P.S. They promised not to do this when they bid for the Olympics, so they're breaking their promise, too. But they have to with the way they're lying to their people about Tibet. They promised not to do *what* exactly? What evidence do you have that they are breaking that promise? Why do you believe that instead of disbelieving it?
Lying about what in Tibet? How do you know what they're lying about or aren't lying about? Do you somehow know the truth while the rest of us are wondering which report are true because we weren't there?
For many chinese trapped in china, leaving is not an option. Your bias is showing....you say this like Chinese people want to leave. In my experience, they don't; they love their country and their government.
ADSL in Shanghai? wrong 100% is DHCP You can get static routable IP addresses, if you select the correct plan. Although, perhaps you need to be a business to get static addresses for DSL - I know I had a static address with my MAN connections (one I used gave routable/static, one non-routable/static).
and you must PREpay just like the mobile, I don't prepay for my mobile. There's a deposit, but that's all. I *can* prepay if I like. I guess you could call a deposit prepaying...
the landline, the bus, the taxi, I've been to many places in China and I've never had to prepay for a taxi.
For buses, we have a card you swipe when you get on. Some buses are a fixed price no matter how far you go and so you don't need to swipe when you get off, but others vary the price and so you do need to swipe off. Nothing unusual there, I think.
the train..... Sorry, but 'a couple weeks' just aint enough to make judgment NOR is staying in Shanghai That's true enough.
This isn't too likely as many Chinese still do not own personal computers. Many obtain their access to the net via internet cafes. If you get your access at a cafe it kinds sucks because you are required to prove that you're 18 or older, which means you must present identification, which is recorded with the workstation you use and subsequently the IP address and time in which you used it. There are 'free' PCs all over the place....well, mostly coffee shops I guess...just walk up and sit down...don't have to identify yourself at all.
Internet 'cafes' are generally just for people shooting at eat other.
For home access in larger cities like Shanghai, adsl is the way to go, and you purchase time, and you get a static IP. Also traceable to you. Not always - you get dynamic and static IPs - public and routable - depending on the service you choose. All still completely trackable, but still.
Actually, I've never heard of anyone 'purchase' time - I've only seen 'always on' with bandwidth limited by the link speed (10Mpbs for MAN, but it varies for ADSL - mine is only 1Mbps/512Kbps, but I think you can get faster). Of course, other factors limit visible bandwidth too, and I expect the ISP engages in some shenanigans just like in the west.
I was in China for a couple of weeks immediately following the recent Tibet fracas (which is quite perplexing if you listen to all 3 sides of the discussion).
Based on my personal observation, The "Great Firewall" isn't so much a firewall (which in my eyes connotes address/port blocking) but it's more the corporate content filter. Too many keywords and your transmission gets squelched.
Example: The first day I tried to use myspace.com and I couldn't get a single word to load. The next day, Myspace would load, I could log in, but when I selected the option to update my personal Blog, I got half a page of unrendered HTML code. I didn't even bother after that. Have you considered that there was some network fault? They do happen. However, I can also attest to such issues - often the connection is just terminated prematurely (eg, wikipedia's tibet article), so I'd agree with your analysis of the filtering, but I wouldn't rule out networking issues too. I doubt they'd bother to change 'rules' back and forth like that; usually site would be blocked for at least weeks on end, and suddenly be available for a few weeks, and then unavailable again. I've not seen 'day-by-day' changes.
and the person responsible for sending in the troops at Tiananmen Square.) You say that like he pulled the trigger or something. I've not heard/read/seen anything conclusive to determine how the shooting started.
What I have seen and heard are BBC reports on the army laying down their weapons, protesters picking them up, and also seen BBC video of protesters burning soldiers alive. You don't tend to hear that side of the story so much in the western 'media'...
Of course, Private Eye does have a tendency to get successfully sued for libel, but they also tend to be accurate (often even *when* someone has successfully sued them for libel over the claims in question). Besides, this seems to mostly check out. So, it could well be rubbish then....quoting 'private eye'...what a joke. At least you recognised is as potential rubbish...
They've removed lot's of sites from the Great Firewall of China, for instance the English Wikipedia, after western politicians said that a change like that would reflect well upon China. They've let western journalists go to many places they can't normally go to Given that the average Chinese person cant read English, its really useful to unblock the English wikipeida, I mean seriously do you think this was anything other than a political stunt. Damned if you do; damned if you don't.
In any case, various *parts of* Wikipedia are still inaccessible, AFAICT
Today, many European countries (including mine, Sweden) have governmentally blessed internet blocklists that are far longer than the Chinese one. Really last time i checked the swedish blocklist was against racist sites, and wasnt nearly as big as the chinese one, but maybe im just more of a fan of facts than you. I use a VPN tunnel for internet access, routing only inaccessible sites through as needed. The list is *not* long. However, it's true that I don't encounter all the blocked ones. On the other hand, a lot of the sites I find inaccessible are not controversial at all - for example http://www.swimman.com/ and http://www.wiebetech.com/ were both blocked until recently - I'd guess due to something controversial on the same IP block/range. My list just got a lot shorter (well, I commented out a lot of stuff).
Defending it's people from ethnic cleansing [economist.com] by the Tibet people against the Han-Chinese population While preventing race riots is an admirable goal, looking at the deeper causes of this conflict is in order. Tibet has been flooded by Han in the last decade as part of a pacification project by the central government. That has understandably lead to widespread resentment there. We'll probably never know the true story because no journalists are allowed to report from that area, I wonder why? Try looking a little deeper (in history - as is often the case, the British and, later, the Americans that have a lot to answer for), and even at your own inbuilt bias. Like your unfounded (by you) statement saying that the movement of people is due to a government pacification project - care to provide some evidence for that? You just state it like it's obviously fact, with nothing to back it up at all. I can do that too...
Try to look at the situation as if Tibet is part of China instead of that it isn't. People moving from one area of a country to another is a perfectly normal occurrence, especially when there is wealth and prosperity (ie jobs) there. Furthermore, moving to Tibet has recently become a lot easier (due to the new rail link) and living conditions have been improved significantly - particularly for the poorer people (who were brutally taken advantage of in the cast system that was operating there under the dalai lama and his government).
For example, a lot of Tibetans move *from* Tibet to Beijing in order to find wealth. I see them everywhere.
There have been no Tibetan terrorists active in the west (taking terrorism to mean violent action against civilians), You're kidding, right? What about what happened in France? I would call that violent, for sure. It's only smart moves by officials that stopped the same from happening in other places, IMO.
Furthermore, I posit that the terrorists are *from* the west, but only act there when they need to. Most of the acts are carried out in and around Tibet.
Race riots are not terrorism Not necessarily inherently, but if they're planned to terrorise, then they certainly worked and *are* terrorism. Of course, *I* don't know how they started in Tibet, but I can believe that it was the western separatists instigating them.
they'd open up the province to reporters and allow them to report. Reporters go there all the time. It was only *during* the riots that they couldn't go there.
If you believe everything you just said I'm afraid you're a pawn in a game between governments. ...and so are you for believing the opposite.
While I somewhat agree, I do have a niggling feeling like this particular case is more like the issue of a trade mark being diluted, except that this it normally occurs naturally while in this case, it is occurring unnaturally.
It's like linking the phone directory (looking up 'Tesco' doesn't get you a reference to other supermarkets) with the yellow pages (where you look up 'supermarkets' and find a range of them, including Tesco). I don't think I find anything necessarily wrong with that, but I can certainly see why they don't like it.
I have, in the past, looked up one product in order to see what the competition is. I used the old Yahoo! to do this since it has companies categorised - now called 'Yahoo! Directory'. If I do the same now, searching for 'Tesco', I see the first result is in the 'United Kingdom > Shopping > Food and Drink > Grocers' category. When I follow that, it also lists Marks and Spencer, ASDA, Sainsbury's, etc, etc.
I guess that's a similar sort of thing, except they're not adverts.
Interesting arguments, and although I'd agree on principle, I'd posit that most people don't much care, *so long as they're not exploited gregariously in the ways you describe*. If they are exploited, then I could see some kind of rebellion and/or competition from companies that don't do/allow that sort of thing.
I would guess there may be some kind of technological solution to the tracking issue, though we'll have to wait and see (or not).
Also, I would guess that >3G networks are just around the corner (according to wikipedia's '4G' article).
I think this is a waste of time. IMO, it'll soon be that the majority of wireless internet access is done via the cell phone networks. Some will still want the 'fastest', but the cell phone networks will eventually be fast enough, especially for the roaming user who just wants to check their email.
All these wifi sharing projects are trying to solve a problem that's already been solved by cell phone towers. The only issue is lack of bandwidth which is due to technological issues (rather than ISP brain-deadedness) and that will change within a few years - certainly long before wifi sharing becomes prevalent.
Around here if I set myself up as an ISP (doesn't matter how small) the telco is required to sell me whatever kind of connection I want and I can do whatever I want with it. I wonder where 'here' is, and how much it costs to set up an ISP - I would imagine the cost is similar to setting up any other company and can be fairly cheap (IIRC).
Actually there is. Your ISP more than likely pays by the byte. By letting your neighbor use your connection, you are adding cost to your ISP and also possibly depriving them of the revenue that might come if your neighbor had no alternative but to pay for his/her own connection. Not necessarily. What if I normally have a server maxing out my connection, but I tell my neighbour that I will switch it off and let them use it for a while for their casual web surfing.
In that case, it is costing the ISP *less*.
It may well be reasonable to call it wrong, if you had previously agreed not to do it, but it isn't necessarily costing anyone anything...
Right and wrong would assume you have a choice, you don't have a choice. Do it, let them sue you, and have the courts figure it out. Right. Whole countries are founded on such anarchist principles. At some point, the only 'choice' left is to rebel.
To quote 'Anjin-san' (aka Blackthorne) :
Toranaga: There is no mitigating factor for rebellion against your liege lord.
Blackthorne: Unless you win.
Toranaga: Very well, you may have named the one mitigating factor.
So, your argument boils down to going back on a contract.
That's fine, but that's not what you said originally, and that is why people have objected to what you said.
Allowing a neighbour to use your internet connection does not automatically deprive the ISP of income, or cost them anything extra. There are example given where neither is true - where the neighbour wouldn't buy an internet connection (or it isn't possible) and you're not using it (on holiday perhaps).
...but, yes, if it's against the terms you agreed to, then I can't see anyone disagreeing that it's 'wrong'.
Of course, objecting to an 'unreasonable' contract is probably what people are talking about here...and wanting a provider that has 'reasonable' terms ('un/reasonable' is in the eye of the beholder).
If they have a maximum bandwidth limit, then they should say so, so that adjust usage appropriately, even if that is for a constant usage (p2p or whatever). If they tell me I can only download 60MB/hour, then I can set that as the limit (or slightly lower).
All we want to know are the real limits. Once they are published and adhered to, then we can use them appropriately, even to the point of allowing other people to use some of the bandwidth we aren't using - since we've paid for it, I don't see why they would object to us using it for whatever purpose we want.
That's if they're being honest and straight forward, of course, which they tend not to be.
I think it's possible for ISPs to say something like, "You can access the internet at XXXbps constantly; any extra you get is us being nice."
In other words, spelling out the effect of their 'over subsciption' policy.
If I knew I could always get a certain bandwidth, then I would be happy to not expect anything more. It's the fussiness of it all that makes me dis-satisfied - I have no real idea what I've paid for.
You give US examples and marginalise the more relavent UK example...but no, not like those...see my later comment. I am not referring to brands that have become part of the English language since when someone searches for them they aren't specifically searching for that single company's product.
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Lying about what in Tibet? How do you know what they're lying about or aren't lying about? Do you somehow know the truth while the rest of us are wondering which report are true because we weren't there?
Wow. A balanced opinion. I apologise for my previous remark.
What, napalm the USA? I think that would be called terrorism.
Of course, when the USA does it to anyone else, it's just war.
For buses, we have a card you swipe when you get on. Some buses are a fixed price no matter how far you go and so you don't need to swipe when you get off, but others vary the price and so you do need to swipe off. Nothing unusual there, I think. the train..... Sorry, but 'a couple weeks' just aint enough to make judgment NOR is staying in Shanghai That's true enough.
Internet 'cafes' are generally just for people shooting at eat other. For home access in larger cities like Shanghai, adsl is the way to go, and you purchase time, and you get a static IP. Also traceable to you. Not always - you get dynamic and static IPs - public and routable - depending on the service you choose. All still completely trackable, but still.
Actually, I've never heard of anyone 'purchase' time - I've only seen 'always on' with bandwidth limited by the link speed (10Mpbs for MAN, but it varies for ADSL - mine is only 1Mbps/512Kbps, but I think you can get faster). Of course, other factors limit visible bandwidth too, and I expect the ISP engages in some shenanigans just like in the west. I was in China for a couple of weeks immediately following the recent Tibet fracas (which is quite perplexing if you listen to all 3 sides of the discussion).
Based on my personal observation, The "Great Firewall" isn't so much a firewall (which in my eyes connotes address/port blocking) but it's more the corporate content filter. Too many keywords and your transmission gets squelched.
Example: The first day I tried to use myspace.com and I couldn't get a single word to load. The next day, Myspace would load, I could log in, but when I selected the option to update my personal Blog, I got half a page of unrendered HTML code. I didn't even bother after that. Have you considered that there was some network fault? They do happen. However, I can also attest to such issues - often the connection is just terminated prematurely (eg, wikipedia's tibet article), so I'd agree with your analysis of the filtering, but I wouldn't rule out networking issues too. I doubt they'd bother to change 'rules' back and forth like that; usually site would be blocked for at least weeks on end, and suddenly be available for a few weeks, and then unavailable again. I've not seen 'day-by-day' changes.
What I have seen and heard are BBC reports on the army laying down their weapons, protesters picking them up, and also seen BBC video of protesters burning soldiers alive. You don't tend to hear that side of the story so much in the western 'media'... Of course, Private Eye does have a tendency to get successfully sued for libel, but they also tend to be accurate (often even *when* someone has successfully sued them for libel over the claims in question). Besides, this seems to mostly check out. So, it could well be rubbish then....quoting 'private eye'...what a joke. At least you recognised is as potential rubbish...
In any case, various *parts of* Wikipedia are still inaccessible, AFAICT Today, many European countries (including mine, Sweden) have governmentally blessed internet blocklists that are far longer than the Chinese one. Really last time i checked the swedish blocklist was against racist sites, and wasnt nearly as big as the chinese one, but maybe im just more of a fan of facts than you. I use a VPN tunnel for internet access, routing only inaccessible sites through as needed. The list is *not* long. However, it's true that I don't encounter all the blocked ones. On the other hand, a lot of the sites I find inaccessible are not controversial at all - for example http://www.swimman.com/ and http://www.wiebetech.com/ were both blocked until recently - I'd guess due to something controversial on the same IP block/range. My list just got a lot shorter (well, I commented out a lot of stuff).
Wow. You really can't see your own bias, can you? Perhaps you can, but just don't care.
Try to look at the situation as if Tibet is part of China instead of that it isn't. People moving from one area of a country to another is a perfectly normal occurrence, especially when there is wealth and prosperity (ie jobs) there. Furthermore, moving to Tibet has recently become a lot easier (due to the new rail link) and living conditions have been improved significantly - particularly for the poorer people (who were brutally taken advantage of in the cast system that was operating there under the dalai lama and his government).
For example, a lot of Tibetans move *from* Tibet to Beijing in order to find wealth. I see them everywhere. There have been no Tibetan terrorists active in the west (taking terrorism to mean violent action against civilians), You're kidding, right? What about what happened in France? I would call that violent, for sure. It's only smart moves by officials that stopped the same from happening in other places, IMO.
Furthermore, I posit that the terrorists are *from* the west, but only act there when they need to. Most of the acts are carried out in and around Tibet. Race riots are not terrorism Not necessarily inherently, but if they're planned to terrorise, then they certainly worked and *are* terrorism. Of course, *I* don't know how they started in Tibet, but I can believe that it was the western separatists instigating them. they'd open up the province to reporters and allow them to report. Reporters go there all the time. It was only *during* the riots that they couldn't go there. If you believe everything you just said I'm afraid you're a pawn in a game between governments. ...and so are you for believing the opposite.
Just a tad bit of speculation there, don't you think?
I've been in China and have been using VPN of one form or other (Cisco/OpenVPN/hardware) ever since I've been here - and have had no such trouble.
Let me guess; you work for CNN. Right?
While I somewhat agree, I do have a niggling feeling like this particular case is more like the issue of a trade mark being diluted, except that this it normally occurs naturally while in this case, it is occurring unnaturally.
It's like linking the phone directory (looking up 'Tesco' doesn't get you a reference to other supermarkets) with the yellow pages (where you look up 'supermarkets' and find a range of them, including Tesco). I don't think I find anything necessarily wrong with that, but I can certainly see why they don't like it.
I have, in the past, looked up one product in order to see what the competition is. I used the old Yahoo! to do this since it has companies categorised - now called 'Yahoo! Directory'. If I do the same now, searching for 'Tesco', I see the first result is in the 'United Kingdom > Shopping > Food and Drink > Grocers' category. When I follow that, it also lists Marks and Spencer, ASDA, Sainsbury's, etc, etc.
I guess that's a similar sort of thing, except they're not adverts.
Hrm...
Interesting arguments, and although I'd agree on principle, I'd posit that most people don't much care, *so long as they're not exploited gregariously in the ways you describe*. If they are exploited, then I could see some kind of rebellion and/or competition from companies that don't do/allow that sort of thing.
I would guess there may be some kind of technological solution to the tracking issue, though we'll have to wait and see (or not).
Also, I would guess that >3G networks are just around the corner (according to wikipedia's '4G' article).
I think this is a waste of time. IMO, it'll soon be that the majority of wireless internet access is done via the cell phone networks. Some will still want the 'fastest', but the cell phone networks will eventually be fast enough, especially for the roaming user who just wants to check their email.
All these wifi sharing projects are trying to solve a problem that's already been solved by cell phone towers. The only issue is lack of bandwidth which is due to technological issues (rather than ISP brain-deadedness) and that will change within a few years - certainly long before wifi sharing becomes prevalent.
I think I read about some European ISPs that do this cooperatively too - I think BT is part of it.
Oh, here you go :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7027871.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1565310/QandampA-BT-wi-fi-sharing-scheme.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FON
In that case, it is costing the ISP *less*.
It may well be reasonable to call it wrong, if you had previously agreed not to do it, but it isn't necessarily costing anyone anything...
I would personally agree with the use of the word 'wrong', but not 'thief', since the ISP (nor anyone else) is necessarily deprived of anything.
Your use of that word, and your general tone, is just inflammatory and will likely get you marked as 'troll'.
To quote 'Anjin-san' (aka Blackthorne) :
Toranaga: There is no mitigating factor for rebellion against your liege lord.
Blackthorne: Unless you win.
Toranaga: Very well, you may have named the one mitigating factor.
So, your argument boils down to going back on a contract.
...but, yes, if it's against the terms you agreed to, then I can't see anyone disagreeing that it's 'wrong'.
That's fine, but that's not what you said originally, and that is why people have objected to what you said.
Allowing a neighbour to use your internet connection does not automatically deprive the ISP of income, or cost them anything extra. There are example given where neither is true - where the neighbour wouldn't buy an internet connection (or it isn't possible) and you're not using it (on holiday perhaps).
Of course, objecting to an 'unreasonable' contract is probably what people are talking about here...and wanting a provider that has 'reasonable' terms ('un/reasonable' is in the eye of the beholder).
Right. I wish they'd just tell it like it is.
If they have a maximum bandwidth limit, then they should say so, so that adjust usage appropriately, even if that is for a constant usage (p2p or whatever). If they tell me I can only download 60MB/hour, then I can set that as the limit (or slightly lower).
All we want to know are the real limits. Once they are published and adhered to, then we can use them appropriately, even to the point of allowing other people to use some of the bandwidth we aren't using - since we've paid for it, I don't see why they would object to us using it for whatever purpose we want.
That's if they're being honest and straight forward, of course, which they tend not to be.
I think it's possible for ISPs to say something like, "You can access the internet at XXXbps constantly; any extra you get is us being nice."
In other words, spelling out the effect of their 'over subsciption' policy.
If I knew I could always get a certain bandwidth, then I would be happy to not expect anything more. It's the fussiness of it all that makes me dis-satisfied - I have no real idea what I've paid for.
i think I agree with your argument.
You give US examples and marginalise the more relavent UK example...but no, not like those...see my later comment. I am not referring to brands that have become part of the English language since when someone searches for them they aren't specifically searching for that single company's product.
i'm not sure what you mean by 'generic trademark'.
I'm not talking about words like 'hoover' and 'cellotape' which have become part of the English language to mean the generic product.
I guess I'm talking more about 'iPod' which is just one mp3 player, but is so popula/common that it is the first one you think of.