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Chinese Censor-Beating Software Resembles Malware, But Isn't
coondoggie writes "Software designed to beat Chinese censorship may behave in ways that seem suspect, but it is
all part of the application's strategy to fool the Great Firewall of China, according to one programmer of the software. 'There are many built-in tricks that do all kinds of things to confuse the firewall,' says David Tian, a scientist for NASA who works spare-time on UltraSurf, the free software designed to promote unrestricted Internet access for citizens of China persecuted for being members of Falun Gang, the religious group the Chinese government is trying to suppress."
I think it's Falun Gong
says David Tian, a scientist for NASA who works spare-time on UltraSurf, the free software designed to promote unrestricted Internet access for citizens of China persecuted for being members of Falun Gang, the religious group the Chinese government is trying to suppress."
So the same government with flag@whitehouse.gov wants freedom of information in other countries but not in their own?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Article mispelled the name, subject has the right name of the "religious" group. It is worth nothing that Falun Gong is actually a cult that believes you can become a God by setting yourself on fire or via suicide by jumping off buildings, etc. This is not a set of rationale individuals who have chosen to congregate to discuss some philosophical issues with the world. They're a nutty cult like Heaven's Gate that believes they become immortal through self-imposed death. For the rest of us to criticize the Chinese for a crackdown on something we do not understand before actually evaluating their motives is a bit presumptuous.
You shouldn't be trying to "confuse it", you should be making sure that the traffic patterns aren't unique and discernable. In other words, using steganography. All this "confusion" stuff I read in the article gives the user a distinct pattern of behavior that can identify the user as actively using said software. If you're trying to get under the radar of the government, don't start by sending up a big digital flare that says "Hey! I'm trying to bypass your crap." It usually ends badly for the would-be revolutionary, who's first job (I might add) is to survive.
Even in so-called "free" countries like the US, the government can imprison people indefinately on the off chance that the encrypted data may be subversive. How do you suppose China would handle it? Encryption doesn't enable free speech -- a gun to the head is a pretty effective way of recovering the key.
Save lives: Use stenography.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It doesn't claim to be FOSS. All free software doesn't have to be FOSS.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This isn't free software. There is no source available anywhere.
There's a difference between free software and open source software.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
and no chinese read /. so the secret is safe.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Free as in beer.
Or so David Tian would like you to believe, but did any of us think that he may be using his software as a ploy to deploy real Malware and take down the Chinese space program, from the inside!! If you listen you can hear the muah ha ha echo after reading the blip.
Chinese Senseless-Beating Resembles Malware, But Is
This isn't free software. There is no source available anywhere.
Yes please to release code for study, much interest in such topic have we.
My own personal explanation for this bizarre behavior is that Westerners actually don't know anything about Falun Gong, and don't care to learn. They are comfortable with the "narrative" that FG=good, China=bad. And as recent events have shown, narratives are more important and cherished than the actual facts on the ground. People get *angry* when their comfortable narratives are revealed to be inaccurate.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
While I agree that Falun Gong is a total wacky cult (and I have old friends where sadly involved with it), but maybe you should think with a little objectivity calling the media atheist. I mean the one thing that a US presidential candidate must do is prove their love to Jesus. Don't you think if the media were atheist this sort of thing would be questioned a bit more. The one thing that a major political candidate simply can not be is Atheist, polls have pretty much proven that we will get an islamic president before we get an atheist. Personally I find the rites of all christianity, and bible stories just as nutty as the Xenu crap. Think for a second if you first heard these stories when you were in your 20s.
I rely on UltraSurf almost daily. Its light and effective, just the way I like it.
Announcing that the software that could be used to bypass their filters is indistinguishable from malware will mean than soon China will be the country with less malware (ok, if you want, non-government sponsored malware) in the world. Not sure how much that will hit botnets, or the level of spam, but probably could be enough to make a difference.
Also, that could be very bad news for malware/botnet/spambots programmers/controllers... at least, i hope so.
This program is just one big scam to get funds from some human right organization or what not.
Living in China you will quickly learn a number of things:
- All the information you want, including Falun Gong, Tibet, etc. can be found INSIDE China. The only issue is that you need to LOOK for it. Which may be in convenient, but no more than LOOKING for a solution to by pass the GFW.
- A host of Chinese and foreign companies alike offer VPN's to the US. None of these are blocked by the GFW, even after years of operation. (This is different from free proxies who DO get blocked - but I can't really call that a disservice considering all the privacy issues related to using these proxies.)
- If you looked at the GFW's functioning at all you know that actual blocking a website by blacklisting its IP is VERY RARE. In most cases they use DNS poisoning combined with sending out RST packets. The first is very simple to overcome, the second could easily be avoided if US providers would simply drop RST packets "at the border". Obviously there is simply no interest to do so.
Because some people, such as myself, are fully in favor of making fun of religions, but object to the 'cracking down' part. As insane as Falun Gong might be, they should be allowed to preach and practice whatever the hell they want as long as they don't resort to actual physical violence, just as the society should be free to do any counter-propaganda - but blanket censorship and putting a lot of practitioners in prison is crossing the line.
I've often thought that, but expecially just now, when I couldn't figure out from the title whether
Chinese {Censor-Beating} Software...
or
{Chinese Censor}-Beating...
were meant. Though one should take no joy in anyone's being beaten, I found myself somewhat warming to the concept of code that beat censors....
('Mental plan!')
if the developer will be able to tweak the software to save us from the U.S. Government Overlords who want to want to cut access to the Internet in the event of an "emergency" as defined by President Nobama?
I thought Ultrasurf was created to allow people to browse porn at work.
I always find it irritating when I read these "China is so bad because they censor the internet" stories. To be clear I do think China is bad for censoring the internet but so are we (i.e. the US). We don't have a stated federal policy of censoring the internet but we have forced take downs of content, we want to let corporations force us into a tiered internet strategy, and we're constantly trying to protect our citizens from themselves. Nothing is more irritating that hypocrisy and maybe we should look at fixing our own attitude where we try to protect money and our citizens from themselves before we start pointing fingers at others who do the same sorts of things for different reasons. People should realize at some point that your motivations don't matter when you're acting in a similar way, both are wrong. Is China worse sure but come on we're foolish if we believe we're a last bastion of individual freedoms these days. We're just better than the country that wants to control all information...weee that's something to get excited about. I bet we're better than N. Korea on torturing people and protecting due process too, again how can I contain my pride?
Btw, I'm torn because China does suck for censoring the internet =)
Steve Topletz and Jonathan Logan gave a fascinating talk at the BlackHat Briefings this past July, where among other things they discussed how one Chinese tactic in dealing with privacy groups is to set up their own organizations...a darker kind of astroturfing, if you will...that compete against legitimate privacy-focused groups. They also detailed their analysis of UltraSurf, which revealed some fairly horrifying things. For one, it's not just the code itself that historically has been trojan-esque in nature, but the behavior as well. Once they fired it up, it started probing a multitude of networks, all belonging to either Western governments, the financial sector, or the military. Also, it demonstrated that it was listening in within SSL sessions, as demonstrated by its behavior when browsing within SSL would return an error page (even a custom one, that wouldn't be of the normal size expected for a 404 response, for example). So, I'm not too likely to believe a guy just because he works for NASA; NASA is not an organization that was founded to provide bona fides for security researchers, so it really doesn't add any mantle of credibility for this topic.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
I'll be playing a fantasy game, or reading a novel, with priests and churches and angels and demons, and it hits me that 90% of America fervently believes stuff that seems cheesy in a video game.
...I'll line-camp for whichever religion is the first to grant me giant swords, the superhuman strength required to wield them, and laws-of-physics-defying agility!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Here in the United States, you are also free to do what you want, as long as you do not break the law. We just happen to have a different set of laws, which are less restrictive with regard to what information you are allowed to access, but more restrictive with regard to which information you are allowed to share with others.
Palm trees and 8
The article mentions the Global Internet Freedom Consortium. It has several more censorship-beating programs at internetfreedom.org
The biggest problem is plausible deniability - if they search your computer and find the software, how do you explain its presence?
There is really only one way to solve this problem: the software must credibly pass as malware. It must have at least some of the traits of malware, and it must be actively used as malware, otherwise it's not credible, and in sufficiently oppressive countries you will likely end in prison for just having it on your machine.
Did you see that little gem hidden in the description? The program is behaving like malware to fool the Great Firewall. Since the goal is bypassing the Great Firewall, does that mean that the Great Firewall is more lenient if it thinks the traffic that is hitting it is generated by malware?
Just thinking...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Falun Gang ?! I will NOT RTFA because i want to believe it's about Mattias Fink and how China has uncovered some wierd and twisted Human Rights activity about Swedens arguably only mass-murderer in existence, and of course, how to circumvent The Great Firewall of China.
...of the supercomputer they were sold ostensibly to model the weather for the Beijing Olympics. According to officials, the clones have been particularly useful in defeating attempts to use obfuscation to bypass the Great Firewall...
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"