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Wikipedia's Switch To HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship (vice.com)
Determining how to prevent acts of censorship has long been a priority for the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, and thanks to new research from the Harvard Center for Internet and Society, the foundation seems to have found a solution: encryption. From a report: HTTPS prevents governments and others from seeing the specific page users are visiting. For example, a government could tell that a user is browsing Wikipedia, but couldn't tell that the user is specifically reading the page about Tiananmen Square. Up until 2015, Wikipedia offered its service using both HTTP and HTTPS, which meant that when countries like Pakistan or Iran blocked the certain articles on the HTTP version of Wikipedia, the full version would still be available using HTTPS. But in June 2015, Wikipedia decided to axe HTTP access and only offer access to its site with HTTPS. [...] The Harvard researchers began by deploying an algorithm which detected unusual changes in Wikipedia's global server traffic for a year beginning in May 2015. This data was then combined with a historical analysis of the daily request histories for some 1.7 million articles in 286 different languages from 2011 to 2016 in order to determine possible censorship events. [...] After a painstakingly long process of manual analysis of potential censorship events, the researchers found that, globally, Wikipedia's switch to HTTPS had a positive effect on the number censorship events by comparing server traffic from before and after the switch in June of 2015.
had a positive effect on the number censorship events
The number went down so that is a negative effect. No need to introduce value-laden descriptors into the math.
It is completely delusional to think this effectively prevents government censorship as if they can't selectively block content they simply take the sledgehammer approach and ban the site altogether.
Most censorship actually comes from leftists, and this truth needs to come out. I applaud Wikipedia for trying to stop leftists censorship. Keep in mind that Europe restricts speech far more than the US does, under the grounds that it's hate speech. Yes, there's legitimately hate speech, but it's easy to censor ideas and positions that the majority or those in power don't like. China is another opponent of free speech, and their government is a leftist Communist regime. Again, leftists are responsible. The only speech that needs to be protected is offensive speech, because if nobody is offended, nobody will try to censor the speech. Kudos to Wikipedia, but let's say it like it is and admit that leftists are the primary opponent of free speech.
- snruter rotsac
censorship from the Wikipedia "mods" who've decided which pages are "theirs" and only they are allowed to update them?
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
They could easily work around that ...
1. You try to browse site https://example.com/badpage.html
2. Government network can't read the traffic, so it also visits https://example.com/badpage.html and determines the context that way.
HTTPS might complicate censorship very briefly. But it wouldn't take Albert Einstein for a censorship government to adapt.
Ah cool - left and right -- what a simple world!
Sounds like the Donnie Dark "LOVE or FEAR" measuring stick.
The free market probably was once a "liberal" idea, back in the days of Dukes and Lords who wanted to control all commerce. Segregation is making a huge comeback, is the idea of segregation supposed to be a "left" or "right" idea ... if so why is "the left" pushing it.
So is Smokey The Bear not wanting you to litter a "left thing" ("the environment") or a "right thing" ("use a trash can, lazy ass")? Is wanting fuel efficiency a "left thing" ("air quality") or a "right thing" ("use your resources efficiently").
Left and right is so various knuckleheads can argue with each other and navel gaze and repeat arguments someone else told to them on the television.
The only reason this is working for now is because the censoring governments haven't implemented a workaround for it yet. There are various ways they can still censor Wikipedia:
They can use their own CA (don't even think that a country like China doesn't have access to be able to generate certs for any hostnames they want from a trusted CA) to generate a wikipedia.com cert and proxy wikipedia traffic through their own servers censoring it in the process.
They can proxy traffic from http to https and locally block the https traffic so the people in their country are foced to use the http version which is censored.
They can block Wikipedia alltogether by various different means.
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
It is meant to be a self-perpetuating strangle-hold on knowledge that can be controlled centrally. The efforts to replicate and make this knowledge distributed (fault-tolerant) are marginalized and avoided. They only care about getting their major donations for their ancient software that attempts to control world knowledge, naturally facilitating its manipulation.
For example, a government could tell that a user is browsing Wikipedia, but couldn't tell that the user is specifically reading the page about Tiananmen Square.
This is hard to believe. The vast majority of Wikipedia pages contain several images and the file sizes for each of these images is different. When you load a page, the browser first loads the text of the page, then in separate https requests, it loads each of the images, usually in the order listed in the page's HTML. Each page then has a unique signature: the size of the text, and the sizes of each of the images in order. It would be very easy for an adversary to build up a database of these signatures, simply by analyzing their own traffic when they examine various pages. Even if the traffic is encrypted, by looking at the amount of data transferred and the timing, it seems it would be almost trivial to figure out which pages a user was visiting.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Great, now that battle is over, what's next?
Wikipedia could pad every (page, image, or paragraph) with random junk so that traffic quantity analysis is useless. Also they could hesitate a random time between (page, image, or paragraph). I recon they do something like this now.
the article is simply reporting the story from the POV of Wikipedia ... No bias here.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
LogicError: contradictory assertions in same line of code
Amusing to see you defend the bastion of Progressivism that an encylopedia, a fortiori Wikipedia, is. :) In China or Iran, or medieval Europe, you too are a liberal.
Just the story reported as it was heard, from the party making the announcement.
Not really to the point, but there is no indication in TFA, that the sentence "Wikipedia's switch to HTTPS had a positive effect on the number censorship events by comparing server traffic from before and after the switch in June of 2015" is a direct quote from the report or the researchers, as opposed to the description chosen by the author.
To regard censorship as an unqualifed bad, is an ideological position. To describe an effect on a number which acts to decrease the number as "positive" (since it is referring to an ideological as distinct from a mathematical effect) is value-laden. Liberal bias detected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=dumb+ass
You choose to quote the obiter (clearly marked as "not really to the point") ... that says something in itself.
Uh...how about the *purpose* ... To avoid censorship, for which a reduction is, in fact, a positive.
How is avoidance of, or a reduction in, censorship a positive "in fact", as opposed to it being a positive in relation to a system of values to which you (but not apparently the censors) happen to subscribe?
More censorship or less? Tricky question.
It's never really a question of more or less, but of what.
For example, even suggesting that we should remember our belief 'censorship is always bad' is a matter of values, has gotten my first post censored to -1 ... presumably by someone who'd advocate for "less censorship".
I'm fed up of looking up information and seeing it deleted as "not notable". Information wants to be free, and shouldnt be held to arbitary "notability" standards. The day a notability free version of Wikipedia gets popular I will donate again.
and Pakistan and Google. Problem solved and self-funded the research.
Of course countries simply respond by censoring ALL of Wikipedia.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The student interns with access to the data also managed to sell several copies as the instance on pastebin indicates. After all, we have to get our next Zuckerberg from somewhere...
"HTTPS prevents governments and others from seeing the specific page users are visiting."
I am no expert, but I don't think this is true as a fact, because I am assuming that the US government has a forged digital certificate, or, that they (and other governments) know about some flaw to subvert the encryption process somehow.
This world sucks, this internet sucks, and I am not happy about this. This is NOT the time to sit back and enjoy HTTPS/tls encryption.
Poor thing! Kinda dense, bless his heart!
...people are still using Solid State Logic audio boards nowadays. I'm a Neve man myself.
THE FUCKING url is encrypted in SSL requests dumb ass. only the hostname and IP are not encrypted.
The solution is simple. China et al can simply fork Wikipedia onto their own website. They can then push edits through for all non-controvertial pages, and do what they like with the others. Wikipedia provides a huge ability to rewrite history. He controls the present...
Achieving stated goal == positive effect.
That's hardly a coherent answer to the question "[h]ow is avoidance of, or a reduction in, censorship a positive "in fact", as opposed to it being a positive in relation to a system of values to which you (but not apparently the censors) happen to subscribe? Is it?
Look, the stated goal was negatively to effect a censoring state's ability to ban individual Wikipedia pages. Whether or not you regard the goal as positive or negative is "in fact" a value judgement, we simply cannot avoid that.
Nor was the original (now censored) comment strictly concerned with the effect on the stated goal. It noted the description of the effect on the "number of censorship events," which clearly was a negative . The point being made was that describing it as "positive effect" requires importing something other then the objective observation that the number had gone down, something ideological, for example an assumption that the stated goal is itself a positive. To equate the "Achieving stated goal" with "positive effect" is simply to reinscribe the self-same value judgement. Yes?
You are being asked nothing more than to be aware of the tacit values (even, or especially, if you share them) in that seemingly innocent description of a mathematically negative effect as "positive."
God, you suck at this...
Whoa dude! What a slam-dunk argument! Anyone ever tell you what an excellent debater you are? No? OK, the good news is you have honest friends.
And distortion of facts?
> For example, a government could tell that a user is browsing Wikipedia, but couldn't tell that the user is specifically reading the page about Tiananmen Square.
Well, until now. Gee thanks, guys.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
HTTPS prevents governments and others from seeing the specific page users are visiting.
This is just a wrong assumption in so many ways.
Take the following HTTPS URL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square
It's about Tiananmen Square. NSA can see that I just visited the Tiananmen Square page on Wikipedia - HTTPS doesn't stop this - it only prevents inspection of the actual data bits sent between my browser and the web server, snooping parties can still see exactly which page I just visited whether HTTPS is employed or not.
> religious conservatives who are employing censorship to "protect public morals" (or whatever they imagine themselves doing)
Are you by chance stoned out of your mind right now? The great firewall of China is there to block international religious text ideas and other ideas which are at odds with the dictum of the ATHEIST Communist party of China. Exactly the opposite of what you seem to think.
Preaching in China can get you a jail sentence, though in recent decades they've started allowing Buddhist and Taoist centers under government control.
Are you by chance stoned out of your mind right now?
Unfortunately no ... it's a simple a case of having actually read TFA.
Up until 2015, Wikipedia offered its service using both HTTP and HTTPS, which meant that when countries like Pakistan or Iran blocked the certain articles on the HTTP version of Wikipedia ...
The Harvard researchers ... found that, globally, Wikipedia's switch to HTTPS had a positive [sic] effect on the number censorship events by comparing server traffic from before and after the switch in June of 2015. ... Although countries like China ... were still censoring part or all of Wikipedia by the time the researchers wrapped up their study ...
TLDR; Effective against religious conservatives in Iran and Pakistan, ineffective against China.
Now if you could pass the pipe 'round dude!
Are you seriously arguing that, for example, Ron Clarke's achievement running 10,000 metres in 27m39.4s in 1965, reducing the world record from the previous 28m15.6s, was negative?
No. I'm not even suggesting that the a drop in the number of censorship events is negative (in any general sense), only that the effect on the number is negative (it made it go down.)
As BlueStrat implied I'm splitting hairs with a very fine razor. I could not have made that point had the author written, "it had a positive effect, reducing the number of censorship events." Instead the author predicated 'positive' to a negative numerical effect. But I'm splitting hairs because I think this subtle grammatical error reveals the unthinking way we accept that reducing censorship events in different countries and cultures is an unproblematic good. I want to problematize our presumptions.
And that anyone who considers it a positive achievement is showing value-laden Liberal bias?
If by 'it' you are referring to Ron Clarke's achievement you are simply being silly. The value-laden liberal bias, is that the particular ideological bias by which we uncritically accept that a private US company degrading the sovereignty of foreign nations when it comes to censorship so as to describe a negative effect on the number of censorship events as "positive." And do note, this is not to say it isn't a positive, that's not the point.
Corporate and state are a distinction without a difference.
Given it was legislated into existence, the corporate form is itself an expression of state power. Creator and creature is fairly obviously not a "distinction without a difference." Just for a start ...
So tell me what do you make of a piece of legislation which explicitly applies to corporations but does not bind the Crown?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
'ere
[Coughing]
Learn how HTTPS works.
So the government(s) "no rikey" encryption hiding user use from them? Windows 10 will take care of that for them. Er... has already taken care of that for them.
The government is bound and dominated by corporate funding ('donations', media promotion, etc.), which will go elsewhere if the state does not play ball. Revolution is a big expense, but not out of reach. The wars in the middle east (and Central/South America) are about business, not any silly ideology, which is just a low wage motivator. Also note where most top level government appointees come from. They are juiced in. It should be pretty obvious who rules overs whom. Granted, the cause is voter disinterest and antipathy, but that doesn't matter. Most everybody is wagging the dog. The government acts as security and hired gun for its financiers. It is truly a servant to specific interests.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
For people that live in China, please use TOR.
Take your security into your own hands. Don't depend on external sites to protect you. SSL has been compromised in the past, browser exploits do occur and your computer will keep logs of what you visit.
It's much better to use TOR and setup to tunnel through a bridge to get the information you want. Your country will not be able to monitor your information gathering, your browser will erase all logs on exit and wikipedia will not have an IP log of your visit. You will not be depending on the security of the end site (like wikipedia) to protect you.
Once you learn how to do it, go out and teach your friends and family how to live free. All the information you need is here: https://www.torproject.org/
Best luck to you, young minds of China. We love ya.
The government is bound and dominated by [state] funding ... which will go elsewhere if the state does not play ball.
Given we are examining your assertion that "[c]orporate and state are [sic] a distinction without a difference" I've taken the liberty of substituting 'state' where you wrote 'corporate'. The sentence, I think you must agree, no longer makes much sense. I put it to you that you cannot coherently write what you just wrote without differentiating between 'corporate' and 'state.'
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
They are simply one in the same and inseparable. It really makes no difference which department is in charge. Protection of their wealth from the ravaging hoards is the singular goal.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They are simply one in the same and inseparable.
Yet the very fact that you could write "[t]he government is bound and dominated by corporate funding," or even think/i> it, betrays that even you do not truly believe this quip. That's before we even come to look at concrete historical questions, such as to which particular corporations Stalin, for example, was beholden for "donations, media promotions etc."
It's a rhetorical flourish, not serious analysis. And while your point might hold some glimmer of truth when considering the undue influence trans-national corporations have on liberal-democratic polities, it's entirely beside the point when considering the distinction between left- and right-wing authoritarian dictatorships, which turns most obviously on the relationship of the state to private capital. Given that was the question being addressed your original interjection was simply impertinent (arguable in both senses of the word).
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I'm sorry, what? You expect me to believe that Stalin had the wealth and power to act on his own?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'll take that a concession as to the point under dispute.
Cheers.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Take it as you wish. You still can't differentiate the state from the corporation.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You still can't differentiate the state from the corporation.
My ability to distinguish them was never in question. What you have demonstrated is that you suffer no particular lack of discernment on that score either.
You've now had 5 more replies than your orignal jive deserved ... enough of your sillyness already.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
You still haven't shown any difference between 'left' and 'right'.
My ability to distinguish them was never in question.
Exactly, but it is based on a totally imaginary premise. The reality is that there is no difference. Authoritarianism is totally and utterly non partisan in whatever fashion you can dream up.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”