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Free Tools To Evade China's Web Censorship
narramissic writes "The Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC) offers a set of free tools that can be used to circumvent Chinese Internet censorship. The group claims approximately 1 million people in China use its tools to access the Internet. And, says Tao Wang, director of operations for GIFC, 'it's a very good time to remind Western reporters that there are such tools.'"
If the websense software on my workplace computer can block this site, I'm pretty sure the Chinese government can too.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I predict a mass beheading coming soon for disobeyings DA GE
Tao Wang to go missing in 5..4..3...
So how is this different to using Tor?
I doubt many western reports will have problems. If you work for a company of any size, the company has a VPN. You log into the company VPN. ( I promise you China does not block them. I live here. ) Once you are logged into your VPN, you surf where ever you want. Plus, it is encrypted - so no spying.
One problem that is not commonly discussed is what I call the "great American firewall". For better or worse, a lot of western sites block all requests from China. It is really annoying if you want to make a few online purchases and you aren't trying to hack their site. I should start to compile a list of specific examples.
That's a really small demographic in comparison to the population there...
Are they being conservative or do they have factual numbers? That seems low to me.
No I didn't read the article.
"It's a very good time remind Western reporters that there are such tools," said Tao Wang
I don't know. You get a couple hundred (or thousand) reporters getting censored while reporting on a very high-profile event? I think it would do more to call attention to China's policies. They'll talk for months about how hard it was for them to do their jobs and the freedoms they had to live without. If they use these tools, they'll go home afterward and forget all about the fact that they needed them at all.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
That way you won't have to see the cute internet police on your browser every 30 minutes.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it. Mirrors will pop up, new proxies will be enabled, people with the will can gain the knowledge they need to circumvent blockage.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
You can't stop that which is a reality in life.
Taxes
Death
Gospel
Nagging
Smiles
Dark Humor
Bad Beer
Hopefully now we can use them to catch China "not censoring the internet" like they finally agreed they would. I'm sure there won't be ANY discrepency between access with and without one of those tools now and no international incidents will happen[/sarcasm]
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I think that the major news outlet will play nice during the Olympics, reporting only State-approved news and events. However, when the Olympics are over and everyone goes home (free from the clutches of the Chinese government and their censorship), then the real reporting on China whill begin.
Working around the censors will be the quickest way to be detained in China for a long time.
soon they will be needed here, in the western world, where instead of stopping you they just slow you down when you go in 'unwanted' direction. does not look there is too much difference to me. they do it for political reasons, we do it for business reasons. either way, people are restricted.
I predict insightful moderated posts about how people are going to be executed or "disappeared" for downloading some software, by people who have never left their own country before.
Yes there are many technical ways of circumventing the Chinese firewall or any other net censorship. The real issue here is that the vast majority won't use them because they can't be bothered, leading to widespread ignorance about issues that really need to be addressed.
The reason censorship works so well is because people are generally lazy, regardless of country or race and don't go hunting for information that isn't spoon fed to them.
So to summarize, the definition of success when it comes to censorship isn't that they stopped 100% of information getting though, but that they stopped it a little, combined with a disproportionate amount of easily digested propaganda leading to an impenetrable wall of ignorance that no little circumvention tools are going to help.
There are 1,313,973,713 people in the PRC.
20.8% (male 145,461,833; female 128,445,739) are 14 years old or younger.
71.4% (male 482,439,115; female 455,960,489) are between 15 and 64 years old.
7.7% (male 48,562,635; female 53,103,902) are over 65 years old.
The population growth rate for 2006 is 0.59%.
The PRC officially recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups, the largest of which are the Han Chinese, who constitute about 91.9% of the total population.
Large ethnic minorities include the Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uyghur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Tujia (5.75 million), Mongols (5 million), Tibetans (5 million), Buyei (3 million), and Koreans (2 million).
In the past decade, China's cities expanded at an average rate of 10% annually. The country's urbanization rate increased from 17.4% to 41.8% between 1978 and 2005, a scale unprecedented in human history. 80 to 120 million migrant workers work part-time in the major cities and return home to the countryside periodically with their earnings. Today, the People's Republic of China has dozens of major cities with one million or more long-term residents, including the three global cities of Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Severe punishment of people who freely share information bites (1) which are deemed a threat to the functioning of the system (2) by the ruling classes is not only happening in China, you know...
So when is the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC) going to offer tools to circumwent our own capitalistic censorship machine? Or do they count censorship as such only if somebody else does it?
(1) aka "files"
(2) aka "intellectual property"
The IOC and the ISPCA are very worried about the Chinese government's plan to shoot down all pigeons as a means to prevent illegal communication to the outside word via carrier birds. Said Li Chung, a government representative- "We thought of putting a giant net over the whole province, but it would just enhance the perception of mass pollution in the area."
You can always provide tools for people to break the law. P2P to get pirated software, weapons to kill people, drugs, etc. I don't think that makes it legal. If they have rules and regulations, most likely, when you break them, someone will come after you.
Not that they don't deserve to have access to everything, but it's their regulation and should be somehow respected as the rules and regulations of other countries. The US has a drug policy that the Netherlands would find intolerant, that doesn't give them any rights of providing tools to the people in the US to easily have access to drugs while in the US.
The big question is will you be caught circumventing the censorship.
From what I understand, it's not that hard to break through the censorship. But will you leave any tracks behind--however small--for the government to see? That's the big question.
If you just want to read one NYT article, go ahead and chances are nothing would happen to you. But if you plan on doing this day in day out, from your home connection, then a few months down the road you may get a knock on your door in the middle of the night.
I'm curious if anyone knows advantages / disadvantages of the products in this story as compared to TOR.
Hello,
My antivirus software said the "GIFC Anti-Censorship Tools Bundle" download from the Global Internet Freedom Consortium contained "probably a variant of Win32/Delf trojan."
I am not sure if this is a false positive alarm or a bona-fide infection, but you may want to exercise some caution before installing the software on your computer.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
Besides failing to mention TOR, which is a great program to lock up your router if your running it as a node, they fail to mention Psiphon which I run on a file server here at home.
The very best thing about it, is that it requires NO software to be downloaded on the client side. The service acts as an encrypted proxy that is accessed with a web address and a login/password that you supply to the user.
A million screamin chinamen use these tools to access the internet?
"Last I heard, there were a billion screamin chinamen."
(Pours coffee in fire.)
"There were!"
I have a feeling that if companies are really worried about their people getting blocked they will simply setup a spare computer in their offices and then use that as a VPN or SSH server.
Does china block RDC connections? This would be the best way I think. Just RDC over a SSH tunnel. This would allow you to actually operate a computer stateside and not behind their firewall. Plus you would not have sensitive files floating around.
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
Introduction to China's Laogai:
Up to 30,000 "Internet Police" monitoring your every move.
"The Laogai institution known as laodong jiaoyang --- commonly abbreviated as
"Laojiao" - also serves as a tool for the Chinese Communist Party in its constant efforts to silence critics and punish political criminals without having to bother with investigations and legal proceedings."
"There is an end to Laogai, but Jiuye (forced job placement) is forever"
" In 1979 and 1980, many jiuye renyuan or âforced-job-placement-personnel" who had completed their sentences but were still forced to labor within the Laogai camps under a policy that denied their release, were finally allowed to return to their homes. Previous to this change in practice, upwards of 90 percent of all Laogai and Laojiao prisoners remained in detention indefinitely under this Jiuye policy even after they had completed their sentences.
"There used to be a saying in the labor camps: "There is an end to Laogai, but Jiuye is forever.""
Laogai:
http://www.laogai.org/hdbook/hb_intro.htm
http://www.laogai.org/news/index.php
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=280233-6
Think "Soviet Gulag".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
Can't happen here?
Ex Machina:
https://tagmeme.com/exmachina/a/002450.html
~hylas
The "four boxes in defense of liberty" are from a short story by Robert Hienlien. I don't know who Ed Howdershelt is, but I would disagree and put "ballot" before "soap".
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
JAP is a free java based anonymizer. It runs as a sort of "proxy" as in you route your internet traffic through a localhost port, but it sends out your data through two or more "mixes" which anonymize your connection. It successfully masks your IP, your location, and most importantly your identity. Its relatively fast for the obvious latency problems that are bound to happen.
JAP
It's actually more accurate than you may think. The US economy system is actually dependent on IP. If there is no censorship of IP being distributed freely, the system will not hold much longer. Censorship of freely distributed information is actually more in support of the so called free world than it is for China.
China is currently experiencing a huge economic growth. And a lot of people benefit from it. As you might know, from experience or history, most people put privacy and personal freedom secondary behind physical wellbeing and wealth. So it is actually not unlikely that people don't give a rat's behind about how the ruling elite keeps their power, as long as there's economic progress and a gain in personal wealth.
The US otoh have a huge economy problem when IP laws get ignored by large portions of the planet. IP revenue, from patents to copyright, make up a serious portion of their international trade. With widespread outsourcing, IP laws are the only thing that allows US companies to generate revenue from having others produce their goods abroad. With IP rights, content companies can cash in on the use of their content. If IP laws can be ignored, the US economy will suffer much more heavily than the Chinese government would from "radical" ideas entering the country.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is it legal, in China, to use such tools, or any other tool to circumvent the Great Firewall?
Does this mean that I will be able to see through the pixelation of the "naughty bits" on yuvutu.com?
'it's a very good time remind Western reporters that there are such tools.'" Too bad the reporters only know what is hand fed to them.
Eviscerate the Proletariat!
I for one would be very interested in that list.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Well said.
I posted a similar thought earlier only it used more words. Yours is better.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Americans are ready to be "revolutionary" when it is about fucking up another country. When it gets to doing something about the fascism radiating from their own country they suck Bush balls.
UltraSurf blocks P*rn!
That's worse than the China's Goverment.
Bastards.
Czech dissident writer Zdenek Urbanek once said...
In one respect, we are luckier than you in the free west, because we have learnt to read between the lines, and you believe you have no need; but you do.
George Orwell recognized that western media operates on self-censorship way back in the 40s. He wrote a preface to Animal farm all about it, but the preface itself was censored and never published. Amongst other things, he said...
The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. ... [Things are] kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact
For example, if you read the BBC online, you probably know that Hugo Chavez shook the Spanish King's hand recently after their previous spat. Hardly Earth shattering news. Yet you probably won't be aware that Colombian President Alavaro Uribe is under investigation for possible involvement in the planning of a massacre by right wing paramilitaries. The general trend is that bad stories about allies are either ignored or only reported in passing, whereas those about official enemies such as Chavez are accentuated and repeated ad infinitum.
Anyone interested in censorship in the western media should read "Manufacturing Consent" by Hermann and Chomsky, or watch the documentary on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wksCW3ooJ5A
..it's because it is; Slashdot's editorial standards must be at an all time low. Censorship & monitoring evasion tools abound, both in the proprietary & open source world, and it makes a hell of a lot more sense to use open source solutions, especially if you're worried about ending up in prison for speaking your mind.
"We don't stop playing games because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing games.."
The tools will help Western journalist reporting from Beijing, but they really won't do all that much for Chinese dissidents that are under state surveillance and face the constant threat of imprisonment, torture, and death.
The West needs to start cracking down the the Chinese, starting with the media. You want our money? Then mainland Chinese must have uncensored access to Western media. Media is the US' major export, buy blocking and stealing Western media the Chinese are furthering the trade imbalance and it should no longer be tolerated.
... that they are guests while in China, and should obey Chinese laws while there. They should also try to behave like proper representatives of their respective country, just as the (mostly non-political) athletes are doing.
I'm a fan of freedom, but before we run around and tell every other country how to do it, we should make sure we aren't hypocrites in the process. Whether that's Guantanamo, DC gun laws, seizing laptops by customs, illegal wire taps, a limited immigration policy that creates the illegal immigrant demand, etc, we have lots of examples of not practicing what we preach. Before we go around telling China everything they are doing wrong, perhaps we should offer automatic citizenship for anyone that wants to leave their "oppressive government" for the US?
Now that the Chinese censors can catch wind of this, can't they just take preventative countermeasures against this thing?
'it's a very good time remind Western reporters that there are such tools.'
As opposed to telling China's oppressive regime to go pound sand, we're not sending our athletes to China you miserable fucks!?
Waaaaaaaaaaaah large corporations that put up the money to produce (movies|music|tv shows|games|etc.) get angry when we violate their copyright! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah they're suing me, call the Hague!
Go create your own fucking files. You don't -have- to share their works, and if you don't then they have ZERO leg to stand on.
Or you can continue to cry like a baby.
None of the software on that website is open source.
It might as well be backdoored.
Better use open source stuff such as Tor.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)
A million criminals?? Phew... I'm sure they're piling on the miles on their execution vans.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HG21Ad01.html
Scumbags run our country, scumbags run their country.
As a Chinese I don't like the information control by Chinese government. But nothing is worse than mind manipulation. That Tao Wang is working for a Chinese cult group Falun Gong. So this project is back by a special interest group with strong political agenda. http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2008/8/3/99490.html
...when he said, "Western reporters are such tools," but then I realized I had misread.
I clicked on the Simplified Chinese icon on the top right of the page but it's still English displayed.
I'm wondering what are their targeted users.
I visited this GIFC site. Noted that there is no way to contact anyone there! (freedom ??) .. and its statements seem to be written
by some right-wingers who believe in some 'sanctity' of 'freedom of information' in these United States of America
Now, WERE there such 'freedom' , tell me this: Why did we need the "Freedom of Information Act" ? and having it, why must citizens jump thru hoops to get information about government behaviours???
And when you've answered THAT one ... show me how our U.S. Customs agents can confiscate any computer or storage device, at any border, and retain it for any length of time for any reason, all without court 'interference' ??? Freedoms? That is not what i'd call it.
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
Why not just use tor if people all over the rest of the world use it to stop people from spying on them, then why would it be any different for China?
Remember, it is illegal to use these tools if you are in China. Use of these tools can have serious legal consequences for the user.
According to its Deputy Director, Shiyu Zhou, GIFC is "a small team of dedicated volunteers, connected through their common practice of Falun Gong, who have come together to work for the cause of Internet freedom." GIFC recently asked the US Senate for $50 million in funding to continue its work.
Please note that I'm not posting this information to discredit GIFC - I agree with what they're doing (see my homepage), but I think we should pay attention to why they're doing it and who's paying the bills.
dhhss.net does the same thing... phproxy is all you need pritty much i mean really doesnt matter
Sho' nuff-- I'm in Shanghai right now and I can't access the website. Could someone mail me a CD? And deliver it by swallow, I don't think my carrier pigeons are getting through.
In Soviet China, free tools censor you.
I always recommended to my friends in China and Saudi Arabia to use this, and they say it works like a charm.
I am getting a little bit tired of the word 'freedom' - or at least the way it is being thrown around here on /. as if everyone knew exactly what it means. Can't you see it is nothing but a buzzword? Something that people throw in to make whichever nonsense they peddle smell sweetp; from "freedom fries" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to the idea that circumventing a firewall in order to access pornographic websites is somehow "freedom".
How about respecting the concept of freedom a little? If freedom matters so much to you, at least learn what it means and learn that in a universe where there are physical laws, there is no such thing as absolute freedom. Hell, there isn't even a universal 'optimal' freedom - what one person thinks of as freedom may be another person's slavery. Take yourself as an example - you are probably American, right? So you feel you have freedom, because you can air whichever opinion you like, as loudly and as stupidly as you care; on the other hand, you probably can't go to work and earn money without owning a car and perhaps you have made yourself dependent on a lot of technological stuff, that you feel you can't live without. To me that looks rather like you are not all that free. Yeah, you can stand on a street corner and yell, bless you.
True freedom is in your mind - if you are free in your mind, you let others live like they choose, whether they like to be ruled by an Imam and Shia laws or whether they prefer Communism. You can't force freedom on people, just like you can't force them to have 'good taste'.
Thanks for the reply .. and for the info you provided me .. I didnt know it was a chinese-initiated group .. and the Falon Gong has enough problems to also have its whereabouts known!
My main point was to address the U.S.A.'s 'On a high-horse' attitude ... Not to criticize GIFC. We here in the USA ought to do more to open our own citizens' eyes to the degrees to which we've come up short vis-a-vis our own alleged 'freedoms'
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
I completely agree - given the recent actions of the US government with regard to internet freedom it's not only hypocritical of them to criticise the Chinese government, it might also be counterproductive, since Chinese people can see the hypocrisy and may be tempted to defend their own government. On the other hand I think it's important for groups outside the government in both countries to keep up the criticism and show that the real distinction isn't between America and China, but between freedom and control.
agreed !
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"