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Opera Closes China Loophole; Reinstates Censorship
ObsessiveMathsFreak writes "Coming hot on the heels of Microsoft's censoring of Chinese search results, browser-maker Opera has become the latest company to joyfully contribute to prosperous growth of the Great Firewall of China. For speed and convenience, the mobile phone-based 'Opera Mini' browser receives formatted web pages via Opera's own line of proxy servers. These unfiltered proxies gave Opera's Chinese users rare unfettered access to the wider web. However, this loophole has now been closed, with Chinese users now being directed to 'upgrade' to 'Opera Mini China,' which closes this loophole, returning them to the bosom of party censorship, and Opera to the favor of the Chinese Government. Truly; 'To Get Rich Is Glorious.'"
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"returning them to the buxom of party censorship"
buxom ??? What word do you think they were aiming for?
Can other people use their proxy to see what they can't see? I'd really like to see, first hand, what it's like to browse through their proxy. I just wonder what sites I visit normally that aren't available.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I really doubt this is something Opera did on its own. But if you want to do business in China, you have to go by their goverment's rules there like everyone else.
Option 1: Refuse then, get blocked meaning you make no money and china gets no uncensored news
Option A:Comply keep making money and china gets no uncensored news.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Opera does a lot more business than just ads in a browser. They get income from Google to include them as default search engine and additional income for every ad click made by Opera user. Their other sources of income also include mobile phones clients (manufacturers and telco's might pay them to include their browser), Wii, other media equipment. For example lots of hotel's seem to be using Opera as embedded browser for their systems and to give visitor ability to browse internet from TV (this isn't always shown everywhere, but I was visiting a hotel once and the hotel tv rebooted and showed Opera logo on startup).
And considering China has 1.5 billion people, it would be quite stupid to ignore that market area.
It is unfortunate that companies in this situation are caving to the requests of a government that has different ideals about the freedom of information than we do, but honestly, do you expect anything different? These companies aren't in the business of battling China on their political ideology. They are out to sell a web browser and maximize the NPV of the company. This is what a business and a free market is all about. To do anything different would be a strategic move that while it could be argued might benefit Chinese citizens, it is much less likely to benefit Opera. Furthermore, if they did fight China on this one, I think it would be naive to think that they did it for any other reason that as a calculated risk to gain marketshare and ultimately profit. So don't act surprised when stuff like this happens. The sooner people realize what businesses are and aren't, the sooner they will understand the forces shaping the world in which we live.
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That's awfully principled of you. "I would stop eating at a restaurant where the owner is an asshole, but then I'd have to walk half a mile more". It's like an attempt to paint yourself as a moral person, while being lazy and not doing anything anyway.
If you think it's really the wrong thing to do, and wrong enough to justify a switch to something else, then switch. If you think it's a perfectly fine thing for Opera to do, then just say that. But to take your option is simply hypocrisy. Sticking to principles isn't free, there is always some sort of sacrifice involved.
The way you're doing it, indeed it won't.
There are way bigger, monstrous sized companies who does serve to China's interests. Who did the "great firewall" to begin with? Which hardware does it run on? Can you imagine the data bandwidth, processing power required to do such "out of Internet nature" thing?
What about gigantic game companies who abides their "1 hour only" rules? What about once hippie run company shipping their "edition" for China?
Opera is like a grocery store run by family compared to those companies which are gigantic. They got bigger but they are still small. Their main income is from mobile&electronics and I don't think any mobile company on this planet dares to confront China. Their shareholders would really punish them so bad that Opera ASA as we all know would cease to exist.
This is true; but less useful than it sounds.
Sometimes, censorship(especially of the more or less extreme "news blackouts and gunmen occupying the radio stations" flavor, or Iran's SMS being down for service at a convenient time) is in fact about stopping the flow of information among motivated people. This is very hard to do perfectly; but can often be done well enough to dampen some particular event.
Day to day, though, censorship is less about dissuading the truly motivated(though, if it can make them easy to detect and harass, that is a plus) and more about preventing the casual from becoming motivated. In most cases, people aren't just born motivated, they become motivated based on experiences or information. If you can control the information available to casual browsers, you can substantially modify the risk of having to deal with motivated adversaries later.
Every time the Great Firewall comes up, somebody always mentions one or more of its numerous technical weaknesses. Those are largely beside the point. If the system is good enough to ensure that casual users receive only a steady stream of ideologically comfortable information, the system will ensure that it never faces more than a limited number of sophisticated and adversarial users.
I love the Chinese people - very fine people, respect for education, pretty girls, good solid folks. But their government is crap, and has been crap for 100 years, and the current collection of power mad bullies running the joint are a bunch of asshats who deserve all the punishment and torture they meet out upon their rivals and those who seek to exercise their basic human rights as outlined in the UN Charter.
To the people of China: Welcome to the 21st century. We're glad you made it.
To the Chinese Government: FUCK YOU. YOU SCUM SUCKING FREAKS.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Basically, it is not possible. There is private/public key encryption built in, that is why browser (shell in fact) asks you to press random keys or "move mouse" (in touchscreen) when first installed.
If you want to set up a conspiracy theory, don't look anywhere other than some popular search engines who bowed to China.
Look, the Nazis need a database just like anyone else, don't they? It's not like our database is going to invade Poland. It's just a database, just a product. Everyone else is selling to them. What, you want us to lose out?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
My understanding is that they've got a special censoring proxy. A more reasonable option would seem to me to be a multiple choice question in the settings:
- "Use Opera's proxy for users outside China"
- "Use Opera's proxy for users inside China"
- "Use a different proxy"
- "Don't use Opera's proxy at all"
China can block the external proxy, and the browser can then auto-sense which Opera proxy to use, or let you bypass it altogether and go straight to the great firewall. That way everyone's happy.
Personally I'd prefer it if I didn't have to go through Opera's proxy; it may make things faster, but I always see it as another point in the chain where things can go wrong (security, privacy etc), and seems redundant when my phone's on a LAN. Do any recent versions let you turn it off?
... or not. I mean, restricting some content on the web isn't nearly as bad as invading other countries, killing its civilians by the hundreds of thousands and setting up puppet governments, and yet nobody here is calling for boycotts against American companies that support all of this (which is all of them, or at least those that pay taxes).
I don't know why this is or if it's true or if Opera plans to fix it but I would find their implementation of a solution pretty archaic if that's one of the caveats. Hopefully they are working on fixing that.
Probably true. Opera Mini works by connecting to proxy servers that filter Web content so that it displays properly on a cell phone's tiny screen. All Opera Software would have to do is run a separate set of proxies for "Opera Mini China" and then actively refuse connections on their main proxies originating from Chinese IP address blocks. (Or, more likely, the Great Firewall will block them.)
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We aren't talking the "main" Opera browser here. Opera Mini is for mobile phones that aren't powerful enough to support their full mobile client. Opera Mini proxy servers compress and optimize web pages so that it's easier and faster for your mobile phone to show them.
This doesn't affect Opera on computers or the full-scale Opera Mobile client.
Everyone seems to forget that Corporations are Amoral and base all decisions on Legalities. Simply put, Morals have no place in a corporation as the decision goes like this. Is it Legal? Does it Offer a Competitive Advantage? If yes to both, Do it. It's that damn simple.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
When dealing with large, murderous, totalitarian governments (no, I don't mean the US, which only aspires to the last), mentioning the Nazis isn't always inappropriate.
What's why you're posting on an x86 system. You're just so outraged at IBM.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
During the Cold War, the most effective way of breaking through to the people behind the Iron Curtain was to keep our doors open (ahem, CUBA!) and allow them free access to the 'west'. Eventually, it snowballed, fences and walls came down. The so-called "People's Army" turned their guns from the people to the government, in some cases, or were just dropped, and the people tore down the blockades.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
All that "ting-ting-ting" and fan-waving. No girls, either.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
And even if pulling completely out of China had been an option, it would have been a bad one. Don't you get it? Fewer services means less and easier work for the government when censoring. The more services, the more difficult for the government to keep track of everything, and the greater the chances of workarounds being open.
As long as Opera keeps working in China there may be ways to work around the censorship (and there are). Opera pulling out wouldn't help at all!
It's extremely short-sighted of you to assume that you know best, and that it's fine to sacrifice Opera's employees in China. It's extremely short-sighted not to see the benefit in more services meaning more potential cracks in the firewall.
Also, will you stop using all Google services, if you actually do stop using Opera?
Ask yourself this: Is China better off without Opera? My conclusion is no. Even a censored Opera is better than no Opera. Why? Simple. The more services the Government has to oversee and censor, the more difficult it will be for them to plug all cracks in the firewall. Even after this, there are workarounds in Opera Mini to avoid the firewall. So ask yourself again: Do you really think China would be better off without Opera?
All of ye are thinking of it wrong. Instead of thinking 'Opera sucks', think 'Well China was going to ban Opera from their country, which would leave the Chinese left with nothing but Internet Explorer Hell. At least now they can use an alternative. Opera China is still better than virus-friendly Explorer.'
Well at least that's how I think.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
There doesn't seem to be any connection here. There are plenty of individuals who operate under the same algorithm. In fact, it's often those individuals who form corporations in the first place!