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.

Comments

China is a dictature

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's no surprise.

Re:China is a dictature

[Anonymous Coward]

When the poster child for "free speech", France, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, turned around the next day and arrested a bunch of people for hate speech something or other, including some comedian for posting "je suis Coulibaly" (Coulibaly being the guy who shot up the kosher deli).
I suggest the West is in no position to be critical of anybody as far as "free speech" is concerned.

Well

[Sir_Substance]

That's one way to keep international business out of china, I guess...

Re:Well

[Luckyo]

Right. International business will be kept out of China because it's required to conform to local laws regarding internet access.

In other news, international business will be kept out of EU because of customer protection legislation and out of US because of danger posed by gun culture and gun laws.

Said no one with a clue, ever. On any of those points. Internationally ran businesses judge their presence in the target country based on profits and risks. Thing mentioned above are categorised as "risks", and as long as profits are greater than risks, which they will be in China for foreseeable future, risks will be mitigated through things like usage of local services that aren't blocked in China, providing the necessary support to users in EU and so on.

Re:Well

[Etherwalk]

Right. International business will be kept out of China because it's required to conform to local laws regarding internet access.

In other news, international business will be kept out of EU because of customer protection legislation and out of US because of danger posed by gun culture and gun laws.

Said no one with a clue, ever. On any of those points. Internationally ran businesses judge their presence in the target country based on profits and risks. Thing mentioned above are categorised as "risks", and as long as profits are greater than risks, which they will be in China for foreseeable future, risks will be mitigated through things like usage of local services that aren't blocked in China, providing the necessary support to users in EU and so on.

It depends on exactly what they are blocking. If they're blocking corporate VPNs, it will just make companies even less willing to trust the security of systems in China. Hint: they're not willing to trust that security now. Any major foreign corporation that keeps source code in China now is nuts.

Re:Well

[KiloByte]

out of US because of danger posed by gun culture and gun laws

This "danger" keeps violent crime at less than 1/7 the level of UK, comparing New York to London (similar population, similar percentage of "bad" minorities, etc).

Re:Well

[stephanruby]

risks will be mitigated through things like usage of local services that aren't blocked in China, providing the necessary support to users in EU and so on.

You're probably right. That being said, all my developer friends in China use VPNs to access things like Github.

I know there are alternatives to Github, but really this is becoming an annoyance for them. It's not like they're artists or political activists, they're just using paid VPN access to get their job done and/or viewing the occasional Hollywood movies.

That's an entire class of people that were already pacified. There was nothing for China to gain by doing that. Blocking the free VPNs should have been more than sufficient.

Re:Well

[whoever57]

This "danger" keeps violent crime at less than 1/7 the level of UK, comparing New York to London (similar population, similar percentage of "bad" minorities, etc).

Where did you get that BS from? Fox News?

Hint, I think that you have the ratio the wrong way round.

Re:Well

[Luckyo]

I strongly suspect that one of the point behind this is to move business and create jobs in China instead of allowing foreign dominant services to take hold. In which case, this is very much successful.

Re:Well

[Luckyo]

Certainly. Which is a risk. Which needs to be mitigated, just like the other example I provide, exposure to support and warranty claims made in EU.

Re:Well

[Zontar The Mindless]

Where I work, you don't do anything with company-owned data unless it's on the corporate VPN.

It's one of the world's 5 largest software companies, does billions in business in the PRC annually, and it's not Microsoft or Apple.

I do not think when I visit China next month that I will find the corporate VPN blocked. It certainly isn't being blocked right now for my colleagues who live there.

Re:Well

[Zontar The Mindless]

Hi, kids! It's time once again for that old Slashdot favourite, Meme #537, "[citation needed]".

A casual Google search for "crime rate new york city vs london" yields indicators that NYC has about 4 times the rate of homicides and other violent crime than London, as of last year.

The TL;DR version: "I think you're making stuff up."

Re:Well

[Dr.Saeuerlich]

Businesses here in China can apply for an official VPN connection, over which you can access many, but not all, blocked websites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. This option only exists for businesses and not for private citizens, which actually led to a small scale protest in Chengdu maybe a year ago, where people complained that their own government allows the "evil" foreigners privileges they as citizens don't get.

Re:Well

[wvmarle]

It's probably to do with a difference in standards.

UK: violent crime is someone bumping too hard into someone else on the street.

US: unless someone is killed, it doesn't even make the statistics.

So that ratio of London 7 vs New York 1 sounds about right.

Re:Well

[circletimessquare]

in London, you get in a fight and you get a broken arm or a broken nose

in New York City, you get in a fight and you get a body bag

whenever the homicide rate of the USA is compared to other Western countries, NRA propagandized morons change the subject and counter about *violence*. as if *violence* is the same as *homicide*

frankly, i'd love the violence rate in the usa to go up and the homicide rate to go down. because a broken arm is not a body bag

and you get that with better gun control

but too many of my fellow americans of the low iq and propagandized variety believe for some fucking ignorant reason that every little misunderstanding or conflict has to escalate to death

and that's exactly what we get:

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/...

rape? robbery? violence? about the same as our social and economic peers

easy guns do not protect us from those things. they just mean tens of thousands of extra body bags every year

if anything, owning a gun increases the chance of mortality for you and your loved ones, because you've raised the stakes in every little act of confusion/ misunderstanding/ anger/ accident/ etc. to death

Re: Well

[Anonymous Coward]

You anti gun nuts are some of the most ignorant people I've ever seen.u anti gun nuts are some of the most ignorant people I've ever seen. You spell opinion as though it is self evident truth, you stereotype without even being aware of your doing it, and you're incapable of mentioning your opposition without hurling some kind of personal insult.

For example, that long disproven myth that owning a gun increases the chance of you and your relatives is dying just rolls off the tongue so easily and so wrongly. The reason it is wrong is that statistic includes suicides, which are scarcely limited to the United States. Remove suicides from the statistic and your conclusion falls away.

I've been of late through some very unfortunate arguments of a very personal nature involving a now ended relationship, and not once did either of us ever even consider for a brief moment that the weapons nearby were a useful way of solving things. That's not what they're for. Sorry to break your hateful stereotype.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

It's one of the world's 5 largest software companies, does billions in business in the PRC annually, and it's not Microsoft or Apple.

I do not think when I visit China next month that I will find the corporate VPN blocked.

It is nice to be the king, or at least a prince. Meanwhile the thousands of common companies might not be so lucky.

Re:Well

[anynameleft]

And how about university VPN's? I've once been to China as a student, and we sometimes needed to log in to our university's VPN in order to access scientific journals from our library. (Btw. using Facebook through that VPN is nearly impossible, also at home.) Of course a student is not the center of the world, but there are surely also a lot of more important foreign scientists in China.

I would find it hard to believe that the Chinese government would want to crack down on that.

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

Greetings from China. I don't live here, just working here for a few months.

Corporate VPNs work just fine.
Many non corporate VPNs work just fine too.

Actually I'm not seeing any problem. Both my OpenVPN connection on TCP port 443 (good luck blocking something like that without breaking the internet), and my PPTP connections to a Canadian VPN I subscribed to before I left still work just fine. L2TP has been sketchy from the get go but that was listed in the VPN's FAQ as well. Also China appears to throttle UDP traffic quite heavily so TCP based connections to the USA seem to be most reliable for me.

Basically I haven't seen any change in the past month or so.

Re:Well

[CrimsonAvenger]

US "violent crime" includes Robbery, Rape, Assault, and Homicide. Note that guns, in and of themselves, are not relevant to "violent crime". It can be "violent" with a gun, a knife, or a pillow over the face of the victim....

I'm curious, what else does the UK count as "violent crime" ?

Re:Well

[NicBenjamin]

Dude, all of England (aka: 56 million people) had 560 murders last year in 2013. NYC (8-9 million range) was crowing about 333.

I don't know where you got that number from, but I suspect it was from somebody who was skilled at the art of BS.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one way to keep international business out of china, I guess...

You mean like Cisco, which implements the Great Firewall? Don't kid yourself, those companies do whatever it takes to get a foor in the door.

Re: Well

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

It's not a myth, there are tens of thousands people killed by suicide alone that would likely be alive if they didn't have a firearm in the house. The reality is that suicide is usually a spur of the moment thing and if you have to go out and buy a firearm, waiting several days to do it, you're likely to no longer be in the mood for offing yourself.

Re:Well

[CrimsonAvenger]

Interestingly enough, when I used your search terms, I didn't get the results you got.

Three times the rate of HOMICIDES for New York, but about the same for rape and vehicle theft.

Of course, vehicle theft is NOT "violent crime" in the USA.

And the other links shown on the first page of your search don't seem to agree with you that New York had "about 4 times the rate of homicides and other violent crime than London, as of last year"...

Re: Well

[circletimessquare]

go to google news

type in "shooting"

and let's dip into the ocean today

http://www.newsday.com/news/ne...

http://www.post-gazette.com/lo...

http://www.ketv.com/news/omaha...

http://www.twincities.com/crim...

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015...

http://www.whsv.com/home/headl...

etc.

etc.

tomorrow it will be another collection of dozens of shootings

every fucking day in the usa. oh it happens in other countries. at a much lower rate. because they make guns harder for douchebags to get

the usa enjoys no amazing lower rate of rape, robbery, assault, etc., because of owning lots of guns, as compared to our social and economic peers, we are no crime free paradise. so owning a gun doesn't confer magic anti-crime properties. it does confer something though: a massive increase in homicide. pointlessly. needlessly. every little confusion or altercation in the usa has to lead to death. and this is somehow better

completely unnecessary, completely fucking stupid, and completely ok according to my fellow countrymen who are fucking braindead douchebags

we need gun control in the usa badly

and we are going to get it

you can't ward off logic and common sense with stupidity, lies, and propaganda forever

Re:Well

[KiloByte]

You're cherry-picking a single crime where NYC leads. In every other field, London wins handily. Compare: 1 vs 2.

I'd take a tiny chance to get murdered over not being able to walk in the middle of the city without being robbed or assaulted. Living in Poland, I have so far been robbed twice and assaulted 7 times (once with an injury), and murdered... still not even a single time. And by statistics, my chances to do so are really, really slim.

And these stats ignore the fact that murders happen predominantly between rival gangs, while robbery, assaults and rapes tend to target honest upstanding citizens.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

my PPTP connections to a Canadian VPN I subscribed to before I left still work just fine

Yeah, that's because PPTP has about the security of a damp cardboard box.

The great firewall allows PPTP because it can see right through it.

Have you been living in a cave? PPTP has been considered harmful for the better part of a decade.

Re:Well

[LordLimecat]

AFAIK its technically illegal to have an encrypted laptop in China. Any guesses as to whether my employer, or federal employees, or other major companies just go "oh gee, better turn off disk encryption"?

Businesses arent going to just sacrifice a market, but theyre also not going to blithely let their secrets be stolen upon entry into China or on net usage.

Re:Well

[LordLimecat]

OpenVPN is trivially identifiable on port 443, and has been for some time. Im not sure why theyre not blocking you-- perhaps you're using a site-to-site tunnel with static keys. Certificate-based OpenVPN is notoriously unreliable in China because they fingerprint it within about 20 minutes and kill the connection.

Part of the reason I know it can be fingerprinted-- aside from the fact that Im well aware of what works and doesnt behind the GFW-- is that Im good buddies with my employer's security team, and they have on occasion let me know when they see my port 443 OpenVPN shenanigans. I believe it has something to do with the way the certs are exchanged; regardless, SSL and HTTPS are two different things and they have different signatures.

Re:Well

[NicBenjamin]

You can't compare anything but murder because the categories are different. I personally have been the victim of two crimes which would be reported as violent crime in England, which I reported to the local cops, but were not included in these statistics. In addition to these two crimes I mentioned, my sister has been mugged three times in DC and NYC.

If you want a anti-gun-control person's takedown of this particular statistic I refer you to:
http://blog.skepticallibertari...

Re:Well

[Luckyo]

That was my entire point. Business will simply identify and manage risks.

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

I didn't say it was perfect, just that they need to rely on some advanced techniques to identify the VPN connection when it is basic TCP on on a common port. They can't wholesale block it on the port level or protocol level.

I know what works because I am here right now. OpenVPN on 443 is the most stable and reliable method I have used to get to my VPN provider, it is also their recommended method for any users within China though they recommend more conventional OpenVPN sessions or PPTP for outside China.

Re:Well

[LordLimecat]

The GFW is many years beyond port-based blocking; they use DPI to identify protocols regardless of the port used. Im glad you have TCP 443 OpenVPN working; I have never been able to get that to work with client/server certs-- only static-key tunnels worked.

At the moment, my experience has been that IPSec/ is the next best contender because its more of a corporatish vpn protocol. Im really surprised that you hear people recommend OpenVPN-- I have NEVER heard anyone recommend that in China because of how heavily it is targetted. Even googling "OpenVPN China GFW" you get stuff like this:
Which VPN Protocols To Use?
  * OpenVPN: Strangely, this is the least reliable protocol/client to use — you’ll find most ports are currently blocked (connection reset). The main cause appears to be spoofed RST packets.
  * L2TP: This is a fast protocol for China and currently it works quite well

And theres no shortage. OpenVPN may work for a bit, but my understanding is that about 20 minutes into the connection the remote server gets probed a bit, and then the connection gets reset. I wouldnt use PPTP because of its known security issues; it wouldnt surprise me if they had that nut cracked.

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

You know when i first heard I was going to china that's the first site I went to. I ended up clicking on the second of his recommended links. That provider gives some 18 different chinese dedicated VPN servers which they bounce through various cdns, and provide a further 18 others. On their knowledge base and using their own dedicated vpn software they say in order of preference to try OpenVPN on TCP 443, UDP, and lastly L2TP.

My own experience when I first got here L2TP didn't work at all. Not to this VPN, not to my home network. PPTP worked sporadically to this VPN, and seemed to work consistently to my home. OpenVPN worked reliably with the exception that they detect the network and reset it occasionally (like every 2 hours, but auto-reconnection in the client takes care of that). It's really only been the past 3 days I have had any issue with OpenVPN and found that L2TP has worked at all.

You found links claiming otherwise? Great. Thanks for sharing, the information may come in handy. But right now I can only offer you what I have been experiencing the past month.

- Connected to a server in Seattle on OpenVPN TCP port 8333

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the arms race begin.

Have every VPN service setup a sufficiently long XOR of the data stream.

Your provide your XOR key to both ends and they perform this transform on the data stream first. Does this firewall work now ?
So lets start with a 1613 byte XOR key, this is a random prime number above 1500bytes.
Presumably once the VPN has negotiated the encoded data stream would look just as random without the XOR so this technique would only be used to hide the VPN setup and control data such as IKE/IKE2/PPTP TCP connection, etc..

Re:Well

[LordLimecat]

On their knowledge base and using their own dedicated vpn software they say in order of preference to try OpenVPN on TCP 443, UDP, and lastly L2TP.

L2TP has nothing to do with OpenVPN. its IPSec.

OpenVPN worked reliably with the exception that they detect the network and reset it occasionally (like every 2 hours, but auto-reconnection in the client takes care of that).

So, not reliably. Thats the point. And the problem is some programs like skype auto-reconnect when theyre disconnected, which will be unprotected if your VPN resets. They can clearly see that you're using a VPN (hence the resets) and they can clearly kill the connection if they want. The thing is that enforcement varies from area to area, and time to time. See what happens around the Tianenmen Square anniversary-- Im willing to bet you'll be unable to connect.

You found links claiming otherwise? Great. Thanks for sharing, the information may come in handy. But right now I can only offer you what I have been experiencing the past month.

The OpenVPN devs know its targetted, the Tor project guys know this, and so do a lot of VPN providers.

Its entirely possible your provider is using a form of obfuscated tunnel like Obfs3 or ScrambleSuite or another proprietary mod, like VyprVPN or ExpressVPN offer. Its technically not OpenVPN, but a modified form. Its also up in the air whether those modifications weaken the VPN as the providers often do not disclose the details of what they did to the client.

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

I'm not sure why you're splitting hairs here:

L2TP has nothing to do with OpenVPN. its IPSec.

I never said L2TP was part of OpenVPN. I said the website recommends a sequence of methods to attempt to connect. OpenVPN was above L2TP, PPTP was last.

So, not reliably. Thats the point.

Yet more reliable than any other method I tried which varied from flaky to not working at all. That is MY point. OpenVPN has always connected but is occasionally reset. L2TP and PPTP often doesn't connect at all.

I doubt my provider is doing anything fancy. They just recommend that OpenVPN is the *most* reliable connection. Their settings appear fairly standard with simple changes to the ports and selecting the encryption algorithm and they recommend to use the the standard software on windows and a Arne Schwabe's OpenVPN for Android, but I have no reason to believe any OpenVPN client would refuse to work.

What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

So China decides to block websites which encourage violences and mayhems to happen in China and you guys in the West cry foul

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?

Western hypocrisy at work?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[SternisheFan]

Same type of reason child pornography sites are shut down. Some types of behavior do not need to be encouraged.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same type of reason child pornography sites are shut down.

For power. "I don't like it, so they should be censored!"

Some types of behavior do not need to be encouraged.

I don't think I want government thugs deciding what behaviors should or shouldn't be advocated. Maybe you should think about moving to China or North Korea? You'd fit right in.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[SternisheFan]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

50 Centers* have started reading Slashdot?

* "50 Cents" refers to the compensation shills receive to post messages benefiting the (Mainland) Chinese government. AKA Wumao

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re: What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who decides this then? The arsonist?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[TheMiddleRoad]

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?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[TheMiddleRoad]

Child porn and free speech are the same? You're messed in the head.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Zontar The Mindless]

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

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

That wasn't my question, nor am I interested in an off-topic debate.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[TheMiddleRoad]

No shit. All of a sudden /. readers are anti-freedom of speech? Right.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[hawkingradiation]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[SternisheFan]

Who said that?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[SternisheFan]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Dr.Saeuerlich]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[SternisheFan]

"Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular metaphor for speech or actions made for the principal purpose of creating unnecessary panic. The phrase is a paraphrasing of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, which held that the defendant's speech in opposition to the draft during World War I was not protected free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

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...

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

IOW you don't read?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[jandersen]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[dbIII]

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"?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[circletimessquare]

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?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

IOW you don't read?

Apparently not all the same tripe you do, Captain Zeitgeist.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

not encouraged != censored

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

Upset? No. Most of us stopped getting upset by ignorant idiots a long time ago.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[rocket rancher]

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?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[bill_mcgonigle]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[pepty]

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?

Re: What's the difference between China and EU?

[MichaelMacDonald]

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.

Re: What's the difference between China and EU?

[MichaelMacDonald]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[noshellswill]

The theater is on fire. Yep ... some bleeding heart  neo-Stalinists think that shouting n*gga in a Bantu Neolith infested  Detroit ghetto ought to be pejoratively labeled **hate speech** ... instead of a dire,  objective cultural warning . Cosmopolitans would have you arrested .  Bantu have shouting that for decades and noone in Gub'mnt listen.  Slant libertarians now raise an analogous howl.  The theater is on fire. Firewall the b*stards !

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[thegarbz]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how do you feel about someone yelling "fire!" in a theater? Often speech is an action itself.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[TheMiddleRoad]

Ah, I see you use the Ministry of Truth's dictionary. Stop abusing language.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[NicBenjamin]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[CaptainDork]

Why are you censoring yourself with fucking asterisks?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[circletimessquare]

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?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Cyberax]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

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].

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Your.Master]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[pepty]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Slashjones]

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.

Re: What's the difference between China and EU?

[pepty]

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?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

Dead end argument. You are arguing that people have no right no change their minds or refuse initial treaty to negotiate a better one.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Cyberax]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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?

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[jandersen]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[jandersen]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

What do sanctions or publicity have to do with criticism? You seem to confuse several different things as one whole.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

I think you need to look up what word "equivalent" means.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[linuxrocks123]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[hawkingradiation]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

First paragraph.

Quoting myself: "I said we Submit more subjects to EU parliament, but it remains powerless "

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[manu0601]

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).

Re:What's the difference between China and EU?

[Luckyo]

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.

What noobs

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Defective by design.

[dgatwood]

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.

Re:Defective by design.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah man we've been doing DPI for over 10 years now. You can change ESP to proto 51 and any IPS with a clue will catch it and drop or alert on it. This is very interesting to see what work arounds will be provided. I envision an SSL hack which connects to a valid SSL server but then turns into a VPN connection. "multicast" this to several addresses and hop between them. You will have a laggy connection but you are still encrypting your transit data...

Re:Defective by design.

[KiloByte]

I envision an SSL hack which connects to a valid SSL server but then turns into a VPN connection.

You mean, http[s] CONNECT? With openvpn as the payload (double encryption might be wasteful, but I'd keep it). You can then multihome over those connections with existing tools to your heart's content.

Re:Defective by design.

[whoever57]

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.

The last time that I was in China (a couple of years ago), OpenVPN using non-standard ports to my private server was blocked. In the end, I ran OpenVPN over tcp/22 (yes, ugly and slow, but it worked). I don't understand why VPN's were blocked but not SSH. OpenVPN uses UDP (by default), so no obvious protocol numbers to block.

Re:Defective by design.

[jaa101]

By using different protocol numbers in the IP headers, the designers of these protocols [...] made them harder to support, because routers have to explicitly know how to handle those nonstandard protocol numbers.

How do nonstandard protocol numbers make it harder for routers to route the packet? You have the destination IP: just forward the packet already. Oh, you want to be a firewall and block selected traffic or even do deep packet inspection? That's not routing.

Re:Defective by design.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The designers of these protocols were not so mindless. The protocols were made to withstand snooping and tampering, not blocking. Defeating firewalls was never a design goal for them.

Re:Defective by design.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are far from "nonstandard" IP protocol numbers. They're well defined in specifications and widely known, it's just that they're not the same what TCP and UDP protocols are.

Re:Defective by design.

[drolli]

Two year ago: Openvpn was fine, but webpages of providers were blocked (not a bad strategy...).

Last year: private Openvpn server worked, but connections dropped after ~1Gbyte was transferred, and well known providers were blocked

This year: openvpn was detected (not sure how!) and private server seems to have ended on some "gray" list, ssh connectionsafter that were very slow (although that could coincide with slow internet); sshing to singapore AWS cloud was fine, but i had the feeling that switching between ports for ssh helped after big data transfers or long conenctions. Connecting by mobile (state telecom) was better than by WLAN.

Blocking seems to happen solely based on target (outside China) IP.

The rationale behind blocking vpns but not ssh is simple: China is not interested in blocking perfectly. They don't care about (or even may like) that you can set up cloud servers which you need for your thing outside China. They dont care about 1% of the population and all foreigners getting unfiltered access to the outside world. As long as they can filter the information for the vast majority. Which implies that the material they mostly care about is video, which means that intentionally slowing ssh still enable you to do your admin work, but you can not copy 1000 youtube videos quickly. Also, for ssh there is no "1-click-vpn" client available......

Re:Defective by design.

[allo]

nothing new. there are even hacks to have ssh and ssl on the same port.

Re:Defective by design.

[thegarbz]

I'm here now. OpenVPN over TCP/443 works just fine, as does connections on various other ports like TCP/8333 (my current connection).
PPTP is curently not working (but it was about an hour ago), and L2TP currently IS working. But it hasn't really worked reliably since I got here.

Basically I'm not seeing anything new. VPN connections and internet connections to the outside world have been haphazard at best and it's been a guessing game of what protocol and which server will work best on any given day. Though I have had by far the greatest success with OpenVPN over TCP.

Re:Defective by design.

[dgatwood]

Okay, fair enough. I usually lump firewalls and routers in the same bucket, because outside of backbone hardware, most routers also act as firewalls. The point is that a lot of (badly designed) consumer routers (firewalls) do stupid things like routing only TCP and UDP, or treating those other protocols as "special" under the assumption that VPNs will always be used from the inside out, never from the outside in, resulting in all sorts of fun.

Re:Defective by design.

[dgatwood]

My point was that there was no valid reason for each of these VPNs to each use its own transport-layer protocol. A normal, connected TCP socket would have done the job just as easily. Every time someone strays from the expectation that all packets are either TCP, UDP, or ICMP, it means every hardware-based firewall maker (and every software-based firewall IT person) has to do extra work to deal with it, and hardware that worked before suddenly doesn't work or (if you're lucky) requires firmware updates. The fact that using a different protocol makes it easier to block is just another in a long list of reasons why the proliferation of transport-layer protocols is a bad idea.

Re:Defective by design.

[dgatwood]

They're well defined now. AFAIK, they were nonstandard when initially proposed. Every time someone wants to deviate from accepted standards, there should be a darn good reason why, and I'm just not seeing any reasonable justification for creating a whole separate transport-layer protocol for something that basically behaves like a normal, connected stream.

And it isn't just explicit blocking that's a problem. Firewalls and NAT often make life miserable for users even when those firewalls aren't trying to block the VPNs. That's why as far as I'm concerned, if you're passing traffic, you should use TCP if you need the data to be robust and reliable, UDP if delayed delivery would make the data worthless, and ICMP for the usual network management purposes. IMO, everything else is anathema. :-)

China White

[Anonymous Coward]

Here I am!
Rock you like a Hurricane!

Whatever happened to them? Drugs? Booze? Nothing?

Re:China White

[Anonymous Coward]

Fewer than six degrees of separation gets you to

Taylor Negron

Who by the way died not even two weeks ago. Bummer.

Weekend Project

[nichogenius]

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?

Re:Weekend Project

[ThatsMyNick]

Just use VPNGate. It designed specifically for Great Firewall of China, it is extremely easy to use, and works every time. No one needs an hour for this.

Re:Weekend Project

[nichogenius]

Round 2: Establish redundancy.

Re:Weekend Project

[MobSwatter]

Nah, lets build on their firewall and let them go back to being communist and keep that crap on their side of the pond. Maybe our side will wise up not having a cheap manufacturing alternative and creating sweat shops in China, all while lowering the US unemployment rate.

Re:Weekend Project

[Zontar The Mindless]

"Your country -- Norway" inspires confidence, definitely.

(In case you don't get the joke, I live in Stockholm.)

Re:Weekend Project

[ThatsMyNick]

Yup, getting the GeoIP 100% right is the corner stone of any good VPN software provider. /s

Note that it is not a japanese software without much thought into UX and it doesnt look polished (in western standards atleast). You cant get a better throughput using any other VPN tech though. The research (publications) and their throughput are their main motivators, the software/UX do take a bit of backseat.

Re:Weekend Project

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, on your recommendation I just tried it out. It certainly doesn't work every time for me. After wading through about 50 servers I finally got 1 to work for about an hour before it got cut off. The rest either can't connect or drop the connection in under a minute. Posted from Shenzhen, China.

Untrue

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in China until yesterday, and while VPN connections often randomly stop, they are not blocked most of the time.

Re:Untrue

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in China until yesterday, and while VPN connections often randomly stop, they are not blocked most of the time.

I'm reading this in China, on a VPN. They always stuff with VPN's just before Chinese new year.

That vile scum is *YOU*

[Anonymous Coward]

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 !

Re:That vile scum is *YOU*

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you get your 50 cents?

Ah, the wily Chinee

[Anonymous Coward]

The oriental is wily and cunning. You must get up early and be crafty to outwit him.

The noob is you

[dbIII]

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.

Re:The noob is you

[Anonymous Coward]

The noob is me... no dispute there and that's part of my point. I know for a fact it's not a permanent solution, but there will always be solutions to bypass internet filtering. As long as there is a physical connection across the firewall, there will always be someone on both sides willing to work their way through it and pave the way for others. The only feasible long term total information control is to start physically cutting cables.

My original point was that if they want to block VPN traffic, they can try a little harder than simply blocking port numbers. You argue that my solution is invalid because it doesn't account for all future possibilities. I argue that even a noob like me can side-step this new measure in just a few minutes by changing my port number to something they won't dare block, therefore their current attempts are pathetic at best.

Re: The noob is you

[Anonymous Coward]

My original point was that if they want to block VPN traffic, they can try a little harder than simply blocking port numbers. You argue that my solution is invalid because it doesn't account for all future possibilities. I argue that even a noob like me can side-step this new measure in just a few minutes by changing my port number to something they won't dare block, therefore their current attempts are pathetic at best.

Oh FFS. I know this is Slashdot, but is it too hard to read the summary? Here, I'll help in case your upward scrolling capability is broken: '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.'

Your "solution" is invalid because that's precisely what this latest deep packet inspection system is designed to block.

Re:The noob is you

[mattventura]

I wouldn't be so sure. Any application with forced SSL is going to look exactly the same from a data standpoint. It's going to start with the SSL handshake, and then everything after that will be indistinguishable. Yes, they could look at how much data there is or data over time, but DPI doesn't get you very far when all SSL traffic looks exactly the same. And even then, you could just pick some port that would normally have a solid amount of data and persistent connections, like IMAPS.

Re:The noob is you

[greenfruitsalad]

although for a slightly different reason, this is exactly how i run our openvpn network. whenever somebody from our company went on a trip to a country where SIP telephony was blocked (yes, it's you UAE!), they took a small raspberrypi-like box (dreamplug) with them whose only purpose was to create an openvpn tunnel via port 443.

i analysed the first couple of packets captured in wireshark and there's pretty much no difference between this and https.

Re:The noob is you

[dbIII]

to something they won't dare block

See point 2 - it's China FFS.

Re:The noob is you

[dbIII]

Any application with a lot of forced SSL is effectively a VPN in terms of what they want to stop, which is hidden traffic in general - so bad news. You want to hide a lot of stuff? They want to stop you. If you are a bank with good party connections (repeating myself a bit) you get an exception.
Western governments would like to do this too but unlike the Chinese they have to worry about innocent bystanders getting upset.

Yes, there's other ways, but just hiding among https traffic is only going to work when the people upstream let you have a lot of https traffic.

Re:The noob is you

[swb]

I would think that traffic heuristics -- volume of packets, frequency of packets, persistence of TCP sessions, volume of data transferred, types of TCP connectivity would provide some hints of a VPN session versus other kinds of encrypted traffic -- would possibly provide a way to compare it to known types of encrypted traffic and see VPNs. It's not like the Chinese don't have terabytes or even petabytes of real-world wild sample traffic to compare against.

I wonder if there would be some way to beat it by combining steganography and encryption to make a VPN's traffic look like some kind of unencrypted web browsing session. Embed encrypted data into retrieved pages as GIFs and plaintext mixed in with nonsense plain text and pace the traffic patterns to more closely resemble the pace of actual page views, forcing new TCP sessions for each view.

About the only weakness would be consistently contacting the same server.

It might be less useful for the kinds of normal VPN uses (low data volume, long latency as traffic was fetched) but I would think you could beat the expectations of what VPN traffic is supposed to look like.

Re:The noob is you

[Anonymous Coward]

It's over stated, chances are that if you're running your own personal small scale VPN that they're not going to bother targeting it. Or even notice. It's the companies that have thousands of customers that are the main targets of these changes.

That being said, if you've given them reason to be suspicious about you particularly, they might block it anyways, but they don't really have the resources to block hundreds of millions of individual tunnels.

Re:The noob is you

[Anonymous Coward]

That is pretty easily defeated:

Detect SSL connections (via packet inspection), terminate them within equipment you control using a certificate you control, and then inspect what's inside before relaying it to the intended recipient or blocking it altogether.

Naturally your client will signal that the remote certificate is not trusted, leaving you with two options: accept that you're being MITMed and send data anyway, or don't send any data. Both of which suit a government whose goal is to restrict which information you can access and monitor what is being transmitted. Knowing that the government is interfering with your SSL connection doesn't do you much good if you have no other way to establish an SSL connection.

bad for business

[gl4ss]

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.

write on weibo, go to readjustment camp...

[gl4ss]

tell that to the people in prison in China for writing something on Weibo...

Re:write on weibo, go to readjustment camp...

[SternisheFan]

Chinese Officials Vow To Fix Nation’s Crumbling Reeducation System

BEIJING—Acknowledging that its current programs are insufficient to meet the needs of a fast-paced, 21st-century population, the Chinese Ministry of Justice held a press conference Friday affirming its commitment to fixing the nation’s crumbling reeducation system.

According to government officials, the steady decline in the quality of reeducation is evidenced by the system’s serious overcrowding, dilapidated correctional facilities, and outdated propaganda materials, which have left a large percentage of China’s political prisoners unprepared for life as obedient citizens.

“We are falling well short of the reeducation needs of this country and failing a whole generation of dissidents,” said justice minister Wu Aiying, lamenting that many institutions currently rely on standardized reprogramming curriculums that haven’t been updated since the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. “We need better reeducators who know how to use modern teaching and disciplinary technologies if we want to inspire our people to become fully subservient pawns of the state.”

http://www.theonion.com/articl...

Re:write on weibo, go to readjustment camp...

[hawkingradiation]

I never talked about the punishments of the "crimes" or whether they were in proportion to the "offense" or that government's using technology to spy on citizens is good. In fact I disagree. This is selective punishment. Perhaps I should have said: "Although China still has overly broad laws on the books, they are trying to fight technology with technology...We are doing it here, in a more specific and cloak-and-dagger way, but we should not try to specify the time and place for technology, which we are attempting to do en-masse". For all: more freedom = better freedom. If someone wants to block our connection fine, then let us find ways to unblock it. If it is really worth the investment, which will be a deterrent, then find a way to re-block it otherwise spending money on such a thing will prove to be unfeasible. Laws need to be fixed, technology needs to improve. This freedom is one of the reasons why TOR is still in the game, America will continue to have an advantage and why we are advancing in general. How about a new Amendment: the freedom to develop technology?

Are you sure this isn't Obama blocking encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and blaming it on the Chinese, as usual?

The Noob is me

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, my bad. I read port number blocking, not protocol level blocking. I concede, I am a noob.

Coming Soon To The UK

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Mullvad and live in the UK. I suspect it won't be very long before they start blo...

Re:Coming Soon To The UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Mullvad doesn't protect you at all. They log you and they will hand over your data to law enforcement in a blink of an eye.
They are cheap and ok if you use to watch YT vids or TV streams, nothing else though.

Re:Coming Soon To The UK

[allo]

Their logging policy says the opposite.

Re: Coming Soon To The UK

[Anonymous Coward]

their policy is worth jackshit

Re: Coming Soon To The UK

[allo]

i am sure, you have some sources, reviews or opionions from users to back this?

I talk fine with my Chinese frineds

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya theres no dif... Video chat is great with these people. :)

I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[ZackSchil]

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.

Re:I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[linuxrocks123]

I was in China last summer. Essentially exactly the same thing happened to me, although I was using SOCKS5/ssh not PPTP. My girlfriend and I subsequently had a hell of a time playing Heroes 3 for Linux remotely even when not using ssh, so they must have shit-listed my IP address. Then, a few months later, everything magically started working again and the ssh proxy my girlfriend was using worked fine. So did Heroes 3, thankfully.

During the shit-listed time, I came across this list: https://www.torproject.org/doc...

Another option might be this: http://www.nocrew.org/software...

One of these options might be enough into fooling them the traffic isn't encrypted. Ultimately, if there's a way of exchanging data, there's a way of getting around the block. It's just a question of obfuscation.

Re:I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[thegarbz]

Not sure if I'm getting lucky or not but they seem to be pretty haphazard in their approach. For the past few weeks I've been having no problems with PPTP though L2TP has been an issue. Today I can't even connect over PPTP but L2TP seems to be blazingly fast.

In any case OpenVPN over 443 seems to be the most reliable connection which has worked pretty much every time without issue.

Re:I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[Anonymous Coward]

Got to love all these idiots and/or hypocrites (ZackSchil, linuxrocks123) "...I hate China, but I'm in China..."
You losers actually proof read your own posts for things like ...logic?
If you hate it so much...GTFO!

Re:I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[linuxrocks123]

I have no idea how you got from either of our posts that either ZackSchil or I hates China. Hate is a very strong word, and I most certainly do not "hate China". China is a country with a very rich history, many awesome tourist destinations, and many good people just trying to live their lives. It is also a country with a very unhealthy governmental structure and a sad recent history as a dictatorship with a decidedly non-benevolent dictator (see "Mao", "Great Chinese Famine", and "Cultural Revolution"). However, I have no doubt that there are many well-intentioned people in the government, despite its overall unhealthy structure.

Hating a country is not a healthy attitude to have. Countries are important social constructs, but they are composed of a wide variety of people, and there is no way each and every one of them has personally offended you such that it is fair for you to hate the country as a whole.

I don't like China's government. I can't speak for ZackSchil, but many in the West do not like China's government. The structure is undemocratic and has many other serious structural flaws, such as potential reversion to dictatorship and potential civil war due to its unstable power structure. The government doesn't provide to its citizens things I and many in the West value such as free speech, free association, etc.

But that's a structural critique. I don't "hate" China's government on an emotional level. I just think it's unfortunate that over a billion people have to live under such a dysfunctional system. I don't know enough about any individual Chinese politician to "hate" him, either, and I'm sure some in the government are probably working to try to fix some of the governmental structural flaws as best they can.

By the way, I don't "hate" North Korea either. I pity the millions of North Koreans who are currently suffering and hope those in power manage to reform that government soon, so that their suffering will end. I imagine most educated Westerners feel pretty much the same way about that hell on Earth.

You really need to start taking a less binary view of the world. It's not right to "hate" people you've never met just because they have the misfortune of living under a substandard government. Most of those people are victims, not perpetrators.

Re:I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would actually dwell more towards the notion of a "hater" in your case actually.

Let's start with I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of a "hater"?
The fact you are so adamantly tried to steer attention towards some one particular shade of meaning of the word "hate" could be a sign you are apprehensive of your true motivation being divulged.

A "hater" is one with some psychological obsession with one particular entity, that an otherwise healthy psyche would typically not single out, due to the lack of any distinguishing features relative to the entire collection of entities.
The second half of the psyche of the "hater" is a likewise accentuation of the most minute blemish in the object of his hatred, that for some psychological perversion appears to the "hater" as egregiously significant, even as the actual blemish is not particularly outstanding in anyway to an otherwise healthy psyche.

You are an American from your claims.
Checking your post history back a few month, you're significantly more vociferous about China "rights" than American "rights" (in fact I didn't really see any criticism of your own government).
An American government after all, is the only government that affects you directly (that you chose to not criticize for some reasons despite far more stories about American/Western transgression than that of the Chinese government in the recent months).
Let's be clear, the American government is as authoritarian, if not more so, than any government you care to do a comparison with, including China. Even before Edward Snowden.
Your conspicuous by your silence of your own government might even be born of your justified fear of NSA, FBI...
Your (lack of) action which actually "proves" my sentence above about authoritarianism in America.
I'm not calling you a coward for being silent. As a wise and oddly familiar poster once said: "Most of those people are victims, not perpetrators."

Re:I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[linuxrocks123]

I know I've criticized the US government in the past on Slashdot, so I'm not sure why you didn't find anything, but whatever. Pretty much any post I made on the DMCA probably criticized the US government.

But, regardless, the US government is much, much better regarding respecting the freedoms of citizens. It's not perfect; no government is, but it's not in the same league as China. For instance, yeah, the NSA shouldn't be reading everyone's email and stuff. But the government doesn't use that information to track down people who disagree with the party in power and silence them by throwing them in jail. China does that.

There's no comparison. And, as a debating tactic, it's best not to try to make a comparison with China or similarly authoritarian countries when complaining about the US government's failings. It's such hyperbole that many people will just ignore you if you do that. We shouldn't try to compare ourselves to China. We should aspire to be much, much better than that. And we are. For now.

Re:I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[ZackSchil]

What the heck? Trolling or astroturfing? Misplaced patriotism?

In any case, weird.

Re:I was just there, can verify this is the case.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for the late post. Too busy.

Well let's explore your rather feeble response.

The fact of the matter is, you have been far more obsessed with China than America (you lack interests in your own government for some odd reasons).
You say that you are critical of your own government, yet your post history of late does not bear that out.
Not really convincing linux123.
DMCA in America? Perhaps you should stick with the Chinese pirating WindowsXP instead of venturing beyond your realms of expertise.

You also immediately contradicted your previous contention that you are an equal opportunity critic, by going on your drivel about America being "much much better", indirectly implying less worthy of criticism (justifying in your own mind your lopsided post history).
If you read even this thread, you will see the general sentiment is the quite the opposite, many if not most feel America and the West are more Draconian in their policies, and certainly more hypocritical.

And just for laughs, there are many countries with "a very rich history, many awesome tourist destinations, and many good people just trying to live their lives". Just curious when was the last time you supposedly visited...Russia, Iran, hell even India (with a government that you actually expressed some admiration for)?
Or are you perhaps obsessed with supposedly visiting say China...it's telltale sign my friend, as I indicted previously.

A Chinese user's view

[netheril96]

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.

Re:A Chinese user's view

[Anonymous Coward]

Just be aware that if you are using PPTP, it is horribly insecure. If you need to use PPTP to get out, tunnel a second VPN using something more secure on top of it.

China should be cut off from the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:China should be cut off from the internet

[CaptainDork]

In your scenario, where does the economic relationship of the parties fit in?

Re:China should be cut off from the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that worked so well with that democratic paradise Cuba.

I am in China, VPN blocking verifified

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I am in China, VPN blocking verifified

[CaptainDork]

If you're in China, I hope you use a VPN to get your message out and stuff.

Works for me

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

"hackers from China"

[Anonymous Coward]

It also could be that all those hackers from China logged in via such VPN, and that's discovered now.

Free Trade

[Richard_J_N]

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.

Re:Free Trade

[thegarbz]

why isn't the US considering blocking Chinese goods in return?

Yeah because policy to suddenly raise the cost of goods in America is exactly what is needed during times of economic trouble. I'm sure the general populace would stand behind their president all in the names of improving freedoms in a different country.

Re:Free Trade

[pereric]

Well, if US policy made chinese-made consumer goods a bit more expensive because of sactions against Chinese censorship,
it would probably also have a couple of implications for the US manufacuring business. Which probably would be quite well percieved ...

Re:Free Trade

[CaptainDork]

Bullshit. You don't watch Shark Tank.

Re:Free Trade

[silfen]

If China blocks US VPNs (our exports), why isn't the US considering blocking Chinese goods in return?

Because, fortunately, even the moron-in-chief seems to have more sense than that.

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.

Oh, we can easily prevent the race to the bottom. In fact, you can do it yourself: just look at your paycheck in cents instead of dollars. See, now you are 100x richer! That's pretty much what your economic proposals amount to.

Re:Free Trade

[silfen]

Well, if US policy made chinese-made consumer goods a bit more expensive because of sactions against Chinese censorship, it would probably also have a couple of implications for the US manufacuring business.

Oh, sure it would. It would mean that the 90% of Americans who don't work in manufacturing would be paying significantly more for goods (i.e. become significantly poorer) so that the 10% of Americans who do work in manufacturing are doing well.

Why bother with the complex and annoying trade excuse for this? Just tax everybody an extra 5% and then send an extra 50% to everybody who works in manufacturing. Surely, that will make the economy boom!

Re:Free Trade

[Richard_J_N]

What I mean is that, any country which has no democracy has no workers' rights. Therefore, Chinese workers will never effectively demand decent working conditions. This makes them more competitive than the EU/US, and our workers (who rightly expect decent treatment) will be out-competed by cheap labour from contries that abuse their workers. The result is unemployment in the West, and "slave"-labour in the East.

Re:Free Trade

[thegarbz]

it would probably also have a couple of implications for the US manufacuring business. Which probably would be quite well percieved ...

By who? Your entire country has already voted against local manufacturing with their wallets.

Re:Free Trade

[silfen]

What I mean is that, any country which has no democracy has no workers' rights.

The idea that working conditions improve much due to government regulation is a fiction. Working conditions ("worker's rights") improve because workers have the freedom to walk away from bad jobs to better jobs.

The regulations you see in the EU/US are largely designed as barriers to entry, so that big corporations can keep enjoying oligopolies in their markets. The kind of regulations they write are such that they simply mirror what the market would be doing anyway, but imposing a large administrative overhead that only big companies can afford to pay.

This makes them more competitive than the EU/US, and our workers (who rightly expect decent treatment) will be out-competed by cheap labour from contries that abuse their workers. The result is unemployment in the West, and "slave"-labour in the East.

What a good little fascist and corporate whore you are. I mean that literally: that's pretty much the economic bullshit fascism was built on.

Let them think they are superior, let 'em !!

[Anonymous Coward]

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 !

In an unrelated story ...

[CaptainDork]

... the United States government wants to prohibit encryption.

In China right now using a VPN

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Stegonographic VPN?

[davidwr]

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.

Re:Stegonographic VPN?

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is more the web site address. It's easy enough to alter the protocol hide the content in various ways, because after all it's encrypted (you could make it all look like plain HTTPS if necessary) but they block IPs of known VPNs so this has to rotate fairly often -- and if enough people are using a web site as VPN, they will figure it out; they have thousands of non-stupid full-time people working on censorship, albeit most of them work on filtering Weibo etc. It's a bigger challenge to get a large enough willing network of web servers providing VPN services so that in order to cut them off they'd basically have to cut off most of the foreign web. They are still not willing to do the latter, but they way things are going, they will eventually be backed into that choice if enough ISPs and developers are willing to work on the issue.

Registration

[manu0601]

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?

Bah.... Old news... Bluecoat Packeteers

[Anonymous Coward]

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.....