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Ask Slashdot: Ideas and Tools To Get Around the Great Firewall?

Posted by Unknown on from the fire-extinguisher-of-course dept.

New submitter J0n45 writes "I will soon be traveling to mainland China. While I'm only a tourist, I will still be working freelance for a company back home. I know for a fact that a large amount of the websites I need to have access to on a daily basis for business reasons are censored by the Great Firewall of China. I have been using the Tor Browser for a while now for personal purposes. However Tor has been blocked by China. I was wondering if a personal proxy (connected to a computer back home) would do the trick. Would I be too easily traceable? Basically, I'm wondering if I need to try random public proxies until I find one that works or if there are any other options. What does Slashdot think?"

4 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. The Chinese won't arrest an American by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As long as you are not telling other Chinese people how to break through the firewall, I doubt that Chinese government will go after you. They do not need to add stress to their relationship with the USA, and they would probably prefer to sneak something onto your laptop so they can get some trade secrets than to stop you from using a corporate VPN. The purpose of the firewall is to control Chinese citizens, not to harass foreigners.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:The Chinese won't arrest an American by DaMattster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As long as you are not telling other Chinese people how to break through the firewall, I doubt that Chinese government will go after you. They do not need to add stress to their relationship with the USA, and they would probably prefer to sneak something onto your laptop so they can get some trade secrets than to stop you from using a corporate VPN. The purpose of the firewall is to control Chinese citizens, not to harass foreigners.

      At best this is an assumption you've made. The Chinese will willingly detain, try, and punish any foreigner that they feel poses a threat to state security. Moreover, it is probably the U.S. is more concerned with it's fragile relationship with China. When it feels threatened, the Chinese Communist Party will react and not care one iota about the world's reaction.

  2. Re:Hi, I'm visiting the US soon... by godless+dave · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Right, because importing hard drugs is morally equivalent to circumventing censorship.

    --
    "If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
  3. Re:Hi, I'm visiting the US soon... by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In fact, the war on drugs is more ethically questionable than censorship by a government.

    --
    Palm trees and 8