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Gmail Reportedly Has Been Blocked In China
An anonymous reader is one of many to point out a report that Gmail has been blocked in China. A years-long war between Google and China that highlights the ideological chasm between the two behemoths has now entered a new phase. On Monday morning, reports confirmed online chatter that Gmail has been fully blocked in China. And transparency advocates say they know exactly what's to blame: China's Great Firewall. "I think the government is just trying to further eliminate Google's presence in China and even weaken its market overseas," an anonymous representative of GreatFire.org told Reuters. "Imagine if Gmail users might not get through to Chinese clients. Many people outside China might be forced to switch away from Gmail."
"Imagine if Gmail users might not get through to Chinese clients. Many people outside China might be forced to switch away from Gmail."
, which would require blocking server to server traffic (and may cause more problems to China than the rest of the world). Is this what's happening or is it just something to "imagine", or a suggestion to the Chinese government on how to hit google harder?
Cut off some of googles services if your that paranoid etc...
But cut off googles email service when lots of your customers use it is just plain stupid.
But that sums up a lot of what the top guys in china seem to be..
“Imagine if Gmail users might not get through to Chinese clients. Many people outside China might be forced to switch away from Gmail.”
This isn't how the internet works.
I prefer China's overt censorship to the US version
I invite you to move to China and try making a statement like this, and see what happens.
China's politics and economy are more dynamic than the US one.
They're simply years ahead of us in greed, graft, and crony capitalism.
"Imagine if Gmail users might not get through to Chinese clients. Many people outside China might be forced to switch away from Gmail."
China needs to keep up economic growth, or the people who have gotten used to being "middle class" over the last 15 years will not be happy. So, cutting off ways for small and medium-sized importers in other countries to get product info, quotes, arrange for shipping, etc ... not so good.
And of course, this will also hurt many external alibaba customers.
What next - forcing people to switch to China's dead Red Flag Linux, just to spite the west?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Isn't this old hat? I was in China a few months ago and could not get to any of Google's services.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
I invite you to move to China and try making a statement like this, and see what happens.
Well, I don't live in China, but I've done a lot of business in China, and work with someone who is just completing a PhD in economics while working in China and feeds me a stream of consciousness about the extent of overt and covert state meddling.They certainly don't hide their censorship, let alone have a problem with people complimenting them for it. What would you expect to happen, please?
They're simply years ahead of us in greed, graft, and crony capitalism.
Mmm, no. They're edging from the right gradually toward pragmatic social democracy, while the US (with the exception of Obamacare) are getting more and more wacko religious neocon by the year.
It's ALMOST Tuesday in China! 22:49!
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
There is very few censorship agreements in the USA. Most of the so called hidden agreements are just the morals of the particular publisher.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she did not know anything about Gmail being blocked, adding that the government was committed to providing a good business environment for foreign investors.
So, unpopular opinion here but working with what basically exists as the worlds largest firewall may prove to be more difficult than a handful of PF rules. Its entirely possible Google services have accidentally been incorporated into a chain or policy they should not have, as they very likely exist in a complex one already. Or perhaps some recent holiday change on their part has triggered an automatic block. Either way its difficult to defend the idea that China intentionally did this when google gladly censors their search results and complies with all local regulations. They vicariously employ and support hundreds if not thousands of chinese workers, many underage and in poor labor conditions, to manufacture cellphones and laptops for people. Google remains a sterling partner of the chinese leadership in their quiet, tacit business participation in what for all intents and purposes amounts to a capitalist dictatorship with a communist logo.
Good people go to bed earlier.
All you can infer from my post is that Obamacare isn't "wacko religious neocon", which it isn't.
Centuries behind us, you mean? What you're describing was more or less standard in the USA in the last half of the nineteenth century.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
just saying....
Are you sure about that?
Maybe they just REALLY don't like Inbox.
umm...so I guess you don't buy anything? Note I didn't give a specific something listed....you don't buy /anything/? Fermenters, cell phones, edamame, board games, yarn, whatever?
Google services, including Gmail, have been blocked for years, in China. Sure, a lot of Chinese use them with VPN, but Gmail being blocked in China is old news!
For some "strange" reason, Bing and Hotmail aren't blocked, though.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
What do you think they talk about there?
Definitely not Tienanmen Square. Or anything else blocked by the Great Firewall.
Centuries behind us, you mean? What you're describing was more or less standard in the USA in the last half of the nineteenth century.
Think of it cyclically; the past is the future, as it ever was.
They certainly don't hide their censorship, let alone have a problem with people complimenting them for it
You're naieve. Some of it is in the open, a lot of it is not.
For instance: Ask your average Chinese college student whether they have freedom of religion / speech, and they will say yes. What they often dont know is that you can be arrested for talking to a minor about religion, or talking about religion outside of a state-sanctioned church. Ask the Falun-Gong about their thoughts on Chinese free speech.
Another example, for quite some time the GFW was analyzing google searches for forbidden content, and massively throttling connections with hits. Google posted an alert on their search page when such throttling occurred, which made the government quite angry. Why do you suppose that is, if theyre quite open about it? Why throttle, rather than displaying a block page?
I can also tell you that it is apparently not common knowledge there that if you text something "forbidden" in China, the government gets a copy.
Its wonderful that you think China is such a free country and that all of the reports of their human rights issues are apparently overstated. Maybe you think Liu XIaobo received his Nobel Peace Prize and was released from detenention, or that his wife has been released-- Im sure they would be thrilled to learn this.
Yes, the people I know who were deported for "unlawful speech"-- totally imagining that. Imagining Liu Xiaobo too, and illegal flower ceremony. Tank man? Never happened. Suppression of free speech during the olympics? Definately not.
And all those deals with Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google (since reneged, which is why China is so irked with them) in 2006 to help spy on their users and expose dissidents? Internet myth.
Sounds like you have it all figured out.
1) Do you own a passport?
2) Is your passport stamped with a Chinese entry visa?
Yes, and yes.
In return Id challenge you to stand on a corner and preach the risen Christ, and see how long it is before thugs detain you and give you a 1-way ticket out of the country. Or you could try handing out pamplhets advocating democracy-- I actually saw one of those-- You'd get the same response.]
By the way-- if you are a chinese national, please do not do this as you will get a 1-way trip but it wont be out of the country.
Look at this, we have a post on "Chinese censorship" and here is the first reference to Tienanmen square, an event that took place in 1989.
Whoever controls the Past Controls the Present.
What if Apple were to move its manufacturing to India, for example? Do Apple fanatics really need to prop up a dictatorship (oligarchy) so they can have their latest "iWantThat"? The same goes for the other tech toys made in China. Lots of people are willing to fork over money for "fair trade" coffee, but don't think twice about where their latest gadget comes from.
>For instance: Ask your average Chinese college student whether they have freedom of religion / speech, and they will say yes. What they often dont know is that you can be arrested for talking to a minor about religion, or talking about religion outside of a state-sanctioned church. Ask the Falun-Gong about their thoughts on Chinese free speech.
But practically speaking, the average Chinese college student is correct. They're completely free, that is until they have a high-enough profile to attract attention. No one is ever disappeared for talking to a minor about religion or talking about religion outside of a church. Fulan-Gong has the misfortune of being high-profile and regarded as a cult, but again, if you talk to someone on the street about Falun-Gong, no one is going to knock on your door in the middle of the night -- unless you have high profile.
Now obviously in our Western minds this isn't a correct situation. But if you're just an everyday college student (or an engineer at a multinational), for practical purposes, you have the freedom to say and do anything you want as long as you don't attract a large following. In a country of 1.3 billion people, your chances are quite good of not attracting such a following.
We have this same paranoia in the United States. Who would Snowden be if he'd not been able to contact the press and get his story known? Just a nobody that's not a threat to anyone. If I have proof the moon landing was fake I'm just a crackpot. But if I have proof and manage to convince 100 million fellow Americans I might suffer a tragic accident, too. (Or instead of moon landing, pick something more serious; you get my point I'm sure.)
--Jim (me)
> In return Id challenge you to stand on a corner and preach the risen Christ, and see how long it is before thugs detain you and give you a 1-way ticket out of the country.
This seems to be pretty common outside of the Chinese faux Catholic churches I've been near. Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing. I say "faux" because the CPA controls the local flavor of Catholicism, and the government really has nothing to fear. Like many things, it's under control.
I'm certainly no China defender (nor a Catholic), but a lot of things are just overblown. They can't even enforce traffic laws, let alone random individuals in front of a church.
--Jim (me)
Ask the KKK about their thoughts on American free speech.
Its perfectly legal to espouse KKK doctrine; ask the Westboro Baptist Church, or the residents of Skokie, Il during the Nazi demonstration.
for quite some time the NSA was analyzing google searches for forbidden content...
There is no official policy for this, nor has the NSA been found to compel anyone to allow SSL MITM without a court order. In fact there is no evidence currently that any widescale SSL MITMs are going on.
I can also tell you that it is apparently not common knowledge there that if you text something "forbidden" in America, the government gets a copy.
Need some evidence.
Don't you have any gripes with your own government?
Of course I do. But you would have to be absolutely ignorant of life in each country and the repercussions of open political speech in each to even begin making the comparison. The US has nothing even remotely comparable to the GFW.
They're completely free, that is until they have a high-enough profile to attract attention
Im not sure what your definition of high-profile is. If you form a house church over there and they find you, you WILL be detained, or deported (if you are an ex-pat), or at the very least monitored. I believe the unofficial threshold for being a concern is a gathering of 15 or more, hardly "high profile".
Not only that, but a vow of atheism is required to have a government career.
No one is ever disappeared for talking to a minor about religion or talking about religion outside of a church.
Many have been detained and deported for it, however, and had congregations threatened if details about other contacts were not revealed.
But if you're just an everyday college student (or an engineer at a multinational), for practical purposes, you have the freedom to say and do anything you want as long as you don't attract a large following.
For all intents and purposes, no religious thought unsanctioned by the government can be discussed. I have not been to a Three-self church, but the reports I have heard indicate that they are not what one would call "orthodox Christianity". Actual protestant churches, like those for Ex-pats, require a foreign visa to enter and tend to have barbed wire or electrical fencing.
I was simply demonstrating in stark contrast the difference in "freedom" in China and the US.
As to WHY someone would break the law to evangelize? Peter puts it well:
And the high priest questioned them, 28 saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.” 29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men."
Reportedly, what is being blocked is actual emails from or to a gmail address, not the service. Odd move though.
[FUCK BETA]
There is very few censorship agreements in the USA. Most of the so called hidden agreements are just the morals of the particular publisher.
And some are laws that allow a publisher to inflict its will on third parties, such as intellectual protectionism/imaginary property laws.
Not if China blocks the VPN's handshake, as it has been seen to do.
What if I give you a stack of flyers (of my choosing) and you stand in front of your nations capital and hand them out?
Since you clearly have "free speech" laws and can say whatever you want, you have nothing to fear right?
People do this all the time. If you caused a disruption, it is possible you would be asked to leave.
I witnessed this on a random street in China, where a man was handing out flyers in a public square. Police appeared, the man ran, all flyers were confiscated-- including the ones people were holding. That sort of thing simply does not happen in the US.
Just because i handed you a stack of "hate propaganda"
No such thing. See National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie
Good thing the US has "separation of state and religion" rules for those of us who do not believe in "god".
This is off topic and out of context. He was specifically asking why someone would go to a country like china and preach an illegal message. I provided the answer. The US's separation of church and state is not relevant because its not illegal in the US to preach such a message.
Here is another one for you, go break some law and then tell them you report to a "higher authority" and see if they buy that one.
Obviously they do not, and missionaries certainly go to prison for it. Are you arguing that it SHOULD be illegal?
1) China isnt communist, theyre authoritarian (possibly fascist). They stopped being communist after Mao died.
2) 66 million are. Many many more practice falun gong. Im also
3) Just to be clear that stance is incompatible with a belief in freedom of speech. Why are you so afraid of people making up their own minds? You have no problem peddling Mao Zedong worship in school.
Its very interesting that english appears to be a second language, you posted as an AC, and you seem to have an intimate knowledge of the official names of the sanctioned Chinese churches which very few people I have talked to know.
Any chance you're posting this from China? Perhaps part of the wangluò pínglùn yuán (50 Cent Army)?
Watching this kind of demoning from US is humourous and based on zero understanding how how things work.
Watching the 50 Cent Army come out and defend Chinese repression of free speech is certainly interesting. You seem to think that the comments made here are without personal experience, like watching people get deported because they dared to speak something the government objects to. Do the people in Hong Kong right now also not understand how things work? What about Tianenmen Square?
You remark on the supposed inefficiency of the American system, which has been successful in America and the UK for several hundred years. The western world has a strong economy, robust freedoms, and a government that the people have a say in. When an American military shoots civilians, the government is directly accountable to the people. When the Chinese government guns down demonstrators, nothing happens because the people have no say.
In China you need to know your place.
And the Communist Party is more than happy to teach it to you through hard labor, as well. Has Liu Xiaobo learned it yet?
The US has its flaws, but I know that I have the freedom to speak out against the government's mistakes without being arrested. Chinese people have no such freedom; they cant even request a democratic vote. When Mao told the people,
"let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend"
and people began to criticize the government's mistakes, none of them suspected that they would later be arrested with Mao remarking that he had "enticed the snakes from their caves." Is this what you consider progress, having a government that cannot be criticized? What if that government causes millions to starve during the Great Leap forward, or fires upon students in peaceful protest?
One wonders whether you will be able to visit this page to reply, because of the forbidden words (democracy, vote, Tianenmen, Xiaobo) on it.
If my house is on fire, I'm not about to lecture the guy next door about fireplace safety.
The context here is Gmail and China, and Chinese censorship at large. If you have specific gripes about the US government, this is probably the wrong topic for it. Getting mad at me because I am speaking on topic seems quite strange; you were better off going to a different article if you were not prepared to discuss the Chinese security context.
Just to go over your points quite quickly,
1) FISA courts have not as far as anyone knows allowed global MITM of SSL, nor (as far as anyone knows) does NSA even have the technological capacity to do so because they dont have the private keys of all US-based entities nor is anyone aware of a method to break 2048-bit RSA.
2) KKK may be "monitored", but they are allowed to speak, demonstrate, organize, and so forth as long as they commit no actual crimes (arson etc). This is not the case in China.
3) The burden of proof is on the accuser. It is reasonable to expect that the NSA is doing a lot of unauthorized spying based on recently disclosed evidence. It is NOT reasonable to automatically believe every crackpot theory about SSL MITM without proof. There is evidence of SSL MITM in very specific cases (ie, Lavabit). There is zero evidence for the kind of global SSL MITM that China enforces.
4) You are veering off into tangents and getting mad at me for doing so. If ranting makes you feel better, by all means continue, but Im not going to entertain it any further. Based on the number of 50 cent army in the thread (counted 3 so far), Im half convinced you're one of them.
The skokie case was specifically about "hate speech". Nazi demonstrators wanted to demonstrate in a mostly Jewish town -- including speech. The Supreme court ruled that they could.
I also find it quite strange that I ask a question about whether missionaries deserve prison, and you respond with a question about treason. The question about missionaries stands, do you think missionaries deserve prison for simply discussing religion? Do students deserve death for simply asking for democracy?
We're not talking about government overthrow here, we're talking about the right to discuss what one believes.
It is very interesting also that your post contains many letters found on a pinyin keyboard, and posted AC. Where are you posting from, exactly?
Try talking to people from China more often.
I speak with them quite often, and my acquaintance with China is not casual. I would however be foolish to reveal the nature of that acquaintance publicly, and will not do so; you can either believe me, or not. However I have not known anyone to refer to the church as anything other than "the Three Self church"-- never by its full name, to the point where I had no clue that it had a fuller name.
- I agree with you on the "communism" thing which is why i put it in quotes but tell me what the "official" name of the government party in power is called?
Zimbabwe and North Korea both have "democratic" and/or "republic" in their name, as did the country run by the Khmer Rouge; they are anything but. Technically, China also has the word "republic" in its name, but its a bit of a stretch given that which party you vote for is pre-decided and local rulers (ie Hong Kong) are selected by the government.
As to whether Slashdot is banned in China, I could find out pretty easily, but in any case im sure the 50 Cent Partyhas a special dispensation to bypass the GFW in order to bend opinion.
I do hate to pull out the shill card, but there are a large number of anonymous posts in this thread where the author is both highly defensive of Chinese policy and highly critical of US policy, which is a strategy (changing the discussion, goalpost shifting) officially recommended for the 50 cent party. I keep seeing this same letter (Ã) in their posts, which occurs on the pinyin keyboard, and they use very strange english phrases ("flogging the religion") which I have never heard native speakers use.
I would have to be naieve to assume that there are no Chinese shills here, and your attack on free speech in point 3 jives with the Chinese official stance that "some kinds of thought must not be tolerated".
I didn't even know China users could use Gmail. I always thought it was blocked.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
... Suppression of free speech during the olympics? Definately not.
...
Just because you presume something, does not make it true.
Posting as AC for obvious reasons. I was an athlete during the games (from a western country). We had been told in no uncertain terms that many things were not permitted to be discussed with the media (or for that matter general public) and sanctions could be applied if they were.
And now that I hit submit, I realise that I should also add:
These terms were not a standard part of the olympic agreements. Neither Athens or London (the ones either side of Beijing) had anything even remotely similar.
2) KKK may be "monitored", but they are allowed to speak, demonstrate, organize, and so forth as long as they commit no actual crimes (arson etc).
In the US the KKK is really close to the government. They, and other right wing advocates of violence, get away with a lot of stuff that would end up in big trouble for non-right wingers.
For example, the incoming House Whip, Steve Scalise, gave a well received speech to a white nationalist group in 2002
Given the name of the group, and the participation of David Duke, his claim he was unaware of the white racist nature of the gathering are not credible.
As for toleration of right wing threats of violence, there's an ongoing problem in Utah with people with guns threatening Bureau of Land Management employees
So imagine if some non-honkies in masks threatened a federal employee with guns. There would be a 100 person team from the FBI on the case immediately, and someone would be arrested shortly whether they were involved or not. Not many resources were spent trying to find the perps in this case. Since it's Utah, all that happened is the the BLM has removed insignia from their vehicles.
So not all terrorists are created equal. It counts less if you are white and Christian.
Why is Snark Required?
Oh well... their loss!