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Explore the Web From China
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:39 PM
from the walking-in-somebody-else's-shoes dept.
from the walking-in-somebody-else's-shoes dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Download.com:
"It slows down your browsing. It makes some Web sites inaccessible for no discernible reason. It doesn't even offer you any xiao long bao or pu'er tea for your troubles. But if you want to know what life behind the Great Firewall of China is like, then the Firefox plug-in China Channel is the cheapest and fastest way to experience using the Internet in China without actually being there."
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Submission: Explore the Web from China by Anonymous Coward
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Proxy or simulation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this plugin actually proxy your web browsing through a Chinese host? Or does it just randomly mess with your requests?
Kind of reminds me of apt-gentoo [livejournal.com].
Answer: Proxy (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I just found in TFA where it says that the plugin routes you through a Chinese proxy.
I can't imagine this open proxy will last long.
Parent
TFA is terrible (Score:5, Interesting)
A ghastly article that is shoddy on details. It barely mentioned it was a proxy (as I was also wondering if this was a simulation). The article describes that the toolbar will display your new IP, but the screenshots do not show it.
Also, in regards to the extension:
I do, however, respect the point of showing the rest of the world how the web "feels" inside of China.
On a related note, does anyone have a list of proxies organized by country? As a web developer, I would love to test various web sites that geo-code the IP and dynamically display different content.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Answer: Proxy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Answer: Proxy (Score:5, Insightful)
Are people really going to develop web applications for Chinese users and not host them in China? Do they think Chinese users surf a lot of English language content on budget shared hosts?
Not to trivialize the censorship issues involved, but if someone really wants to know what surfing the Internet is like for Chinese people, they should learn Chinese and read their complaints in person. There are plenty of sites that offer language lessons basically for free these days. My favorite is Popup Chinese [popupchinese.com] because their hosts speak standard mandarin and they have a great popup dictionary plugin.
Once you know the language you can get out into the actual Chinese Internet. Find out the difference between Baidu and Google. Have Tencent screw up your computer. Watch videos on youku and surf chat forums. It takes time to get to the point where this is comfortable for second language speakers, but Chinese is looking a lot more valuable than banking at this point.....
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to trivialize the censorship issues involved, but if someone really wants to know what surfing the Internet is like for Chinese people, they should learn Chinese and read their complaints in person. There are plenty of sites that offer language lessons basically for free these days. My favorite is Popup Chinese [popupchinese.com] because their hosts speak standard mandarin and they have a great popup dictionary plugin.
I'd really like to speak with one of these people who learned Chinese from a Web site. In Chinese.
If you want to learn Chinese, take a really good Chinese class. For a couple years at least. And while you're doing that, use sites like popup chinese as practice, auxiliary learning and reinforcement.
Although that site and other similar sites can be accessed for free, if you are on one of the paid plans a lot more features are enabled. The problem is that they're not cheap--like $20/month for the first tier.
Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Can it recreate the fear that making the wrong post on a blog will get you arrested?
Re:Fear (Score:5, Funny)
no, there is nothing to fear. i have been making posts thr
Parent
Re:Fear (Score:4, Funny)
There is nothing to see here, move along.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
No, but fear not, or fear more!
The US Gov or/and(if you are not in the US) your Gov is no doubt working hard on bringing you that very feature!
Re:Fear (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Forthcoming Update (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I don't know, since the guy from that iconic picture was not run over, and allegedly was never even found after he left the street, the joke just seems flat to me.
Re:Forthcoming Update (Score:4, Insightful)
never even found after he left the street
You're right, that is much more comforting. I'm sure he's fine.
Parent
Re:Forthcoming Update (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, telling the truth is more often than not "in poor taste" ... at least according to how I see the world. You might or might not agree, but most of the population is either afraid or ignorant of the truth. Sure, that puts this close to a tin foil hat argument, but as my grandfather used to say "there is no smoke without fire" and there is usually a fire burning behind a tin foil hat story.
Life really is not how the MSM portrays it. They will lie to you without thinking twice, and smile when they do it. If it was not for the Internet, most Americans would have no readily accessible access to 'real' news. I'm not saying the BBC or Al Jazeera are absolute poster children for good news sources, but they do a hell of a better job most days than network news in the USA.
So yes, that might have been in poor taste... so lets celebrate someone that wants to poke fun by hinting at the truth. Most Chinese citizens under the age of 25 do not know what they are looking at when presented with a photo or picture of 'tank man'... hence the real value of the humor.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are also plenty of fires behind the smoke. In fact, most of the smoke you are referring to exists largely to convince the 'reasonable' people like yourself that there are no fires.
What better way to hide conspiracies than to convince the logical people that all conspiracy theorists are crackpots. Never you mind that dozens of old conspiracy theories are admitted or uncovered every day. How many crazy whispered crackpot CIA conspiracies were confirmed recently by the director when he declassified docum
Hm (Score:5, Interesting)
We should make a system that loads every page you visit from 3~4 countries. Then have a notification if any differences are found, and what they are. It'd be interesting to see who's blocking what. Curious about Australia recently, I like hearing about the supposed good guys doing bad things. It makes the 'i hate commies' people uncomfortable, atleast enough to shut it.
Re:Hm (Score:4, Informative)
For the record, the Australian proposal is unlikely to go ahead, due to opposition in the senate [theage.com.au]. Yay for divided parliament.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As an Australian I was considering setting something like this up through a webhost in the USA. Basically have the given url side by side through an Aus proxy and also directly out through the US host to determine whether a site is being filtered. If and when this internet filter comes online but also to see if you are unwittingly part of a trial for it.
Any thoughts on issues with this? My main concern would be the fact that as any url can be entered you are potentially opening yourself up for trouble in th
Or, for Aussies... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or, for Aussies... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Or, for Aussies... (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding the Australian filter, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
The Green party and the Liberal party are both going to block the legislation in the Upper House. Their numbers combined are enough to stop the bill from passing.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/10/30/1224956188036.html [theage.com.au]
The Greens don't get much of their other policies talked about very much, besides the environment, but they have the most pro-Slashdot internet platform out of any political party. By that I mean they support open standards, net-neutrality and internet freedom (no censorship). They also want the government to embrace open source and all government documents to saved in an open document standard.
Parent
North Korea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:North Korea (Score:4, Funny)
You don't need a plugin for that. In fact, you don't need to plug anything in at all.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Similarly, I made a Soviet Russia plugin that simulates what it's like to be inside you!
Re:North Korea (Score:5, Funny)
Usually those things going inside of you are battery-powered, not plug-ins...
Parent
Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was using the internet in various cafes in Beijing, I didn't notice any blocks from sites I wanted to visit. I could update my livejournal, and ssh to my computer in America, so I'm not really sure what the great firewall really could accomplish. I mean, I could feasibly tunnel all of my connection through the ssh link, after all.
That said, while I was ssh-ed into my home computer, a Beijing police officer came in and started walking around looking at people's computers...
Re:Meh (Score:4, Informative)
I can't even tell if you're joking. I can't even tell if that's ironic or just depressing.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, no intimidation for the locals with an officer walking around. Could you imagine that at a public library or Starbucks in the US? Oh, wait, we do have to show ID before we can use the computer at our local library. But no police walking around.
No doubt you had full access due to your foreign ID/passport that I'm sure you were required to show before you were given access.
If you were in China during or up to the Olympics, you experienced a totally different internet than before and again now with things back to normal. Things were wide open at the internet cafes - but of course they still had all the IDs of whatever citizens were foolish enough to do something or try something they shouldn't. They needn't arrest them in the cafe, they'll just wait for them to go home and arrest them there.
Parent
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
I have never had to show my passport to use an internet cafe in P.R. China. It is pretty obvious that I am a foreigner. However, my friend has a special card that she uses to use an internet cafe.
I have posted on this in the past, but always get modded down for it. The Chinese students have positive feelings about the "real ID" used to access the internet. There a tremendous amount of cheating and scamming in Chinese daily life, much more so than in America, and they feel that the "real ID" decreases the possibility that they will be cheated.
This is particularly true in social chat rooms and on QQ (a popular chat program in China).
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
A friend of mine recently returned from northern China. She had her travel documents copied and the time of her visit noted repeatedly when visiting Internet cafes.
Re: (Score:2)
What would they be cheated from? How is the "real ID" going to decrease them from being cheated?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
As an example, some guys like to play as many girls as they can. I know you may doubt it, but it has been known to happen.
Knowing who they are really talking to makes them feel safer. I know that is something that Slashdoters may think is silly; but, not everyone online is who or what they say they are... really...
Dang, that was a trip (Score:2)
Keep one thng in mind... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you happen to be browsing from a computer that has an IP address corresponding to a range that has been banned in North America, as an example, you will find it hard to reach various sources that people in NA can reach without issue. Example: GoDaddy hosted sites.
This has nothing to do with anything related to 'The Great Firewall'...
Yes! (Score:2, Funny)
I for one look forward to being able to bypass my draconian Australian censorship by proxying into China!
Thank you, my benevolent Chinese overlords! BTW, what's the real story behind Tian
What type of proxy, run by whom? (Score:2)
Also, I wonder who runs this Chinese proxy? Is it the Chinese government's? Is there any reason to trust the proxy for any purpose except testing?
Only foreigners care (Score:4, Interesting)
Almost no one in China cares about the firewall. The only sites the Chinese want access to are already on their side - the majority of them can't read anything but Chinese anyway.
It's really only foreigners that care.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Excellent. Then the Chinese Government are victorious.
It's one thing to oppress the people. But it's always going to make a lot of people very unhappy and will widely be regarded as a bad move.
If you can oppress the people and they don't care, then you're a 5 star tyrant government!
sounds like a bad tour brochure (Score:5, Funny)
explore the web from china!
practice christianity in saudi arabia!
be an outspoken journalist in russia!
be a part of the world tour of persecution!
Comcast in China? (Score:5, Funny)
"It slows down your browsing. It makes some Web sites inaccessible for no discernible reason."
heh, I thought, Comcast was only in Americas.
Re:Comcast in China? (Score:5, Funny)
Heh, I thought Comcast was only in the Americas.
or
"Heh", I thought, "Comcast was only in the Americas."
or
Heh, I thought. Comcast was only in the Americas.
or if the separate sentences are consequential:
Heh, I thought; Comcast was only in the Americas.
or use a conjunction:
Heh, I thought and Comcast was only in the Americas.
What were you doing during 7th grade english class?
Parent
Depends... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I park a truck in the tube, so when I receive an internet is takes longer to come through, because there's not enough room for my internet and other internets.
Re:A bit off-topic, but... (Score:4, Informative)
tc qdisc add dev eth1 root hadle ee:0 tbf rate 56kbit burst 8Kb latency 100ms
Which basically means something like add a Token Bucket Filter queue discipline to the interface eth1 with the handle ee:0 (arbitrary if this is the only discipline) using those properties. There's other kinds of filters too. You can just run this on your Linux router/firewall (on the port from the router to your mac). You do have a Linux router and a Mac right? The best part is that since it's running on the router it's platform independent downstream. I think I saw a shareware bit on macupdate that does what you're asking directly on your mac (this might be it? [macupdate.com]) but if you already have a router in place the linux route is great and you can tweak it via ssh, switching add for change.
Cheers, Ed
Parent
Avid linux users? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)