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Comments: 272 +- Your Rights Online: Opera Closes China Loophole; Reinstates Censorship on Monday November 23, @08:47AM
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censorship
ObsessiveMathsFreak writes "Coming hot on the heels of Microsoft's censoring of Chinese search results, browser-maker Opera has become the latest company to joyfully contribute to prosperous growth of the Great Firewall of China. For speed and convenience, the mobile phone-based 'Opera Mini' browser receives formatted web pages via Opera's own line of proxy servers. These unfiltered proxies gave Opera's Chinese users rare unfettered access to the wider web. However, this loophole has now been closed, with Chinese users now being directed to 'upgrade' to 'Opera Mini China,' which closes this loophole, returning them to the bosom of party censorship, and Opera to the favor of the Chinese Government. Truly; 'To Get Rich Is Glorious.'"
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This post is unavailable. (Score:5, Funny)
Please Upgrade to Slashdot China.
Re:This post is unavailable. (Score:5, Funny)
Please Upgrade to Slashdot China.
No DON'T -- I did, and unfortunately it shattered when I dropped it. I'm sticking to the plastic slashdot from now on.
Parent
I can't STAND Chinese Opera! (Score:5, Funny)
All that "ting-ting-ting" and fan-waving. No girls, either.
Parent
Torn (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm torn on this. We want freedom. Does that mean we let the companies have freedom to do business with China and follow their rules? Or, should we demand that companies from the "free world" not contribute to the human rights problems of China, and others?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My own opinion is, corporations have no business aiding and abetting censorship. I've thought pretty well of Opera, until now. This is the sort of whoring that helps to give Microsoft THEIR bad name. It irritates me when any of them goes this route. Somewhere in China sits an asshole just like me, except for the color of his skin, and the government is just waiting for him to slip up, giving them a reason to "reeducate" him. The corporate whores are more than happy to sell him out....
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, I'm reading this story in an Opera browser and wondering if I should switch back to Firefox.....
Re:Torn (Score:5, Insightful)
And even if pulling completely out of China had been an option, it would have been a bad one. Don't you get it? Fewer services means less and easier work for the government when censoring. The more services, the more difficult for the government to keep track of everything, and the greater the chances of workarounds being open.
As long as Opera keeps working in China there may be ways to work around the censorship (and there are). Opera pulling out wouldn't help at all!
It's extremely short-sighted of you to assume that you know best, and that it's fine to sacrifice Opera's employees in China. It's extremely short-sighted not to see the benefit in more services meaning more potential cracks in the firewall.
Also, will you stop using all Google services, if you actually do stop using Opera?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the hell did you feel it necessary to repeat a rumour no fewer than eight times to prove your point?
1 [slashdot.org] 2 [slashdot.org] 3 [slashdot.org] 4 [slashdot.org] 5 [slashdot.org] 6 [slashdot.org] 7 [slashdot.org] 8 [slashdot.org]
Slow down, cowboy. Even if it’s true, nobody wants to read it over and over.
Re:Torn (Score:4, Insightful)
All of ye are thinking of it wrong. Instead of thinking 'Opera sucks', think 'Well China was going to ban Opera from their country, which would leave the Chinese left with nothing but Internet Explorer Hell. At least now they can use an alternative. Opera China is still better than virus-friendly Explorer.'
Well at least that's how I think.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
P.S.
The summary reads, "For speed and convenience, the mobile phone-based 'Opera Mini' browser receives formatted web pages via Opera's own line of proxy servers." So too does the full-sized Opera 10 browser, but I don't think it goes far enough. The images are compressed but not enough to make any real difference in speed. They should be compressing the text, HTML, and CSS files too. Plus a lot of the images aren't compressed at all, which makes no logical sense to me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is having no Google at all better than having a censored Google? This is different from profiting from child labor or whatever, imho. Google is useful for the people, and you can be sure China won't stop censoring just because their people can't access Google.
Re:Torn (Score:5, Insightful)
During the Cold War, the most effective way of breaking through to the people behind the Iron Curtain was to keep our doors open (ahem, CUBA!) and allow them free access to the 'west'. Eventually, it snowballed, fences and walls came down. The so-called "People's Army" turned their guns from the people to the government, in some cases, or were just dropped, and the people tore down the blockades.
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I need a browser business lesson here. (Score:2, Interesting)
In practice, Opera likely had little choice but to comply with local laws, and make a new version for Chinese users that cannot access all the "filtered" sites, same as any other Web browser.
They had no choice. So, the Chinese government would prevent them from doing business in China which is giving it away for free? I've never seen Opera specific advertising when I use Opera. So, I don't get it. Exactly what would Opera lose if they weren't in China?
Re:I need a browser business lesson here. (Score:4, Informative)
Opera does a lot more business than just ads in a browser. They get income from Google to include them as default search engine and additional income for every ad click made by Opera user. Their other sources of income also include mobile phones clients (manufacturers and telco's might pay them to include their browser), Wii, other media equipment. For example lots of hotel's seem to be using Opera as embedded browser for their systems and to give visitor ability to browse internet from TV (this isn't always shown everywhere, but I was visiting a hotel once and the hotel tv rebooted and showed Opera logo on startup).
And considering China has 1.5 billion people, it would be quite stupid to ignore that market area.
Parent
I wonder what else... (Score:2)
...happens to whatever is filtered through Opera proxy. Stats, passwords, preferences, online purchases, banking - this all goes through the Opera proxies and is wide open to employees. Although a small slice of the WWW market, Opera gets an insight into much larger piece of online activities of its users than, say, Google does - it has "phone home and report everything, ever" built in as its fundamental design decision.
Re:I wonder what else... (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically, it is not possible. There is private/public key encryption built in, that is why browser (shell in fact) asks you to press random keys or "move mouse" (in touchscreen) when first installed.
If you want to set up a conspiracy theory, don't look anywhere other than some popular search engines who bowed to China.
Parent
What word do yo think they were aiming for? (Score:5, Informative)
buxom ??? What word do you think they were aiming for?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The information is out there.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure there's a fairly large risk involved, and the punishments are probably severe. But where there's a will, there's a way, especially in technology.
Re:The information is out there.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes, censorship(especially of the more or less extreme "news blackouts and gunmen occupying the radio stations" flavor, or Iran's SMS being down for service at a convenient time) is in fact about stopping the flow of information among motivated people. This is very hard to do perfectly; but can often be done well enough to dampen some particular event.
Day to day, though, censorship is less about dissuading the truly motivated(though, if it can make them easy to detect and harass, that is a plus) and more about preventing the casual from becoming motivated. In most cases, people aren't just born motivated, they become motivated based on experiences or information. If you can control the information available to casual browsers, you can substantially modify the risk of having to deal with motivated adversaries later.
Every time the Great Firewall comes up, somebody always mentions one or more of its numerous technical weaknesses. Those are largely beside the point. If the system is good enough to ensure that casual users receive only a steady stream of ideologically comfortable information, the system will ensure that it never faces more than a limited number of sophisticated and adversarial users.
Parent
Can we see this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Can we see this? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
And Opera for one... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Meh, no choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Option 1: Refuse then, get blocked meaning you make no money and china gets no uncensored news
Option A:Comply keep making money and china gets no uncensored news.
Do You Expect Anything Different? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is unfortunate that companies in this situation are caving to the requests of a government that has different ideals about the freedom of information than we do, but honestly, do you expect anything different? These companies aren't in the business of battling China on their political ideology. They are out to sell a web browser and maximize the NPV of the company. This is what a business and a free market is all about. To do anything different would be a strategic move that while it could be argued might benefit Chinese citizens, it is much less likely to benefit Opera. Furthermore, if they did fight China on this one, I think it would be naive to think that they did it for any other reason that as a calculated risk to gain marketshare and ultimately profit. So don't act surprised when stuff like this happens. The sooner people realize what businesses are and aren't, the sooner they will understand the forces shaping the world in which we live.
Why do we expect corps. to do politics for us ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It strikes me how often I hear supposedly pro-market "patriotic" Americans like Lou Dobbs being shocked that:
- GOOGLE cooperates with China.
- MICROSOFT cooperates with China.
- MYSPACE coorporates with China.
And so on. What did you expect? Corporations are not here to defend American interests. Thy are there to defend THEIR interests, and THEIR interests lies in conquering a market of 1.2 billion people. That is a huge market. 320 million americans is dipshit compared to 1,200 million. Ok, I exagerate, as per-capita GDP is much higher in the U.S., but you know where I'm getting at.
If we want to send a message to China, we should ask our diplomats and politicians to do it. NOT expect freakin' corporation to do it for us. They have no reason to care, and it's prefectly understandable. Anybody who thinks otherwise has clearly been brainwashed by the "free market capitalism perfection Kool-Aid".
Re:Why do we expect corps. to do politics for us ? (Score:4, Informative)
Everyone seems to forget that Corporations are Amoral and base all decisions on Legalities. Simply put, Morals have no place in a corporation as the decision goes like this. Is it Legal? Does it Offer a Competitive Advantage? If yes to both, Do it. It's that damn simple.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why do we expect corps. to do politics for us ? (Score:4, Insightful)
There doesn't seem to be any connection here. There are plenty of individuals who operate under the same algorithm. In fact, it's often those individuals who form corporations in the first place!
Parent
Remember: (Score:4, Informative)
I love the Chinese people - very fine people, respect for education, pretty girls, good solid folks. But their government is crap, and has been crap for 100 years, and the current collection of power mad bullies running the joint are a bunch of asshats who deserve all the punishment and torture they meet out upon their rivals and those who seek to exercise their basic human rights as outlined in the UN Charter.
To the people of China: Welcome to the 21st century. We're glad you made it.
To the Chinese Government: FUCK YOU. YOU SCUM SUCKING FREAKS.
RS
Boycott Opera!#!! (Score:5, Insightful)
... or not. I mean, restricting some content on the web isn't nearly as bad as invading other countries, killing its civilians by the hundreds of thousands and setting up puppet governments, and yet nobody here is calling for boycotts against American companies that support all of this (which is all of them, or at least those that pay taxes).
Re:Boycott Opera!#!! (Score:4, Funny)
at least those that pay taxes
So what you're saying is Microsoft isn't the bad guy for once?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Huh!?
There are indeed reasons to boycott many American corporations and the USA has indeed committed crimes against other nations, but despite their best efforts they'r
a censored mind is a weak mind (Score:3, Insightful)
the mind is like a muscle: work it out, challenge it with ideas hostile to your own, and you only wind up with a stronger mind and stronger ideas
i understand that the technocrats think they are protecting the chinese citizen from foreign interference and degenerate thoughts, but for whatever perceived good is being done by a policy of censorship, the much larger real negative effect is to turn chinese citizens into cotton heads full of nothing but empty thoughts, placid lies. the truth is always ugly and disharmonious. that's what makes placid lies so much more attractive
for a mind where the serene lie is more valuable than the rude truth, inward thinking reigns. this is the same inward thinking, away from the wider world, building a wall against the outside world, literal and figurative, that led to the rot of the old chinese dynasties, and left china weak and ripe for exploit by foreign powers. the shame of this history drives so much of modern chinese infuriated pride: never again will china be defiled by foreign powers. the literal and figurative rapes of japanese imperialism, the british opium wars to force heroin on its citizens: this led to china's rebellions and eventual modernization
however, in the policies of the technocrats of beijing today, we see the same seeds of the same thinking of the old brittle bureaucratic mandarins that led to china's previous downfall. sheep are very harmonious, docile, placid creatures. they're also dumb. dear china: why do you choose placid lies over ugly truths? the harmonious still pool is beautiful, but weak. the raging river is ugly and dirty, but strong
the chinese government are turning their citizens into housepets. this is not a strong nation, this is a weak one, populated by simpletons who could have been strong minds, but the chinese govermnet made sure they were empty weak minds, by censoring anything that would challenge the dominant monoculture. yes, legions of robots can turn out lots of cheap goods, but you would think that you would like a china full of strong and wise chinese, not slaves. and yet the chinese government clearly values their citizens only as slaves, unable to think on their own, with censorship policies that mean chinese minds are never exercised
the chinese government does not respect its own citizens. the chinese government's censorship policies is recreating the conditions that led to china's historical rot, and the chinese government's policies will mean china will be weak again, and dominated and exploited again
that is why, in the name of respecting the chinese people, i do not respect the legitimacy of the chinese government. the chinese government does not respect its own people. the chinese government has an agenda which serves only its own flawed priorities, and do not serve its people
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree with most of your points, but I can't agree that censorship causes the Chinese population to be simpletons. One need look only at the average person in free societies to conclude that Simpletoniaism survives quite well even with unfettered access to information and education.
Re: (Score:2)
But a weird spinoff is that if you're a foreigner in China, your non-Chinese language version of Opera Mini will not work.
I don't know why this is or if it's true or if Opera plans to fix it but I would find their implementation of a solution pretty archaic if that's one of the caveats. Hopefully they are working on fixing that.
Re:I would change browser out of protest (Score:4, Insightful)
I really doubt this is something Opera did on its own. But if you want to do business in China, you have to go by their goverment's rules there like everyone else.
Parent
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Re:I would change browser out of protest (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding is that they've got a special censoring proxy. A more reasonable option would seem to me to be a multiple choice question in the settings:
- "Use Opera's proxy for users outside China"
- "Use Opera's proxy for users inside China"
- "Use a different proxy"
- "Don't use Opera's proxy at all"
China can block the external proxy, and the browser can then auto-sense which Opera proxy to use, or let you bypass it altogether and go straight to the great firewall. That way everyone's happy.
Personally I'd prefer it if I didn't have to go through Opera's proxy; it may make things faster, but I always see it as another point in the chain where things can go wrong (security, privacy etc), and seems redundant when my phone's on a LAN. Do any recent versions let you turn it off?
Parent
Re:I would change browser out of protest (Score:5, Informative)
We aren't talking the "main" Opera browser here. Opera Mini is for mobile phones that aren't powerful enough to support their full mobile client. Opera Mini proxy servers compress and optimize web pages so that it's easier and faster for your mobile phone to show them.
This doesn't affect Opera on computers or the full-scale Opera Mobile client.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know why this is or if it's true or if Opera plans to fix it but I would find their implementation of a solution pretty archaic if that's one of the caveats. Hopefully they are working on fixing that.
Probably true. Opera Mini works by connecting to proxy servers that filter Web content so that it displays properly on a cell phone's tiny screen. All Opera Software would have to do is run a separate set of proxies for "Opera Mini China" and then actively refuse connections on their main proxies originating from Chinese IP address blocks. (Or, more likely, the Great Firewall will block them.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Opera Mini works by connecting to proxy servers that filter Web content so that it displays properly on a cell phone's tiny screen. All Opera Software would have to do is run a separate set of proxies for "Opera Mini China" and then actively refuse connections on their main proxies originating from Chinese IP address blocks. (Or, more likely, the Great Firewall will block them.)
The China version of Opera Mini was already using a transcoding server located in China. But people could install the international version if they wanted. What has changed now, is that usage from inside China of the international transcoding server is not supported anymore. It would indeed be trivially easy for the GFW to block this server in Oslo. But that didn't happen, instead the Chinese users now get a page asking them to use the the China Opera Mini version.
Re:I would change browser out of protest (Score:5, Insightful)
That's awfully principled of you. "I would stop eating at a restaurant where the owner is an asshole, but then I'd have to walk half a mile more". It's like an attempt to paint yourself as a moral person, while being lazy and not doing anything anyway.
If you think it's really the wrong thing to do, and wrong enough to justify a switch to something else, then switch. If you think it's a perfectly fine thing for Opera to do, then just say that. But to take your option is simply hypocrisy. Sticking to principles isn't free, there is always some sort of sacrifice involved.
The way you're doing it, indeed it won't.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing in this case, since I'm not involved in it in the first place. I'd uninstall it if I had it installed.
But I do refuse to do business with companies that I consider unethical, and for instance I bought a music player at another country so that I could have one that fulfills my need while not being from Apple. I also made a special effort to buy a TV not made by Son
Re:I would change browser out of protest (Score:4, Insightful)
Ask yourself this: Is China better off without Opera? My conclusion is no. Even a censored Opera is better than no Opera. Why? Simple. The more services the Government has to oversee and censor, the more difficult it will be for them to plug all cracks in the firewall. Even after this, there are workarounds in Opera Mini to avoid the firewall. So ask yourself again: Do you really think China would be better off without Opera?
Parent
I will join you when Google does something (Score:4, Insightful)
There are way bigger, monstrous sized companies who does serve to China's interests. Who did the "great firewall" to begin with? Which hardware does it run on? Can you imagine the data bandwidth, processing power required to do such "out of Internet nature" thing?
What about gigantic game companies who abides their "1 hour only" rules? What about once hippie run company shipping their "edition" for China?
Opera is like a grocery store run by family compared to those companies which are gigantic. They got bigger but they are still small. Their main income is from mobile&electronics and I don't think any mobile company on this planet dares to confront China. Their shareholders would really punish them so bad that Opera ASA as we all know would cease to exist.
Parent
Re:I would change browser out of protest (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the Nazis need a database just like anyone else, don't they? It's not like our database is going to invade Poland. It's just a database, just a product. Everyone else is selling to them. What, you want us to lose out?
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Re:I would change browser out of protest (Score:5, Insightful)
What's why you're posting on an x86 system. You're just so outraged at IBM.
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Re:I would change browser out of protest (Score:5, Insightful)
When dealing with large, murderous, totalitarian governments (no, I don't mean the US, which only aspires to the last), mentioning the Nazis isn't always inappropriate.
Parent