China's VPN Developers Face Crackdown (bbc.com)

China recently launched a crackdown on the use of software which allows users to get around its heavy internet censorship. Now as the BBC reports, developers are facing growing pressure. From the report: The three plain-clothes policemen tracked him down using a web address. They came to his house and demanded to see his computer. They told him to take down the app he was selling on Apple's App Store, and filmed it as it was happening. His crime was to develop and sell a piece of software that allows people to get round the tough restrictions that limit access to the internet in China. A virtual private network (VPN) uses servers abroad to provide a secure link to the internet. It's essential in China if you want to access parts of the outside world like Facebook, Gmail or YouTube, all of which are blocked on the mainland. "They insisted they needed to see my computer," the software developer, who didn't want us to use his name, told us during a phone interview. "I said this is my private stuff. How can you search as you please?" No warrant was produced and when he asked them what law he had violated they didn't say. Initially he refused to co-operate but, fearing detention, he relented. Then they told him what they wanted: "If you take the app off the shelf from Apple's App Store then this will be all over." 'Sorry, I can't help you with that'. Up until a few months ago his was a legal business. Then the government changed the regulations. VPN sellers need a licence now.

Comments

Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[SuperKendall]

I said this is my private stuff. How can you search as you please?

Um, because you are in China???

I find it amusing that people in the other parts of the world think that protections afforded citizens of other countries seem to apply to them automatically also.

China is just a thinly veiled police state so they can search what they like, when they like. That's just the reality of being in China.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[admin7087]

This is possibly the most ignorant and narrow-minded comment I've ever read on Slashdot.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone in China has far more rights than someone in the US. They have a fairer justice system, human rights guarentees, and no private prisons.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

West has been sliding that way for a while. At this point, SCOTUS has ruled that 2/3 of the population lives close enough to the border that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to us. It's all one worldwide police state shitshow.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, many in the US are now using or considering using VPNs to avoid their own thinly veiled police state. And the cynical will wonder whether those VPN providers have been compromised by their overseers, or by friends of their overseers. Even Tor isn't safe from being compromised by the State.

Scoff away at those poor naive Chinese citizens.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[sit1963nz]

Yeah, its not like the USA will ever demand you unlock your phone at the boarder, demand you hand over what your social web site log/pass are, finger print you, etc.

I guess its also lucky they asked questions first and did not just start shooting.

Or perhaps they could throw you into a for profit prison and forced you to work, but its OK because they are prisoners not slaves.

Maybe China needs to elect a sexual predator to their highest office

From an outsiders perspective where we are not inundated and indoctrinated about how "great" the USA is, it actually looks just as sick as China, but just for different reasons.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an American of European ancestry who used to live in China. Trust me, the comment is accurate: "China is just a thinly veiled police state so they can search what they like, when they like. That's just the reality of being in China."

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[hyades1]

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the most unintentionally ironic comment I've read here in weeks.

Since the "Patriot Act", main difference between China's thinly-veiled police state and America's thinly-veiled police state is geography.

Re: Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the parent was in agreement with the belief that China is not as free as other countries; it is the sense of amusement the GP felt that is abominable. We are all humans in the same boat, Earth.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reference: https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[jediborg]

Fundamental human rights are fundamental to all humans, just because some Governments don't respect citizens rights doesn't mean those citizens don't have rights, it just means their government is morally bankrupt. Read the declaration of Independence as written by Thomas Jefferson, it wasn't just a declaration of human rights for Americans, it was a declaration for all mankind.

When governments become corrupt abusers, it is not just the right, nay the DUTY of the abused to rise up, overthrow the government, and institute a new form of government that will respect the rights of the people and derive their power from the consent of the governed.

The Chinese government opened up the genie bottle when they let their citizens own property and earn wages from selling labor. Now that the citizens have had a taste of freedom they will inevitably demand more. It might take time and a few setbacks, but eventually there will be revolution. Its just the natural course of human events...

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being asked to unlock your phone at the border [sic] is a bit different than agents entering your _private_ home for a warrantless search. Now, getting a warrant isn't particularly hard and doesn't seem to require much in the way of probably cause. So, yes, it's not great but it is better than China. There is a small chance the warrant could actually be turned down.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

America isn't really a "police" state as it is a "corporatist" state. In China (as in Russia) there is overlap between the people with the money and the people with the guns, but when push comes to shove the people with the guns always win. In the US, the people with the money essentially control the people with the guns (through the facade of the "rule of law"). Insofar as VPNs remain useful to the people with money, VPNs will remain available in the US. In China the people with the guns don't care about privacy so much because even when you do know what they're up to, there's nothing you can do about it, so they're prepared to close off that route to privacy.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[ShanghaiBill]

This is possibly the most ignorant and narrow-minded comment I've ever read on Slashdot.

How so? I lived in China for several years, travel to China regularly on business, and am currently working in Shanghai. You do not have much protection against search and seizure here. The police have much more power to collect evidence and compel compliance.

But that doesn't mean more oppression. A Chinese citizen is much less likely to actually be arrested and incarcerated. Americans are more than four times as likely to be locked up.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[ShanghaiBill]

Someone in China has far more rights than someone in the US.

It would be more accurate to say they have different rights.

They have a fairer justice system

They have a different justice system, with a different objective. American courts emphasize (at least in theory) individual rights. Chinese courts emphasize public order. China is mostly successful at that, and is a very safe country. Meanwhile, in America, the plea bargain system has eroded our right to a trial, trials are anything but "speedy", and the rich are far more likely to be acquitted.

To see what is wrong with American justice, look at the trial of O.J. Simpson.

To see what is wrong with Chinese justice, look at the trial of Bo Xilai.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[sit1963nz]

Yeah in the USA, they simply use illegal NSA tools to spy on their citizens and hack into their phones.

And warrants are now just a rubber stamp away from approval in the USA anyway.

And if you are really pushed, just get the police to go in there, pretend they saw a gun and shoot the person, in their _private_home.

Or you can just plant drugs and imprison them that way. You just need to get the police to turn off their body cams first.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is immense in that China and the US have different laws.

Sure, in the US if you murder a police officer or a politician you will be detained for a long time either in a prison or a mental hospital (rarely, though, will you be executed) and that's probably true in China as well (except perhaps for the "rarely executed" part). And, yes, both countries enforce this via a "police state" (a state without police will almost certainly devolve into mob rule - and then the "police" are whatever the "mob" decides that day -- and you are back to a police state so a "police state" is inevitable and no modern first world country I know of lacks a police force at one or more levels).

However, in the US the laws are different than in China so several rights treasured in the US can result in long imprisonment in China. For example, anyone in the US can criticize the government freely and will suffer no government sanctions (imprisonment or otherwise) because of our First Amendment but in China you can end up in prison for extended periods for criticizing the government. Similarly, law enforcement in the US can't search your home without a warrant in most cases because of our Fourth Amendment but in China such protections don't apply.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[sheramil]

I find it amusing that people in the other parts of the world think that protections afforded citizens of other countries seem to apply to them automatically also.

you might be surprised, or disdainful, at the number of people outside the US who try to claim their "Fifth Amendment Rights" or who expect the police to read them Miranda when they're being arrested. It's what happens when people confuse TV and films with real life.

Re: Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but in the US, prisoners are generally guilty of something, like smoking weed while in possession of a brown skin.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[hyades1]

The US has a larger percentage of its population behind bars than China. And even China doesn't have an equivalent to Guantanamo Bay.

So please spare me the outrage.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[jandersen]

China is just a thinly veiled police state so they can search what they like, when they like. That's just the reality of being in China.

Cut down on the obvious propaganda, please, and try to learn a little bit more about the reality in China. As many have argued over and over here on slashdot, you can justify saying the same about the US, where apparently illegal searches and wiretaps go on all the time. In the US, UK and other, similar nations you sometimes hear news that "The department for [whatever] have issued industry guidelines ..." - but when the same thing happens in China, it is "The State Cracks Down On ...". I am all for criticising when governments do the wrong things, but if we blind ourselves with dishonest reporting, then we are nothing more than idiots.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[messymerry]

You could be talking about the U.S. here...

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

You assume the people in prison in the US is something to be outraged about, likening it to people jailed in China for speaking up.

While a good chunk may be drug users here, that is not the same as tracking down and imprisoning someone who challenges your iron fist on power. What a clown.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Just planting seeds for the philosophical fails behind Vox Populi Vox Dei states.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[SuperKendall]

I find it amusing that I just said "in other parts of the world" and people like you assumed the U.S.

But even though the U.S. does have it's own overbearing government issues now, it is NOTHING like what Chinese citizens have to go through...

After all In the U.S. you may want to use a VPN for extra security. But in China you don't even have the option to run a VPN, nor sell one... meanwhile in the U.S. we can legally grow and see pot in some sates.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[Ryanrule]

lol fair.

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[ArmoredDragon]

Meanwhile, in America, ... trials are anything but "speedy"

This is usually (not always) caused by people waiving their right to a speedy trial, which is typically a good idea because it allows your legal team more time to gather evidence and build your defense. The flipside of this is that you either spend more time waiting in jail, or you offer collateral which will be returned to you if you show up to your trial. Or if the judge thinks you're not at all a flight risk, then you won't have to do either, which happens more often than you probably think it does.

(In the old old days of European common law justice, jail was only to make sure you stuck around for the trial, and nobody was ever held there long-term. But the sentence was always one of corporal punishment or capital punishment, the later of which could be handed down even for simple crimes like petty theft.)

Re:Where do you think you are, the U.S.?

[ArmoredDragon]

America isn't really a "police" state as it is a "corporatist" state. In China (as in Russia) there is overlap between the people with the money and the people with the guns, but when push comes to shove the people with the guns always win.

No, this isn't true. The golden rule applies universally, and you know which golden rule I'm referring to.

VPN sellers need a licence[sic] now.

[fustakrakich]

What they need is to go underground and work anonymously, and store their work on servers outside the country. I hope others are helping them circumvent these rules.

Re:VPN sellers need a licence[sic] now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tor is helping them. You can help Tor by running a Tor relay, volunteering your time, or making a donation.

Re:VPN sellers need a licence[sic] now.

[Anonymous Coward]

this is pointless. if this becomes widespread, what'll happen is they'll criminalise Tor.

a lot of the "internet freedom" stuff I keep running into is hopelessly naive. unless you live in a place where jackbooted thugs cannot kick down your door and drag you off to a private prison, then no amount of "internet freedom/privacy/anonymity" is sufficient.

there are no alternatives to fighting for a fair and just government.

Re:VPN sellers need a licence[sic] now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what tools are one to use when organizing their fight for a fair and just government? Maybe a VPN, Tor, encrypted mail or messaging apps? But these are illegal and jackbooted thugs can kick down our doors. So should we not use those tools? Should we not support those tools?

Re:VPN sellers need a licence[sic] now.

[ShanghaiBill]

what'll happen is they'll criminalise Tor.

More likely they will set up plenty of state run honeypot exit nodes.

In America, it is well known that the NSA is already doing this.

Re:VPN sellers need a licence[sic] now.

[eneville]

... but that was the whole point of tor in the first place

There's more to it than that

[cheesybagel]

The Chinese government's censors and snitches have been a lot more active than usual. It started when the current President Xi Jinping rose to power and started his crackdown on Party "corruption". Later with the rising tensions in North Korea they've clamped down on all dissent and this includes tightening the screws on the Great Chinese Firewall.

Re:There's more to it than that

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a sovereign country, they can do this. It wouldn't fly in the USA, but it ain't the USA, it's China. Personally I don't understand what the problem is. If the People get upset enough, they'll revolt just like we did back in the 18th century.

Re:There's more to it than that

[cheesybagel]

When it happens in these regimes it is quite usually a sign of Bad Things To Come like a major purge or something. Remember this is the country which had the Cultural Revolution. So far the purges have been limited to major party officials. But it makes you think why are they so focused on tightening the screws like that. It's like they expect a major conflict or something. Stalin's purges in the Soviet Union preceded WWII and the Cultural Revolution in China preceded the Sino-Vietnamese War.

Re:There's more to it than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Revolts are impossible. The closest to a revolution we have in recent times is Syria, which did nothing but ensure the people in power stayed in power, and most of the population now calls a European or American nation home. These days, between measuring people's opinions on social media, and sacking them if they cross a threshold to just tossing a can of Sarin gas at a place where revolutionaries gather, revolution is a thing of the past.

Re:There's more to it than that

[ShanghaiBill]

Remember this is the country which had the Cultural Revolution.

There are many parallels between what happened in 1966 and today. Mao had built up a personality cult, and Xi is doing the same. That is very dangerous, and something Deng Xiaoping warned against. But Xi has already purged his opponents, so there is no one left to object. The big test will come in 2022, when his term ends. Will it be extended for "the good of the country"?

the Cultural Revolution in China preceded the Sino-Vietnamese War.

The Cultural Revolution started in 1966. The Sino-Vietnamese War started in 1979. That is a big gap. By 1979 China was run by the people that had opposed the Cultural Revolution.

Re:There's more to it than that

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Perhaps you missed the point of books like 1984, son.

Probably just the usual cycle

[Spy Handler]

Every 5 years the Chinese Communist Party has a big meeting and various leadership positions get shuffled around. It just so happens that another one of these is about to happen in a few months.

  Xi Jinping came into power in 2012 and it's widely believed that he will renew his position. Regardless, Chinese government always cracks down on various channels of dissent just before these meetings, or some other big event (such as Beijing Olympics). It usually blows over afterwards and things go back to normal.

Defeat DPI with OpenVPN

[imcdona]

VyperVPN hacked OpenVPN to get around the DPI (deep packet inspection) employed on the Great Firewall. They scramble the meta data in packets so as not to look like OVPN packets. https://www.goldenfrog.com/vyp...

Re:Defeat DPI with OpenVPN

[Anonymous Coward]

VPN packets send metadata in the clear on each packet? Rather than, like, negotiating a private session key and then from that point onwards, using that key for EVERYTHING, so the rest of the session is indistinguishable from random data going up and down?

Well that's stupid.

What did they think was going to happen in places like China?

Are there any VPN's that aren't braindead with metadata, and do actually use the negotiated key for everything?

Re: Defeat DPI with OpenVPN

[imcdona]

I doubt they're obfuscating plain text meta-data. What they mean by "meta-data" is anyone's guess considering it's proprietary.

Re:Defeat DPI with OpenVPN

[Qzukk]

using that key for EVERYTHING

You can't use that key for EVERYTHING, all of the routers between your computer and whatever VPN company you're using needs to be able to read the VPN company's IP address on the packet in order for them to forward the packet in the correct direction.

If you make VPNs to bypass government censors

[Solandri]

Wouldn't it have been prudent to do your development work on a server outside the country? And use a VPN (with a password committed only to memory) to connect to the server, and do your coding work via remote desktop, rather than do the development locally? I mean it's not like the binary needs to be compiled inside the country where it's going to be used.

Re:If you make VPNs to bypass government censors

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be legal to develop, sell and distribute VPNs in China until last week. This guy didn't expect them to show up on his doorstep suddenly, he had been operating his business for years.

Re:If you make VPNs to bypass government censors

[Anonymous Coward]

And you'd still need to take if off the Chinese App Store. This isn't just for Chinese citizens developing apps in China. Everyone has to comply.

Re: If you make VPNs to bypass government censors

[bestweasel]

And then you'd get an extra kicking for being a foreign agent.

What's a VPN seller?

[Cajun Hell]

What is a "VPN seller?" I think of them as service providers, but this article makes it sound like a software provider.

Anyway, I'd think people would just run an VPN client on a computer where you're allowed to do whatever you want, and then just have that computer be a wifi access point for the iPhone. Why wouldn't that work?

See also

[queazocotal]

US governments treatment of online gambling software.
https://slashdot.org/story/06/09/07/2017201/us-arrests-online-gambling-company-chairman for example.

And they wonder why they can't...

[wisebabo]

get any (foreign experts) to run their gigantic brand new telescope

https://science.slashdot.org/s...

I mean, you'd really have to pay me a significant premium (not saying you couldn't) to do my job (bioinformatics/genetic engineering) in a country where there is not even a pretense of privacy/access to uncensored news. Of course, (almost) everyone has a price for (almost) every job so I guess they can just keep raising the salary until someone bites, they've got the money. (I realize that there are very few people in the world who fit their qualifications but there are some and I'm sure some of them might be tempted).

The U.S. has tremendously benefited from China developing this way. If it wasn't so draconian on its suppression of (human) rights in the preservation of order (and the enrichment of party members), a lot more ethnic Chinese might be tempted to go. I personally know some Chinese-Americans who are quite prominent in their scientific field (no I didn't go to M.I.T. "Made In Taiwan" but close by!) who have no interest at all in working in Mainland China despite being actively recruited by the government there (basically every time they go to a conference there, someone will approach them). When you look at the number of scientists of (probably) Chinese descent contributing to American and European science (just look at the surnames of the authors of articles on "sciencedaily.com") you'll realize how much of our scientific dominance is due to their work.

Of course Trump may flip this around

Re:And they wonder why they can't...

[Anonymous Coward]

>When you look at the number of scientists of (probably) Chinese descent contributing to American and European science...

Decent? OK. lots of people have 'foreign' names compared to their now-home country. But they were born & bred there.
But 1st gen expats? Who just happen to be generously offering their expertise in such volumes that the list of credit names is all foreign languages? No.

Even if Chinese named folks are qualified & busily supportive, there are just too many locals (American & European) in said country- And the same goes for the opposite. European names would hardly blot out local Asian contributors.

better than US

[n329619]

for sad reason. At least they asked him to "take the app off the shelf from Apple's App Store then this will be all over" instead of shooting him or arresting/dragging him out on the spot.