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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
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
Oh yeah that's way nuttier than believing drinking the blood and eating the body of a zombie will get you into heaven.
So any programming produced during your "spare time" will be claimed by your employer as "work for hire"? I suggest that you renegotiate your employment contracts.
As Lenin slipped into Russia with German support, :)
Li Hongzhi slipped Falun Gong into China with US support.
The CPC knows its history
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Wait, a REAL zombie? This Christianity thing might actually be worth some looking into..
*is slapped by a noodly appendage of the flying spaghetti monster*
never mind...
...drinking the blood and eating the body of a zombie will get you into heaven.
I do not know of anybody that considers that a prerequisite.
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.
I do not know of anybody that considers that a prerequisite.
It's called the eucharistic rite. Basically, the cult works like this: Eat the body, drink the blood, [redacted], go to heaven. Warning: Some members believe that you have to pour water over them, others believe that submerging them in a lake works, but regardless there other prerequisites besides eating brains and sucking blood. Please visit your priest and see if eating brains is right for you!
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's probably not a cult group, but more resembles a hate group where I see them in Toronto.
They don't seem to practise what they were supposed to believe and preach (which is "Truth, Compassion, Tolerance"). Everyday they set up a booth and spread hate message about the Chinese Communist Party.
Let's put aside our judgement towards CCC itself, which must not be very positive anyway - they way Falun Gong people act just seem to totally contradict "Compassion" and "Tolerance" and it seems more and more like they're preaching "an eye for an eye".
I would not let my children go anywhere near this "religion".
If the main tenet of the Falun Gong really was "suicide rocks!", the Chinese wouldn't need to crack down on them. They'd just have to wait a couple weeks and the problem would solve itself.
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.
"They're a nutty cult like Heaven's Gate"
This looks like a Microsoft bashing post to me.....
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Well pretty much any new religious movement is going to be absolutely insane. It makes sense for a communist government to suppress Falun Gong.. the problem is that they do it by treating practitioners as criminals instead of as victims.
The controversy really doesn't have anything to do with the psychological issues though.. it's that they're imprisoning people, torturing people, and harvesting organs.. not cool for any reason
It's called the eucharistic rite.
I am aware of that, though it's usually called Communion among Protestants. Like I said, I don't know anyone that considers it a prerequisite.
I know, the contrast with the Operation TIPS thing is fucking hilarious. Ah, Republicans.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Everyday they set up a booth and spread hate message about the Chinese Communist Party. Let's put aside our judgement towards CCC itself,....
They don't seem to be preaching violent revolution against the chinese communist party, merely saying that it sucks, and people should not support them. So our opinion of the CCC matters quite a bit in how we judge what they say (and lets face it, for the most part, the CCC does suck)...
they way Falun Gong people act just seem to totally contradict "Compassion" and "Tolerance" and it seems more and more like they're preaching "an eye
I would not let my children go anywhere near this "religion".
for an eye".
the CCC quite happily kills and imprisons all those who resist or complain about its rule, and even those it suspects of resisting, or those who merely defend the rights of others to do so. Falun Gong has certainly been on the receiving end of such persecution. If Falun Gong were guilty of "eye for an eye" thinking, they'd be advocating similar actions against the CCC; but as far as I've seen, they're not, not even close. Though they certainly go to great lengths to demonize the CCC (to the extent they can be kinda annoying), every action I've seen Falun Gong advocate has been non-violent, and non-oppressive (mostly calling for individual chinese to disown the communist party).
So really I don't know what you're talking about....
We live, as we dream -- alone....
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!
A) Not everyone complaining about Obama is a conservative.
B) Not everyone complaining about Obama liked Bush.
I hate them both for what they've done to our freedoms.
Tsk, tsk. This is an important cultural and religious phenomenon that you really should be aware of. Know then that John 6:49 goes something like this. Jesus is getting off the "dividing the loaves and fishes" episode and was evacuating across the lake; the crowd followed him anyway and now they're asking him for a miraculous sign so they can believe in him. They suggest the old manna-in-the-desert trick as an example. Many of them may be operating off of the popular "revolutionary messiah" premise, believing that there will soon be a military overthrow of the existing oppressive world order. They don't quite get what they expected:
Some interpretations dismiss this as a purely symbolic exercise, but the language isn't really the language of symbolism, and furthermore the actual working metaphors for "to eat (someone's) flesh" and "to drink (someone's) blood" mean "to persecute (someone)" and "to oppress (them)". The traditional interpretation for a long time - today, the Catholic and Orthodox stories - integrate this with the subsequent "Last Supper" rite in which blessed bread / wine are said to become his (Jesus's) actual body and blood (though the actual appearance and taste, of course, is unchanged, perhaps recognizing that, in fact, cannibalism is something that people find icky in oractice.)
The whole flesh-as-bread premise probably works a lot better with people who have a diet of mostly-bread, and actually experience handling bread dough, for whatever that's worth.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
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.
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.
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.
> To tie peaceful activists to terrorists and genocidaires that would target select ethnic groups, genders, etc to violence out of hatred
A group can be a hate group without violence. CCC sucks, but watching what Falun Gong people does is also very disgusting, because it's quite obvious that the tone of their pitch *is* out of hatred, whether it's violent or not.
I know a lot of group protest with peaceful messages, and annoying passers-by with flyers with a hateful tone written all over it is not one of them - even if you don't see violence in a video taken of them.
From the tone of their pitch, I'm sure if they have the mean for violence, they would.
It is the right thing to do to point out what the CCP does wrongly (and there are tons of examples). However, if you skip elaborating things and instead just put up posters and handing out fliers that say "MAY THE HEAVEN DESTROY CCP!!" and unnecessarily exaggerate your message, it would totally contradict their message of "Truth, Tolerance".
The FLG people I see, while they may not be a representative of all FLG practitioners, do things that satisfies the search results for "define: hate group" on Google:
* A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates physical or verbal aggression toward or refusal to interact with persons on the ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_group
If you read their messages on the flyers, it sounds just like a verbal aggression.
* an organization whose primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a group of a race, religion ...
www.umw.edu/bias/terms/default.php
It looks like they're spending at least 80% of their time to proomte animosity and hostility against the CCP. I have never seen our local FLG people preach their "Truth/Compassion/Tolerance".
* The term "hate group" is used to describe any organization in any sector of society that aggressively demonizes or dehumanizes members of a ...
www.publiceye.org/glossary/glossary_big.html
Their demonization is nothing short of aggressive.
It is possible to spread the message about the malice of the CCP without the sensationalism, exaggeration and phony researches. Frankly, just a partial but factual list of what the CCP does in the past 10 years would disgust any member of a civilised society. The way the Toronto FLG people do it, it gives me an impression that they're consumed by FLG's hate towards CCP. Maybe if they replaced the sensationalism, phony researches and the "HEAVEN DESTROYS!!" message that pollute people's mind and replace them with a civilised elaboration of facts, they may get their point across MUCH more effectively then they're now.
Until they do that, I still hold my view they look more like a hate group than a religion to me.
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!')
Isn't it a requirement of Catholicism? From the light reading I've done, it really seems that according to strict Catholic teachings, you have to have all your nutty rituals strictly in order when you die, or you burn forever.
That's one way in which Protestants have seemed to make more sense to me. It's just an up or down "Accept Jesus y/n" type choice. No chanting, no strange priesthood.
God, sometimes it just boggles my mind that we still have religion. 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.
From the tone of their pitch, I'm sure if they have the mean for violence, they would.
Er, your being "sure" isn't enough. If they advocate people (not "heaven") commiting violence against the CC, where?
It is the right thing to do to point out what the CCP does wrongly (and there are tons of examples). However, if you skip elaborating things
They do spend a huge amount of time pointing all the horrid things the CCP does -- in fact, almost all public speech by Falun Gong I've seen consists of reports of that. [In other words, "elaborating things"]
and instead just put up posters and handing out fliers that say "MAY THE HEAVEN DESTROY CCP!!"
That's the equivalent of saying "god damn the CCP" -- it's hyperbole and maybe a bit childish, but it isn't the same thing as advocating violence.
* A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates physical or verbal aggression toward or refusal to interact with persons on the ...
Oh please; a silly and excessively hand-wringing definition of "hate group" isn't interesting to anybody except lawyers and politicians.
Real people are far more practical, and yes the nature of the opponent counts quite a lot in how most people think about the situation -- "verbal aggression" against a very nasty and literally murderous opponent is not something most people would begrudge.
[Surely there are good reasons for that definition -- in particular, definitions like that are general, and intended to be applied in cases where the opponent is weak, and things like "verbal aggression" can actually be harmful. Not the against CCP.]
It is possible to spread the message about the malice of the CCP without the sensationalism, exaggeration and phony researches.
No doubt. I agree that Falun Gong's approach is often pretty silly, and kind of childish. They'd probably be a lot more effective if they tried to approach things more maturely.
But so far I've seen no evidence that they actually promote violence. "verbal aggression" against the CCP is not violence, and saying "may heaven destroy" is not promoting it (unless I suppose you think god will actually do it, but I suspect nobody here does...).
Until they do that, I still hold my view they look more like a hate group than a religion to me.
I can't determine how you see things, but your view appears decidedly skewed, and I don't think you've demonstrated what you're claiming.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
yups is catholicism the other is this
baptism(not long after birth)
and no communion until......
first holy communion(aged 7)
where after you can eat all the little wafers as much as you like then
confirmation(aged was 11-12)
HOWEVER that how it WAS!..LOL just spoke to a catholic friend and he says that the infallible church of Rome has admitted an error in the ritual order as was
it seems it seems that it should have been baptism ====>confirmation =====> first holy communion!
now where is that flying spaghetti monster? i am hungry and got some bolognese sauce.... it's communion time!...LOL
We getting rather off topic here. Where are the moderator's with troll and off-topics?
China's censor is designed for Chinese who live in China. I see no problem with that unless you are part of a resistance movement who want to attempt a coup against the Chinese government.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
I thought Ultrasurf was created to allow people to browse porn at work.
oops.. my dyslexia kicks in again...
that should have read.....
yups IN catholicism the ORDER is.......
oops
You have a point. To support bypassing the censors is to support Chinese who break their country's laws. Someone who believes that countries should be left alone in governing their people should not support the flouting of its laws. Many here believe, however, that free speech and access to public information are human rights that cannot be justifiably taken by any government from its populace.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
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
first holy communion(aged 7) where after you can eat all the little wafers as much as you like then
A child who eats as many wafers as he pleases is not aware of the essential difference between "the bread of the eucharist" and ordinary bread, and is therefore ill equipped to receive communion.
From Quam Singulari (1910)
1. The age of discretion, both for Confession and for Holy Communion, is the time when a child begins to reason, that is about the seventh year, more or less. From that time on begins the obligation of fulfilling the precept of both Confession and Communion.
2. A full and perfect knowledge of Christian doctrine is not necessary either for First Confession or for First Communion. Afterwards, however, the child will be obliged to learn gradually the entire Catechism according to his ability.
3. The knowledge of religion which is required in a child in order to be properly prepared to receive First Communion is such that he will understand according to his capacity those Mysteries of faith which are necessary as a means of salvation (necessitate medii) and that he can distinguish between the Bread of the Eucharist and ordinary, material bread, and thus he may receive Holy Communion with a devotion becoming his years....
That's fine. Eventually, all the people who believe it will "go to heaven", and you'll be left with a sane population. Albeit slightly smaller.
Oh, wait, that would kill two birds with one stone.
If they don't appreciate the importance of their physical life enough to live until the end of it, then who is going to force them to appreciate it?
Hopefully, they'll figure it out before they cook themselves. Or someone will find a way to help them. A choice, however misguided, is still a choice.
now where is that flying spaghetti monster? i am hungry and got some bolognese sauce.... it's communion time!...LOL
You will also need pirate regalia for that.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
i did where did i say i gave a flying shit about it?
where did i say i was anything resembling a practicing catholic?
it's all, as they say here in Scotland a "raging pile of shite", hence my spaghetti monster comment
so save yer papal pedantry for someone who actually gives a fuck..LOL. what i said was RIGHT in essence
after that they can go to communion every time it's on and eat those silly wee wafers as much as they like whether they understand it or not. and at that age, let's be honest the chances of them understanding isn't very high at all.
taken from Pax681's book of who gives a fuck?
heading to "Pirate 'R' US" now! cheers for the tip!
I don't think I would have made a very good Catholic. Apart from the fact that my cultural background is to regard Catholics as idolaters, I prefer my wafers with some nice cheese on them.
If you're going to criticize a religion for being inconsistent, then you might as well get the details right...
hmmmz i still think you are mistaking me for someone who actually gives a shit
am i wrong in saying that a child CAN take communion as many times a day as he/she likes?..YES I WAS.
the chances of some god bothering priest turning a child away from a sacrament in these days of declining numbers is....NIL.
my info came from my friend is a member of those nutbars opus dei. and they are VERY VERY catholic. he is fine with my views on religion. i read him out your post and he laughed his ass off... the reason.....and i quote "i think they'd rather have the numbers than say no to a child and risk putting them off coming in the first place"
so let me get my facts right.... THERE IS NO FUCKING GOD... read some Nietzsche my man....
i am bloody consistent in that..in the same way that you are consistent in your bollocks
Nietzsche was an ass.
IIRC, there are factions of the church that favor the latin mass, because it's more akin to magic--"the mystery of the church." I suppose that if a kid wants to eat, and is willing to sit through the mumbo-jumbo, he might eventually grow to like the mumbo-jumbo of the church and become a practicing Catholic, if not a completely conscious one. A warm body. If that's what the church wants, so be it.
If the kid is really, truly hungry (in a non spiritual sense), he'd do better to have real meal instead of consecrated wafers. And a priest would do well to sate that hunger with real nutrition.
ROFL. where did i mention hungry?..LOL
who gives a shit about the latin mass?
talk about taking comments out of context to satisfy a petty burning desire within yourself to nit-pick.
i was in no way referring to satisfying hunger, what a farcical thing to say
i would suggest sir that if your anus puckered any tighter that it would collapse into a black hole
Nietzsche and his writing writing is , at a guess , a damn sight highly regarded than you opining which looks somewhat like poorly disguised pro church crapioca(cue links to various internet sites of people who don't like or appreciate Nietzsche -YAWN)
the ONLY "mystery of the church" is why people still buy into that crap tbh. then again some people need a crutch and something else to blame for their/the world's shortcomings(ie evil).
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 controversy really doesn't have anything to do with the psychological issues though.. it's that they're imprisoning people, torturing people, and harvesting organs.. not cool for any reason
Was this about FG or China? Both seem to fit this description.
Everyone's view point is by definition subjective and thus "skewed". I repeatedly stated that it's *MY VIEW* that they appear more like a hate group *TO ME*, so I have clearly demonstrated what I'm claiming.
If you cling to the notion that physical violence is a necessity of being a hate group and any other definition is "skewed", then we'll just need to agree to disagree here. For anyone in the GTA, go near Chinatown and see for yourselves and you'll know what I mean by "consumed by hate".
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"