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China Blocks Google.com, Gmail, Maps and More During 18th Party Congress
DavidGilbert99 writes "In an extraordinary move, the Chinese authorities have blocked access to Google.com, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, and many more Google services as the Communist Party of China holds the 18th Party Congress. The blocking of these sites was reported by Chinese web monitoring site GreatFire.org, which said, 'Never before have so many people been affected by a decision to block a website.' The latest move in a long line of disputes between the Chinese government and Google, it is unclear yet whether this denial will be temporary (like a similar one in 2010) or permanent."
it will be really good for business as the chinese people become more and more backward, thanks to the gutless dictators in the communist party.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Ratcheting up Internet restrictions is the norm during times like this. Expect VPN's in-country to also be strangely slower.
What's interesting to me are the new unconventional methods of restraint China always seems to be a pioneer in. It seems protesters throwing leaflets out of taxi cabs is a growing fear, so taxis are restricted in being able to travel around Tiananmen and will their windows locked, with some having control handles removed altogether.
I was present in China during the Arab Spring, when it was feared protest would spread. Any mention of a meetup place for protesters would all of a sudden shoot up the priority list for construction repairs. Many areas were cordoned off with armadas of street sweet sweepers.
Paranoia is an extremely inefficient use of ingenuity.
I got a catholic block.
If China doesn't want to have open communication with the rest of the world, oh well. The internet isn't for everybody, however I've got to ask where are the Chinese people in all this if they truly care?
"The Chinese 18th Party Congress was cancelled after attendees were unable to find where it was located without using Google Maps."
Now let these companies stand strong, don't budge, and the people will become restless, they will become angry, and they will revolt against their government. Irony. The thing they are trying to prevent will cause a spark that will lead to their downfall.
Except for those by loyal party members.
Aren't they all using Baidu anyway?
Unless they can't read Mandarin.
There are many negative news stories about the US on this site which result in comments saying dismissively and condescendingly that such things are typical of American society. Considering that nearly half of Slashdot readership is non-American, should such stories not be posted as well, since they too are judgmental in many respects?
I choose to judge the Chinese leadership and I will. And in so far as I am able I will consider that judgement in other decisions that I may have to make. You do not get to define my rights.
You have no right to judge.
Yes, yes we do. We have the right to say "that is wrong, you should stop that." Everyone does, about the actions of any political group (although they may be wrong, they have the right to say it). That's one of the things that "freedom of speech" and it's very very close partner "freedom of conscience", is all about.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Their communist what?
If China doesn't want to have open communication with the rest of the world, oh well. The internet isn't for everybody, however I've got to ask where are the Chinese people in all this if they truly care?
The ones who actually do something are either in the ground, in prison, or at the business end of an AK-47 in a "fun-time all-day (and all-night) exercise party" in fields or factories, or, if lucky, simple unemployed. The ones who care but don't do anything are, well, not doing anything, for fear of ending up in the first group. That's why Internet access is useful, it allows them to speak out with less fear of getting caught.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
If China doesn't want to have open communication with the rest of the world, oh well. The internet isn't for everybody, however I've got to ask where are the Chinese people in all this if they truly care?
Truly care? That's a mighty high assumption that communism is best battled with emotion.
It's also a rather twisted view of communism to think that it gives a shit about feelings, opinions, thoughts, or emotions too.
Extraordinary. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. In fact, the more you use it, the more ordinary it becomes. Google has been blocked before — you even say so in the summary. China blocks major western properties it considers disruptives during important national events (like the party congress, or the Olympics) when sentiments are running high and adrenaline is pumping to minimize the chances of an incident that could endanger lives or detract from the party message. If it's happened before, it's happening now, and it will happen again, I'd call that business as usual in China. It's ordinary... By definition.
In China gathering immense amounts of intrusive personal data about people is a governmental monopoly.
and ended up meeting at Disney Land Hong Kong.
Their communist interwebs. Can't you read?
Whose communists?
lol
I wonder...
Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader Wen Jiabao
Tibetan Protests Erupt in Western China
The Communist Government of China Massacres Thousands at Tiananmen Square
It is my business because I have friends who live there. I have a 163.com email account but I can't reach it half the time from the US. I have not bothered trying to figure out where it's failing. I normally use gmail to keep in touch with my friends, who also have gmail or hotmail accounts.
this sucks.
Are they trying to incite revolution?
That's a pointlessly high horse from which you speak. What is obviously meant is that we censor ourselves and restrict our own freedoms of speech and conscience, and therefore don't have reasonable grounds to act as if that's not the case and criticize the Chinese for doing the same thing. It's a systemic problem for the western world as well.
LOL, i wish i had points, you are sooo funny.
Are comments disabled on this post?
No. I am in Shanghai, and Slashdot is not blocked. It is possible that it is blocked in Beijing, where the party congress is being held, but to the best of my knowledge, Slashdot has never been blocked in China. It just isn't popular enough here to matter.
I think you mean Type 56. China does not use the AK line, they have their own copies.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Slashdot has never been blocked in China. It just isn't popular enough here to matter.
Yeah, its that way in Texas too. Rick Perry doesn't even bother to block Slashdot.
Sorry, but judging things is a fundamental human right. This is something that I have found largely misunderstood by my Chinese friends. They will say things like "There is no difference between the US government and the Chinese government, both are corrupt." While I agree with the corruption (although it is a much more straightforward sort in China), I think they miss a key element in the United States, i.e. we enjoy certain inalienable rights that they don't understand the benefit of, largely because they have never had them.
Americans, and really everyone in western style democracies are free to criticize and judge any government, religion, or belief they want to in a public forum. This is freedom of speech and it is the most important right we have.
In soviet China, communism you owns!
...the interwebs surf you.
Most of my Chinese friends are on hotmail and use MSN messenger. I don't know why its so popular there. They also have a very strange chat program called QQ, that seems to me to be full of spyware, and has been very difficult for me to uninstall from a couple of laptops.
If we want to change our government, all we have to do is use our freedom of speech to convince our fellow citizens that it's a good idea. They we vote, and change it according to our collective will. This is not easy, of course convincing everyone to agree with you is hard, but it's doable and it's been done many times.
If the Chinese want to change their government, what option do they have? What path to change can they follow? They can't even do the most basic step of letting their fellow-citizens know that something needs to be changed.
I am not living in China, But I am a chinese and a member of the communist party. I think it is suck. I do not understand what are we fear for ?
I've got to ask where are the Chinese people in all this if they truly care?
The Chinese are no different from anyone else. They are happy to tolerate authoritarianism as long as the authorities deliver the economic goods, and the CCP has been extremely successful at that (greater than 10% annual growth for 30 years straight). It is no different anywhere else. The Arab Spring was not about democracy, it was about economic stagnation.
Until the Chinese economy has a major recession (which it will eventually), the CCP has nothing to worry about.
It's really none of your business unless you live there. You have no right to judge.
If China were Myanmar I might be inclined to agree with you, but its not. China is not an "emerging power", its arrived, and what she does affects people around the world. So, yes, everyone has a right to judge. I find it interesting that people around the world feel like they have the right to judge the US in exactly the same vein, so yeah, we have the right. Aside from the voluminous human rights violations and atrocities China commits on a daily basis inside, they've taken to picking fights with neighbors like Taiwan, Japan, and S. Korea, they have no problem voting down UN motions to censor and even deny aid to the people of Syria, occupying Tibet, and generally causing their own brand of mischief, so, yeah, I feel empowered to criticize them directly. Good thing I'm not a Chinese citizen, huh?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Saying that anything is blocked or filtered is just a daily way of life there. It would be like reporting on someone receiving a speeding ticket.
It's really none of your business unless you live there. You have no right to judge.
This seems to be a recurring theme these days. If something is illegal in one place, they seem to think it must be made illegal everywhere.
Criticizing the government is illegal in China, it is not in Japan, Europe, the United States and the rest of free world.
Even worse, it is hypocritical, as you are more than welcome to criticize other's governments, just not China's.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I agree with what you say that one should not infringe upon the ideals of another. We should not force the Chinese to adhere to our standards of openness and censorship...
But I think you fail to see that generally as users of Slashdot, we're nerds. As early adopters, we're denizens of the 'Net itself.
"This is our world now. The world of the electron and the switch; the beauty of the baud. We exist without nationality, skin color, or religious bias. You wage wars, murder, cheat, lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good."
Is this regional, or nationwide? There's a lack of understanding in the western media about the Great Firewall. They treat it like a monolithic linksys router with which daddy can turn services on and off.
Control / censorship of the Internet in China is at the very least city by city, and probably ISP by ISP. The conversation we are having here is stupid bordering on moronic.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
You have no right to judge.
Yes, yes we do. We have the right to say "that is wrong, you should stop that." Everyone does, about the actions of any political group (although they may be wrong, they have the right to say it). That's one of the things that "freedom of speech" and it's very very close partner "freedom of conscience", is all about.
There's also this thing about "needing a right" before we're allowed to do anything.
Even supposing the OP is correct, we actually have no right to judge, it's completely irrelevant.
We can do whatever the fuck we want, we're not limited in our actions to some inclusive list of "rights". The OP has rights that we can't abridge, but beyond that we're free to do as we please.
We don't have the right to judge (according to the OP), but we will do it anyway. China is wrong, their actions are less effective than actions based on freedom, and the sum total of all their authoritarian moves will eventually cause their downfall. Free regimes will outcompete authoritarianism in the long run in every case. "The illogic of waste".
That's been my only experience with it, was that QQ was on some Windows laptops that were messing up badly, and when I tried to uninstall it, I had a real fight on my hands. There weren't a lot of English instructions online about how to deal with it.
Holy moral relativism Batman!
At a personal level, you're wrong. At the national level, maybe you have a point. Maybe.
But what China does is wrong. They're by no means the worst offender, but they are doing it wrong.
Unfortunately, it's deeply ingrained in their culture and will take decades or even centuries to beat it out of their institutions. And a beating is what would be required. It's like removing a nail from an old board. Wiggle it, get it loose, then eventually you can pull hard enough to get it free. Right now, the masses are wiggling. That's all they can do. There's not enough room to slip out easily.
Google, though, could be a clawhammer if they wanted to.
I lived and worked in China for years. Baidu is fine for Chinese searches(98% is non tech searches) but if a person is doing technology searches Baidu sucks. I can understand the reasons for blocking gmail and other interactive communication, but blocking tech searches on Google will only harm the advancement of technology.
If the ISP knows that a is the primary user, they usually are not as strict, But you have to go to the ISP office to complain.
... government searches you!
If China doesn't want to have open communication with the rest of the world, oh well. The internet isn't for everybody, however I've got to ask where are the Chinese people in all this if they truly care?
The problem with that sentiment is that it isn't only the Chinese who are inconvenienced. There are something like 150,000 - 175,000 expats in Shanghai alone right now and who know how many more in other parts of China - you can be sure a reasonably large fraction of them are Google users. Those are the people who expect and have a right to open communication with the rest of the world. Yes, you can use a VPN but that can be a real pain when all you want to do is quickly check for the closest Starbucks on your mobile phone or jot a 30 second message off to your wife apologizing about not being able to call tonight because you are going out to dinner with a client or customer.
China's government works hard at keeping anyone in China ignorant about anything bad that China may be doing politically or otherwise, world news and western corporation websites like "map quest" or "Google" and any website they might actually learn the truth about stuff going on in the darker side of government functions.
if you want to even access sites like youtube or facebook you have to hack through the so-called "great firewall" of China which evidently isn't that great because whenever they plug a security hole the local students just get the latest "update" a week or so later and they can access what they want.
supressing information especially in the internet will always backfire..........eventually
I was just feeling very hyperbolic at that moment. But any little thing added to the pile will help people pay attention, and dammit, people like their googling.
Simple: China is a Communist country , What the hell hell part of "Communist " wouldn't a nerd understated?
it's difficult to tell what is blocked or just some problem...people always jump to conclusions, of course.
however, slashdot wasn't accisble for extended periods in the 2006-2007 period. if it was being blocked, the I find it difficult to beleive it was deliberate...more likely the blocked a whole netblock which happened to include slashdot. i don't recall any sensitive topics, but people spout all sorts of bs here, so perhaps there was a thread I missed.
Max.
What the hell hell part of "Communist " wouldn't a nerd understated?
I would say the majority of Slashdot have no clue. I see repeated posts calling America a 'police state' or if there is some censorship there is a cry that there is nowhere worse on the planet than the USA. Those that have never left their mother's basement have no idea what a real police state means, or what censorship means. It doesn't occur to them as they post their rants on a forum that in a lot of the world that forum wouldn't exist in the first place.
I guess the true nerd would understand that whatever "Communist" means in US media has absolutely nothing to do with its meaning and is just a brain rinsing agent.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Rights are a myth. If your rights can be "trampled" or with-held, then they are not rights at all. All anyone can do is whatever they can get away with. I suppose the only right a person might have is to try.
I believe in karma, which is why, when I do something bad to people, I assume they deserve it.
Americans, and really everyone in western style democracies
The United States is not a democracy.
are free to criticize and judge any government, religion, or belief they want to in a public forum.
But not to do anything beyond criticism, in which case, what is the point of criticism?
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
The same could be applied to the United States and its own blocking provisions. The only difference is that the USA rules the rest of the world through fear and imperialist aggression, so I suppose you might understandably mistake it for the rest of the world entirely.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
Does anyone else see the awkwardness between the #1 location for manufacturing computers, and internet capable devices, blocking the #1 first-stop (and probably one of the largest destinations as well) on the internet?
How have we allowed ourselves, as a world, to get into a position where China builds, literally, everything electronic these days?
What we going to do if/when they decide to go into lock-down mode due to governmental decision, or revolt? Taiwan isn't a fall back any longer because many manufacturing plants there have closed or become specialized--and anyway if China locks itself down you better believe they will be including Taiwan. Japan? Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu, etc--all make their products in China. South Korea is ramping up for certain products, but they still rely heavily on China. There is virtually nothing electronic made in the America's any longer, and what few items are, are really just assembled here with the majority of the components (and certainly all of the passive components) coming from China.
If they lock down the rest of the world is going to be put into a tail spin, it will be chaos for months or years just trying to return to normal. It would be even worse than if every oil producing middle eastern country suddenly shut their taps--with oil at least there are sources located in Russia, South America, North America, etc... but manufacturing electronics and other necessary small parts? Those are essentially "single source" now for the entire planet from China.
Scary, scary stuff...
It appears that you have no idea what "communist" means. You also have the worst grammar I've seen and one of the most glaring spelling mistakes, too.
Trust a person from Texas (or the USA in general, but especially Texas) to have no idea what communism is.
Will be Blocked...................
What is the chance the Chinese Communist Party Congress was just an excuse? That the blocking was a test of the Chinese Internet Invasion Defense System? To test how successful communications blocking can be expected to be in a real event situation?
Would we, in the United States. Britain and other nations where major parts of government IT tech energies are focused to getting into the people's computers, to be able to access their data to determine each one's private activities, interests and attitudes, recognize something so alien to our authoritarians' tunnel-focus as defense against propaganda channeling, misinformation intrusions, and even officials' 'official' (meaning above the law) malware and spyware implantations, and chemings, scammings, mining, phishing? Do you suppose the Chinese might be aware they may be able to piggy-back on our paranoid-of-their-people nations' home population intrusion systems, so they may be able to obtain for free all that our "domestic espionage" agents gather from us, along with what our electronic peeping-toms generate, themselves. All of which they may be able to make use of, themselves...
The United States is not a democracy.
But we ARE democratic.
Also, no-true-scotsman fallacy. If a nation has a system where the leaders are put into power by the masses, it's a democracy.
Whine all you want about the oddities of the electoral college (and it IS pretty messed up), but people vote and have an influence, no matter how small, over who leads them. If the USA isn't a democracy, what is?
Americans, and really everyone in western style democracies
The United States is not a democracy.
are free to criticize and judge any government, religion, or belief they want to in a public forum.
But not to do anything beyond criticism, in which case, what is the point of criticism?
Bullshit. You may not like what the voters decide, but what the voters want does change US policy.
Unfortunately, it's deeply ingrained in their culture and will take decades or even centuries to beat it out of their institutions.
Yes it's deeply ingrained in their culture, it just so happens the opposite is "deeply ingrained" in your culture. To many Chinese "free speech" is just an excuse to be vulgar and disrespectful. At the end of the day "culturally blind" statistics show an individual has a much higher chance of being incarcerated by the state in the US than in China, yet I'm pretty sure I would feel more comfortable visiting the US than China (which as a British-Aussie is my own cultural bias at work).
It's also debatable just how "free" our speech is in the west, I grew up in the 60-70's, Mao's "little red book" was outright banned, we kids thought it had something to do with sex since adults were fond of hiding that sort of stuff. The only thing we knew about China was you had to eat your veggies because kids in China were starving, odd logic even as a kid, but they were starving and that's what our mother's told us. I also recall a major furor here in the early 70's because some gift shop had a replica statue of David in their window and he didn't have the requisite fig leaf. The basic laws have barely changed in my lifetime but the free speech culture I see today is not the same free speech culture I grew up with. I see that as an achievement of my generation, others of my vintage often see it as a lament.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
They are happy to tolerate authoritarianism
Fear is a great motivator too.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Rights (written or otherwise) are not a myth, they are bestowed on an individual by society. those individuals who trespass on those rights are (at best) ostracised by their society. This may not be the end result for every single "right trampling" that occurs between individuals, but when you consider an entire society or civilization, then it's a virtually a statistical certainty a "rights trampler" will be stomped on by society.
Rights are part of a highly evolved and ritualized trade-off between the safety of the heard and the liberty of the predator. In other words "rights" are a natural phenomena in all social animals, what those rights are is a matter of trial and error by the individual (ie:social skills). The uniquely human ability to chisel their rights into stone tablets and rub others noses in it is not a great deal different to a dog pissing on tree, at the end of the day they both serve the same basic purpose.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Of course everyone has the right to judge, trying not to judge is like trying not to shit, your body won't allow it. Judgement is also like shit in that "other people's shit always smells worse than your own".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I am also in China. By the way, I just sent an email to my alternate gmail address. It went through just fine.
That being said, google has been throttled for months. I am able to search using google HK; but, if I try to follow a search result I cannot. I just times out. This has more to do with trying to push users to the Chinese brand product competitor, Biadu, than with censorship.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21967140/googles-review-by-ftc-nearing-critical-point
I am an American of Italian decent living in China. I am also an engineer and an attorney.
I find it interesting how many people who have never been to China often claim China is a police state. Yes, China censors the Internet, but that is because a large portion of the populace is uneducated and easily manipulated. Democracy is very limited in China, but that again relates to the low level of education for peasants in China who if allowed to vote would choose an incompetent government. On the other side, as long as you do not actively protest against the government, China is an incredibly free place to live: more free than the USA has been in 50 years.
China is incredibly safe. In my 10+ years in China I have never been in a situation where I thought the street I was on was dangerous; I cannot say the same about Philadelphia, Baltimore or Washington DC. There are no arrests for public intoxication in China. Period. It is nearly impossible to be arrested for disorderly conduct in China. And if you do something wrong and apologize chances are 9 times out of 10 the police will let you off with a warning.
So yea, in the USA we have these great laws which allow us to march in Washington DC but then we have a government which spends more than it takes in, raises taxes and burdens our economy with high debt. Our government is actively enslaving our children by saddling them with a debt in the future to please curry favor with voters today. Watch during the next four years as the economy in China continues to thrive while the economy in the USA continues to crash. Then tell me which country is more free.
China is the most capitalistic nation in the world, far more so than the USA. Based on principles of Karl Marx, USA is far more 'Communist' than China.
BTW, Google was not blocked, just 'slowed down'. I accessed Google plenty yesterday and my Gmail was logged in all day long. Bing.com worked just fine as well.
Google is not that popular in China so Chinese people really don't care. Baidu is a much better search engine in Chinese and is still plenty quick.
American in Shanghai
If one nation does 104 creepy authoritarian things, while another nation only does 89 creepy authoritarian things, then obviously anyone who resides in the latter nation that complains about living in a police state is clearly being hyperbolic.
As a human I have every right to judge oppression of my fellow man.
The Glorious Chinese Peoples Communist Party sucks floppy burro rod and will be replaced by friendly cartoon characters after the people give them the Mussolini farewell in the streets.
China: still garbage.
The whole country and everything in it should just be replaced with an iPad-making assembly line of robots that belch strychnine gas.
Fear is a great motivator too.
Get some perspective. As an American you are four times more likely to be arrested and imprisoned by your government than a Chinese citizen. I have seen little evidence that Chinese people fear their government. I have seen plenty of hot and loud political arguments in restaurants, on the subway, etc. Unless you are an overt troublemaker, nobody cares.
Get some perspective. As an American you are four times more likely to be arrested and imprisoned by your government than a Chinese citizen
As a Chinaman you are ten times more likely to be executed by your government. When they kill you they take you away in a van and your family never sees your body again. Many have speculated that this is so that they can break you down for your organs, which have signifcant resale value. Look up "chinese death van", and "black market organs" and read, read, read until you stop saying anything this dumb.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Also, no-true-scotsman fallacy. If a nation has a system where the leaders are put into power by the masses, it's a democracy.
And that's why the USA isn't one.
vote and have an influence, no matter how small, over who leads them. If the USA isn't a democracy, what is?
Try one of those cold northern places where everybody is white and everybody votes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I know lets talk about 50 years ago like it has anything to do with today. oh I know - let's do that for both countries. Haha look up the cultural revolution and see how you would have had it in the 60s and 70s in China. You're so blind. The difference isn't "debatable". The major furor you're talking about didn't result in the shop owner disappearing, never to be seen again. By the way you are 10 times more likely to be put to death by the state in China. Didn't really think that one through.
You are wrong. I am in China, all is well. We are happy the glorious party of the workers is maintaing glorious order and prosperity!
I am also in China. By the way, I just sent an email to my alternate gmail address. It went through just fine.
That's not what the censorship is about. It's about blocking WEB addresses. Like mail.google.com ...
The police in China are like rent-a-cops. To my knowledge, none of them carry a gun. The use of firearms is left to the PLA or a group that falls under its control. What you say about serious crime (or lack thereof) is true. The homicide ratio is very low compared to the population as a whole, although petty theft is real high. I can walk the streets of Shanghai at night and feel safe as though I was in my own backyard. You couldn't pay me to walk in Chicago in broad daylight however!
One thing that's troublesome about China's government is vast egregious amount of corruption that goes on. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Because there's no democracy, there's no accountability. Sure, the CCP will execute their own members to set an example for the rest, but not until shit really hits the fan. Bo Xilai for example. They also spend money very poorly. Chinese ghost cities for example. But that's overshadowed because of the vast amounts of foreign investments going on post economic reforms lead by Deng Xiaoping. It's all relative to the Chinese. But this kind of performance in the US would cause a revolution if our government did the same. Everyone has their own standards I suppose.
Life is not for the lazy.
...comrade AC.
Mindless garbage, unless you think the communist party of Texas ( http://tx.cpusa.org/) can't define socialism.
Panhandling westerners beseeching China for financial bailouts seems to deem it fit to bitch about the hand that feeds.
What's the term? PARASITES! Yeah that's it!
On the other hand, if you consider what the US is doing wasting 25% of its budget on "defense" (more like offense), then you would see that the US is following the Soviet Union footsteps a lot more, while China seems to be a lot more rational.
You also have the right and more than that, the duty to look up what you are being fed as news. GreatFire is a website with zero-accountability. They don't even say who they are so you really shouldn't trust them as a news source, unless you are able to verify what they are saying. For all I care, we have been seeing a lot of anti-China propaganda which is very convenient to one player only: the Pentagon and its ungodly amount of funding from the Federal Budget. Just wait and see how the Global War on Terror gets slowly replaced by Big Bad Red China.
For now... China will be heavily investing in their air force and navy as soon as their neighbors start increasing GDP too. Not so much to counter US influence in the Pacific (though it does bug the hell out of them), but rather a show of force and jockey for world wide dominance relative to the other BRIC nations. Secretly, you just know Russia and India are not happy about this.
Life is not for the lazy.
I just came back from China. This decision is fucking ridiculous. Accessing information is the biggest pain in the ass over the internet there. Even if the information is available, its impractically slow. I get pretty good results with a private VPN (about 100 kbps up/down), but it is really frustrating. This is a country capable of great things, anyone who thinks shutting them off to parts of the internet does more good than harm, needs to go visit China .
I work for a US company in shanghai. We're also a Google apps customer, so basically Google is our office app provider. The company basically became cloud addicts around 2008, there is almost nothing installed on local computer most everything from office apps and crm, to weird custom analysis tools are cloud based regardless of if they are developed in house or paid services.
I guess you could say we're in the weird niche of 'financial services' and are a JV with a chinese company. It's a very unlikely set up, but the locals had no choice at the time and our core IP is hiding on a Rack space server somewhere in the cloud slightly out of reach. (sure - very slightly).
As you can imagine we have some pretty awesome vpn arrangements, both leased professional services (Taiwan based) to in house tunnelling links set up within our own offices here and HK, Japan, and back home. The 3rd party VPN links are very fast but not 100% reliable. They are openly advertised and sold on this basis here within China, so it's not like the government doesn't know about them (one of them essentially functions as an ISP).
I'm to understand this is acceptable to the government as long we block a list of sites (all social media and sharing stuff) so the local workers can't reach them. (so i'm told)
Our IT team spends a lot of time monitoring this setup and has a number of fall back positions. It's very cool and hasn't 'not worked' ever as far as I know, a leased service goes down, the slower in house links take on the slack. We notice the speed and bandwidth drop, but we can still work.
About a month ago there was a sudden hiccup and the entire thing collapsed. Took about 2 days to get back. Work ground to a halt for most of us. GMail and Google search all still worked ok, but all the Google apps fell apart and went offline altogether. Since then, one of the 3rd parties managed set up some kind of workaround and it's been running fine from that since. No idea what it is. But if it fails, we're done, even our in house tunnels are still borked after a few minutes of being established.
At home I have some paid vpn service, I usually switch it on an off as I need it, but through forgetfulness I switched it on 2 weeks ago (to a exit point in singapore) and haven't switched it off. It's still working a-okay.
Married a local, most of my friends are chinese, and aside from co-workers who need good access to the outside world for working, everyone is 100% happy with baidu, qq, youku, etc, etc for their daily internet life. Couldn't care less and probably haven't noticed. To be honest with everyone, these home grown (and copied) things are getting as good as or better than anything available from the states. Have a look at webQQ for example..
This is the point. about internet controls it barely touches on most people in a noticeable way. when it does it's often laughed off as 'bad rp' and people just get on with life not really caring. if pressed most people will say its fine because it helps keep harmony.
What is getting on the nerves of the locals seems to be this shit with the taxis in beijing, cops being everywhere in every city all the time, brothels being closed, and the guys who will probably (100% probably) be elected are kinda sleazy compared to the incumbents.
Gmail and google news have started working again in Shenzhen - they are slow though. I hate being teased by communists. I am changing VPNs about once a month though, they are aggressively blocking the active ones now.
I think you'll find that because the AK is open source it's actually a branch........
Why congress continues to allow this unchallenged attack on the US economy is disgraceful. We are living in the 21st century where IT communications technology reigns and China is able to block our exports while we sit and do nothing. Obama is a pushover in this area, and China knows it.
There have been over 400 Million forced abortions in China. Please spare us.
Whine all you want about the oddities of the electoral college (and it IS pretty messed up), but people vote and have an influence, no matter how small, over who leads them. If the USA isn't a democracy, what is?
No existing state is a democracy.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
Yes, China censors the Internet, but that is because a large portion of the populace is uneducated and easily manipulated. Democracy is very limited in China, but that again relates to the low level of education for peasants in China who if allowed to vote would choose an incompetent government.
You can see what happens when you don't have the censorship in the U.S, where a large portion of the populace is uneducated and easily manipulated, who who when allowed to vote do choose an incompetent government.