There are some pretty uninformed answers here. I worked as a journalist in China and wrote a book about Wikipedia (blocked in the PRC at the time) from behind the Great Firewall. Here are some facts:
Sites outside China like Facebook and YouTube are blocked by the Great Firewall, but you're not "breaking the law" by circumventing this blocking. Why? Because the blocking itself is not done through the legal process of China. "Banned" sites are transparently and mysteriously blocked by the GFW through technical means, and for the central government, the less said about it the better. For that reason...
Foreigners are not being arrested or detained for circumventing the GFW. Most every working foreigner living in China knows of simple ways to circumvent the GFW, and they're used often and openly. In terms of China's citizens -- most tech savvy domestic folks and students know of easy ways around the GFW. All the government cares about is that there's no critical mass of users to these outside sites, and that China-based companies like Baidu, Sina, etc. dominate the dot-com landscape.
There are plenty of cheap VPN services you can buy on a month-to-month basis: Witopia, StrongVPN, AnchorFree to name a few. OpenVPN is more advanced and better performing, but the older PPTP supports more platforms, such as iPhone and iPad.
If you have an SSH account somewhere, use SSH tunneling for the cheapest way to SOCKS proxy. Google for "SSH Tunnel SOCKS Proxy Forwarding" and create a Firefox profile that is dedicated to SOCKS proxy through it.
As someone who's written a lot about the GFW, I always remind people -- the Great Firewall only affects connections going into and out of China. For domestic traffic there is no firewall or filtering at the router level. There is another system for censorship of content on servers inside China -- good old fashioned licensing to be a "content provider" and local regulation. If you're operating inside the sovereign borders of the PRC, then there are other conventional means of controlling content, like telling your ISP to shut you down or serving your company legal notice.
So it's a fallacy to talk about the Great Firewall as the most important part of the censorship system. The majority of folks in China are looking at entertainment content on servers inside China, and not trying to lookup the latest human rights abuses on foreign servers. Similarly, Americans are more interested in Britney Spears and the latest viral YouTube video than they are researching historical abuses of Native Americans.
I'm writing this from a coffee shop in Beijing using their free Wifi (which is quite common). With all these sensitive words in the post, hope it makes it through. (Though I'm kind of tempting fate by hitting the Preview button repeatedly)
No it got blocked halfway through loading the HTML page. Likely the filename was caught by the great firewall filter. But if you named it Pokemonactionfigure.jpg it would have made it fine.
November 9, 2006 saw the complete unblocking of Wikipedia in China,
resulting in a four-fold increase in new user registrations. Though it
is still subject to URL- and page-level keyword blocking, the vast
majority of the site is freely accessible.
Why was it unblocked? No one can know for sure. But in the end, I believe consensus among
the Chinese authorities found the benefits of Wikipedia far
outweigh the risks, and signals their understanding of a read-write Web.
China wants to read it, the world wants China to write to it.
With Wikipedia blocked, China
suffers because its ranks of knowledge workers cannot access the top
reference site in the world, and the world suffers from not having
China's expertise and input in Wikipedia. Sound familiar? This is
Wikipedia as the ultimate implementation of "read-write" culture, ala
Lawrence Lessig.
And in the end, if you think about it, doesn't it make complete sense
that the People's Republic of China would embrace the people's
encyclopedia of Wikipedia?
Yes, they authorities can keep adding banned proxies to their lists. However, even if you can use a proxy to get to Wikipedia, Wikipedia itself bans editing from open proxies. So that is one downside of vandal fighting vs. China user access.
Yes, this is important to note - zh.wikipedia.org is still blocked for a great many folks. And from people I've heard from, I'd say still the majority of folks.
You can, and in fact there are easier ways to get to it than using proxies. But you don't need perfect censorship to have effective censorship, and for most folks who click on that Wikipedia link and it doesn't work, they just forget about it.
Since I'm writing a book about Wikipedia and live in China, here's what I posted to my blog
The good news: The Wikipedia block in China is partially lifted
The bad news: The Chinese version is still not generally accessible, and the Western media reporting has been poor
Editor & Publisher magazine put out an article October 11 saying:
"The online interactive reference site Wikipedia announced Tuesday that the site had apparently been made accessible in China, after being blocked for just over a year by the country's government. "
Well not quite correct. Reports started coming in on October 10 from different parts of the PRC, saying that the English Wikipedia was now accessible. A friend using an open Wifi in Beijing emailed me saying he could suddenly start using Wikipedia again. Some folks in Hubei said it was still blocked. Shanghai and Guangdong users said parts were accessible.
From a Beijing China Netcom's residential DSL connection, the English language and other foreign language versions are now accessible, but the Chinese version is still blocked (zh.wikipedia.org).
There is no monolithically run Great Firewall of China, even though it is a cute and useful moniker.
The "GFW system" depends on a distributed system of checks and filters that depends on the particular ISP, the type of connection being used, and the geographic locale. A commercial connection in Hubei is different than a residential DSL in Guangdong is different than an academic network in Shantou. Something blocked in one area of the country may be totally fine in another. A keyword that is filtered in one place could be allowed in another.
So for folks in China's tech circles, it's pretty frustrating seeing blanket "China blocks" or "China unblocks" declaration without specifics or accurate reports.
Filtering also happens on different levels between the domestic network and the greater Internet, so even though Wikipedia is generally accessible in English, it's still subject to:
URL-level filtering - host header or keyword in URL rejected
Text-stream level filtering - offending keyword in Web page
More info as it arrives, and the "unblock" may still be making its way around the country. But let's not forget that for now the most important part of Wikipedia for PRC users - the Chinese version - is still not generally accessible.
Conferring the status of journalist on the typical blogger is equivalent to saying that 4 years of undergraduate study leading to a journalism degree from Harvard University is a waste of time.
It might interest you to know that Harvard does not grant a degree in journalism, either undergrad or graduate.
Way too pedestrian a field of study for Hahvahd.
So maybe conferring the status of journalist on the typical blogger IS equivalent...
Yes, everyone in HK has them, and most places in Asia - where public transit is the norm - are adopting similar RFID cash systems. Bangkok, Thailand; Shenzhen, China; Singapore.
They are finding quite novel uses for it. In Hong Kong, many apartment buildings use the Octopus card unique RFID as a "cookie" for residents to get access. In places around town, folks can also pick up "digital coupons" that become embedded in the card and used for discounts at the point of purchase.
Here in Hong Kong, we've had one of the earliest and most successful RFID "touch card" payment systems in Octopus Card, but here's why I'm wary of PayPass:
It's a credit card, which means the limit is theoretically your credit limit of thousands of dollars. (Yes, I know they say it's for transactions under US $25, but do I trust their software?) The Octopus system is anonymous and stored value. You can only lose as much cash is in the card, which is typically less than US $15.
It doesn't display much information about the transaction. Octopus displays how much has been deducted, and how much is left on the card. For PayPass: "When you present your PayPass card to the terminal, you will see a series of lights on the terminal. When all the lights have lit, you will know that your card has been properly read. If you want a receipt, simply ask the clerk to give you one--it is available, should you request it."
Exactly, we should tell Canon and Nikon to use real open standards for this stuff or take a hike. From dpreview, the king of dig camera info:
The only limitation at the moment appears to be that the P1 and P2 will only send to PictureProject and not to standard FTP servers or across the Internet.
In an Itchy and Scratchy episode, "Scratchtasia", Itchy is chopped up into little bits by Scratchy, only to be regenerated time and again. Eventually, the chopped up dust of the mouse infiltrates Scratchy's lungs, where he is chopped up from the inside out.
In case you're still not convinced the future is already entirely laid out by The Simpsons.
Yes, here in Hong Kong, the DSL is provided by the incumbent fixed line operator, PCCW. It is very stable and high quality, compared to the flaky and low performing cable modem system. (Yes I know, this comes as a shock to US folks).
If you subscribe to the 6 megabit/sec DSL service, it costs about US $25 a month, and they give you a TV decoder for free. You get about a half dozen TV channels for free (weather, traffic, basic Chinese news) and you can buy "a la carte" channels for about US $2 a month, like BBC, Discovery Channel. HBO, ESPN and others are more, about US $10 a month.
A major problem with TV over DSL is the lag time for channel changing. It's worse than DBS satellite delay because there is a whole request-response needed to "tune" another channel. But the picture quality is quite good with fewer artifacts than DBS.
Probably no authentication with this system. The Hong Kong FeliCa-based system requires no authentication. The safeguard is that only specified vendors that authenticate with a central settlement system can obtain the "cash."
Lots of the discussion here are addressing things already solved. Here in Hong Kong, the Octopus system is the largest deployment of contactless FeliCa cards in the world -- 10 million issued, 8 million transactions a day.
Contactless smart cards are DIFFERENT than Speedpass RFID systems. Speedpass is a cookie - it does nothing other than provide a unique key for some other database to look up information. FeliCa has stored value and can be read from/written to. So the Slashdot intro stating "speed pass-like capabilities," is inaccurate.
It is anonymous already. Vast majority of users use cash to top up, no personal info, not linked to bank accounts, nothing. Add value to the card at 7-11 stores (open 24 hours) or subway stations.
E-theft is not a problem. You cannot steal money by passing handheld readers over peoples' back pockets. Card readers are not readily available and there is an encryption system to them even if you could get your hands on a vanilla reader. Also, the key to Octopus/FeliCa is a nightly settlement system, of which you must be an approved vendor. This requires contacting the central system and authenticating. Can't be done by a plain Joe.
Been there, done that. We had FeliCa-in-cell-phone pilot last year, with a Nokia 3300 series phone with a FeliCa chip embedded. Cute, but no real practical application. People change cell phones here like shoes, so why tie your e-cash to a phone?
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who's written a lot about the GFW, I always remind people -- the Great Firewall only affects connections going into and out of China. For domestic traffic there is no firewall or filtering at the router level. There is another system for censorship of content on servers inside China -- good old fashioned licensing to be a "content provider" and local regulation. If you're operating inside the sovereign borders of the PRC, then there are other conventional means of controlling content, like telling your ISP to shut you down or serving your company legal notice.
So it's a fallacy to talk about the Great Firewall as the most important part of the censorship system. The majority of folks in China are looking at entertainment content on servers inside China, and not trying to lookup the latest human rights abuses on foreign servers. Similarly, Americans are more interested in Britney Spears and the latest viral YouTube video than they are researching historical abuses of Native Americans.
I'm writing this from a coffee shop in Beijing using their free Wifi (which is quite common). With all these sensitive words in the post, hope it makes it through. (Though I'm kind of tempting fate by hitting the Preview button repeatedly)
No it got blocked halfway through loading the HTML page. Likely the filename was caught by the great firewall filter. But if you named it Pokemonactionfigure.jpg it would have made it fine.
The short version:
It was based on charts and research I did from Beijing.
Cheers.
Yes, they authorities can keep adding banned proxies to their lists. However, even if you can use a proxy to get to Wikipedia, Wikipedia itself bans editing from open proxies. So that is one downside of vandal fighting vs. China user access.
Yes, this is important to note - zh.wikipedia.org is still blocked for a great many folks. And from people I've heard from, I'd say still the majority of folks.
You can, and in fact there are easier ways to get to it than using proxies. But you don't need perfect censorship to have effective censorship, and for most folks who click on that Wikipedia link and it doesn't work, they just forget about it.
The good news: The Wikipedia block in China is partially lifted
The bad news: The Chinese version is still not generally accessible, and the Western media reporting has been poor
Editor & Publisher magazine put out an article October 11 saying:
Well not quite correct. Reports started coming in on October 10 from different parts of the PRC, saying that the English Wikipedia was now accessible. A friend using an open Wifi in Beijing emailed me saying he could suddenly start using Wikipedia again. Some folks in Hubei said it was still blocked. Shanghai and Guangdong users said parts were accessible.From a Beijing China Netcom's residential DSL connection, the English language and other foreign language versions are now accessible, but the Chinese version is still blocked (zh.wikipedia.org).
There is no monolithically run Great Firewall of China, even though it is a cute and useful moniker.
The "GFW system" depends on a distributed system of checks and filters that depends on the particular ISP, the type of connection being used, and the geographic locale. A commercial connection in Hubei is different than a residential DSL in Guangdong is different than an academic network in Shantou. Something blocked in one area of the country may be totally fine in another. A keyword that is filtered in one place could be allowed in another.
So for folks in China's tech circles, it's pretty frustrating seeing blanket "China blocks" or "China unblocks" declaration without specifics or accurate reports.
Filtering also happens on different levels between the domestic network and the greater Internet, so even though Wikipedia is generally accessible in English, it's still subject to:
- URL-level filtering - host header or keyword in URL rejected
- Text-stream level filtering - offending keyword in Web page
More info as it arrives, and the "unblock" may still be making its way around the country. But let's not forget that for now the most important part of Wikipedia for PRC users - the Chinese version - is still not generally accessible.Way too pedestrian a field of study for Hahvahd.
So maybe conferring the status of journalist on the typical blogger IS equivalent...
Slashdot summary - "About 34 percent see their blogging as a form of journalism"
Er, get it right.
The article said "only 5% of bloggers have news as their primary topic."
News is a form of journalism, but not all journalism is news.
They are finding quite novel uses for it. In Hong Kong, many apartment buildings use the Octopus card unique RFID as a "cookie" for residents to get access. In places around town, folks can also pick up "digital coupons" that become embedded in the card and used for discounts at the point of purchase.
- It's a credit card, which means the limit is theoretically your credit limit of thousands of dollars. (Yes, I know they say it's for transactions under US $25, but do I trust their software?) The Octopus system is anonymous and stored value. You can only lose as much cash is in the card, which is typically less than US $15.
- It doesn't display much information about the transaction. Octopus displays how much has been deducted, and how much is left on the card. For PayPass: "When you present your PayPass card to the terminal, you will see a series of lights on the terminal. When all the lights have lit, you will know that your card has been properly read. If you want a receipt, simply ask the clerk to give you one--it is available, should you request it."
#include coolsig.hIn case you're still not convinced the future is already entirely laid out by The Simpsons.
Skype already has plans for SkypeIn, coming in 2005.
Yes, here in Hong Kong, the DSL is provided by the incumbent fixed line operator, PCCW. It is very stable and high quality, compared to the flaky and low performing cable modem system. (Yes I know, this comes as a shock to US folks). If you subscribe to the 6 megabit/sec DSL service, it costs about US $25 a month, and they give you a TV decoder for free. You get about a half dozen TV channels for free (weather, traffic, basic Chinese news) and you can buy "a la carte" channels for about US $2 a month, like BBC, Discovery Channel. HBO, ESPN and others are more, about US $10 a month. A major problem with TV over DSL is the lag time for channel changing. It's worse than DBS satellite delay because there is a whole request-response needed to "tune" another channel. But the picture quality is quite good with fewer artifacts than DBS.
Probably no authentication with this system. The Hong Kong FeliCa-based system requires no authentication. The safeguard is that only specified vendors that authenticate with a central settlement system can obtain the "cash."