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Researchers Made a Fake Social Network To Infiltrate China's Internet Censors
Jason Koebler writes: In order to get inside China's notorious internet filter, Harvard researcher Gary King created his own fake social network to gain access to the programs used to censor content, so he could reverse-engineer the system. "From inside China, we created our own social media website, purchased a URL, rented server space, contracted with one of the most popular software platforms in China used to create these sites, submitted, automatically reviewed, posted, and censored our own submissions," King wrote in a study published in Science. "We had complete access to the software; we were even able to get their recommendations on how to conduct censorship on our own site in compliance with government standards."
...and then we publicized the hell out of it to make sure that the Chinese government would see it and crack down even harder on net access. But I got to write this paper and put it on my CV.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
If you want random strangers to do your censoring for you, expect random strangers to know the details on what you want censored.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
They didn't "infiltrate" the censors, they just got the same standard access to tools and communication channels as any other random social network site in China. This tells us absolutely nothing that isn't already public information if you simply read Chinese posts by people who have used the system.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Unite! There, now this won't be seen for sure.
"purchased a URL"
Where do they sell URLs?
I've only ever managed to buy domains.
The (English speaking) public doesn't read Chinese posts, but they might if posted by Harvard, since you know... it's in English.
So Chinese people are allowed to say whatever they want with their little tiny microphones that nobody hears. The government only gets involved when a message seems to reverberate through the public and actually threaten to cause the citizens to rise up.
That totally doesn't sound familiar *at all*.
Am I alone in thinking this is misleading?
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"We had complete access to the software, documentation, help forums, and extensive consultation with support staff; we were even able to get their recommendations on how to conduct censorship on our own site in compliance with government standards," he continued.
"
WOW, what a shock, they helped you enforce their laws?
Next time I go to the DMV i will produce a research paper on how I reverse engineered the process of getting a drivers license(AKA posting their instruction booklet).
There is the very point where Chinese get punished without knowing why, an area where law not reached *yet*.
The fucking cloud!! This makes him 10x specialer than all of us.
From the article: "Chinese people can write the most vitriolic blog posts about even the top Chinese leaders without fear of censorship, but if they write in support of or opposition to an ongoing protest—or even about a rally in favor of a popular policy or leader—they will be censored."
That is interesting. I am glad someone has discovered this. So perhaps the way to organise a protest, is to use secret messages coded in the form of vitriolic comments. Eg, "Mao Tsedong is an idiot" = Meet at Tiannamen Square.