Slashdot Mirror


DuckDuckGo Now Blocked In China

wabrandsma sends this news from Tech In Asia: Privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo is now blocked in China. On Sunday DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg confirmed to Tech in Asia that the team has noticed the blockage in China on Twitter. DuckDuckGo had been working fine in mainland China since its inception, aside from the occasional 'connection reset' experienced when accessing many overseas websites from within the country. But now the search engine is totally blocked in China. ... [T]he GreatFire index of blocked sites suggest that DuckDuckGo got whacked on September 4. DuckDuckGo joins Google in being censored and blocked in the nation. Google, after years of being throttled by China's Great Firewall since the web giant turned off its mainland China servers in 2010, was finally blocked totally in June this year.

82 comments

  1. Well then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Congrats?

  2. my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 3, Informative

    duckduckgo is my favorite search engine. theirs is the only site that has a clearly written privacy policy. also, with ios8, ddg is now a default option in safari which I appreciate.

    1. Re:my favorite search engine by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Hate to break it to ya, "clearly written" don't mean squat. There is no way to ever verify. Always assume the worse, and besides, your signal travels through lots of "waypoints". You not hiding anything. If you want to find something safely and securely, use the classifieds, nothing beats the Sunday paper.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:my favorite search engine by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 3, Informative
      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    3. Re:my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      it's not about hiding anything, it's about being treated with respect and not as a "product" to exploit.

    4. Re:my favorite search engine by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      No, it's not about hiding anything, or how you are treated, it's about believing something just because of its writing style.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    5. Re:my favorite search engine by SumDog · · Score: 5, Informative

      Plus the NSA is probably logging all your search results with them anyway (regardless of if they know or not).

      I still like DuckDuckGo because I like having an alternative. I like not being in the filter bubble. I have to type in the name of my city for local results, unlike google, but I don't mind that DuckDuckGo doesn't customize my results based on some algorthims about my browsers+ip+os+wi-fi access point+my history.

      And if I can't find what I'm looking for, I can always add !g and duckduckgo redirect to Google...or !yt for YouTube, or !w for Wikipedia or !rt for Rottom Tomatoes or just ! for the first result (I'm feeling lucky). The bang(!) commands are really the best part about them.

    6. Re:my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      illogical at best, nonsensical more likely.

    7. Re:my favorite search engine by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

      Being able to understand what someone is saying ought to be a significant factor in deciding whether to believe them or not.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    8. Re:my favorite search engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or you could use https://www.ixquick.com/ which, unlike Duck Duck Go, has the inherent benefit of not being hosted by an American company (with all the TLA associations).

    9. Re:my favorite search engine by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Yes, ought to be... In business it is an exploit. If you can't verify it, it still means nothing. Under today's circumstances trust is dead.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    10. Re:my favorite search engine by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Yes, it is illogical to believe something that you cannot verify. A "privacy policy" is a fashion statement.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    11. Re:my favorite search engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try http://www.yandex.com/. It's what google used to be before having
      - "sponsored ranking" (the ranking can vary on the same day if the sponsors didn't paid enough btw)
      - location based results (which is maybe nice for a pizza, but sucks otherwise)

    12. Re:my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      a privacy policy is a legal contract, and companies that flout their contracts do so at their own peril. You remember Mapster?

    13. Re:my favorite search engine by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Eh, some people are sloppy..

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    14. Re:my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      Like yourself. You have potato chips on your shirt.

    15. Re:my favorite search engine by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Keep the faith! :-)

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    16. Re:my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 0

      why do you keep responding to me!!! please leave me alone.

    17. Re:my favorite search engine by fustakrakich · · Score: 0

      How ironical! I was going to ask the same thing... But now I think you're weird.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    18. Re:my favorite search engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    19. Re:my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      thats what ur mom said about u

    20. Re:my favorite search engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you're from the Neville Chamberlain school of reality?
      It's just too bad there aren't more paper tigers like yourself in the NSA, who are quite happy to use the United States Constitution documents as toilet paper.
      Besides you are pretty naive at best, hidden agenda sociopath at worst, to attempt to evangelize that DuckDuckGo as some kind of magic bullet to privacy.

    21. Re:my favorite search engine by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      You get last word, if you wish... IOW you win the internets.

      Peace to you!

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    22. Re:my favorite search engine by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      SUCK IT

    23. Re:my favorite search engine by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Nice little existing conversation about startpage, ixquick, ddg, and others here:
      http://www.webmasterworld.com/...

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    24. Re: my favorite search engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both blocked

  3. Turnabout is fair play by cstec · · Score: 2

    People searching from China without Google, Bing, Duckduckgo, etc should be banned from reaching their 'approved' results in the U.S.

    1. Re:Turnabout is fair play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://cn.bing.com/?mkt=en_US&intlF=1

    2. Re:Turnabout is fair play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, that's just an English skin on Bing. It's still censored (I am in China)

    3. Re:Turnabout is fair play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea what the other guy said. As soon as you even go to the results page even bing is written in chinese so you know full well whats going on.

  4. Control of Information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Censoring the internet is becoming so crucial for the political control of massive states that virtually all countries on the planet practice it in some manner.

    1. Re: Control of Information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hear hear

    2. Re:Control of Information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Segmenting the search results and the Internet leads to segmented understanding of history. Creating a segmented concept of history is a preparation of the population for war and conflict. Without the Great War there is no Great Patriotism, without the Great Patriotism there is no total control of the population for no reason, end or purpose whatsoever.

  5. Turnabout is fair play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    As a Chinese (well, Hong Konger, but frequently visiting the mainland) Bing is not blocked in China. But it redirect to bing.cn, which is filtered by the government.

  6. Well now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought the Chinese loved duck.

    1. Re:Well now by pitchpipe · · Score: 3, Funny

      I thought the Chinese loved duck.

      They also love Go. The name should have been foolproof.

      --
      Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    2. Re:Well now by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 1

      That wasn't duck.

    3. Re:Well now by Bob_Who · · Score: 0

      I thought the Chinese loved duck.

      They also love Go. The name should have been foolproof.

      I thought it was the Japanese who loved go... or am I just being racist?

      They all look the same.

      Now There's the racist.. slant...

      (snare, tom-tom, snare, cymbal crash)

    4. Re:Well now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DogDogGo

    5. Re: Well now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Peking Duck!

    6. Re: Well now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Search engine: Peeking Duck

    7. Re:Well now by marcello_dl · · Score: 1

      But, if they got whacked, they obviously did not duck enough.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    8. Re:Well now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Go is popular in both Japan and China. The name Go is Japanese but the game originated in China.

    9. Re: Well now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ducking Peek!

    10. Re:Well now by Bob_Who · · Score: 1

      Go is popular in both Japan and China. The name Go is Japanese but the game originated in China.

      That makes perfect sense since people in Japan originated from the mainland, and apparently they brought their stuff. I travel such a long road to the obvious. Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so. Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so.

  7. Question remains by PC_THE_GREAT · · Score: 1

    How do new programmers and new sysadmins survive in china? I suppoose they have to rote learn all their reference books.

    1. Re:Question remains by Dr.Saeuerlich · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sysadmins for big companies have access to VPNs. The Chinese government is okay with breaching the firewall for the sake of making money. Corporations usually have access to rather expensive and approved VPN connections (such as the place I work for). They allow you to access e.g. Facebook and the IP also shows up as China based. My personal VPN at home is illegal, much much cheaper and usually shows a US based IP.

      Most Sysadmins don't speak much English though, but there are many Chinese IT books available. They're MUCH cheaper than books in the US, although some are just direct translations from the English Help file to Chinese.

    2. Re:Question remains by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      My personal VPN at home is illegal, much much cheaper and usually shows a US based IP.

      good luck that the red army doesn't kick in your door and you get re-educated.

    3. Re:Question remains by SumDog · · Score: 1

      I knew a Chineese student in graduate school. He told me in China he can pretty much get access to anything. Most people know how to get around the firewall with proxies and VPNs. There are too many people for the government to really do anything about it...unless you talk about it. If you start commenting on fourms or discussiong international verion of news eventus or start voicing any opinions about China or the Chineese Government, you can expect things to not go well for you.

    4. Re:Question remains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He already said he wasn't in America

    5. Re:Question remains by PC_THE_GREAT · · Score: 1

      I guess it is only a fake sense of security that the government gets by saying "hey i am banning this" when the rest of the nation will just be able to use proxies/vpns to get out. In a way, maybe China likes to give its population a crappy latency. :D They just wanted to be a dick.

    6. Re:Question remains by digitig · · Score: 1

      It's probably more than that. Criminalize everybody, and you can prosecute whoever you like without having to admit why you're really going after them.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    7. Re:Question remains by Dr.Saeuerlich · · Score: 2

      The philosophy is quite different.
      They don't care if you a few people circumvent the GFW. They care if people start spreading the truth, or what the CCP calls "rumors". I.e. if you try to get other Chinese to act against the government's interests. As long as you shut up, you're safe.

      With this in mind, the Chinese firewall was never designed to stop everyone. It just makes it difficult enough for the average Chinese to not bother circumventing it and getting "stupid" ideas. And even then, if you don't act on those ideas, no problem!

  8. Wear it proudly like a badge of honor.... by Bob_Who · · Score: 2

    ....and a dash of irony and a twist of silly symbolic gesturing. Its a pictogram like a Chinese character delivered from the government of Chinese characters. Its a quaint gesture of authority that is a very effective at getting our attention, but ultimately completely ineffective of meaningful results. They may delay, but they will not be successful at censoring reality from the appropriate or prescribed Chinese social conscious. I always liked the Peking Duck....sorry to see it duck duck Go.

    1. Re:Wear it proudly like a badge of honor.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I always liked the Peking Duck

      Darling, I give you very best duck...

  9. SearchEnginesIndex by pigsycyberbully · · Score: 0

    How did they manage to block Google, Google has thousands of domain names which feed advertising and fonts and NSA monitoring. Google literally has thousands of domain names to feed websites for monitoring purposes. Other than that there are literally thousands of search engines almost every country in the world as their own search engines. It is a good idea to stay away from English-language search engines you get the same results regardless of which one you use. Search Engine Index WorldWide: English, Dansk, Deutsch, Español, FranÃais, Italiano, Norsk, PortuguÃs, Bahasa Melayu, Polski, Romanesc, Suomi, Svensk, Tiáng Viát, TürkÃe, ÎÎÎÎνÎÎÎ, ÑÑfÑÑÐÐÐ ÑÐÑÐ, ÑfÐÑÐÑ--нÑÑOEÐРмоÐÐ, ØØ±ØÙ, ØÙÙØØ© ØÙØØ±ØÙSØ©, àààà¥à¦à¥, äæ-, æ--¥æoeèz, íoeêì-, Afrikaans, Shqipe, Ð'ÐÐÐÑÑfÑÐÐÑ, Ð'ÑSÐÐÐÑÑÐÐ, CatalÃ, Hrvatska, ÄOEeÅtina, Nederlandse, Eesti, Filipino, Galego, ××'××(TM)×, Magyar, Ãslenska, Gaeilge, LatvieÅu, ÐoeÐÐÐÐонÑÐÐ, Malti, ÙØØ±ØÛOE, ÐÑÐÑÐÐ, SlovenÄina, Slovenski, Kiswahili, àà--à, Cymraeg, ×(TM)×(TM)Ö×"×(TM)ש, ÕÕÕÕ¥ÖÕ¥Õ, AzÉ(TM)rbaycan, Euskal, áf¥áfáfáf--áf£áfsáf, KreyÃl ayisyen SearchEnginesIndex.com

    1. Re:SearchEnginesIndex by anusser · · Score: 2

      The firewall uses DNS Poisoning for starters. Domains like www.google.com and mail.google.com resolve to incorrect IPs.
      Then known Google IPs are blocked.

      And yes, Google Fonts is therefore blocked so custom fonts don't show up on websites.
      Google's CDN is blocked so if websites load jQuery through www.googleapis.com, it won't load.

    2. Re:SearchEnginesIndex by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      It should be possible to block fonts right in a browser's configuration. When content is important it should be easy to strip out "styling."

      Just something that would be nice, similar to the "block images from this server" right-click option in Seamonkey. Much nicer than the typical adblock addon.

  10. my favorite search engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    startpage.com

  11. A Big Compliment! by hooiberg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When countries like China (and North Korea, Middle Eastern countries, etc) start blocking something, it is a clear indication the authors have been doing a very good job. Better than a hundred reviews. I will switch to duckduckgo today.

    1. Re:A Big Compliment! by Dr.Saeuerlich · · Score: 5, Informative

      In the case of China, if China cannot control it then they will block it. China doesn't spend money on censoring. They ask e.g. Google to spend money on censoring. Each internet company in China must, according to Chinese law, employ their own censors. All the Chinese government has to do is auditing and then fining the companies as needed. Very efficient solution for them. Google didn't want to put up with this, so they left. And since China couldn't control them anymore they blocked Google.

      This doesn't necessarily mean DuckDuckGo is good or safe. It just means the Chinese government doesn't see itself able to control them. Hence the block.

    2. Re:A Big Compliment! by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 1

      It may be Chinese law, but at the same time, isn't it protectionism? Some Chinese search engines out there will certainly be profiting from the Google ban, where as Google is being blocked from doing business in China.

      Why isn't there a lawsuit against this practice? No complaint in the WTO (where China is member)? In the age of information technology, censorship and free market don't really work with each other.

    3. Re:A Big Compliment! by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

      It may be Chinese law, but at the same time, isn't it protectionism? Some Chinese search engines out there will certainly be profiting from the Google ban, where as Google is being blocked from doing business in China.

      That's just a bonus for them. In other words, it is a win win siutation for them (not for others). The control is the main reason if you look closely.

      Why isn't there a lawsuit against this practice? No complaint in the WTO (where China is member)? In the age of information technology, censorship and free market don't really work with each other.

      You are thinking as a westerner... The system of complainig works if both sides respect the system. Do you think China care about this when it comes to against their own point of view?

    4. Re:A Big Compliment! by crimson+tsunami · · Score: 1

      National security protects the Chinese from the WTO just as successfully as it protects the US.

    5. Re:A Big Compliment! by xgdgsc · · Score: 1

      A link to the law: http://www.021beian.cn/Article... Administration of Internet Information Services Procedures (Promulgated by the State Council on, and effective as of, 25 September 2000.) See Article 15.

    6. Re:A Big Compliment! by zlogic · · Score: 1

      Google was not blocked in China, but rather not allowed to do business there. Last time I've been to China, Google still worked, but instead of google.cn it opened google.hk. They have pretty extensive Google Maps for China, with local services like traffic, as well as other services.
      The only thing which doesn't work is Youtube.

    7. Re:A Big Compliment! by Dr.Saeuerlich · · Score: 1

      You are right. Google left first.

      It didn't get blocked initially. However the Chinese tampered with the connection. Google services became very unreliable - lost of dropped connections. Google HK claimed there's no error on their side and that it's the Chinese government.
      In the end Google got fully blocked for the average Chinese home user. That's at least the case here in Shanghai, using China Telecom FTTH.

      Your situation in (expensive) international hotels may vary. They may have one of the expensive government approved VPNs to fool visitors that all is well in China.

    8. Re:A Big Compliment! by zlogic · · Score: 1

      Well, I did in fact visit Shanghai and stayed in a (probably) expensive hotel. While google.hk worked OK, other services like Youtube and Twitter were still blocked
      And the same situation was in the office I was visiting - US company, but almost no visitors (even the receptionist didn't speak English).

  12. Great Fire Index... by advocate_one · · Score: 1

    looks useful, but could do with being expanded to cover other countries as well that are forcing their ISPs to block websites... e.g. UK...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  13. Is Google blocked in China? by umafuckit · · Score: 2

    Last time I was in mainland China (about 2 years ago) I was able to use google.hk -- it wasn't blocked outright. However, it did appear to be throttled in some way. So searches took ages and it was a pain in the ass. One my Chinese friends said the she always used google.hk, even though it was slow, because she preferred the search results. So at least at the time, it was usable in practice. Also, I heard that the more tech savvy people in China know how to bypass the firewall. I don't know the details so can't verify, but apparently it's quite common knowledge.

    1. Re:Is Google blocked in China? by neoedmund · · Score: 1

      It was a time that google.hk could be visited in mainland, but now it totally results connection timeout. However the mail hosts of google are not blocked, otherwise not a single mail could be sent to gmail from China. It's painful, (even technical) sites are blocked or half blocked(very slow connections). That's why there is a big market of VPN for China nowadays.

    2. Re:Is Google blocked in China? by umafuckit · · Score: 1

      Ah, I see. So you're just going through VPN if you want to use Google or other blocked sites?

    3. Re:Is Google blocked in China? by crimson+tsunami · · Score: 1

      So 2 years out of date and irrelevant to the discussion. All of google is now blocked, even Chinese companies trying to advertise overseas with Google are having trouble. Everyone can still use a VPN to get around it though, but it's just one more hoop to jump through.

    4. Re:Is Google blocked in China? by Dr.Saeuerlich · · Score: 1

      Credit card + VPN

      Problem is that most reliable VPNs are commercial. Starting from 5 USD. You need a CC which is approved for international online payments. Most Chinese - meaning the people who do not live in 1st or 2nd tier cities - do not have a CC. Further, the bank must allow online payments on the card. Lastly, you must care about politics (many Chinese do not - their educational brainwashing did a good job!) and possibly speak some English (many do not).

      Meaning - the hurdle is fairly high for the average Chinese. And the few people who can circumvent the firewall are no danger as long as they don't stir up trouble. And to do that they'd have to use Chinese social media, which are heavily monitored and censored.

    5. Re:Is Google blocked in China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is very much related to an earlier story this week: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/business/international/china-clamps-down-on-web-pinching-companies-like-google.html?_r=0. Some responses to the earlier story were: "Oh, who cares. I'll just switch to another search engine." What's happening here is bigger than just a single company. Hopefully the same folks are not now saying: "Oh, who cares. I'll just use a VPN."

      This sort of passive "route around damage" approach is untenable.

  14. Is Google blocked in China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's blocked in the mainland now, sadly. So is gmail, unless you have the IMAP.

    I've sold people solutions to how to get around the firewall actually, to people in HK who want to access stuff when traveling to the mainland. Simplest way is VPN, but you must set it up in HK because mainland blocks VPN websites so you can't download the softwares or get the IP adresses.

  15. In mandarin DuckDuckGo translates to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    supreme leaders served under glass to be eaten by peasants

    yours
    super happy hung wang dong

  16. In mandarin DuckDuckGo translates to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    super happy well hung dong?

  17. simple name change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The simply changed the name to DuckPeckinDuckGo

  18. block all searh index crawling from china by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why not block all search crawling from china that enters US servers? (might block spam as a secondary effect)

  19. DDG Tor Hidden Service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here it is, try logging me now!

    http://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/