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China Blocks More Internet Services
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Aug 27, 2008 02:53 PM
from the how-totally-amazing dept.
from the how-totally-amazing dept.
Dave writes "China continues to block more and more popular services. This week they blocked iTunes and YouTube, and now it's TringMe, a popular VoIP 2.0 service. From TringMe's Blog: 'We received close to hundred complaints from our China users that TringMe services is not accessible from yesterday. We have found after our investigation that TringMe is blocked by Chinese government. Earlier China blocked Skype and now they are turning their eye to TringMe. TringMe is extremely popular in China and we have a large number of paying customers in China including a Chinese social network with 3 million users using TringMe's API & services.'"
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404 File Not Found (Score:2, Funny)
Block China? (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Block China? (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely why we shouldn't.
Cultural imperialism is our most effective weapon, and for it to work we need all channels as open as possible.
Let a country completely wall itself off and you end up with North Korea, where the general population's world view in no way resembles the actual physical reality.
Parent
World View (Score:4, Insightful)
Let a country completely wall itself off and you end up with North Korea, where the general population's world view in no way resembles the actual physical reality.
And this is different from religious America how?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Good point. Of course, I wasn't implying America is as bad as North Korea.
My point was that "world views that in no way resemble the actual physical reality" are not only found in countries like North Korea. In America, and increasingly in Europe too, we see things like anti-terrorism measures that violate people's privacy without actually providing any security. And that's just one stupid example off the top of my head. Just because things aren't as bad as in North Korea doesn't mean there's nothing wr
Re: (Score:2)
Opposing views exist in the United States, and censorship is limited to indirect, ineffective measures. I can walk around and ask people their opinions about Bush, and I'll get several different answers, many of which won't be very flattering (to put it lightly). I don't think very many people would tell me that the birds would mourn when his father died. Back when he was popular, one or two people might have said that he was "given directions by God", but it
Re:Block China? (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the western world should block China from the internet.
Here's a better plan: on all pages with scientific and technical information-- which is to say, the stuff that the Chinese leaders want their people to be able to access-- embed somewhere in the page some of the keywords that trigger the firewall filters-- stuff like "free Tibet" and "Say Yes to Falun Gong" and the names of the Tiananmen Square [wikipedia.org] June 4th protesters (in Chinese).
Make their own firewall block the internet.
Parent
Not really blocked (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not really blocked (Score:4, Insightful)
We already know chinas blocks are easy to get around, its about control more than anything. if something is 'blocked' people don't talk about it.
Parent
Wait, what? (Score:1, Insightful)
> If you can still use it this way, it's not really blocked.
Isn't that like saying that if you can pick the lock, the door wasn't really locked?
I mean, where exactly do you expect them to find out which IP they're supposed to put into their hosts file?
Aaah, Good Ol' China (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The best time to enact unpopular laws is when national pride is at an all-time high.
Re: (Score:3)
What really pissed me off is that newspeople didn't scream about how dumb it was to give them the olympics at all.
China's not the only one (Score:4, Interesting)
The UK is doing its best to censor the internet any way they can. Londonâ(TM)s St. Pancras International has been censoring [infowars.com] alternative news websites through their wi-fi for at least a month. While I see plenty of news articles about Chinese censorship, I didn't see the UK censorship anywhere else.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:China's not the only one (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a very big difference between blocking certain sites on a single public wi-fi service and blocking all internet access to a site or service from within an entire country.
And just for the record that site you linked to is complete bullshit. It doesn't even verify that the sites were blocked intentionally, didn't ask them for comment to explain or investigate, and doesn't even provide confirmation of who is responsible for running the St. Pancras International wifi network. It's entirely possible its privately managed and the government doesn't even determine what gets blocked and what doesn't.
But who cares about facts when you've got conspiracy theories and vitriol?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Virgin media seem to have their own little firewall targeting a selection of sites. I came across the configuration page that allow users to block the following websites:
Encyclopedia Brittanica
freeloader.com
LEGO
tweenies.com
expresso education
sonicselector
musicchoice
newsplayer.com
napster
vidzone
metaboli
photobox
Premium Games from Virgin Media
I never understood why anyone would want to block Encyclopedia Brittanica or LEGO?
iTunes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
iTunes doesn't contact DRM servers every time you play a file. It contacts them once, when you purchase and download a file. If you move the file to a new computer which has never seen your iTunes account before, then you have to contact the servers again to authorize that computer on your iTunes account.
So you'd be prevented from moving the files to a new computer, but you wouldn't be prevented from playing them back on the equipment that you had already authorized.
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Re: (Score:2)
Mods on crack, I suppose. Anyhow I appreciate your reply. Such common politeness is all too rare on this site.
Let me be the first to ask... (Score:3, Insightful)
...what the hell is VoIP 2.0?
Now with all-new Buzzword Compliance Module?
Re: (Score:2)
Keep voices from getting out? (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you ever think that the reason they do this is so when shat starts hitting the fan in China, no one will be able to cry out because they will have no communication with the outside world?
I dunno...Just a thought.
Re: (Score:2)
The fan has been coated with several layers of excrement in China for a long time now. And for the most part, no one has really noticed. They don't need to shut anything down for that, because the only people who have access to the internet are the ones who aren't dealing with the famines and abject poverty.
This is purely about control and the fact that the Chinese government shuts down anything they don't feel they can control.
2008 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
who controls the past controls the future
who controls the present controls the past
and who controls the internet controls past,future and present.
o tempora o mores...
Who is on first rickrolls What is on second. Oh Tempura s'mores...
Nothing but spam (Score:4, Insightful)
notice the related stories...
Firehose:China Blocks More Internet Services by tringme (1352127)
looking at tringme's profile, he joined....TODAY! What a coincidence. Who cares if it's banned in China, he just wants to spam his service to slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
Who cares if it's banned in China, he just wants to spam his service to slashdot.
And probably not even true. Internet censorship in China is usually done via fake RST packets [quantenblog.net], not via DNS manipulations.
Isolation (Score:2)
And I remember thinking that the U.S. was going to isolate itself from the world economically. The U.S. has been focusing on "removing a dependence on foreign oil" and finally starting to force importers to accept our exports (mainly thanks to a weaker dollar I'm told). International economic inter-dependency is part of what keeps countries from going to war, as long as there is balance.
But to read this article, China will be secluding itself more and more in the name of censorship. Thankfully, the only
Re: (Score:2)
Solution... an "accidental" release of large amounts of ammonia or chlorine from a factory?
Please block MMORPGs (Score:1, Funny)
The Solution: Phweet? (Score:2)
Flash-based VoIP... this is the service that was used to get around the VoIP restrictions on the airplane Wi-Fi on American Airlines. If China ends up blocking all Flash traffic, there's going to be maaaaaaaaaany pissed off office workers...
http://phweet.com/ [phweet.com]
youtube and iTunes available in Shanghai & Bei (Score:2)
I can confirm that both youtube and iTunes are both accessible in China (Shanghai and Beijing) as of the time of this message.
Yes, we do. (Score:3, Insightful)
Should we not consider anything that is 'business as usual' to be news? If that's the case, why not just drop any news coverage of the telco immunity deals, domestic spying, or abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo and similar fac
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you *could* set up a proxy server that filters out Slashdot stories that you don't like, and run your web access through that!
The news the next morning... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is China. Do you think they don't have contingency plans for things like that? More importantly... how are they going to coordinate to do this without attracting enough notice to shut it down before it begins?
Re: (Score:1)
They would just send in their troopers and the people would be forced back to work at gunpoint.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
China has a long record of purging intellectuals and counter revolutionaries.
They've reduced that tendency though eugenics.
The idea that the Chinese are going to stand up in droves just because horrific injustices are heaped upon them is laughable.
The US is starting to train it's people to the same sheepish standards.
Grass roots resistance is dead but the media war can be won.
Read some McLuhan if you want some effective weapons against this.
http://cultofjim.com/scripture/understanding_media/ [cultofjim.com]
Re:So how much longer... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Chinese government now is arguably less oppressive than it was under Mao, and the Chinese people are experiencing greater economic growth than they have for decades. Why on Earth would they want to start a revolution now? Compared to the way it was, China is a utopia these days.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Not saying they would, but the easy answer is the exact same statement. The people there have learned that there is something better, and they can learn to desire it. Why would they willingly allow themselves to be forced back un
Re: (Score:1)
Not saying they would, but the easy answer is the exact same statement. The people there have learned that there is something better, and they can learn to desire it. Why would they willingly allow themselves to be forced back under a more oppressive regime if they could help it?
Helping it tends to involve a significant chance of dying. If they die in the current government, they miss out on a lot more than if they died under the older government. People won't revolt unless the current government is unlivable. The Chinese may not have many rights, but they can pretty consistently get food on the table, and in the end, that's all that really matters.
Besides that, anyone that's familiar with history would know that revolts just produce different governments. They might be better, bu
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's been tried before. The Tiananmen thing wasn't just limited to a pedestrian square in Beijing.
Re: (Score:2)
tbh we all saw this coming when they loosened the restrictions for the Olympics.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've been living in a rented apartment in Beijing, using a cable "broadband" internet service for about 6 months now. Skype has never been blocked during this period, that I have noticed. I have Chinese people from various parts of the country on my "buddy list" (or whatever it's called) in Skype, and they are regularly online.
So if Skype is blocked now, I certainly can't see any signs of it, and if it has been blocked in the past, I have not noticed it.
iTunes Store was unblocked (at least where I am) sever