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Knocking Down the Great Firewall of China
New submitter Nocturrne writes: The FOSS project Lantern is having great success in unblocking the internet for many users in oppressive regimes, like China and Iran. Much like Tor and BitTorrent, Lantern is using peer-to-peer networking to overcome firewalls, but with the additional security of a trusted network of friends. "If you download Lantern in an uncensored region, you can connect with someone in a censored region, who can then access whatever content they want through you. What makes the system so unique is that it operates on the basis of trust. ... Through a process called consistent routing, the amount of information any single Lantern user can learn about other users is limited to a small subset, making infiltration significantly more difficult." The network of peers is growing, but we need more friends in uncensored countries to join us.
Yep... WWW stands for World Wide Web meaning public servers... if you have to know the person you're contacting via the Internet, that can be HTTP or whatever protocol you're using, but that's not WWW.
The day I lost a lot of respect for Open Source is the day they went political.
Why don't they mind their own business and stop trying to push their ideology worldwide? China isn't a democracy - neither are 99.9% of those that claim to be but that's beside the point. They have their own rules and regulations and you should respect them and not interfere.. You have no right to decide what's right or wrong or to push your means to them, the same way as they don't or shouldn't push their ideology to your countries.
Yes. The article is all about people forcing their viewpoints on others. Unfortunately you did not grasp which group was doing the forcing and which group was giving people options to prevent it.
A lighthouse sits in one place and is easy to hit with a mortar. A lantern is easy to move and shield.
And a GREEN lantern can shoot laser beams, like a shark.
I read that line quite differently. It IS the job the the Chinese citizens to change a situation they don't agree with and this is one tool to help them do that. To say it is solely up to outsiders to change the system of a country without the support of the citizens is forcing your will on those citizens.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
The day I lost a lot of respect for Open Source is the day they went political.
Open Source isn't a person. It's neither political, nor apolitical. Open Source is a tool that makes sharing software much easier. That is all.
They have their own rules and regulations and you should respect them and not interfere..
Why should I? If a friend of mine in China wants me to give him access to github because its government blocked it for some reason (as it has done in the past), then I will certainly give it to him. Not that I was ever asked, everyone I know in China already pays (or has their own company pay) for a private proxy to ssh through.
You have no right to decide what's right or wrong or to push your means to them,
I have the right to say whatever I want, and they have the right to ignore me. Just like you have the right to say whatever you want, and I have the right to ignore you. The same goes for my government, please feel free to try to influence it. Most people running my government are self-serving idiots anyway.
The day I lost a lot of respect for Open Source is the day they went political.
"they" who?
Why don't they mind their own business and stop trying to push their ideology worldwide? China isn't a democracy - neither are 99.9% of those that claim to be but that's beside the point. They have their own rules and regulations and you should respect them and not interfere.
what kind of being could possibly put "99.9% of democracies aren't democracies" and "we should respcet rules and regulations" in the same sentence. a mushroom?
No. Nobody can explain that because that is not the purpose of the tool....They can access a lot more content using this tool, not the same content more securely.
Incorrect. It does improves security by building a web of trust that makes infiltration by an opponent more difficult. It also improves security by compartmentalizing connection and peer information so that if a opponent does infiltrate the system, the amount of information that they can obtain about other participants is drastically reduced compared to other systems..
"In order for a censor to discover the IP addresses of your computer, they'd have to somehow convince you that they're a friend." Fisk explained. "It uses these real-world trust relationships to protect the IP addresses of these proxies because when you run Lantern in the uncensored world, you are a proxy.
Through a process called consistent routing, the amount of information any single Lantern user can learn about other users is limited to a small subset, making infiltration significantly more difficult.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
The day I lost a lot of respect for Open Source is the day they went political.
Why don't they mind their own business and stop trying to push their ideology worldwide?
So I guess you lost all respect for Einstein and his peers when they warned about the implications of weaponizing nuclear technology ...
They have their own rules and regulations and you should respect them and not interfere.
The world disagrees. "Ve vere chust followink orders" isn't a defense for following "rules and regulations" that deprive people of what most of the people on the planet consider to be universal human rights.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I don't recall anyone forcing anyone to use this. If there are people who don't like the fundamental right to free speech and love censorship, then they're welcome to simply not use this.
How would you feel if another country did it to you?
Did what? There are no invasions here. What's with you idiots? Do you have some problem with giving people the option to get around censorship if they want to or something?
If people still didn't believe there were political/governmental shills on /., the knee-jerk whataboutism posts on every article about a non-US country should very clearly dispel that belief.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
That's like saying non-US vpn providers are forcing their concept of right and wrong on Americans. The tools are made available, the doors are unlocked. People willingly use the tools, and willingly walk through the doors on their own.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
The Chinese social networking army has really fluent English speakers.
People like me? Once again, who is forcing anyone to use these tools? Who is meddling? People in countries with censorship can *choose* to use these tools. What is your specific complaint with this? Are you pro-censorship? Do you think that laws and society is always right, so anyone who provides tools that people can choose to use to get around censorship are wrong? Just what is your problem?
China has a right to restrict any speech they like [with their own citizens], and you have no right to interfere.
Erm... what you still don't seem to understand is that there is no invasion! People in China *choose* to use this software of their own fucking volition. Stop acting like it's being forced, or that there is some sort of invasion on the Chinese.
Such censorship is horrible, and I think providing tools that people can choose to use to get around it is perfectly okay.
How many Chinese VISA's do you have stamped on your passport?
Let me guess, you don't even have a passport, let alone been there?
Let me give you a quick hint of life in China. They are more concerned with making some money and improving their life then worrying about "the great firewall".
Is China a perfect place? Far from it.
Do the Chinese have bigger concerns then "the great firewall" going on in, you bet.
You do realize the state controls both the TV and newspapers right? This is something that impacts far more then the few that can afford computers and internet access.
Subverting censorship. Government censorship that tries to control people's access to important information. Do you seriously need to ask that question?
Will it allow child pornography? Piracy?
Will knives allow murder? Using this ridiculous logic, everything would be banned. There is no conceivable way of stopping these things. The computer you're on now allows child pornography and copyright infringement (which is the right term, not "piracy").
Tu quoque is a logical fallacy no matter how many players there are. Someone's arguments stand or fall on their own merit.