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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."
which would require blocking server to server traffic
Since SMTP allows forwarding by other servers this would require deep packet inspection.
“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.
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.
I thought so too at first - China blocks access to any and all google services. But then I realized that the article (and title) are poorly worded. What China did (in addition to already blocking access to the actual google services) - is to block any email sent from/to anyone with a mailbox at gmail.com. That is to say - as a gmail.com user, you are no longer able to exchange emails with users of various email services based in China.
That is, in fact, somewhat bigger news - they are breaking an intercommunication capability.
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.
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"
China does DPI on basically all connections inside the country.
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.
The US government as official policy does not do DPI. While I am quite sure various agencies DO do it, whether it is legal is Big Question #1, and whether its universal is Big Question #2 (and Im sure it isnt). The most you could say for the NSA is they secretly try to subvert comms between you and Google.
China openly (in the sense that its official policy-- they dont generally advertise it) uses filter lists, works with companies to create "custom" chinese software (ie, TOM Skype), hotwords ALL text and voice communication, intercepts and interrupts VPN connections, and simply blocks websites they dont like (like Google). They also directly engage companies like Microsoft and Yahoo to assist in the spying.
>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)
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.
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)?
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.
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".