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China Tightens Internet Restrictions
The NY Times reports China has once again stepped up its efforts to control the internet, passing a new set of rules by which internet users and ISPs must abide. In addition to requiring that users provide their real names to internet providers, the government says those providers are now more responsible for deleting or blocking posts that aren't agreeable to the Chinese authorities. Quoting:
"The new regulations, issued by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, allow Internet users to continue to adopt pseudonyms for their online postings, but only if they first provide their real names to service providers, a measure that could chill some of the vibrant discourse on the country’s Twitter-like microblogs. The authorities periodically detain and even jail Internet users for politically sensitive comments, such as calls for a multiparty democracy or allegations of impropriety by local officials. In recent weeks, Internet users in China have exposed a series of sexual and financial scandals that have led to the resignations or dismissals of at least 10 local officials. International news media have also published a series of reports in recent months on the accumulation of wealth by the family members of China’s leaders, and some Web sites carrying such reports ... have been assiduously blocked, while Internet comments about them have been swiftly deleted. The regulations issued Friday build on a series of similar administrative guidelines and municipal rules issued over the past year. China’s mostly private Internet service providers have been slow to comply with them, fearing the reactions of their customers. The Standing Committee’s decision has much greater legal force, and puts far more pressure on Chinese Internet providers to comply more quickly and more comprehensively, Internet specialists said."
Countries like China, Iran, etc. may be leading the pack, but the trend for years now all over the world has been an increasingly locked-down internet.
And it's getting easier and easier for governments to do too. Just think of how different things are today vs. the mid-late 90's in the U.S. Back then in the dial-up days, you had all kinds of local ISP's available. It would have been almost impossible for the U.S. government to really control the internet. Today, virtually all broadband internet access is controlled by a handful of major corporate conglomerates (Time Warner, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-mobile probably control 90+% of all internet access in the country). Blacklisting sites, monitoring individual users, shutting down access by geographical location--it's all very easy for the U.S. government to do now (hell, they probably have it all automated and ready to go already, under the guise of national security of course). All it would take are a few laws slipping through.
And, of course, those laws are already slipping through in plenty of non-oppressive democracies like Australia, Britain, etc.
What China is doing today, the democratic world will be doing tomorrow.
And if you *really* want to get creeped out, think about a possible time in the future when most consumer computers are locked down too (similar to iOS's "walled garden"), and only authorized software is allowed to be installed (and governments can make individual software applications disappear the same as they can websites).
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
And they have ways of dealing with addicts over there http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/13/controversial-surgery-for-addiction-burns-away-brains-pleasure-center/
While meanwhile in the west people are enslaved by Google and Facebook...
Comrade Hussein Obama starts taking notes on how to apply this to the benefit of Big Content.
As I read through these, I couldn't help but do some simple comparing between the Facebook TOS and Chinese laws. Real names, no posting of objectionable material; but then bannination is nothing like being jailed. Now think about the "mom test" (would you add your mom to your "friends" list?), or the general public.
Is that what most people want?
John
... net restrictions.
Since Saudi Arabia is an ally to the USA - which gives it the right to implement any kind of net restriction without getting any condemnation from Uncle Sam.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Not so different from what Facebook do, or in general what Google reports that is forced to do, ordered by the ones actually in power (mostly the ones reported here)
but in the USA they can't block religion sites.
Also in a authorized software only system to days app stores have to much censorship to pass constitutional muster and anti trun laws may force there to be more then one app store.
Also the adult market is to big be to locked out of a app store so we may need to have a adult app / movie / media store as well that is on all systems even ios and windows phones / metro.
No VPN's are bad for businesses use that need them for security.
If you where a IT guy at a big businesses would you want working who take businesses trips to china to be doing work over the china internet system where china can just copy all your private data?
iOS's "walled garden"
In Soviet Union they called it gulag.
Steve would probably insist on "iGulag".
It's a catchy, memorable, and descriptive term. Who could possibly object to it?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
What China is doing today, the democratic world will be doing tomorrow.
China orders children to visit their elderly parents: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20860264
Those basement stairs can really be a killer climb . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
You are correct, it is not far fetched at all. . . .
Back in the day, we used to laugh at just how f^cked up the Soviet Union was and how they treated their citizens. :|
Fast forward a bit and it seems the US of A has followed right along in their footsteps. Hell, we go any further with
it and we may as well adopt their National Anthem and Flag too
Cue up obligatory "But the USA is way worse!" postings from trolls who have never left their mother's basement and who have no idea what a *real* police state is.
If you 'where' capable of making sense...
all large organizations are inherently corrupt, in that the "top" members stop caring about anything except amassing more power(wealth, influence, resources) for themselves
anonymity is the only true defense the powerless have against the powerful, that is why the powerful are working so hard to eliminate this threat
now is the time to create a distributed communication framework that can't be controlled by any government or corporation
http://project-byzantium.org/
https://www.torproject.org/
https://freenetproject.org/
http://www.i2p2.de/
https://code.commotionwireless.net/projects/commotion/wiki/Newbie_How_it_Works
unless you live in a hideous dictatorship running a node in pass through mode is virtually risk free and is something you can do RIGHT NOW to ensure freedom for your children and grandchildren in the future
The american DMCA already requirers you to register yourself with the goverment when ever you host a webpage or is an internet service provider (register at ICANN to get IP adressess). Any corporation can just say "copyright violation" and get the name of the person running the blog/microblog/facebook-account/webpage. I don't see any controversial news here.
The goverment of China just does what the US is pressuing them to implement. An efficent process to crackdown on copyright infrigment. The right,including copyright, to report what happens in the country belongs to the goverment.
I have some depraved neighbors who are using net filtering software to restrict their children's internet activities.
This is a major story of inhumane censorship of American children right here at home.
NYT need to realize charity starts at home, and I'm not so interested in what those dirty Chinks do half way across the world than I am about my neighbors doing exactly the same thing right here at home.
So NYT call me ASAP for a huge scoop.
email: ImAMeddlingFucker@USA.com
We need a mesh or HAM radio based internet. Something non-centralized and created by the people for the people that the government is powerless to step in and regulate.
Not sure what you are trying to say here. If I can be reasonably assured that my laptop hasn't been owned while I was going through customs (not at all a given), there are VPN solutions that will definitely secure my traffic between that laptop and home. If those solutions are blocked, then yeah, it's definitely not safe to transact anything sensitive.
Due to the recent school shooting, they have put a ton of restrictions on schools.
Umm, maybe in a few places but mostly things are unchanged. I coach at a high school and there has been pretty much no change in any of the 50 or so high schools in our county since the recent shooting in New England. Some understandable discussions regarding what would be appropriate action but there hardly has been any knee jerk reaction in most places.
TSA is there to make sure we don't forget that someone tried to light a sneaker on fire on a plane.
The TSA is there because some crazy people flew airplanes into buildings. That's not to excuse some of the ridiculous behavior of the TSA but it is there because we told our elected officials that a bunch of rent-a-cops weren't doing an adequate job of airport security before 9/11 which is arguably true. The TSA seems to be quite the overreaction but it is there because we collectively were afraid and our government did what we wanted them to do at the time.
And there is a ton more that has happened in the last 10 years that has shown that we are heading towards a police state.
A conveniently vague argument. If you really think the US is turning into a police state then why don't you move somewhere else?
One of the biggest clues is we have Wars on things.
Right, the War on Poverty really is a sign that we are oppressed. Terrible thing that our government did trying to help people.
I can confirm that OpenVPN was being blocked just a couple of weeks ago, while it used to work in the summer. Strangely, ssh connections were not being blocked. I did manage to get openvpn working, but the endpoint was on port 53/tcp. Using tcp for VPN traffic is sub-optimal, so this was not a good solution.
The other odd thing was the websites being blocked included imdb. What subversive information is on imdb?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Except here it's banned if the government is told by commercial interests that it is objectionable.
Really.
That is the only difference and how you may still be able to call the EU/USA capitalist and China communist: Who is it who tells the government what to do?
China communism: The government department heads
EU/USA capitalism: The CEO of big companies.
Do the Chinese not know that putting a heavier weight on a pressure cooker increases the pressure? That the increased pressure increases the likelyhood of an explosion?
China having a word in the operation of the internet and its regulation would be better than the USA alone.
You think USA is free?
~lol~
USA: Embarrasing the government
Uncovering corruption in the government
Recreational drugs while being poor
Being consistently black and poor.
Not being respectful to a police officer.
Buying books abroad.
Enabling ebook readers to help the blind read Adobe books.
Accessing a DoD server.
The "small but powerful" block of voters are people who know orders of magnitude more about Cuba as a nation than you do, and know orders of magnitude more about the nature of the Communist dictatorship in Cuba than you do, etc. That won't stop millions of sanctimonious Canadians from acting like they are down with Cuba because they imagined themselves smoking a Cuban cigar one time. The fact is, American citizens - many of whom or first, second, or third generation Cubans - know more about Cuba than Canadian citizens. Please do not compare the relatively small number of Cuban-Canadians to the vibrant and vast Cuban-American subculture. Good day.
with all the nasty hacks, anonymous crap and everything, some proper control over the internet anarchy is what we all need.
regards,
anonymous coward
Really.
They left Cuba. They are self-selected to people who hate Cuba.
And you REALLY need a lot of evidence to back up your "orders of magnitude more" claim.
Cuban health care is better than the USA. Literacy and life expectancy much higher.
Despite a nearly cripling embargo and continuing interference in their sovereign affairs by the arsehole next door.
I think a balance is needed here:- A lack of censorship and full-blown "dictator-style" censorshop are as bad as each other. Pro internet freedom activists will argue it is up to parents to shield their children from the filth on the Internet. This is however practically impossible as children and teenagers are increasing in computer knowledge at a faster rate than the previous generation. A complete lack of censorship is all good until you discover it's your children viewing the pornography which helps subconsciously shape their view of women and men in society. Does it come as a suprise that the strongest anti-censorship activists are young people without children? However full blown censorship in which a person cannot express his or her opinion is totally wrong either. Expression of opinion can help society grow and encourage debates in which society can come to rational decisions, which can in turn help develop society intellectually and morally. Dictators or political parties who dislike the opposition choose to silence their opponents through censorship which unfair, as this is enforcing their desires on the rest of society. To summarise, are pro/anti censorship activists acting in accordance to their own desires or do they truely want the best for society? As regards to China, unfortunately such laws will only be effective if backed up with physical brutality - another government tactic to forcefully enforce the law if society does not submit to the government's desires. Proxies are simply the answer to such censorship or underground ISPs which I'm sure will be an emerging market.