Behind China's Great Firewall 148
DigitalDame2 writes "In light of the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, more scrutiny is being placed on China's Web-filtering practices. In May, China's technology minister, Wan Gang, told Reuters China he would 'guarantee as much [access] as possible,' defending Web limitations as necessary to protect the country's citizens. Truly understanding this cat-and-mouse game means taking a close look at what exactly the government filters out, how the Great Firewall works, and how others have found ways around it."
Deal w/ it every day (Score:3, Interesting)
The truth is the Chinese govt. faces a very real terrorism threat w/ the upcoming Olympics and are doing everything including monitoring the Net to keep it from happening.
Re:Deal w/ it every day (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Silver lining... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Silver lining... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a bit amazed at how hesitant a lot of Chinese guys I know are to say anything remotely negative about the Chinese government and get really upset if you insinuate that its not all fluffy bunnies and flowers with the government. But then again I'm used to pretty much everyone complaining about my government.
Re:Blogs (Score:3, Interesting)
I had a hard time accessing:
- Some blogs as well
- Some earthquake news in the days immediately following the event (Some was accessible, some not)
- Some other misc news sites would not load. (Google world news page was out on me for days, while most other google news and google sites worked fine)
FWIW I think the blocking is mostly keyword based.
Defend citizens (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Blogs (Score:5, Interesting)
My television received NHK, TV Monde, and CNN International. Once during a CNNi story about the protests in Tibet did the cable cut out. I have heard of the government doing that, but the images were later shown on CCTV, but of course the accompanying commentary would very likely be different.
Wikipedia was accessible, except for certain pages. Google.com was accessible, but if you googled a certain phrases, the connection would be reset, and you couldn't access google for a few seconds.
Domains like tibet.com simply wouldn't resolve.
Seemed like every Taiwanese forum/blog was blocked.
Re:Firewall tech (Score:5, Interesting)
For starters if a country has 50% muslims, you can assume it filters the internet.
If a country is not free in speech (and that qualifies quite a bit more countries than you'd think, including all European countries), then they have either ISP or judicial filters, that in practice means their isp's filter.
Even Canada, matter-of-factly has ISP filters. Let's FIRST fix Canada, then we should move on to the UK or so, where there was one site that qualified as hate speech for advocacy against Blair.
I don't think what China does is good, I just question singling out China. And there are many countries where you actually might make a difference.
Besides slashdot users where by far in favor of sensoring stuff if it endangered people's safety, like when death threats were made by muslims about wilder's film. That was in the UK.
Let's start there. Then, AFTER that, and all other European countries and after Canada, then we can move Canada. What point is there in saying as a non-free country to China that they should be free ?
Re:Silver lining... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not just Slashot users, but Chinese in general. I watched a news program or documentary recently that covered the subject, and it turns out the Chinese, the young and college educated particularly, exhibit the same reaction.
It turns out that, and I'm generalising here, the Chinese, if they don't "like it that way". have few objections to strong government control. For a westerner that might be hard to fathom, but I think it's unfair to dismiss their preferences as absurd or characterise them as the result of some sort of brainwashing.
What shouldn't be hard to fathom is that for someone who's Chinese, China is their country. Last I checked, national pride is a universal phenomenon, and treading on other's sense of identity or pride, however enlightened or well-intentioned, is always bad form and inevitably leads to conflict.
Re:Blogs (Score:3, Interesting)
Due to certain disgraceful actions on the part of main-stream journalists in the past, and due to perceived bias or partisanship by at least half of the population towards a source, a lot of people are looking towards "unfiltered" "sources" of "information," because they mistakenly think that they're going to get the "straight dope" or whatever the kids are calling it these days.
Citing blogs and bbs posts as "news" is like quoting a Playboy article in an academic paper. Sure, when you already have 4-5 peer-reviewed journal sources, the Playboy article can be a nice touch to add some spice and get you that extra couple of points, but if that's all you have, then you deserve to fail the project.
Re:Firewall tech (Score:3, Interesting)
This saves the ISPs effort - they don't have to bother, because threats of legal action will scare people into silence.
I don't know the facts - just clarifying his argument.
Re:errrmm.... (Score:2, Interesting)
We would rather concern about the turtle speed of "broadband" internet provided by ISPs. Construction of cyber infrastructure has a long way to go in China.
nationalism is not an american invention (Score:3, Interesting)
the americans that engage in nationalist chest thumping of course deserved to be spoken out against, but most importantly on this point, in the usa, according to law, you can actually speak out against them
whereas in china, or cuba, or turkey, and other countries, to criticize your country or your government, something most americans consider second nature, is very much foreign and is outright censored and punished
such that if there are fascist nationalist forces being bred somewhere in this world, it is in the incubators that filter out any self-critical thought, such as with china and its web policy
that's why you get these mainland chinese freaking out whenever they hear a foreigner criticize china. they are very tender on the point. as an american, we're pretty much immune to other nations criticizing us, it's pretty much an international past time at this point, but for a chinese, grown up in a media environment that purposefully eradicates all self-critical thought, the idea of criticizing chinese government or chinese character is alien
this, of course, is extremely dangerous. china as a growing power will get more such criticism, as is natural for any great power in the world. but if the chinese people cant' take the criticism, you run the real risk of a demagogue seizing control in china, someone who panders to nationalist chest-thumping, rather than prudent governance
people always talk about american self-interest as the greatest evil in this world. but compared to the chinese, americans are practically thick skinned when it comes to anti-americanism. anti-chinese sentiment really drives some mainland chinese absolutely nuts. its psychologicaly unhealthy and a stunted frame of mind, to have no capacity for self-criticism, and to just reject all of it out of hand as foreign meddling
the very idea of self-criticism is anathema to han ultranationalists. certainly most american nationalists also suffer form an allergy to self-criticism. but this is more a function of their own personal psychological failures, rather than a government-level psychological incubation