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Great Firewall of China Blocks Edgecast CDN, Thousands of Websites Affected
An anonymous reader writes: Starting about a week ago, The Great Firewall of China began blocking the Edgecast CDN. This was spurred by Great Fire's Collateral Freedom project, which used CDNs to get around censorship of individual domains. It left China with either letting go of censorship, or breaking significant chunks of the Internet for their population. China chose to do the latter, and now many websites are no longer functional for Chinese users. I just helped a friend diagnose this problem with his company's site, so it's likely many people are still just starting to discover what's happened and the economic impact is yet to be fully realized. Hopefully pressure on China will reverse the decision.
I never heard of any of those sites listed in TFA. And since it's doubtful anyone in China cares about the Colts, that leaves Mozilla.
it's likely many people are still just starting to discover what's happened and the economic impact is yet to be fully realized
Economic impact would be probably close to zero.
I had to block ALL of china's IP addresses due to constant and incessant hacking attacks. They have so many bad actors this can only be a good thing.
Only true pressure would be if companies having their manufacturing in China moves elsewhere.
The Chinese government do whatever they like.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
pressure from the West normally gets China to do things differently. Unfortunately, I can't think of ANY examples right now where it has worked in that direct of a manner.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Only true pressure would be if companies having their manufacturing in China moves elsewhere.
Already happening quite a few moving from china to SE-Asia, and even a couple popping up in Africa.
Om, nomnomnom...
As most websites are no longer self contained, but require numerous dependencies to other websites for data, content, analytics and js libraries, China's gated internet will become more isolated from the rest of the world.
Perhaps Hong Kong may face similar issues with regards to net access and online freedom in the near future? There has been talks about that recently.
Maybe web developers will need to write a "China mode" for front end sites, in addition to "Desktop" or "Mobile" mode that will only use old school 1990's style HTML look and feel. Bring back the frames :)
It just amazes me to think that anyone would believe that the same China that is currently blocking Google, Youtube and Facebook would hesitate for a second before blocking Edgecast.
As far as they are concerned, there is no economic damage, in fact there is an economic incentive since anyone wanting their website to be usable in China would now be best hiring a CDN within China.
This is similar to what happened when Facebook was blocked and it allowed buggy local clones, notably Renren and Kaixinwang which were previously maligned by users to surge in popularity. Similar also when Google was mostly blocked, allowing Baidu to fill up the void. The thing is, they have every economic reason to block large foreign online services that compete with domestic ones, it's just they cannot block them on economic grounds, since that would be in violation to the free trade principles they espouse and would lead to retaliatory import sanctions. They can however block whatever they like on political grounds.
I do not disagree with Google's pride and principles in not continuing in their previous manner of following Chinese censorship guidelines. However, the net result to the present date is that users have been forced from a service that follows the guidelines only as far as they must and was allowed a fair bit of leeway in their implementation, to others that take the initiative to censor what _might_ be required to be censored for fear of greater pressure if they don't go far enough. The users are also getting exposed to less worldwide ideas. The feeling amongst former users is that Google has abandoned them because of their pride and they are afforded less and less respect by Chinese netizens.
It seems that this whole project was simply going to isolate Chinese netizens further and push China further towards its own separate Internet. This edgecast block will be faced with far less uproar than the ones that came before it, and those caused very little uproar.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
anyone wanting their website to be usable in China would now be best hiring a CDN within China.
There is a catch with this. Your origin servers must reside inside China or be connected to the Internet via Chinese ISP that will move your data first to China.
It usually doesn't work that way. Typically thos old men are willing to kill and oppress for those ideals. Blood will run in the streets before they loose their jobs.
It used to be that the entire world was very scared of the Pressure from the *West* because it would be a crushing blow to whoever the West decided to punish
It used to be, no more
The West is getting weaker by the day - as their technological / military / moral advantage get plummeted - nowadays even the banana republics in Africa / Latin America / Asia do not care so much about what the *West* wants anymore
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Similar also when Google was mostly blocked, allowing Baidu to fill up the void.
Even at its best, before it closed google.cn and started redirecting people to google.com.hk, Google only had half the number of users as Baidu in China. It never had the dominance we're used to in the USA and most of Europe, and it's not certain that it would have come to dominate in China anyway, considering the stable dominance of other search engines in other large countries. Your statement made it sound like Baidu only caught on once google was out of the picture.
"It left China with either letting go of censorship, or breaking significant chunks of the Internet for their population."
I love the tiny minds at work here. People who cannot see outside of themselves, nor consider any perspective but their own Western one. As if there were any choice involved! China doesn't block websites because they're evil, they block websites because they are damaging to China's body politic. These overseas actors want to harm China, and like antibodies reacting to bacteria, China's government reacts to block the damage. You can cry censorship all you want, but the fact remains that it's for China's own good that these actions are taken.
I remind everyone that the Chinese Communist Party is made up of the smartest people in China. It is full of scientists and engineers, people with analytical minds, and people who are qualified to make decisions for others. If Slashdot were based in China, the most thoughtful constantly-modded-up users would be mostly CCP members. Think of John Gruber, the MIT economist who helped get the badly needed Affordable Care Act passed despite opposition from lesser minds. There is nothing particularly scandalous about what he did. The seriousness of the deception depends on the extent of the harm done. Getting healthcare for millions of uninsured is the same as China's blocking these harmful websites. A little harm is done, mostly to people who intend harm in the first place, and much good is done to people who badly need it. It is a Faustian bargain, but it is worth it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
The Western mindset that censorship is automatically bad is outdated and unsuitable for 2014 and beyond. We need to just relax and let the smart people do their thing. We're better off with them in charge rather than the mob. If you disagree, then say so - but don't doubt China's justification for its own point of view, which I doubt anyone, especially those in this "freedumb center", has even taken a moment to think over.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Firstly, China isn't blocking everything in the world. They are blocking undesirable content into their own country that a majority of the Chinese public agrees should be blocked because their government tells them it should be, and they don't get to hear any opposing views on the matter.
TFTFY.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And quite a few to Vietnam. Not due to ideological conflict, but because Vietnam is like China but more so: Unions are illegal, worker's rights basically nonexistant, no environmental protection laws, ridiculously low tax rate. It's even cheaper than China!
That will eventually happen anyways once China's economy matures a bit more. The same thing has happened to a lot of other formerly developing countries, such as Japan.
You, of course, have ceritified polls to back up this statement.
As an additional point, this is not a case of China blocking undesireable content. They are blocking a major portion of the Internet wholesale, regardless of what the content is.
Oh yes. The company I work for provide computer and information security solutions. We help people fight for digital freedom. We educate how to detect and remove spyware from PCs. We provide ways to reach information that is otherwise censored. Check it out - https://f-secure.com/freedome. We're blocked in China.
It's like Mississippi, but with lots of honeymooners.
A lot of your complaints would disappear if you did as well.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The reason CDN wants China is money. So, if China wants to block that, it's their country. Painting "freedom" on a capitalistic venture is not fooling the Chinese government.
Hell, Verizon is riding on edgecast.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
" And the actual metric you attempt to generally cite is bogusmips."
Here is a citation for you:
"This week the International Monetary Fund updated its data on the world economy. For the first time it ranks China’s economy as the world’s biggest in purchasing-power-parity terms. Historians, though, point out that China is merely regaining a title that it has held for much of recorded history. In 1820 it probably produced one-third of global economic output. The brief interlude in which America overshadowed it is now over."
http://www.economist.com/news/...
It left China with either letting go of censorship, or breaking significant chunks of the Internet for their population.
DMCA-style takedown or GEO-Lockdown of CDN content upon an e-mail request of the Chinese government.
Is your post in reference to China or the US?
You mention "prison pit" so you must be referring to the US which has a far higher incarceration rate:
US prisoners per 100,000 = 707
China prisoners per 100,000 = 124 or 172
At least if you want to post negative comments and call people a "shill" check your facts first.
Indeed. The ongoing international outcry over Tienanmen Square haunts the Chinese government to this day.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Google's decision to pull out had nothing to do with "pride and principles", that's just how they sold it to Western audience.
The actual reason was the fact that as long as they had hardware running their code in China, they were under severe cloning and hacking threat. The straw that broke camel's back came when someone in China (intelligence agencies? competitors? random hackers?) grabbed a large portion of their holiest of of holy - search engine's source code.
but how can you move your sub contractor's, their sub contractor's etc. production out of China?
Either by investing in new companies in region xyz, or by making your own start-up contractors and then selling them off as "unprofitable" that has happened in China quite a bit.
Om, nomnomnom...