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China Cuts Off Some VPNs
jaa101 writes The Register (UK) and the Global Times (China) report that foreign VPN services are unavailable in China. A quote sourced to "one of the founders of an overseas website which monitors the Internet in China" claimed 'The Great Firewall is blocking the VPN on the protocol level. It means that the firewall does not need to identify each VPN provider and block its IP addresses. Rather, it can spot VPN traffic during transit and block it.' An upgrade of the Great Firewall of China is blamed and China appears to be backing the need for the move to maintain cyberspace sovereignty.
So it's no surprise.
That's one way to keep international business out of china, I guess...
Same type of reason child pornography sites are shut down. Some types of behavior do not need to be encouraged.
Pretty sure I could run an OpenVPN server on port 443 (or some other port they wouldn't dare block) on a foreign vps for dirt cheap. It would probably take me less time to fix my vpn to get around their block than it took for them to think of the block. It won't stop the determined user, though it will take some time for the general vpn using population to find their way to a workaround. Silly government.
It doesn't help that most VPNs are so easy to detect and block at the IP header level. PPTP depends on the GRE IP protocol (47), and L2TP is usually tunneled over IPSec, which depends on the ESP IP protocol (50). By using different protocol numbers in the IP headers, the designers of these protocols made it mindlessly easy to block them, and made them harder to support, because routers have to explicitly know how to handle those nonstandard protocol numbers.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
But when your own Western countries decide to block IS websites which encourage violence and mayhems to Europe / America why you guys never cry foul?
Who is "you guys"? I assure you that not everyone is part of some sort of mindless hivemind just because they live in a certain country. I'm against all censorship, whether it's the US, the EU, or China doing it.
Here I am!
Rock you like a Hurricane!
Whatever happened to them? Drugs? Booze? Nothing?
Help me understand your point of view. We run liberal democracies here in EU. We do block some things based on cultural expectations, and in some cases, because certain foreign power that shall not be named forces us to do so typically through government corruption on high level as shown in leaks by certain man who now resides in Russia.
But on the principle, we still consider freedom of speech to be of paramount importance, and unblocked internet access to be an important cornerstone of this principle. As you point out we do make some deviations from the principle, but these deviations tend to be based on rather awful historic facts and are very much targeted.
Chinese model is about denying large portions of free speech, such as political non-threatening free speech of political dissidents to improve social cohesion of their society. How is it hypocritical to criticize this aspect of Chinese society from European point of view? We very clearly differ here, and there is no hypocrisy at play. Our blocking is targeted, specific and based on history. It specifically makes a point to avoid suppressing political dissent when at all possible. Chinese is pre-emptive, overly broad and its main intent is suppression of political and social dissent.
I fail to see hypocrisy. Please point out the mistake in my logic and explain how exactly this critique is hypocritical.
Imho, there are certain lines that do need to be drawn at times. And if it means shutting down certain websites in order to keep innnocent others in society safer, then so be it. I also don't approve of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.
How many slashdotters think that they could easily establish a vpn connection to get behind the Great Firewall of China, then using that VPN, create a second VPN route from the inside back out? Okay, let's make it interesting... you have 1 hour. Bonus points if you can do it for free. Anyone else having random urges to go hop the great firewall of China over and back?
50 Centers* have started reading Slashdot?
* "50 Cents" refers to the compensation shills receive to post messages benefiting the (Mainland) Chinese government. AKA Wumao
Imho, there are certain lines that do need to be drawn at times.
China and North Korea both draw certain lines, and both will claim it's for stability/safety.
Go after the ones who take harmful actions, not the speakers.
I also don't approve of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Even if there is a fire?
And I don't approve of it either, but I leave it up to the theater owner to decide if they want to kick out people who scream random things while others are trying to watch a movie, not government thugs.
but these deviations tend to be based on rather awful historic facts and are very much targeted.
Perhaps people should fight lies with truth rather than getting government thugs to censor information they don't like.
I was in China until yesterday, and while VPN connections often randomly stop, they are not blocked most of the time.
Who decides this then? The arsonist?
What kind of vile scum are you to equate free speech for political change with videos of people chopping heads off and incitement to murder?
Child porn and free speech are the same? You're messed in the head.
The term "50-centers" is of wide enough currency in the English-language popular media that I don't think we need it explained to us, but thanks for playing.
And it's wumaodang if you want to get pedantic about it
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
That wasn't my question, nor am I interested in an off-topic debate.
No shit. All of a sudden /. readers are anti-freedom of speech? Right.
Transmitting data is communicating, so yes. Rather than spewing forth nonsense like "X isn't free speech," why not just admit you want to restrict people's freedoms so you can get the government to censor content you don't like/find harmful?
What? You seem to be anti-free speech; the difference is that you label anything you don't like as Not True Free Speech, and then any restrictions you place on people don't count as restrictions on free speech.
What kind of vile scum are you to equate free speech for political change with videos of people chopping heads off and incitement to murder?
It is easy to call people names, isn't it? It is easy to label people ' vile scums ', isn't it?
Is cutting off the head of non-Muslims and then mounting the decapitated heads of their children on highway posts ' FREE SPEECH ' ?
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Persecution_of_Non-Muslims_(China)
You guys will accuse the Chinese for anything and everything, you guys are never interested in the truth. You guy are happy to lend your support to monsters who perpetrating violence against innocent victims, as long as the victims happen to be Chinese!
You guys are sick, really really sick !
Since you are so interested in vile scum , I'll tell you where to look
Take a look in the mirror, you ain't gonna miss it !
The oriental is wily and cunning. You must get up early and be crafty to outwit him.
There is an interesting irony in this. In China, which to my own opinion has been historically more oppressive, now you have the engineers and the scientists in charge of government (true) while as in Europe and the Americas, we have lawyers and businessmen in charge. It appears as though China is taking a technological approach to solving its perceived problems, such as searching for keywords, blocking, defeating TOR and the like, while in the West, our governments appear to be bent on passing laws and ordinances that tell companies and ourselves what we can install and use and how we must use it so we can justify charges c.f. recent attempts to codify in law backdoors into tech companies products and hiding what they are doing. The overly broad laws in China do not change but the technology is not as well hidden and grows. For example, China has setup fake Apple stores (this should be a warning) so that once an iPhone is jailbroken, it becomes easier to install malware on that person's iPhone in order to spy on the user to see if they have broken these laws. The government puts much effort into catching people without knowing they have committed a crime. In the West, laws are changing too fast and laws have become overly specific instead of broad. Nobody likes being told over and over which task to do and nobody likes being told how to do a task. The Chinese know that what they are doing is unpopular, but here, the government has to hide because perception will be that they are not doing the right thing if they are discovered, which says a lot about what they are doing. The government here seems to care more that they are doing the same unpopular things, but that have a history of goodwill which they are destroying, so we can continue to say "Here in the West". This should be a warning sign.
Society use your Sciences
Who said that?
Look up packet inspection.
You don't have to look at much of a packet to see if it belongs to one of the common VPN implementations. You may not even have to go that far, a lot of volume on a port that doesn't belong to expected traffic is a bit of a giveaway.
Yes you could do something weird and roll your own VPN protocol, based on email traffic or whatever way you hide, but that's a lot harder than just changing ports.
Then think of the mindset of who you are dealing with. It's not so hard to deny everything you don't recognise so long as you don't care about blocking legit traffic by mistake.
When free speech threatens innocent lives, like yelling fire in a crowded theatre when there is none, when giving step by step instructions on how to mass murder in the name of "???", when encouraging pedophiles to destroy a young person's childhood/adulthood... Yep, call me what you want to, these things should not be allowed in a free society for damned good reasons. And if anyone thinks they should be, let them and their loved ones be the first victims, for "their cause". Then perhaps the rest of us in the world can then live better lives.
well, just as it happens china chose the certain line to be such which makes it hard for overseas businesses to operate in China.
It makes things like payments and everything like that harder for them.
besides though, it's an arms race. I'm sure there will very shortly be vpn software that wraps the stuff in something else to fool the protocol detection. and then they'll try to block that. and then they'll do something else.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
When free speech threatens innocent lives
It doesn't. Actions threaten innocent lives. Rape, physical assault, believing and acting on baseless rumors in harmful ways, and murder are harmful. A video or picture is only subjectively offensive at most.
these things should not be allowed in a free society for damned good reasons.
The society you want is not free at all, as it places restrictions upon one of the most fundamental rights based on completely flawed reasoning.
And if anyone thinks they should be, let them and their loved ones be the first victims
Victims of freedom of speech? You need to learn the difference between action and speech.
All I can say is that as long as authoritarians such as yourself exist, we'll need to continuously improve technologies that help us keep our privacy to reduce the risk of being harassed for saying things that you don't like.
tell that to the people in prison in China for writing something on Weibo...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
...and blaming it on the Chinese, as usual?
Violence and Mayham. That's probably the reason why a letter of a 9 year old asking Mr Xi to lose some weight got censored.
Oh, my bad. I read port number blocking, not protocol level blocking. I concede, I am a noob.
Okay, thanks for being the supercilious arbiter of Zeitgeist, but *I* hadn't heard of that term before reading GP's post.
Your mocking post was mostly just the noise in the channel that you were ironically bitching about.
The paraphrasing does not generally include the word "falsely", i.e., "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater", which was the original wording used in Holmes's opinion and highlights that speech which is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech which is truthful but also dangerous. http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wi...
IOW you don't read?
How is it hypocritical to criticize this aspect of Chinese society from European point of view?
If I may butt in here.
I too don't think there is anything hypocritical in criticising China - and if you search for my many, previous comments on Chinese matters, you will see that I have a lot of understanding for China's position. What I have always had a problem with, is unfair criticism; criticism that is black-and-white, dishonest, deliberately mis-reading or mis-representing the facts etc. But that applies to anything - if we want to make progress, solve problems etc, then we must be honest to the facts, open to other viewpoints and willing to change if the facts indicate that it appropriate to do so.
The Chinese government are not always right, but likewise, they are not always wrong either. And I think they do actually want to find good solutions to problems; solutions that benefit their people. As far as I can see, they are open to fair and reasonable criticism; where it often goes wrong is when we in the West come stomping in with badly thought through ideas and seem to say "Why don't they just {introduce democracy|allow free speech|...}" - without even having done any research into how these things might affect things in a vast and complex society like China. Hell, most critics don't even know what these things mean in their own countries, they just sing along to what seems to be a popular tune at the moment.
I use Mullvad and live in the UK. I suspect it won't be very long before they start blo...
Ya theres no dif... Video chat is great with these people. :)
I was just in China a few days ago. Was there for 3 weeks prior to that. I have a VPN setup in my apartment back in the US and I typically dial in to it. It was great for the first two weeks and a half weeks. After that, it would fail to authenticate or work really slowly, randomly drop traffic, then disconnect after a minute. I was using a relatively insecure PPTP system with 128 bit encryption. I wasn't worried about getting spied on, I just wanted news, youtube, and social media unblocked.
Frustrated, I had a friend set up a PPTP link at his apartment, using different keys and a different IP. That worked perfectly for the last few days I was in the country. So they're definitely doing some kind of long-term traffic analysis over many days, and then blocking close to real time after that (30-60 seconds).
Basically I got to witness the blockage go into effect. Yes it's real. Yes it's general purpose, not a high level block on specific free websites. Yes it was a huge pain the the ass.
It has a different meaning after a screening of Batman.
Too soon?
Oh, did I upset the NRA guys that want military guns without having the balls to do the military service, but still like to pretend they are "militia"?
I am a Chinese who constantly browse the Internet with VPN. My VPN service is certainly disrupted: for example, the web site of my provider is no longer accessible, and about half of the VPN servers cannot be connected to either. But I can still connect to VPN (I'm using one now). Some of the servers are still accessible, and *PPTP protocol itself is not blocked, at least for the current being.* There is no telling what the Chinese government is going to do next.
so you're saying that criticism of the chinese government is ok, as long the chinese government approves the criticism
do you even listen to yourself? how propagandized and/ or braindead do you have to be to not see how stupid that sounds?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you've listed a bunch of red herrings, tangential topics, and pointless observations to say nothing valid or interesting at all on the topic
it's as if you lack the capacity for critical thought... or you are demonstrating a weak timid mind taught that to approach certain taboo topics and verboten observations leads to punishment
hmmm...
so here we see the mediocre fruitless mental quality of someone raised in a walled garden of a "harmonious" society of cotton headed propaganda tools
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
no, ask most english speakers what 50 cents means and they think Curtis James Jackson III born July 6, 1975
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5...
you really do have to spread the word about astroturfers paid by the chinese government to vomit propaganda on social media, most english speakers really are not aware of them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
IOW you don't read?
Apparently not all the same tripe you do, Captain Zeitgeist.
like what? child porn? incitement to murder? sure. i live in the West and i support suppression of that
like political criticism? religious satire? no. i do not support that
the country that limits a few vicious topics is not at all like the country that locks down all political speech threatening the political status quo
the former is very much a free country, the latter very much not a free country, and the difference is substantive and real and very serious
if you think a country that censors child porn is exactly the same as one that censors political speech, you're only announcing yourself as a moron who doesn't understand the topic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
not encouraged != censored
Information wants to be free. Do not stop the people from distributing images of bad stuff, stop them from making new ones.
And the RIAA propagates, that free copies will destroy the market.
If they can't play nice, they shouldn't be allowed to play. I vote we disconnect China from the internet completely. This would significantly reduce the spam and DDOS problems spewing from that sh*t-hole. The US and EU should set the rules. If a country wants to be part of the civilized world, they must allow freedom and neutrality on their connection to the rest of the world.
Upset? No. Most of us stopped getting upset by ignorant idiots a long time ago.
We don't need 50 centers on Slashdot. We have libertarians who will post for free whatever supports the pro corporate agenda they have been brainwashed into supporting. If the corporations need a particular form of government sponsored censorship, they will support it it because a libertarian website funded by the Koch Brothers says they should.
I am in China an can confirm this. All 4 of my VPN providers have been having intermittent blocking and throttling for the last few months. In the the last 48hrs, almost all of my US VPN servers have been completely blocked, with confirmation from the providers. This will last a few weeks, until the custom protocols are updated. The corrupt communist criminals will really get their panties in a twist when the development of distributed proxies advances.
I'm in Beijing and don't have any trouble connecting to my VPN. However the timing doesn't really surprise me. Not very many (non-foreign) people here use Facebook or Twitter or Dropbox or read NY Times so there is no clamor to access them. There are passable alternatives to Google search (e.g., Bing not to mention the much more widely used Chinese ones like Baidu). However when Gmail IMAP access was cut off last month a large group of locals (small vs the population but probably in the millions) was severely affected. So I'm sure VPN subscriptions shot up this month, and the government is responding accordingly.
It also could be that all those hackers from China logged in via such VPN, and that's discovered now.
The Chinese government are not always right, but likewise, they are not always wrong either. And I think they do actually want to find good solutions to problems; solutions that benefit their people.
What evidence is there of that?
As far as I can see, they are open to fair and reasonable criticism;
What evidence is there of that?
where it often goes wrong is when we in the West come stomping in with badly thought through ideas and seem to say "Why don't they just {introduce democracy|allow free speech|...}" - without even having done any research into how these things might affect things in a vast and complex society like China
No, we know exactly how it will affect them: massive upheaval as they find out that everything their system of law is based on is a lie designed to maintain the status quo, and keep those on top in their position of power while peasants scratching in the dirt support them.
Hell, most critics don't even know what these things mean in their own countries
Now you're talking shit. No citation needed, just shit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If China blocks US VPNs (our exports), why isn't the US considering blocking Chinese goods in return?
If nothing else, it is our own long-term best interests to force China to become more free, as it is the only thing that will prevent them winning a race-to-the-bottom competition on wages.
What kind of vile scum are you to equate free speech for political change with videos of people chopping heads off and incitement to murder?
Because they are both forms of expression, when they are on youtube. One may be considered vile and reprehensible, and the other not so much, though I'd wager you have never seen a Tea Partier rallying the base, if you think speech for political change can't be vile and reprehensible, as well. What kind of dolt are you to not separate the medium from the message?
And if anyone thinks they should be, let them and their loved ones be the first victims, for "their cause".
That's certainly a risk. Not a huge one, but a real one. One in a million is not zero.
This is why freedom requires courage and bravery, and an acceptance of personal responsibility. To be sure, such concepts are anathema to many individuals.
Then perhaps the rest of us in the world can then live better lives.
You mean to say 'safer' lives. A life without freedom is never better for people who value it.
It may be that we'll all be happiest if people who do not value freedom separate themselves from those who do. If only there were a Natural Rights Republic somewhere that the freedom-loving people could flock to ... maybe China will take those who want a centrally-planned society.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
you've listed a bunch of red herrings, tangential topics, and pointless observations to say nothing valid or interesting at all on the topic
Who says it has to have a point? Is it so bad just to muse aloud? It isn't like he's judging any one group more harshly than another. Seems to me you are the one with the "mediocre fruitless mentality" since you can't seem to understand a very normal human behavior.
Just out of curiosity, where do you stand on defamation? Should USAToday be liable if they publish stories stating Slashjones (insert real name and adress here) is a murdering rapist, or should their freedom of speech be respected?
It's alright bro, I understand your frustration on reading all those ridiculous accusations on everything Chinese
Them white-ghosts always think that they are superior, always look down on us Chinese, let them be, brother, let them keep on having their 'superiority wet dreams'
We can see that they are living way past their prime, that their countries and societies are in serious decline, but they don't know that, they are all in their collective denial --- I say let them deny, let them dream, let them think that they are superior to us, the Chinese
To win the game we must have all the patience we can gather, we must continue to strive forward, to make our family, our society, our culture and our country stronger, wealthier and become much much more vibrant
It won't be long, brother. 50 years is what we need to be patience for. In 50 years their society will crumble, in 50 years the so-called 'West' will be a mere shadow of what they used to be, but if we Chinese keep on going forward, keep on making sure that our culture, our nation grow stronger, in 50 years we will be ahead of them
Remember, brother, time is our ally and patience is our virtue
Be Patience, Brother !
The difference here is not an issue of free speech, but whether or not that speech should be considered 'news'. By reporting under the classification of 'news source' there should be a level of accountability observed and respected. Otherwise, outside of that, the individuals should feel free to say whatever they wish.
Also, any people reacting and taking action without verifying that the informatiin they are acting on are most definitely at fault. However, there should, definitely, be accountability associated with presenting yourself as a 'news' source.
Defamation is a civil case in most countries of the world. The right to free speech guarantees protection from prosecution by the government. They are two very different things.
And how do you feel about someone yelling "fire!" in a theater? Often speech is an action itself.
Ah, I see you use the Ministry of Truth's dictionary. Stop abusing language.
IOW you don't read?
About internal Chinese politics?
Nope.
I'm actually better able to explain the internal politics of several obscure, non-anglophone, African states then China.
Why are you censoring yourself with fucking asterisks?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
... the United States government wants to prohibit encryption.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I'm a Canadian expat and I've been in China almost 3 years now. They started blocking VPNs over 2 years ago.
I've tried StrongVPN, Astrill, and PIA and found StrongVPN with PPTP usually works pretty well.
OpenVPN will work for about 10 min before becoming unusably slow. L2TP sometimes works but recently (in the last year) becomes too slow.
My guess is they like PPTP because it's flawed and they can break it easily, which I don't care about as long as I can access youtube, facebook, ect. The PRC doesn't care about what expats are doing as long as it's not harming them.
That's rather naive, it's more than just those sites, it's also sites that question their authority and show unapproved versions of history. Talking about Tiananmen, Taiwan, Tibet, Falun Gong or the Cultural Revolution are all things that can get you black listed as well if you're not toeing the party line.
I didn't make any of these broad claims. I wanted to specifically address the claim that this particular criticism of Chinese policy is hypocritical from European point of view. Nothing else.
I fully agree that Chinese may have a system in place that is socially stable enough to make a successful state. Historians in the far future rather than people today will judge that. We simply do not know which system is better, and we know for a fact that democracy in the way it's practised across the West has serious problems with social stability after barely a hundred years behind it. Introducing similar democracy in formerly dictatorial states has shown to produce catastrophic consequences as well.
I would however make a point that Chinese model has the same problem that it always had - too much emphasis on the certain clique of people, making top leadership inbred, all while strangling criticism that would remind said leadership of their own flaws. This is what keeps Western democracy competitive in the long run in spite of its massive laundry list of flaws, and we already know how that ended up for China. They went from country that almost conquered the world to a country with no naval power almost overnight because of failure at top leadership level.
"China" (the Chinese Communist Party) decides to monitor on people, period. You readily jump in to say they decide to "block websites which encourage violences and mayhems to happen in China". It equals to Party-speak to "preserve social stability".
The reality is that the regime doesn't care about social stability; it only cares about the preservation of its own power despite of its rampant abuse of people's lives, properties, and fundamental freedoms. The ends justify the means in that game - monitoring, propaganda campaigns, reform through labor, word filtering, 50 cent army, torture...
And yes, there's always a chorus of idiots and ideologically confused who will chime in to say that in "the West" it's all the same. The world is truly, intensely messed up; in terms of scale though, there is no other place on earth where the government has a more thorough impact, and applies more sinister methods, on the thinking, living, emotions, cultural identity, health and property of a population of 1,3 billion people. It gets to the point that you need to use code words to post on a forum that someone's house is being demolished for a ghost town project run by a local government, or a whole village neighbouring a factory is perishing from cancer; or, if you're one of the lucky ones to have seen the hitched up body before incineration, you write on bank notes that your illegally detained son has been a victim of forced organ harvesting.
When talking about the need of free speech in China, those are a few examples I think of.
The speed hit would suck but steganographic protocols for getting things like encrypted email back and forth may be badly needed for countries like China.
http://www.seeminglyinnoculous...
might contain a bunch of images of pink ponies, which each contain stenographicly-encoded encrypted emails. If you want to send an email, you upload what appears to China's Firewall to be just another Pink Pony.
I can't be sure, but I think this may have already been done :).
While you could do a full-blown VPN with this technology, I would hate to think how long it would take to load a typical 0.1-5MB web page over such a VPN.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
if i read something, i expect it to have a fucking point. your post, for example, has a point. but if it's a meandering brain diarrhea dump, i'm going to complain. i don't have the right to do that?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Chinese model is about denying large portions of free speech, such as political non-threatening free speech of political dissidents to improve social cohesion of their society. How is it hypocritical to criticize this aspect of Chinese society from European point of view?
Apparently, quite a lot. On the very same day when millions chanted "Je suis Charlie" on streets, several Russian TV channels were banned in Latvia. Because of their "one-sided" view on certain events.
So yeah, I'm starting to think that European insistence on the 'freedom of speech' works only one way.
The reality is that the regime doesn't care about social stability; it only cares about the preservation of its own power despite of its rampant abuse of people's lives, properties, and fundamental freedoms. The ends justify the means in that game - monitoring, propaganda campaigns, reform through labor, word filtering, 50 cent army, torture...
Excuse me comrade, we're talking about Chicoms, not Americunts...
if you think a country that censors child porn is exactly the same as one that censors political speech, you're only announcing yourself as a moron who doesn't understand the topic
Actually, I didn't say they're exactly the same, since they're different types of speech being censored. However, government censorship is always wrong, so I oppose it.
And I'm already well aware that you're an incurable authoritarian much like cold fjord, so you're in good company.
Just out of curiosity, where do you stand on defamation?
If someone believes a baseless rumors and acts on it in a harmful way, it is their fault, not the speaker's.
or should their freedom of speech be respected?
It should.
And how do you feel about someone yelling "fire!" in a theater?
You do realize that same court case was used to suppress war protestors, correct?
As for how I feel about it, I don't like it. If someone yells "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire, and people panic and hurt others, it is the fault of the people who panic and hurt others.
But I do support the theater owner's right to throw people out who scream random things while others are trying to watch a movie or what have you, so this is a non-problem anyway.
Often speech is an action itself.
Speech does not possess people and force them to act, so you are mistaken.
We don't need 50 centers on Slashdot.
Not when George Soros already pays a whole dollar to say bad things about The Republicans[tm].
so you're ok with child porn and death threats?
can i take photos of you having sex with your significant other and put it on a billboard in your hometown? it's just free speech dude
everything has limits. including free speech. not because i say so, but because of simple logic and reason: it ends where it impinges on the freedoms of others. classic example: yelling fire in a crowded theatre
the fact that i recognize that freedoms are not boundless, but logically constrained by other people's freedoms, does not make me an authoritarian, it just makes me smarter than you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You don't think that deliberately causing a panic with the intent to hurt people is an action? I think you're being deliberately obstinate on this point. That's like saying it's not your fault for pulling the trigger, it's the bullet's fault for jumping out of the gun so quickly.
"This man murdered my son!", regarding a person who you know full well did no such thing, is an example of speech that is expressly intended to cause harm and has no real value. This is why when you're giving testimony in a courtroom your right to free speech is deliberately abrogated and perjury is criminalized.
You do realize that same court case was used to suppress war protestors, correct?
Sometimes people can make good points in the process of making bad arguments. This historical context is interesting but ultimately irrelevant. Unless you intent to advance a slippery slope argument.
Speech does not possess people and force them to act, so you are mistaken.
Does a real fire in a packed theater force people to act? Suppose you set such a fire, but you cleverly arranged it so that people were in no real danger, but had every reason to believe that they were in real danger. You are the theater owner and harmed no-one else's property. People predictably panic. Have you committed no crime? You are completely innocent?
If not, what is the essential difference? In both cases, there was the impression of danger from fire without actual danger from fire.
If so, then if a man literally holds a gun to your head (and, for that matter, the heads of those close to you) and said he will kill you unless you aid him in stealing all the jewellery from the jewellery store, are you fully responsible for your actions? Even if it turns out the gun wasn't loaded?
What about the guy goes around yelling "fire", or "sniper", or whatever, whenever he sees a gathering by members of a political party he opposes? Is he not now an agent restricting free speech?
Yelling fire in a crowded theater is a threat. Credible threats were never considered to be protected free speech by basically any society.
so you're ok with child porn and death threats?
What part of my position is not clear? Yes.
can i take photos of you having sex with your significant other and put it on a billboard in your hometown? it's just free speech dude
Yes, it is. You'd have to trespass on private property to do that, though, which would be a crime.
everything has limits. including free speech.
Only if we decide to limit it. There goes your "logic."
classic example: yelling fire in a crowded theatre
If you choose to panic and hurt others, that's your fault, not the speaker's.
it just makes me smarter than you
But apparently you're not smart enough to understand the difference between action and speech.
Just out of curiosity, where do you stand on defamation?
If someone believes a baseless rumors and acts on it in a harmful way, it is their fault, not the speaker's.
Baseless rumor? but USA Today says they verified the story with two eyewitnesses and now Slashjones' local paper says the same thing. Now your clients are ditching you because they have two papers putting out a convincing story that you are are evil. Even if you can prove you didn't do it, the papers don't have to run a retraction. The two "eyewitnesses" don't have to recant. After all, defamation isn't actionable. If you want to let the free market sort it out, I think you'll find the party with the biggest stinkiest bucket of mud will win most of the time.
You don't think that deliberately causing a panic with the intent to hurt people is an action?
No, it is speech. Panicking and harming others is an action.
If so, then if a man literally holds a gun to your head (and, for that matter, the heads of those close to you) and said he will kill you unless you aid him in stealing all the jewellery from the jewellery store, are you fully responsible for your actions?
Holding a gun to someone's head is an action, loaded or not. The speech isn't the issue.
Does a real fire in a packed theater force people to act?
No, but in that case, it is justifiable to get out of the theater. If you hurt someone on your way out, it is *still* your fault, but it may not always be punishable.
Suppose you set such a fire
Jesus, you're an idiot. I'm tired of this. Almost every single one of your examples can be brushed aside just by saying, "Please learn the difference between actions and speech." This is about pure speech. Stop mixing actions and speech, and putting forth examples that show actions combined with speech. I'm not interested in responding to any more of your offtopic examples.
Credible threats were never considered to be protected free speech by basically any society.
Many people in society are also authoritarians. I often find myself disagreeing with the ignorant majority, so appealing to society's 'wisdom' isn't going to help you.
Society also gives you the NSA, the TSA, DUI checkpoints, protest permits, free speech zones, and a number of other unconstitutional (in the US) things, so have fun with that.
Saying something and proving it are two different things. If you believe in baseless rumors (and yes, even if everyone says it's true, that doesn't make it so) and take actions that harm others, you're responsible for the damages.
I also find it funny that you mention slippery slopes in response to a provably real slippery slope. Authorities have no problem defining your precious 'protected speech' as harmful.
The news part is irrelevant. How about the same story, but it is your congressman, your co-worker, or your neighbor stating you are a murderer?
so you're ok with child porn and death threats?
What part of my position is not clear? Yes.
i stopped reading there. you're a hopeless moron
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We run liberal democracies here in EU
EU is liberal, but no democratic. Do you remember the Lisbon treaty was adopted as a rewrite of the EU constitutional treaty, which was rejected by referendum in France and Netherlands?
TFA says:
VPN services that wish to operate within China are required to register with Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for permission
Would it make sense for corporate VPN to register? I mean the situation where the VPN service is only accessible for non Chineese employees visiting mainland for business purpose.
And if it makes sense, what is the procedure?
Latvia has received extensive and scathing criticism for these actions for a while from EU, from the time before Ukraine mess even started. No hypocrisy here.
Dead end argument. You are arguing that people have no right no change their minds or refuse initial treaty to negotiate a better one.
What? Are there any sanctions? Perhaps all major newspapers wrote articles condemning Latvia's actions?
Nope. These Nazi wannabes at most get silence from the official Europe, if not outright support. And yes, they really _are_ Nazi wannabes - there are official parades of Waffen SS veterans there (not joking, http://rt.com/news/latvia-demo... ). And just recently the official Latvia blocked a genocide exhibition in UNESCO: http://www.jta.org/2015/01/21/... because it might have damaged Latvia's image (Holodomor exhibition a couple of months earlier was welcomed). Very freedom-of-speechy, I know.
So yes, I think that Europe should shut the hell up and first fix its own affairs first. There's nothing worse than outright hypocrisy.
Except that the People of France and Netherlands did not change their mind. The treaty that they rejected by referendum was finally adopted as the Lisbon treaty without new referendum.
The People voted badly, proceed without asking them again. Is it democracy in your opinion?
so you're saying that criticism of the chinese government is ok, as long the chinese government approves the criticism
If you had bothered to understand what I am explaining, then you would have been able to answer that question yourself. I think the reason you chose instead to just gush out this mock-argument is that you know you don't have a real argument against what I say. How willing to listen would you be, if somebody came up to you and started criticising you harshly for doing something you feel is right? Do you write code? Say you were writing a program that you had designed yourself, and you know exactly what you want it to do, and then somebody comes up to you, takes one look and starts telling you what you should have done, that 'frameworks are all the rage' and 'blah, blah', without even asking what you are trying to achieve; you wouldn't like that, and you wouldn't want to follow his instructions either, whether they are good or not. On the other hand, if the same had come to you, asked what you are working on and how were going about it - then perhaps you would have been prepared to listen and learn, and perhaps you would have received some good advice.
Traditionally, since the days of imperialism, we in the West have been arrogant know-it-alls, and still idiots like you are going on about they should 'just' do this and that; just introduce 'democracy like in the US' - which everybody can see isn't working (including most Americans), just introduce US style capitalism, which everybody can see is rotten to the core, just introduce religious freedom - as if that isn't already there, in a nation with at least 4 major religions (but of course, what you really want is being allowed to send in hordes of US style fundamentalists). And so on - why should the leaders (as well as the population) of a rapidly growing superpower want to listen to that kind of rude idiocy? On the other hand, we have clear, historical evidence that entering into a dialog works with China; ever since the US opened up to China's political leaders, establishing diplomatic relations, allowing them a place at the UN Security Council etc - since that time, they have become more and more open to the West. And fortunately China's leaders are mature enough to ignore the more idiotic form of criticism and listen to sensible arguments.
do you even listen to yourself? how propagandized and/ or braindead do you have to be to not see how stupid that sounds?
I think before I talk - and I think about what I have said, afterwards. I don't think I am the one that sounds stupid here. Did you think before you started shooting off you gob? Did you go over the text before pressing 'Submit'? Of course you didn't.
The Chinese government are not always right, but likewise, they are not always wrong either. And I think they do actually want to find good solutions to problems; solutions that benefit their people.
What evidence is there of that?
The rise in living standard ought to serve as evidence, I would have thought. The ever more open doors to the West. I could go on, of course.
As far as I can see, they are open to fair and reasonable criticism;
What evidence is there of that?
I have traveled extensively in China over the last 15 years. I have talked to many people, from peasants to middle class to the elite, such as several party secretaries. I have discussed democracy, religion and basic freedoms with several. Those at the lower end of the scale mostly say things like 'What do I care about democracy when I have to struggle with feeding my family?' or 'Why do I care about freedom of speech - I have all the freedom of speech I need' - disappointing, I know, but that is the way it is. The only ones who really care about the issues are a) university students and b) others with a high position. And surprisingly, they are not against these things, they just don't want to dictated what to do by the Western media, who in most cases clearly haven't spent any time understanding the issues at all. As far as I can see, they do want democracy, just not like in America - and I think you know why that is: it is just a sham, a circus show to give people the illusion they have influenced things. Perhaps China will find a better way - we will see in the coming years.
As for evidence that dosn't depend on my views - how about the way China has opened up? There is a very direct link between the fact the we in the West started treating them a bit like equals some 30 - 40 years ago, and the way they have opened up to the world. When people start talking to each other and treating each other with respect, trust starts to build and barriers become less important - that is what's happening.
No, we know exactly how it will affect them: massive upheaval as they find out that everything their system of law is based on is a lie designed to maintain the status quo, and keep those on top in their position of power while peasants scratching in the dirt support them.
And would any government want that, do you think? What you say there is exactly why they don't just slap 'democracy, freedom of speech etc etc' in the face of their citizens - would it be right for a government to just sit back and let inevitable civil war engulf the country? They Chinese have seen - just like we have - what happens in developing nations when you do that, because it has happened over and over since colonial times. So, is that what you want for China - upwards of hundreds of millions of innocent people dead for your vain ideals of 'freedom'? What a grand sort of person you are.
Hell, most critics don't even know what these things mean in their own countries
Now you're talking shit. No citation needed, just shit.
In light of my arguments above, I think my words stand - you have yourself demonstrated as much.
What do sanctions or publicity have to do with criticism? You seem to confuse several different things as one whole.
Factually incorrect. Treaty was changed. The only ones I ever heard claiming otherwise are the rabid anti-EU parties well known to simply ignore facts when they don't suit their populist needs.
And may I remind you that in REPRESENTATIVE democracy, you elect representatives to represent you.
Factually incorrect. Treaty was changed. The only ones I ever heard claiming otherwise are the rabid anti-EU parties well known to simply ignore facts when they don't suit their populist needs.
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who was the lead writer of the EU constitutional treaty, told us Lisbon treaty was equivalent. You can trust him, he is not an anti-EU populist.
I think you need to look up what word "equivalent" means.
With respect, I think you're far too apologetic wrt China's government ... and more than a little to cynical about the US's. Yeah, if China's government introduced democracy the wrong way, things could get hairy. But there have been several countries that went from totalitarianism to democracy without civil war. Russia is one, though Putin has taken the country a decade or two backwards. And your post borders on banal moral relativism: it is just WRONG to imprison people because of their political views, and just because China doesn't see it that way doesn't make it right. Some Islamists think it's fine to oppress women in a multitude of ways; they are not less wretched for doing this just because they don't see it's wrong.
Anyone in China's government with good intentions has a hard problem to solve, which is how to safely democratize the country, because democracy is really the only option for a government that long-term is both stable and respectful of human rights. Unfortunately, the government is going backwards, as evidenced by their increasing (and ineffective and therefore stupid, but that's another matter) escalation of Internet blocking and continuing intolerance of political dissent. They have a hard problem to solve, so it's wrong to be too hard on them. They appear to be making no efforts to solve it, though, and it's okay to observe that and criticize them for it.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Do you know the differences between the EU constitutional treaty and the Lisbon treaty? They almost bring the same changes, written differently. The EU constitutional treaty replaced all previously exiting treaties (Rome and Maastricht, modified by Nice, Amsterdam and the Unique Act), while the Lisbon treaty is a huge set of amendments on previous treaties.
There are subtle but important differences on the result, thought. The EU Constitutional treaty validated the EU Court of Justice decision that EU treaties trumped member state constitutions (which is not obvious since EU treaties exist based on member state constitutions). That highly controversial part was removed from Lisbon treaty, which led to the bizarre situation where EU treaties trump some member state constitutions, but not all of them: Germany's constitutional court had a decision rejecting EU treaties supremacy.
I do. The main point of constitution that was actually popular was democratization of Europe. Specifically devolution of powers from European Council and European Commission to European Parliament. Effectively taking power from those elected by elites and giving it to those elected directly by the people. This change was desperately needed and even anti-EU forces generally agreed that one of the main problems of EU was lack of internal democratic access to decision making process. This was the main issue that Lisbon and Constitution projects looked to address.
The changes are the ones you outlined yourself. In other words, you do actually know that while Lisbon treaty was indeed equivalent of European constitution in the scope, it contained multiple changes negotiated to meet the problems pointed out by the people, all while the main idea behind the constitution, the democratization of decision making in EU was kept.
The main force that continued to criticize the Lisbon after changes were nationalist forces who wanted to have more power in EU than others and in fact didn't want to lose those powers to democratization which was a strong equalizer.
What I was trying to point out, while core dumping, we should not be trusting to put "all of our eggs in one basket", and trust an entity that could one day turn out not to be our friend. It is a tale of two countries if you will. BTW part of reading is seeing what you can get out of something even if it is not as eloquent as you are.
Society use your Sciences
Bah.... Old news.There are MANY companies and ISPs that throttle the traffic... They just don't advertise it...
I work for a large university system in the US and we use several Bluecoat Packeteer S500/10GH devices to throttle and control traffic, including VPN and other nuisance traffic.
Expensive to initially implement, but it saves us millions in data charges while still allowing the legitimate traffic to be usable.....
The EU constitution indeed moved more matters to the codecision procedure, where the EU parliament is involved, I agree with that.
But the power of the parliament within the codecision procedure remained unchanged, as it was before and as it is now: the EU parliament cannot propose a directive (only the unelected EU commission can), and the EU parliament cannot trump the EU council on some amendment. Its only real power is to block a directive.
The EU constitution did not propose to change that, and the Lisbon treaty did not change it as well. The EU is an a-democratic framework where your elected MEP have very little power.
Then we disagree on the interpretation of amount of power that MEPs have, while we agree that in general, Lisbon treaty change direction wasn't just a good thing - it was a necessity.
I do agree that I would prefer parliament to have even more power than it currently holds. In my opinion. right now European Council and European Commission are still too powerful and European Parliament is too weak. But powers devolved to the Parliament were quite significant, and among other things allow for more significant pressure on the other two branches of power by Parliament.
Large ship doesn't turn fast, but the direction is a correct one, which is my argument. You started yours by claiming that Lisbon treaty was not what people wanted. Right now, you appear to at least understand that it in large part was a massive improvement over what we had and was indeed going in the direction that people wanted. It is far from perfect, but it is objectively BETTER than what we had before.
we disagree on the interpretation of amount of power that MEPs have
You disagree with the fact that EU parliament cannot propose a directive? That it cannot push an amendment the EU council does not want?
[Lisbon treaty] is far from perfect, but it is objectively BETTER than what we had before.
How? In my opinion each treaty have been moving more powers from member states to the EU, and EU lack of democracy is never addressed. In my opinion the whole process is about removing subjects from the democratic field.
No, we disagree on the amount of pressure parliament can put on commission simply by declaring that it will not pass certain piece of legislation. Example: Patent directive.
On your second point, you clearly admitted earlier that you support democratization. Now you are saying you're against it, because treaty wasn't perfect.
That leads me to conclude that you either don't quite understand what you're talking about, or you're a young/inexperienced/idealist who genuinely believed that progress should instantly reach its goal and that any half way progress is a bad thing.
On first point: I agreed the only power of the parliament was to reject a directive subject to codecision. That is thin.
On the second point, you misunderstand my point of view, which is surprising since it is quite common. I suspect you just do not want to understand alternative point of view on EU, but I will retry anyway.
I support democracy. Each treaty moves subjects from member state to EU, but there is still less democracy in EU institutions than in member states. At least member state MP can propose laws, something MEP still cannot do.. In my opinion, all moves we did to build EU have been regression of democracy.
In a nutshell, I refuse giving more powers to EU before it get democratic.
Then basically what you have is a chicken or egg problem. No powers to EU until it's even more democratic. And EU will stay powerful and less democratic as a result with no real motivation to democratize because they will never be democratic enough for naysayers.
And mind you, in most European countries, laws that have any real chance to go through are proposed by Governments. In many cases any MP can propose laws, but their chance of going to through is typically extremely slim to none. Europe needs practical solutions, not hypothetical possibilities that will never have any real meaning.
At the same time, smaller states are far easier to pressure in undemocratic ways from outside and in the age of superpowers, no single European state can survive pressure from US or China and would have serious issues handling pressure from Russia. You would basically be sawing the branch you're sitting on.
I suspect that your point of view is "common" mainly in UK, which is a notable outlier in EU when it comes to this issue. Most people I've met across Europe are certainly wary of EU's undemocratic tendencies, but generally don't even know how their own country's political system actually works, much less EU. The only practical difference to these people is that EU seems more remote.
Then basically what you have is a chicken or egg problem. No powers to EU until it's even more democratic. And EU will stay powerful and less democratic as a result with no real motivation to democratize because they will never be democratic enough for naysayers.
We have been transferring a lot of subjects from member states to EU, and it never improved on the democratic front. I had been in favor of EU ten years ago, but now I would say I just learned from the experience: EU construction had just being about removing subjects from the democratic field and I oppose that
I suspect that your point of view is "common" mainly in UK, which is a notable outlier in EU when it comes to this issue.
It is not just UK. Like it or not, most EU member state citizen are now opposed to EU, as the Pew institute taught us.
But we just came to an agreement that it did indeed improve on democratic front. You yourself admitted to it!
P.S. Do note that after that study we had an election to European Parliament and while there was a wide Eurosceptic offering in all member states, they got only a small minority in parliament, whereas more mainstream pro-EU movement got an overwhelming majority.
But we just came to an agreement that it did indeed improve on democratic front. You yourself admitted to it!
When did I say that? I said we Submit more subjects to EU parliament, but it remains powerless (it only real power is to reject). Having a veto power through representants is poor democracy.
P.S. Do note that after that study we had an election to European Parliament and while there was a wide Eurosceptic offering in all member states, they got only a small minority in parliament, whereas more mainstream pro-EU movement got an overwhelming majority.
Because eurosceptics mostly abstain.
1. http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
First paragraph.
2. You are completely wrong on this claim. Eurosceptics overwhelmingly vote. It's the mainstream that "sleeps" in the European elections. It's a very well documented fact that European elections are more populist than mainstream and as a result of less mainstream voters, a lot of small parties that don't have enough mainstream support to push through in local general elections can still get their candidates elected. We're seeing it here in Finland right now, when a populist right wing politician gathered most votes and his party gave him a PM post. As a result, party crashed in popularity because mainstream voters turned their backs on him and his populist agenda. Same thing happened to True Finns, who trailblazed to ~20% of vote in European election on Eurosceptic agenda, and are almost a quarter less popular in mainstream local elections just a bit later. Local elections factually have more voters because a lot of mainstream voters who view EU as too remote and inconsequential vote in local elections.
This is factual, and almost every country in Europe has concrete examples of this, on all sides of political spectrum.
First paragraph.
Quoting myself: "I said we Submit more subjects to EU parliament, but it remains powerless "
And I debunked that particular side argument readily with facts by listing things in which Parliament factually gained powers. Which means that your admission remains the admission of increase of democratization.
P.S. If you really want to measure parliament's relative power increase, the recent debacle with the Commission President post was a great example of just how much more powerful Parliament got after Lisbon. Under previous treaties, there was no way that it would have gotten Juncker as head of Commission against the will of British PM.
And now, it was able to mobilize and effectively brutally push Juncker through crushing the opposition from Great Britain.
I want to emphasize my point again. There is a lot of work ahead to democratize the Union. But Lisbon was a step in a right direction because it shifter power from elite-chosen Commission and Council to the directly democratically elected Parliament which saw its power and influence increased significantly. That is the undeniable reality.
Now, the progress must continue, and in this regard Eurospeptics of the populist kind seem to be shooting themselves in the foot. Instead of getting involved with decision-making and shaping the Union closer to their ideals, they go for Anglo-style "all or nothing" argument. And then they lose, because overwhelming majority of Europe has a culture of being ruled by consensus and outliers who are unwilling to compromise get left out.
Which is a problem in my opinion, one that my country handled quite well by effectively forcing our anti-European populist party that gained prominence to come and work with the rest. Consensus and having to work with those you are ideologically opposed to tames the extremists in those parties and brings them closer to the mainstream, while at the same time giving them actual power over what will happen.
And I debunked that particular side argument readily with facts by listing things in which Parliament factually gained powers. Which means that your admission remains the admission of increase of democratization.
Thank you for explaining my own words to me, you seem to know what I think better than I do.
Indeed I agreed the Lisbon treaty moved more subjects to the codecision procedure. But the MEP I vote for still cannot initiate change in EU policies. Even if the EU parliament could convince the EU commission to do initiate a directive, there are many subjects that are carved into treaties and cannot be changed.
Calling such a system democratic is a joke. In 2005, after the referendum in France and Netherlands, I believed EU could get more democratic. Ten years later, we had the referendum-rejected treaty that has been adopted without a referendum as the Lisbon treaty, and the TSCG that added even more economic rules that are not subject to democratic discussion. I do not believe anymore EU could turn into something I would consider positive. I think my own country would be better quitting EU.
Then I suppose we have nothing to talk about. Anyone who thinks that quitting the Union itself would be good for his country has a serious problem with reality.
Reality: even countries outside the Union, like Norway and Switzerland are effectively forced to adopt EU regulations, rules and directives. Not because they are members of the Union - they are not, and they don't get a say on those regulations at all. But because they know that they will have a financial crash of epic proportion if they were to try to quit the EEA which requires member states to adopt most of the EU regulations and directives.
Suggesting that quitting EU is going to help your country is effectively suggesting that leaving the table where decisions are made, but having to still adopt all the rules that were decided at that table (just without your input now) is a good thing for a country. It requires a massive disconnect with reality to argue such a thing.
I know that very well. But being outside still has less rules than being inside, especially on economic rules like debt. And I am not sure to have any real influence gain by being inside (referendum are ignored...).
Could Iceland have saved its ass from 2008 crisis if it had been inside the eurozone? I am convinced membership would have been a liability more than an asset.
But let us see if the Greek government can prove me wrong.
As I said, you have a problem with reality. I'm even further convinced after your Iceland statement.
Iceland is in a dire situation as we speak. They have huge foreign debts to the worst of the worst - vulture hedge funds. The only reason their economy currently looks decent is because they forbade taking any money out of the economy without permission from their central bank. As a result, their economy looks stable because all the money they owe to foreign entities is forcibly retained within their economy.
Of course, that also means no meaningful foreign investments in their country, no purchasing power for their people due to inability to pay to any foreign entity without special permissions and so on. They are pretty much in the same position as Argentina. Any property of the government outside Iceland is forfeited, no government owned property including ships or airplanes can ever exit the country without being impounded to pay for debts and so on.
The only thing they avoided is the immediate effect of those debts. Just like Argentina did when it defaulted. Only that didn't really save it from those debts - they're still hanging over it to this day.
If you are so much rooted in reality, then I guess you know the level of bad debt Iceland banks had accumulated, before the government took measures that would have been forbidden by EU treaties.
Sure current Iceland current situation is far from being perfect, but it is much better than Greece that followed all the rules (but it changes now).
You show your ignorance of reality again. Greece's problems weren't originally rooted in their debt. Their debt was a symptom of the far larger problem - their underlying social and economic structure.
In Iceland on the other hand, underlying structure was fine. The problem was that they allowed their banking sector to become oversized in relation to their actual economy due to its foreign investments.
These are two very different problems. Attempting to draw parallels between them betrays complete lack of understanding of underlying issues on your part.