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Behind China's Great Firewall
DigitalDame2 writes "In light of the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, more scrutiny is being placed on China's Web-filtering practices. In May, China's technology minister, Wan Gang, told Reuters China he would 'guarantee as much [access] as possible,' defending Web limitations as necessary to protect the country's citizens. Truly understanding this cat-and-mouse game means taking a close look at what exactly the government filters out, how the Great Firewall works, and how others have found ways around it."
I honestly want to see pictures of that thing. I mean, every single packet that goes in and out of China goes through a giant box. That thing has to be huge to filter any sort of serious bandwidth.
Until the USA starts filtering my access to the BBC, I don't really know why they even brought that up -- its just like workplace filtering at any other job.
This is an illustration of the slippery slope and we all should show this to anyone who wants to censor or regulate the internet for obscene material or to "protect the children".
As a matter of fact, here's a perfect illustration how the "think of the children" rhetoric can be and is used for oppression of a people.
Protect them?
PROTECT THEM???
From WHAT??? Other than finding out what a murderous bunch of thugs run their craptastic fascist gov't?
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
It's understandable from a policy level but they have been throttling the hell out of their trans-Pacific connections. Our team over there was getting 36kbs downloads from a (flaky GoDaddy client) connection the other day.
The truth is the Chinese govt. faces a very real terrorism threat w/ the upcoming Olympics and are doing everything including monitoring the Net to keep it from happening.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Now that I think about it, the way China is right now is strikingly similar to how view an Internet in which Net Neutrality has been soundly defeated and one can only visit approved sites. There are, of course a few differences...govm't approval vs. corporate sponsorship. But the end result of a strictly regulated Internet experience remains the same. Or I could be completely full of it.
.-.
http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D228357,00.asp
I was in China last month and the only sites that I had any problem accessing were blogs. It seemed that most popular blog sites were completely blocked. Wikipedia, Slashdot, Youtube, Facebook, etc. were all accessible. They don't seem to be using a whitelist though, as my own small unimportant domain worked fine.
In retrospect, blocking blogs isn't such a bad idea...
Worst BBC News Stories
Physics is imagination in a straight jacket. ~John Moffat
Ugh. A terrible article which you could summarise in one sentence..
"Use a VPN or proxy if you want to use the internet without fear or restriction."
I was hoping for more detailed information on the operational hardware involved in filtering a country, not confirmation it happens, which is already widely known.
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
Some of the sites that I know to be blocked:
Blogger
Blogspot
Flickr (only the photo serving subdomains)
Typepad
Wordpress
Formerly blocked, but now open:
Wikipedia
BBC News
As far as I'm aware, the blocks on the blog-related sites are domain or netblock level--not the result of keyword or content-level filtering.
...necessary to protect the country's citizens. It's not protecting Chinese citizens that's the problem. It's protecting the rest of the world from the Chinese citizens that concerns me.One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Westerners have to try to understand that the generation that's in it's mid-late 20's owe their standard of living and level income to the Communist Party, they and look to the party members for moral guidance. Propaganda, even on the "international" CCTV-9 has reached an all time high with wall to wall interview of people who have lost everything praising the work of the government.
When it comes to Internet censorship, it's largely a joke. Websites can be overcome with any number of web proxies, and even if you can't get to the porn that you want, you can go to the local computer markets in Zhongguancun or Chaoyangmen, where you'll be offered "DVD sex movies". The BBC had been unblocked, but blocks are still in place for servers on Flicker and on Livejournal and Blogspot.
The government here is rather sneaky. They don't say that they actively and specifically filter websites, rather, they ask ISPs to self-censor and these ISP's face heavy fines for allowing undesirable content through. This is the reason that websites that are accessbile in Shanghai aren't accessible in Beijing or other parts of China.
A good project to keep an eye on is Concept Doppler, which has a list of what keywords and phrases are filtered by the GFW. What is interesting is that of all the tests that CD team performed, a certain number of the phrases did managed to get through the filter, showing that the GFW doesn't filter everything all the time, but filters some most of the time, which creates the impression that everything is filtered, and, ultimately, keeps people scared.
You can register an SSH account in a Unix machine located in China and try GFW by yourself
http://www.unix-center.net/uc/reg.php
sorry but the page is in Chinese only
Having gained my four year college education in University of Science and Tech. of China, I have some experience on GFW. Chinese people's attitude toward GFW reflects gap of old and young generations.
Almost all young Chinese, me included, think GFW is totally stupid and the people who are in charge of the blocking have pig brains. why?
1. CNN/BBS/FalunGong/TibetGIE should not be blocked since nobody in China reads them.
2. Some irrelevant websites such as sourceforge used to be blocked.
However, most of old people(our parent generation) have opposite opinions. They think Internet is full of pornography, additive games, violence and bad guys/gals. Indeed, I know some brilliant high school students including my own nephew ruined by net addition.
However, I think cyber censorship ss more like stupid ISPs' wanting to be "politically right" rather than central gov's direct command.
that there are han imperialists and han apologists shouldn't really amaze you. every culture and country in this world: russia, brazil, nigeria, mexico, india, etc., etc. has a loud vocal nationalist sentiment
the americans that engage in nationalist chest thumping of course deserved to be spoken out against, but most importantly on this point, in the usa, according to law, you can actually speak out against them
whereas in china, or cuba, or turkey, and other countries, to criticize your country or your government, something most americans consider second nature, is very much foreign and is outright censored and punished
such that if there are fascist nationalist forces being bred somewhere in this world, it is in the incubators that filter out any self-critical thought, such as with china and its web policy
that's why you get these mainland chinese freaking out whenever they hear a foreigner criticize china. they are very tender on the point. as an american, we're pretty much immune to other nations criticizing us, it's pretty much an international past time at this point, but for a chinese, grown up in a media environment that purposefully eradicates all self-critical thought, the idea of criticizing chinese government or chinese character is alien
this, of course, is extremely dangerous. china as a growing power will get more such criticism, as is natural for any great power in the world. but if the chinese people cant' take the criticism, you run the real risk of a demagogue seizing control in china, someone who panders to nationalist chest-thumping, rather than prudent governance
people always talk about american self-interest as the greatest evil in this world. but compared to the chinese, americans are practically thick skinned when it comes to anti-americanism. anti-chinese sentiment really drives some mainland chinese absolutely nuts. its psychologicaly unhealthy and a stunted frame of mind, to have no capacity for self-criticism, and to just reject all of it out of hand as foreign meddling
the very idea of self-criticism is anathema to han ultranationalists. certainly most american nationalists also suffer form an allergy to self-criticism. but this is more a function of their own personal psychological failures, rather than a government-level psychological incubation
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
china is obviously a great power in this world. when you are a great power, you get criticized. with great power, this kind of criticism is a natural occurence
a true great man can take lots of criticism in stride. an immature powerless man meanwhile freaks out every time someone suggests the slightest negative thing about him. it shows a lack of confidence, an insecurity
han ultranationists: do you believe that china is a great power? if you do, then start acting as that great power status dictates: have more confidence. china will be criticized more and more every year since it is so powerful now. if you cannot handle that criticism, then you are in danger of destroying your own greatness with your own insecure behavior
to defeat the creation of insecure people in china, you should foster a healthy amount of internal dissent and self-critical thinking in china. if you do not, if you censor anything that remotely criticizes the chinese government or the chinese nation, then what you do is make the chinese people permanent children. you incubate chinese who are unable to handle criticism without freaking out in insecurity and a lack of confidence
and thereby diminishing the greatness of china
china is a great nation. i believe that as an american. so start acting like a great nation, and grow some thicker skin when foreigners criticize china. being criticized is a natural product of being powerful. get used to it. believe me, as an american, i know something about being criticized on the world stage! and mostly, i just shrug it off. you should to
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it