[91degrees]

Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to...

No. Spam is bad.

Why is spam a problem? Because the cost of receiving a message, however minor, is more than the benefits,

I take offence at someone taking advantage of my email address to try to sell me stuff. I'd feel the same if they came up to me in the street. I was offended my spam the instant I received just one. It's nothing to do with price it's all to do with manners.

could you conceive of a kind of spam that would not be a nuisance?

No!

Suppose you sent an e-mail to millions of people offering them free $20 bills. And you actually followed through and sent the money to anybody who claimed the offer.

Still spam. Still don't want.

The "traditional argument" is just to justify the politics of eliminating spam. It's not the real reason it's just a more convincing argument position.

Proxies are a finite resource, censors are less so

[peacefinder]

It'd be a shame if the proxy-advertising spam simply told the censors which sites to add to their national filter's blacklist... which seems like the most obvious result.

Besides, who among the intended proxy users would trust a proxy advertised via spam? Personally, I'd assume a proxy address I'd been spammed with is a sting-proxy set up by the censors as a way of identifying censorship evaders.

Not like it would create much new spam anyway

[Floritard]

I'm not really hip to the Chinese internet experience, but I'd imagine they get about as much spam as the rest of us, piles and piles. There are a lot of knee-jerk reactions here from those of us frustrated with spam to the point of zero-tolerance, but think about it this way. It isn't as though spam will be going anywhere anytime soon. It's not like there is some great new solution out there and the practice of spam is on its way out. It is something that will probably be with us indefinitely. May even get worse. So who cares if someone starts spamming revolutionary ideas? The overall volume of spam will not increase significantly, and maybe a few poor slobs will be enlightened about the wackiness of their government. No different than handing out pamplets really.

Personally I don't see the point of it, the people need to take care of their own government (that's why the US gov sucks so much, we the lazy), and take it down if necessary. It's up to them. We'd be better off spamming our own leaders to keep us the hell out of these ridiculous countries. You know it's called "writing your congressman." Fat lot of good that does either.

Absolutely, you beat me to it.

[Anonymous Coward]

But since I can see how you were immediately modded as flamebait and I can predict my post will get the same treatment, I'm going to go annon.
        This whole American obsession with the "Great Firewall" is really absurd and misplaced to anyone who has actually lived in China as I have done for many years. Getting around the blocks is trivial. It's a merely symbolic thing basically saying hey these topics are off limits. Within China you would have to be blind to not know how to find out the latest scoop on the groups that are specifically targeted by the media ban like the Fa Lwun Gong or Tibetan activists. Their messages are, if anything, amplified by the policy which is why it is implemented in such a half ass way. There's no real motivation to make it iron clad because it's obvious to the powers that be that the harder they push the more they strengthen the hand of these groups and encourage new ones to form. The idea is to turn down their volume, not to amplify their strength.
          It's the American nut jobs who think it's some kind of total media ban and that the Chinese are wholly ignorant of the great free world outside their hellish prison island. The image of the Berlin Air Lift seems kinda etched into their memories of how the world is. That was the nineteen forties. It's really not like that anymore.
      In fact, people in China get free-to-air satellite TV with hundreds of channels and even free hardcore porn 24-7. Americans don't even know what free-to-air satellite is. America is the only country in the world that doesn't get free-to-air satellite. The land of the free. Yeah right.
      Furthermore, people in China these days get way cheaper and faster broadband than what you get in the States. Yeah, there are blocks on some web sites, but people can exchange whatever torrents they like. Yeah, that's right, the Chinese use bittorrent to trade files just like Americans and Europeans. If you think the people of China are blind to what's going on in the world, you're just wrong. They probably have better access to news than most Americans.
      Finally, I would like to echo Noam Chomsky by pointing out that the greatest restriction on free expression in the media that was ever created in human history is called advertising. Now that is fucking repression.

Missing poll option...

[pla]

to find that most of them either supported the Chinese government's censorship or didn't care enough to do anything about it.

You've omitted two distinct (and IMO likely) options...

First, people living in a country with oppressive governments may not feel particularly inclined to discussing illegal activity with complete strangers. If a random Iraqi sent me an IM discussing ways to circumvent US border security, as much as I may consider our activities in their country a farce, I would guard my wording very carefully.

And second, your average Chinese person really might not care! In 2003 in the US, something like 3/4ths of the population supported a war on a country having nothing to do with 9/11, as retaliation for 9/11. Never forget that most people have no clue about their own government's atrocities, even against its own population. Ask most Americans about Waco or Ruby Ridge, and you'll get responses about whackjobs holed up over religion or taxes, without even the first thought about whether the (originally minor, in both cases) offenses in question justified the commission of government-sanction massacres.



Addressing the actual topic at hand, though - No, you can't spam people "for their own good". Anyone wanting to find such info on their own will eventually do so. Anyone else, you'll just piss off.

Re:Missing poll option...

[i.r.id10t]

Dang, it, where's my mod points? +5 insughtful/underrated.

Re:Missing poll option...

[Anonymous Coward]

Minor offenses?!

Waco was about CHILD MOLESTERS and Ruby Ridge was about people killing federal agents.

Waco the tear gas ignited (this was NOT planned or expected) - it was a rescue attempt to save the children from those MONSTERS.

The Ruby Ridge shooting was a agent defending himself from a attempted assassination.

Re:Missing poll option...

[pla]

Waco was about CHILD MOLESTERS

Koresh had a few screws loose, no argument there. The BATF had every opportunity they could dream of to arrest him away from the compound, however - Such as on his REGULAR MORNING JOG, or when he INVITED them to the compound to talk things over a month before the feces hit the fan. Instead, they chose to take out almost 80 people, a quarter of them kids.

And don't tell me what they "planned" or not - They banned domestic news from using IR cameras or high-zoom telephoto lenses for a reason. At that time, I had satellite TV (the old big-dish kind), and you wouldn't believe the shit captured by foreign news services - Much of my current distrust of Big Brother started from that single incident, when almost every day I'd see one thing on the foreign feeds (raw video feeds, mind you, not any form of propaganda), then the feds flat-out lying and saying the exact opposite on the CBS evening news.


Ruby Ridge was about people killing federal agents.

Ummm, no. Please play again.

Ruby Ridge started when the BATF (notice a trend here?) decided to go for entrapment (Weaver repeatedly refused to help) on the poor bastard over sawed-off shotguns THREE-EIGHTHS of an inch below the federal minimum. Then they gave him the wrong court-date and hauled him off for missing the trial. It escalated from there, but everything that happened came from a guy railroaded into an absurd situation, apparently (in hindsight) because they wanted to pressure him into infiltrating the local Aryan Nation for them.



The Ruby Ridge shooting was a agent defending himself from a attempted assassination.

Yeah, that explains the uber-harsh 18-month sentence ("oh and sorry about the dead wife with nothing to do with all this") with credit for time served, right?

tng comes to mind

[Anonymous Coward]

this all seems against the prime directive

Just turn it around a little bit

[eaolson]

Just think of this from a slightly different angle:

Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users telling them about the Lord Jesus Christ and their possibility for salvation if they accept Him as their Savior? ... But I think the question involves ethical issues that would not apply to most discussions of spam.

Just because you think your message is valuable to the recipient doesn't mean the recipient thinks so. It doesn't matter if your message is about getting around censorship or about a valuable low-rate mortgage.

Unsolicited bulk email is spam. Period.

Flawed -- Because of the Tragedy of the Commons

[mckyj57]

This whole analysis is flawed because spamming by definition is done without permission. Since you don't seek permission, anyone can decide their spam offers a net benefit, even if it does not. Since the cases where it is beneficial are so few -- I point to the VA Research Open Source stock offer as one that was, even though it wasn't really spam -- the net result is a cost and not a benefit.

What a completely twisted argument!

[autophile]

At least to me, the whole argument about why the CD-refund spammers should be allowed to spam, while the Viagra spammers should not, seems very twisted to me. Specifically, the part of the argument that a spammer has more expensive advertising routes available, and therefore should take the more expensive route -- presumably because it is less expensive to spammees.

Doesn't make sense to me. Hey, let's whip out a bad car analogy!

A Toyota Prius gets, say, 50 mpg, and costs US$25k. A Toyota Yaris (mine!) gets 36 mpg, and costs US$12k. Car owners ("spammers") should therefore be prohibited from driving Yarii because (a) there is a more expensive car available that does the same thing as the Yaris (namely get you from point A to point B), and (b) the Prius is less expensive to the ecology ("spammees").

Ahhhhhh. That felt good.

Anyway... I would probably use the argument that neither the CD-refund spammer nor the Viagra spammer should be allowed to spam because the benefit to those few who choose to respond fails to outweigh the cost to those many who do not respond. Why is it suddenly okay for the CD-refund spammer? Because you got $12 and change from it? How about those other millions who didn't?

Likewise, I would argue that it doesn't make sense to burn up the bandwidth wires spamming China with admittedly useful information, because who, out of the millions of people reached, will actually use the information?

--Rob

P.S. What's a pirate's favorite car? A YAAAAAAARRRRRis!

Get Viet Nam and Iraq first

[athloi]

We must tell them of our glorious democratic revolution.

Censored countries, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users in China, Iran, and other censored countries...

Like, say, the US?

Censorship isn't just the domain of government but also of the high and mighty multinational corporations.

Hearty goodness

[mrmeval]

I will accept one spam from your sorry ass if I get to cut out your heart right after.
We can do it in a country where it's legal. Maybe China.

How do you know that they haven't already done it?

[janrinok]

You are assuming that no-one in China has already solved this problem. Perhaps they have, but they are hardly likely to start shouting about how clever they are, are they? They have some very good programmers. I suspect that they are way ahead of needing your well-intentioned but misguided support.

Let Me Rephrase The Question

[popejeremy]

Should we apply a technological band-aid to a civic problem?

Death of recipient as deterrent to sender...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't China, in the past, executed people who were convicted of intentionally bypassing the Great Firewall and proving the means to do so to others? Will the people who receive lists of proxy servers be punished for possessing them? If not, could China begin to use such punishment as a deterrent to those sending the lists out?

Then it would would make great sense to only send such proxy list spam to only members of the Chinese government, especially to all their police.

What now?

[greedyturtle]

So if we assume that the point, 1. Spam Bad and 2. Firewall Bad, what *could* be done to assist the free spread of information, in the form of the superhighway?

What kind of technology is available to make that connection anonymously, (preferably) uncomplicated, and self-replicating?

Taking the argument even farther - screw spam and it's tiny ratios. Why not make an auto-proxy patch the payload of a virus?

how do you know who sent the spam?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know that the Chinese government isn't already sending spam announcing proxies around the firewall? Proxies that, of course, are very well monitored...

Spam proxies? Man, nuke proxies.

[suv4x4]

Yea, I say, we got it the best way over here, and we gotta feed freedom down the worlds throat I think.

Not just spam proxies, we must, and it's our sacred mission, to shoot, bomb and nuke proxies their way. They must be really happy we think about their good for 'em, so they don't have to.

an alternative

[f1055man]

Why don't we just stop US based companies from doing the censorship? Google and Yahoo are the corporations getting people sent to the Laogai. Cisco and others make the Great Firewall of China possible. It's American companies putting together Chinese police surveillance and control. Anything for a buck I guess.

Funny firewall...

[Anonymous Coward]

...That allows outbound penis growth/phishing mails/malware links etc , and yet doesn't allow ordinary citizens access to information. . Unless the Chinese government is complicit in the spamming. Otherwise they could nip over to any www.crudspewer.cn domain and ask how.

Blanket answer

[wumingzi]

NO.

1) Spam is spam.

2) You are well-meaning, but very ignorant about how China works at a basic level. "These poor people living behind a firewall unable to join the modern world. If only we could, you know, help them somehow..."

China has lived with 5000 years of government which ranges from benignly incompetent to just plain awful. As offensive as it is to Western sensibilities, Hu Jintao and the current crop of losers are above average by historical standards. As a result, being born Chinese means learning literally from when you are out of diapers how to work, hustle, and wheedle whatever it is you need from whatever system you are in. The success of the Chinese diaspora almost anywhere they go is based on an ingrained belief that if you don't want to starve or sleep in a box, you will hustle, hustle, hustle every waking minute of every day. Being a fat, dumb, happy ignorant American requires a good three or four generations of not skipping a meal. (and I say all this as an American who hasn't skipped any meals in three generations).

The people who want to get past the firewall know how to get past the firewall. It's information that is at the same level of secrecy as, say, being able to score pot in your neighborhood.

The many people who don't give a shit will still not give a shit.

I don't want to discourage you from doing good things, but there is probably some social injustice much closer to home that you could work on. Check it out some time.

SPAM them-

[HamsterRabies]

They (meaning citizens and gov agents) spam the holy fuck out of us with virus laden transfers.
China has done nothing to secure the internet.
Fuck em.

I hope they choke to death.

It's an electronic leaflet bomb

[lazlo]

Is sending out this sort of thing spam? yes. Is distributing airborne leaflet propaganda littering? Yes.

On a practical note, although it probably would have helped bring down communism for Levi Strauss to leaflet bomb East Germany with ads for their jeans and a note that it'd be easier to buy them after getting rid of communism, I don't think it was done. The first reason is that there probably wasn't a good ROI for Levi to do it. The second reason is that it isn't really the place of private enterprise to attempt the overthrow of sovereign foreign nations.

Similarly, I don't think that spamming China with pay-for-unrestricted-proxy sites, (or even proxy sites that are free but insert advertising or some such... although what would you advertise to the Chinese? Probably Viagra...) would be very lucrative for a US (or wherever) company. It also shouldn't be done by a private company, but by a government, and more specifically, by a government that is more actively hostile towards the target country than the US (or anywhere else I know of off the top of my head) currently is towards China. Of course, once the government does decide to do this, it's probably more effective for them to farm it out to private enterprise. But the difference is one of intention and who's paying for it.

I don't like evil empires any more than the next guy (although I think their most defining characteristic is how they treat people who want to leave and go somewhere else. My gut feeling is that there do exist people who would actually rather live in a totalitarian state. I'd love for those people to have a place to go instead of voting for my next president. I don't actually know how China stacks up in this respect.) So I'm certainly in favor of finding methods to help those members of any society who want to seek freedom. But I'm not convinced this is really an effective or reasonable way to do it.

This is actually two issues (at least)

[Flambergius]

1) Is spamming wrong a priori?

My first instinct is: no, spamming is not wrong in itself, but only due to its secondary effects. Sending an unsolicited email is not destructive or hurtful to any one person, receiving one is only annoying. In most case one should avoid annoying very many people at once, but I fail to see how that would be wrong in a priori moral sense. In practice, spamming has a cost on societal level that must be considered prohibitive in any but the most extreme circumstances.

My second instinct is that it is possible that spamming crosses the line in regards to the receivers right to self-determination. In that case it would be wrong a priori ... however, that feels rather weak. If one was to demand such a high level of self-determination then how would one function in society.

2) Should we spam anti-censorship information to China?

Probably not, for various practical reasons, most of which have been raised here already.

Even when a otherwise workable plan is conceived one should be very cautious about actually acting. Governments are very touchy when their sovereignty (including their ability to oppress their own people) is challenged. A spam campaign spreading truthful and censored information into China may have unintended consequences far beyond simple cost calculations. I for one don't want to see Internet militarized - although that may well be a hopeless wish.

In closing, I must note my disappointment at the level of discussion. I have seldom seen people getting moderated so highly with so little understanding of what the fundamentals of the discussion are. Ethics are damn hard, fair enough, but not having a clue what a priori and a posteriori mean is just intellectual laziness. It's also no excuse that the issue is your pet peeve, if ever that's when your worth as an intelligent and ethic person is measured.

Never.

[man_ls]

The United States is in such trouble on the world stage due to our constant desires to impose our ideas of what "freedom", "morality", etc. mean on everyone else as if they were the only interpretations thereof.

Spamming proxies to subvert the lawful government of another sovereign nation is just another way for American influences to try and force everyone else to conform to their ideas. As altruistic as it may seem ("let's bring the uncensored Internet to people in oppressed China!"), it is equally nefarious. Not to mention, only a small minority of Chinese feel oppressed and need to use such proxies anyway.

Long article, short answer:

[Tom]

No.

Unsolicited mass-email is never ok. I'm sure some of the early spammers also thought that people were genuinely interested in their crap.

Your "revelation" might be of interest to some chinese. But I'd be surprised if there weren't a lot of them who really couldn't care less. For example, those who speak no or not enough english to even care about the web outside of China.

Call me an elitest snob, but... *rant*

[Anonymous Coward]

If you censor the Internet, you have no right to even use it. I'm not talking about parent/kid/Net-nanny censorship, but government censorship. China and Iran's government are retarded, to put it bluntly (and so is ours, actually). They should just make their own "Fascistnet" and play with themselves instead on the normal world's net. I really feel sorry for the people of China (and Iran). I really do.

See what I mean.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at this nutjob. What a great example. I couldn't have paid for a better example of a wacko American lunatic that would be drawn to my post like a moth to a light bulb. My favorite part is he's posting from a Hotmail account on Slashdot.

Go get 'em tiger. Better you be dead than red, right? I couldn't agree more.

Re:See what I mean.

[Anonymous Coward]

Total agreement.

You can practically hear that poster's six-guns and spurs jangling. "Hey looky here Ma, some yellow commie doesn't think the US is the best country in the world, huh huh huh"

Re:See what I mean.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the fact that the 'points' he makes are total bullshit.

Except, ironically, the thing about "capitalism". China: no free medical care. USA? China: no free university education. USA? China: no public transport worth a damn. USA?

China, despite being called a people's republic, is a pure capitalistic state. The USA, despite being called a republic, is a pure corporatist state.

All other free western countries differ from the US and China in these vital areas. Yeah, you can have the world's biggest economy if you don't give a damn about your poor. Yeah, you can have a huge military if you don't spend any money on helping your neighbors in the world.

As the US "leads", so China follows. Pity it's a road to nowhere.

That's what the average USian fears the most --- look at China and they're looking in the mirror. A younger, leaner, harder version of themselves, but it's a mirror nonetheless.

Also for the operators of the firewall.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Talk about making it easy for Chinese secret police as well...

It also makes it easy for the operators of the firewall:

Spamming with lists of proxies guarantees that the list ends up in the hands of the authorities. Then they know what IP addresses to block AND to flag when somebody tries to use them.

No, actually, the cat does not "got my tongue."

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Should we send spam to oppressed people under a dictatorship, showing them how to get around the dictatorship? And people have an ethical issue with this?

I believe some choice quotes from movies are appropriate right about now:

"You want to win? They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue!"

"You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.

          We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!"

"When you put your hand into a pile of goo, that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do."

Not enuf? All joking aside, how about this then: Imagine a boot stepping on a human face -- forever.

Re:it's still spam

[jasen666]

Damn straight.
In fact, I'd be all for a massive spam-DDOS on the entire Chinese IP range.
That, and the Netherlands domains make up most of my server's spam problems.

close, but not quite valid...

[TomXP411]

Your argument for spamming China is almost good enough, but the foundation you laid doesn't hold up. IF your underlying ethical arguments for spam being beneficial were correct, then there might be a case. However, you miss two very important points:

1. Spam isn't wrong because it costs more than it benefits. It's wrong because it violates the recipient's right to choose. The recipient should have the right not to receive any unsolicited messages - even if the message promised free money. Your argument is invalid because the sender cannot reliably determine whether the message would indeed be desired by the recipient. Without the ability to make that determination (by an opt-in system, for example), the sender has the ethical obligation to not send the message. Any other argument against spam is really just an attempt to justify the underlying principle using economic or other means. This country has a tradition of supporting individual rights, even when it costs society more than it benefits the individual. Spam should be no different in that regard. (Otherwise, why do we keep paying for welfare?)

A better definition of spam is: any message that is a) broadcast to a large number of recipients by e-mail, text messaging, or other media that requires actions on the part of the end user to remove and b) is undesired by a large subset of the receiving users. The critical factor is NOT whether there's a benefit. The critical factor is whether the end user will want the message.

2. One tenant of morality is that an illegal act is immoral by default. The only exception is where the law is unconscionable. Censorship laws, by and large, are not unconscionable, since a reasonable person can comply with them without violating his conscience. If the law required people to lie, steal, or kill in order to obey it, then the law might be considered unconscionable. Simply blocking objectionable sites is not unethical. Assuming it is would be projecting our morality on to the Chinese people.

So the real question is: is there a situation where censorship laws are unconscionable enough to require us to break those laws? In that case, how can we bypass that censorship and yet still stay within a valid ethical framework? Mass e-mail may be that method, but only if you can establish that the vast majority of the recipients would actually want to know the truth. (Or your version of it... but that's a whole different discussion.)

how about a different alternative?

[mapkinase]

You mind your own business and do not send bombs, planes, soldiers, spam and whatever your kiplinguesque imperialistic mind can think of.

Behind enemy lines

[jinxidoru]

I was recently in China. I visit there every now and then. It was interesting talking to the people on the street about the issue of internet censorship. They all seemed to think of it as a big joke. They all knew about and used proxy servers on a daily basis. China's policy can't work. They're nothing more than a poor little dutchboy with his finger in the dike. Eventually they'll run out of fingers. It's only a matter of time.

advertising vs spam

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, advertising is spam. whatever it's ability to offset the cost to the end user, it's still a distraction that outweighs its own usefulness of subsidizing viewership. now more than ever this is true, with the low cost to market of the internet. .. but then again i never watch tv.

in an abstract sense, spam does have benefit as a problem that tests both technology and policy. and it's also a more extreme case than causes us to rethink advertising as a model altogether. do i want spam? no. do i like it's existence? well, yeah, sort of. but then again, i never lose any mail from sender's--not from "spam" anyway. the bigger problem still is just the volume of email. i actually think spam only highlights this issue. i expect to see statistical and GTD methods to be on the rise. xobni.com anyone?

I [almost] agree....

[Anonymous Coward]

You had me until your claim that milk is more beneficial than pot. I tried to smoke some milk and nearly drowned!

This is ridiculous!

[NorQue]

How did this get accepted as a real question? Did it have too many words for the editors to read? Do we have to discuss *every* bullshit thought that comes out of the mind of Slashdot readers? Some things are simply so far beyond stupidity that it isn't *worth* spending a single thought arguing about.

Incredible.

Re:This is ridiculous!

[NorQue]

Thank you very much for whoever modded me troll. This proposal is an insult to anyone in China behind the Great Firewall. These people *know* that their Internet traffic is filtered. If you know that things like this exist you'll also know how to circumvent it. They're neither living in the stone-age, nor are they dumb. Thinking you'd help them by spamming lists of proxy servers is holding them for stupid. And this is a fucking insult! Case closed.

Re:This is ridiculous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Too right.

It's arrogant, xeno-ignorant, self-righteous bullshit.

Milk and Pot...not so different

[cranky_slacker]

"pot...isn't as beneficial as milk."
So says you!

Seriously, though, one could craft a strong argument as to why pot is as beneficial as milk (in differing ways, I admit). Just ask a terminal cancer patient or a glaucoma sufferer....

Tit for Tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Wire it up to my spam filter. For every spam I get from China, send over there 100 informative messages.

With some serious thought, the answer is still no.

[swordgeek]

"Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users..."

No. It's not. It is not. No way, no-how. No other qualifiers (countries, noble causes, etc.) are necessary for this statement.

"But I am not against spam a priori"

Ah hah! That's the problem--spam is inherently wrong, not just coincidentally bad. If you can believe that some cases of spam are OK, then you (a) have started sliding down a steep slope, and (b) are just plain wrong. In fact, the flawed reasoning becomes clear just a few short lines later:

"Why is spam a problem? Because the cost of receiving a message, however minor, is more than the benefits."

This is NOT correct! The reason that spam is a problem is that the cost of it is forcibly incurred by the recipient. It doesn't matter how large or small the cost is, nor does it matter what the benefit is. When someone sends out spam, they are forcing the people who get the spam to pay for it in terms of storage, bandwidth, and computing cycles. You can argue that it's not much cost, but that would be (a) incorrect, and (b) irrelevant.

Spam isn't bad because of the content, spam is bad because it's spam. Period. Full stop. End of sentence.

Chinese Mafia

[Tablizer]

Confucious say: man who piss off king get fatal tummy ache from take-out eggroll.

learn from the masters

[Tablizer]

Greetings, I am a liaison of the king of a small African nation. The King wants all of China to be free. However, due to political boundaries and lack of cash, he needs your help in...

Negotiated E-mail

[tempest69]

I think Its about time to just code it myself... An upgraded email system..

step one,,, add a new incoming port for email.

the incoming port will receive a request for "spam bypass", with or without credentials.

it will reply with a number of bits that will need to be solved..

The sender will then either send a negative followed by the message (dropped into the spam folder)

Or the sender will request the workload, where it solves X bits of a DES decryption.

Then sends the message encrypted to the destination, the destination will then accept the email as legitimate.

The advantage is that email will take seconds to minutes to pass a filter, with credentials being able to reduce the workload for more trusted senders.

IP filtering could be used to adjust the workload, depending on senders ip. The regular email would still come through the normal port, but just listed as unfiltered.. allowing a transition to a new email system.

Storm

Re:Negotiated E-mail

[Markspark]

this sounds farking brilliant! if you have the means, please try to realize it!

Re:Negotiated E-mail

[totally bogus dude]

Wow, that's bulletproof! The only way I could see any spammers possibly getting past this would be by harnessing legions of zombies in a massive distributed botnet with near infinite CPU capacity.

Not to mention the whole "hey everyone, change your mail systems so you can mail to me" thing, which puts a serious crimp in any grand scheme to replace SMTP. If we are going to replace SMTP, then I'd suggest completely replacing it with a protocol that requires the sender to store the message on their own server until you decide you want to read it (aka Dan Bernstein's Internet Mail 2000). For trusted senders, you can have your server automatically download the message so you can grab it locally when you want, but this measure alone will make all those dynamic-IP zombies much less useful for spammers.

It could also make IP-based blacklist more effective: any mail which is hosted on a server which is a known spam carrier can be retroactively removed from your mailbox before you have to see it.

Re:Negotiated E-mail

[tempest69]

I agree on the Botnet thing.... I there isnt a good way to handle it. However setting untrusted email to 5 minutes of cpu time will limit botnets to 288 emails/day which distributed among the populace isnt too shabby. Oh the botnet machines would also be slowing to a crawl, and using 100% cpu power all the time, so they would be more likely to be repaired.. So it isnt bulletproof, just a tad more resistant if it goes mainstream

since this is an addition the regular smtp gets through, but it gets tagged as "unfiltered" so it could be subjected to more through spam filtering. So the friends could still send normal email, but it would be "tagged" for the email client to be able to differentiate it from the "negotiated"... How the email client decides to display or classify the difference is outside my scope...

Ok IM2000 has some nice ideas, but I think that spammers would love it.. only the subject info needs to be sent, so they can increase their effective bandwith.. since most people just nuke subject lines anyway, it has some advantages for the spammer... but its a total replacement for smtp, so its tough to gain a foothold.

Completely off topic

[garnetlion]

...spam me about the lord or whatever nonsense,

Totally unrelated to anything you actually said, this totally makes me giggle. I died a little every day I spent in Catholic school, and hearing people say things like "the lord or whatever" makes me feel warm on the inside.

...welcome our new proxy overlords.

[StikyPad]

I know *I* would trust an unsolicited request to redirect all of my internet traffic through an unknown, pseudonymous third party. What could possibly go wrong?!?

Re:On merits of subversion

[complete loony]

Hasn't Linus swayed us all on the merit's of git yet for OSS development? Are people still promoting subversion?

Delusional

[jihadist]

How sure are you that your system of no censorship is so great? After all, your music is garbage, your art is comedic kindergarten works, your literature is neurotic drivel and your politicians are liars. Are you sure this cannot be explained by simply saying, "Misery loves company"? Yes, China, share in the misery that democracy and capitalism bring -- as Plato pointed out, it's the surest path to oligarchy and tyranny. Join us in that unhappy future and we'll all be equal.

Morons.

It would have the reverse effect

[Anonymous Coward]

By spamming the addresses of proxies, you will propagate them as "spam urls", and messages will be blocked by spam filter by virtue of merely having those addresses in them. So aside from it being a hypocritical dumbass idea, it's extremely self-defeating.

Wrongly assuming they WANT access?

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently I'm living & working in China. I've spent time in both Beijing and Shanghai. And one key assumption I think the article is making is that somehow the mass of Chinese WANT to be free of their censorship shackles. From what I've seen, that isn't the case.

I've managed to use my corporate VPN & proxy to be able to get access to the free web. But every time I share the observation with co-workers it's greeted with indifference. I've found the same thing when I recommend TOR to non-work friends.

The odd truth is... many of them seem to believe that a filtered media is actually GOOD for them. They're free of all the bad news, and bickering and back-biting that they hear in other nations.

Before I came to China I envisioned a people who were hungry to be free. The reality is very different. I'm sure there's a very vocal, fervent group which is fighting diligently. But by and large all I've seen is country-wide indifference.

The Solution

[woksta]

Seriously - perhaps they would benefit over there from penis extension pills.

Its not spam - its CHOICE

[unity100]

yes indeed sire.. its choice. they are not being given that choice by their government. so someone should give them that. however harmful spam is on "our" world where internet is (at least seemingly) free, it becomes a little shining light in repressive countries with a single mail that tells how you can get around the repression.

do it.

OK to send spam?

[buss_error]

"Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users in China, Iran, and other censored countries, telling them about new proxy sites for getting around Internet censorship?

.

Not only is it not ethical (spam is unsolicited bulk email. It's not abount conTENT, it's about conSENT), it could arguendo, cause the people that receive the spam to come under closer scrutney of the authorities. Perhaps even being arrested and prosecuited for illegal acts that they themselves did not actively commit, but were the passive and unwilling participants in.

If you want to turn on a firehose, be sure it's pointed at a fire. Or at least at something that benifits from a lot of water all at once.

It's one thing to send an email to someone that wants it and is willing to accept the risks associated with that, but quite another to expose people you don't know and never met to accept the risk of police questioning for something they never asked to receive. Remember, no matter how misguided you and I may view communism, there are many that truely beleive in it, accept it, and support it. To them, a proxy list just proves how bad and perverted free markets and democracy is.

Embodied in US law is the principal that We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right, under the Constitution or otherwise, to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even "good" ideas on an unwilling recipient.

Chief Justice Burger has, from where I stand, the right idea here.

Re:it's still spam

[Benaiah]

Just write your spam message in Chinese and then set your language to english... Your email filter will start getting them...

I live in China...

[Eosha]

And from talking to most of the folks here, it's a nonissue, for 3 reasons -

1) The firewall is becoming less of a problem as things like Wikipedia are unblocked.
2) The vast majority of people in China aren't interested in the vast majority of the "blocked" content.
3) The tech-savvy and/or highly motivated types have already found workarounds such as Tor.

People in the West seem far more concerned about the firewall than the Chinese citizens.

Mathematical rigour my arse.

[Nazlfrag]

...you stole some small benefit from a large number of people and redistributed it to other people, which has no positive or negative net effect.

Therein lies the fatal flaw in your logic. Spamming has a net negative effect, no matter how you politically spin it. There is one good sort of spam - the one that gets trashed by your junk filter. I'd happily add your proxy list. You won't outsmart China's censorship police with stupidity, no matter how great.

Is the USA really a democracy?

[cesc]

Iran's democracy is clearly a farce, just political propaganda. The fact that the current president had more votes than the other candidates is irrelevant if you consider the fact that most candidates where actually disqualified before the actual elections.

What distinguishes Iran from the USA is that the former has a very crude system for disqualifying presidential candidates, whereas the latter has more subtle mechanisms. Yet the result is the same: the candidates have been chosen before the actual elections and the voters have are faced with the dilemma of choosing which candidate represents the lesser evil. People don't go to vote for the candidate they think will represent them better, but they vote for the one who they think will cause the less damage ( maybe because having a lesser evil plan or maybe for being more incompetent at implementing equally evil plans).

In the upcoming USA presidential elections there will only be two candidates who stand a chance. This alone proves that it's not a democracy. In Iran the filter is called Council of Guardians or Supreme Leader, in the USA is called Electoral Votes and Electoral Colleges.

In my opinion, for a government to be qualified as democratic it should, at the very least, not have any "a priory" filters for the candidates, and not any "winner takes all" kind of filter either. All the candidates that have managed to get some votes should be able to pull their votes together to form a democracy.

Re:Is the USA really a democracy?

[malsdavis]

I think the crux of the problem is that there is actually no country (that I know of) that is a true democracy (apart from Switzerland to some extent). All modern democratic countries are actually representative democracies and the choosing of those representatives therefore has to be subject to rules and hence conjecture that the system is somehow unfair. Even in the best western representative democracies, arguments still fly over which precise electoral system should be used (i.e. first-past-the-post, preferential / single transferable vote, instant runoff voting etc.).

Flawed logic. Trap!

[mattr]

Reread these snippets (pasted below). The logic is indeed flawed.
Spam is not bad because of a social calculation. It is bad because it ruins the usefulness of information channels paid for and used by individuals, and because it wastes the valuable time of individuals.

It is stealing resources and TFA thinks he or some nebulous social calculation are worthy of deciding on degradation of the information channels and time/investment of a multitude of people. The poster and anyone who believes him, frankly is the enemy.

Any agreement to spam makes a slippery slope that will allow too much.

Finally he is wrong about China being a special case. The above is true in China and anywhere else in the universe. For example I subscribed to a digest of a developers mailing list to reduce mail, and reduce the chance of missing mail due to spam (I have a lot of spam to delete every day like you probably do.) It was lower quality communication and I recently knuckled under and switched to a per-message format. If I had no spam it would not be a problem. You can subscribe to these mailing lists in India and China. QED.

> 1. ...Spam is bad because the costs to society are greater than the benefits...
> 3. ...not true in China...
> ...Perhaps this logic is flawed...

What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes me a little angry, but it is so very American I should have expected it.

Who the hell are you to pass judgement on Chinese or Iranian society, and decide that they need internet proxies so much that you are willing to try and justify spamming them. It's ok for you to spam them because you're some great deliverer of truth and justice?

What makes you any different from the person who thinks you need cheap viagra, and stock market tips?

Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

And ignorant too.

Different does not equal bad.

Re:it's still spam

[Obsi]

Spam is unsolicited bulk email. Is this unsolicited? Yes. Is it bulk? Yes. Is it email? Yes. Thus, it's spam.

of course...

[enjahova]

because the one spamming us is the one who is in need of these proxy servers... A spam for a spam and the whole world's inbox is full.

Spam the US then.

[JasonNolan]

"Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users in China, Iran, and other censored countries, telling them about new proxy sites for getting around Internet censorship?" Research done by Citizen Lab a few years ago showed that the US was the greatest government censor. The government forces schools and libraries that get government funding to censor information. So spam them, and deal with your own problems first... right?

maybe a solution without a problem?

[Loosifur]

As I understand it Chinese users are already on proxies. It's like Prohibition apparently; the Chinese authorities can't keep up, the penalties aren't that stiff anymore, and many of them don't really want to enforce the censorship that strictly anyway. Basically, as the Chinese economy grows more computers are available, infrastructure improves, education improves, and suddenly you have a swarm of Chinese 17-year-olds looking for free pr0n. It makes me proud to be an American.

Re:it's still spam

[hswerdfe]

maybe you actually need to RTFA? He is not saying that. he is developing an argument based around the lack of any other way to get the message out.
HE even states that (in his opinion) it is never ok to spam in a free country.

next time, RTFA then comment!

Head in the sand.

[Anonymous Coward]

China cares for it's people? Really? What about all of the academics/intellectuals you have locked up for speaking out against your government? What about your country still using harmfull chemicals in your children's toys? What about your hideous pollution records? Oh, and I am sure you treat your female population like second class citizens. Infanticide anyone? LOL! BTW, I am the poster.

Exactly. We're saying we're better.

[athloi]

As I was trying to point out in this post ("0, Troll"), people don't always want our "help." They didn't in Iraq and they didn't in Vietnam. They probably don't in China either.

I've found that any time I travel outside of the comfortable confines of the USA with its mass-media present on every streetcorner, I get shown entirely different views of the world. We have a tendency to think that because our media says something, it is universal, but it's far from the case. We also assume that because we think something is great it doesn't appall the rest of the world, but it might.

We assume a lot of things, and the answers are far from complete. I see a lot of signs of bad things coming in our own empire, and I know that when I've had problems in the past, I always wanted to blame someone else first. Maybe we're doing that here, or maybe we're not, but either way I think it's rude for us to tell the Chinese our way of life is "better" by spamming them with proxies.

Unthinkable: the Chinese government PHISHING???

[hadaso]

> Their government will NEVER think to make their own proxies
> and anonymous spam to catch users ...

Isn't this exactly PHISHING? Creating a fake service and tricking people into thinking they are using the real service? Would the Chinese government stoop so low as to break their own law ...

On the other hand, the Chinese government would have no problem blocking the "proxy spam" by blocking the source, unless the source is disguised using exploits (botnet, open proxy etc.) So the question becomes not if the end justifies sending spam but if it justifies breaking laws all over the world and stealing and exploiting third parties' resources.

I still think Junk Snail Mail is more ________.

[pseudosero]

________.

It's like...

[Anonymous Coward]

People who can't talk about technology, speak about ethics.

The whole thing is moot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing that Westerners believe Chinese people simply can't figure out how to set a proxy, or that no one clicking around in their IE or Firefox settings has ever stumbled on the proxy box and wondered, "Gee, what is this for? Must not be important."

Everyone here who has the tech-savvy to even get on the Internet can find a proxy and go to "blocked" sites, except for those ones so incredibly blocked that even the information contained on them triggers and auto-ban of the proxy server. Incidentally, most of those are adult content in nature like the HK-based UWANTS forum.

The thing is, no one here actually cares to read a whole lot of what is locally viewed as anti-China propaganda. No one would open one of these websites showing a bunch of 1970s pictures of atrocities and say, "TIAN YA! I HAD NO IDEA THIS HAPPENED! I NOW HATE MY COUNTRY AND WILL TRY TO BRING IT DOWN!" No, they will just say, "More of this shit ... back to Baidu porn." Think about the apathy most Americans react with when they realize their demand for Cashmere sweaters is turning all of north China into desert, which causes pollution-frosted sandstorms that carry all the way to L.A. and beyond. No one cares, because they just want to consume more.

The idea that somehow this "blocked" content that any college student with a search engine can access will spark total social upheaval and a change in policy is totally ludicrous.

If you truly want to do something useful for the Chinese Internet, how about a way to actually edit posts on Wikipedia, since Wikipedia bans open proxies and the Gollum browser doesn't allow edits? Then perhaps zh.wikipedia.org could have a balanced view for the first time since 2004.