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Censorship

Great Firewall Of China Marches Forward 151

Posted by timothy from the let-a-thousand-satellite-feeds-bloom dept.
geophile writes: "This article in Salon says that China will be building its own 'very own information superhighway.'" The story basically repeats the optimistic-sounding promises of the Chinese government that the new system will be faster, safer, brighter and fight cavities, too, though it does mention in passing that the Chinese "government routinely blocks Web sites of foreign news organizations and groups it opposes." Speaking practically, how easily can the worldwide dataflow be arrested in a country as populous and geographically diffuse as China?
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Great Firewall Of China Marches Forward More

Great Firewall Of China Marches Forward

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  • I don't care HOW large the country is, the number of actual links going into the country are fairly limited, and can easily be restricted by restricting all communication across the boundry except for a set of government controled proxies which handle filtering the traffic and insuring that nothing naughty gets through.


    Nicholas C Weaver
    nweaver@cs.berkeley.edu
  • I visited China, and though not speaking as a resident, I believe that this (mega-China-net) is a steamroller that the Chinese govt. can not keep under control. Middle-class Chinese in major cities have been using the Internet for several years now, and there is nothing like knowledge and nonsensical roadblocks to spark off a fight.


  • I wouldn't say that it would be easy, but if you limit the number of pipes available, and have monitoring software at each, you have pretty much blocked what the ruling party fears to be "contrary" to the party beliefs.

    PS: Doesn't Carnivore and Echelon do just this? But instead of blocking just does a "cat incoming.mail | /opt/echelon"
  • This might get labeled as flamebait but hear me out...

    Every time there is an article about the internet in China, there are a ton of posts here on Slashdot about how bad it is that the Chinese government wants to control the access.

    It's China. It's the Chinese communist government. The fact that they are furthering the exact same restrictive policies that they have performed for decades is not news.

  • Anonymous Proxies (Score:4)

    by Yxes ( 7776 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @05:44PM (#526070) Homepage Journal
    When I was in China a couple months ago I found it very easy to see sites like CNN.com by using anonymous proxies. Some of them even used secure SSL encryption and the Chinese firewall didn't detect anything. The sites came up fine.

    I have my doubts about enforcing something like censorship on the net.
    -----------
    Resume [iren.net]
  • 1. Chinese players will no longer be joining us on B.Net for games of Starcraft.
    2. The Chinese will have lag free games of Starcraft using their own network of fsg servers.

    Hell, I'd build my own internet for that...
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057

  • Not easy to block but ... (Score:3)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @05:47PM (#526072)
    I don't think the data can necessarily be easily arrested, but it can be monitored. A few showy 'examples' can be made of people to keep others in line, sort of the way the U.S. Internal Revenue Service announces prosecutions during tax season. Besides the governmental monitoring, there will also be the neighbors. There are 'block captains' who keep tabs on who's up to what (one of the ways China enforces its draconian "one-child" policy). I'm sure there will be ways around the blockades, but anyone wanting to access forbidden information is going to have to want it pretty badly. As a point of comparison, think of possessing a gun in New York City. It's possible, but the consequences of discovery could be dire.

  • Control the gates and you control the internet (Score:3)

    by helarno ( 34086 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @05:47PM (#526073) Homepage
    I don't have the exact figures off the top of my head anymore but sometime around 97 or so, China's main internet links to the rest of the world were two 45Mbps links, one from Beijing and one from Shanghai. Almost all outgoing traffic went through these two pipes and were filtered by the ISP in charge. There were a few other small links, like 1.5 Mbps or 128kbps, but these were usually owned by a university or government organization and traffic was rarely routed through them. The general populace used those two main pipes out of China and it sure got congested during peak hours.

    Since then, I'm sure more bandwidth has been added but it is still all under the control of the (government controlled) ISPs. At these chokepoints, you can implement all the firewalling and filtering you care for.
  • How about worrying about our own problems and let them handle their own? Stop being the internet police. If they chose to set up a country wide firewall then that is their choice and I respect it. Communism and free speech don't go along well.
  • ...They make people believe the CNN is really SlashDot and then when they look at /., they here about all these horrible ways that people in the US are being oppressed, and then they feel comfortable.

    If you want to be serious, look at a corporation. You may have 5,000 people all working for the same company, but only one internet link. You set the filter/firewall there and you've got control of what come in from the outside world (supposedly).

    China vouches for security through obscurity. By keeping you from seeing something, they think that you won't know it's there. But it's rediculous. It's like pretending that a security flaw in a computer doesn't exist. If you don't tell a person it's not there, then they won't find it. We all know how wrong that is.

    The way I see it, China'd be better off to just let its citizens see everything. They'll enjoy their little "pr0n" sites at home, read the news once in a while, and be content with their lives as always. All else being equal, you're most comfortable where you are. Why? Because people hate change. Hell, I'll bet at least half of the people in China would think that the way our government runs is ridiculous.

    The summary: People hate being held back, so let them see what they want and a week later they won't care anymore.

    CAP THAT KARMA!
    Moderators: -1, nested, oldest first!

  • This problem was quite evident in my recent visit (Score:5)

    by neonman ( 544 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @05:52PM (#526076)
    I just got back on Wednesday from a journey around China. I attempted to use the Internet service in from the business center of the Guilin Sheraton Hotel, and barely downloaded a single page of html. This was google, and after 7 minutes of waiting. Images never downloaded for some reason.

    I was able to confirm my understanding that all HTTP traffic in China is channeled through centralized filtering proxy servers. It can't even be called Internet Access. The proxy server would not handle anything other than HTTP and SMTP(which didn't work when I tried to send a message). I wanted to try using PuTTY to do ssh to my server at home in order to check up on email and other things, but this was impossible, even when I tried to configure the client to use the proxy.

    There is no way for inhabitants of China to do normal IP routing between each other and the rest of the world. I suppose one could set something up to tunnel IP over HTTP, but other than that, they're out of luck. I would have rather had a straight ol' 2400 baud PPP connection to my U.S. ISP.

    I understand that the Chinese government has good totalitarian reasons for censoring the Net, (although they are moving towards reform) but the system they use should be passive, and not involve tcp proxy servers.

    I've seen systems that can simply monitor and replace ethernet packets that contain discedent HTTP data.
  • Yes but the internet is precisely the thing that can change the status quo in that unfortunate, but very promising nation. So its important that this is one thing the government has minimal control over.

    Its something the Government could easily do, but it would seriously affect it's usefulness and defeat the purpose of constructing this net in the first place.

    I predict The Party will be unlikely to impose severe censorship, once they consider its benefits, and the internet will be a great enabler of positive change in The Peoples Republic.

  • Internet Free China (Score:3)

    by scotteparte ( 240046 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @05:53PM (#526078)
    Remember "Radio Free Europe"? Same basic idea here... satellite uplinks provided by the Land of the Free, then they can see all of the Internet. Periodically, we also insert anti-China propoganda, of course.

    However, after this year's budget is passed, they will not be able to access porn and other sensitive material, because the satellite link will have censorWare on it. Oh well, looks like the US and China deserve each other after all.

  • Common, it doesnt matter what firewall rules you impose there will be a way around it, all you need is someone co-operating on both sides of a firewall and you can tunnel through it.

    I thought EVERYONE knew filters dont work.
  • no... it ain't lame flame.. you have a point and at the very least you are not spouting garbage like the anoncows (misogynistic, rascist, fascist, whatever they can manage to puke up out of their sick minds). but China is an odd mix of oligarchy/autocracy/socialism with a dollop of free marketism thrown in just so that the whole country does not go down the tubes... i would hardly call it communist, i really can't think of what the hell to properly call it other than what i have already... it's a disgraceful gov't and there are many levels and degrees of disgraceful gov'ts in this world so shoot me.
  • I use to be of the same opinion.
    The ISP where I worked was desperately
    trying to get away from going through
    the phone company. Even after the break
    up of ATT so many years ago, the phone
    companies still have virtual monopolies
    in the zone they have control in. This
    is because they still control the
    infrastructure.

    We found the fastest way to circumvent
    the infrastructure was to go wireless [softcom.net].

    However, in China there would still be
    the need to have physical towers that
    the government could pinpoint.

    Take it the next step and have a wireless
    satellite system. I still think they
    could target the customer base. You have
    to collect your fees in some manner and
    I am sure it would be easier for the
    government to track the financial transactions
    then to go after wireless satellites.

    Anyways, the situation now is definately
    a tragedy and food for thought.

  • Considering 95% of the population doesnt even have phones.

  • Can anyone who's recently been in China describe how internet access is really like? Who are the ISPs run by? is there a government run firewall? where does that firewall sit? Are there ways to circumvent it?

    thanks,
    --dave
  • Except that if the firewall is COMPLETE except for the proxies, one must construct covert channels through the proxy, which is easier to monitor and control.


    Nicholas C Weaver
    nweaver@cs.berkeley.edu
  • If I use my phone for a long distance conversation, it just as easily can be used to transfer data. And it does not have to be audible data too (ADSL) There is always a way to pass information in an encrypted format through existing media.
  • They can do it, and it is easier than it looks.
    All they have to do, is block everything, but few (can be few thousands) sites.
    Perfect censoship. Anything outside thouse few trusted doesn't even exists.
    And if you have control over the gateways - there is no problem to do that.

    As of monitory content inside this thing, it is
    more difficult, but much easier to enforce on the physical level.

  • An Evil Government... (Score:4)

    by tbo ( 35008 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @06:02PM (#526087) Journal
    ...that deserves to be overthrown, preferably with much bloodshed among its leaders.

    Not that I really need to repeat it for the /. crowd, but censorship is evil. The government of the "People's Republic of" China routinely practices censorship, sometimes by such barbaric methods as sending tanks into crowds of peaceful student protestors.

    Sneaking "subversive" data past this firewall is a good cause, worthy of the efforts of the Rubberhose Project [rubberhose.org] and other open source initiatives designed to increase personal privacy and freedom. To all of those developers out there who are working on encryption or steganography software, these (Chinese citizens) are the people who really need your help.

    A quote from the Xinhua report:
    The current one by itself... is incapable of satisfying the needs of the Chinese government and companies as they enter the digital age.
    Notice that the needs of the people are not mentioned. The only legitimate purpose of government is to serve its people.
  • Different countries, different rules. No big suprise here.

    Everybody has the right to do what they want. Well, not when it's something I don't want.


    --

  • Any government arrogant enough to think that they can block EVERYTHING is delusional.

    Only a communist totalitarian government, that is so in love with itself, and drunk on it's own invincibility could possibly think they can do what the Chineese are attempting.

    All I need to see to reinforce my conservative, individualist beliefs in Western Civilization is stuff like this. You see, we don't need to HIDE everything from our citizens to keep them from discovering what bill of goods Mao sold them.

    At least, for now... Unfortunately, the USA is sliding towards such a system, and is besides China, the biggest enemy of free speech on the internet right now. I hope things change. Because I know for a fact, when the jackboots start rounding up the free thinkers with the "wrong" ideas, I'll be one of them.
  • Spoken: The world today seems absolutely crackers.
    With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high.
    There are fools and idiots sitting on the trigger.
    It's depressing, and it's senseless, and that's why...

    Intro: I like Chinese,
    I like Chinese,
    They only come up to your knees,
    Yet they're always friendly and they're ready to please.

    Verse: I like Chinese,
    I like Chinese,
    There's nine hundred million of them in the world today,
    You'd better learn to like them, that's what I say.

    Chorus: I like Chinese,
    I like Chinese,
    They come from a long way overseas,
    But they're cute and they're cuddly, and they're ready to please.

    Verse: I like chinese food,
    The waiters never are rude,
    Think of the many things they've done to impress,
    There's Maoism, Taoism, I Ching and chess.

    Chorus: So I like Chinese,
    I like Chinese,
    I like their tiny little trees,
    Their Zen, their ping-pong, their
    yin and yang-ese.

    Verse: I like Chinese thought,
    The wisdom that Confucious taught,
    If Darwin is anything to shout about,
    The Chinese will survive us all without any doubt.

    Chorus: So I like Chinese,
    I like Chinese,
    They only come up to your knees,
    Yet they're wise and they're witty, and they're ready to please.

    Verse: (in Chinese)

    Chorus: I like Chinese,
    I like Chinese,
    Their food is guaranteed to please,
    A fourteen, a seven, a nine and lychees.

    Chorus: I like Chinese,
    I like Chinese,
    I like their tiny little trees,
    Their Zen, their ping-pong, their yin and yang-ese.

    Fade: I like Chinese,
    I like Chinese...
  • The ease of restriction in China is due largely to the fact that internet access is really avaliable only on a limited basis, in large urban areas. It's not at all like the States.

  • Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted.
  • Well, Is it so supprising this would happen? Canada's new network, our own Internet-2, euorpe doing a new network, of course china is gona do it. anyway, heres some info I found out and about in my past readings of china's network:

    http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/htm/2000cbh339a .htm [chinaeconomicreview.com]
    http://dawning.iist.unu.edu/china/bjreview/98Nov/b jr98-44-30.html [unu.edu]
    http://www.bjreview.com.cn/BeijingReview/Spanish/9 8Nov/bjr98-47s-15.html [bjreview.com.cn]
  • I was in China in August. Off of my uncle's business connection, I got cnn.com, and msnbc quite easily(as well as a bunch of hardware sites.) Slow, but it worked. But the first site I went to, nytimes.com, was banned. Wierd.
  • It's indisputable - Chinese leaders are simply assholes. But they do it well -- if someone tried this anywhere else, there'd be rebellion. The Chinese seem to be well controlled.

    Mike Roberto
    - GAIM: MicroBerto
  • Excepting any links through Hong Kong or other former European Colonies in China, which are governed under China's "One Country, Two Systems" policy, which was a term they had to agree to to get the European nations to turn their holdings back over to China.

    Under this system, the government is the same Communist one as the rest of China, however, socialism is strictly prohibited by international treaty, at risk of war.

    So, if you lived in Hong Kong or other ex-colonies, you can recieve your Internet access from a privately owned and operated Internet Service Provider.
  • OK, so again the Westerners of Slashdot are busy reading their pathetic Newsweek articles and thinking of big bad China and their political views. Most of those with the strongest opinions against China have never been there, nor can they speak Chinese (of any dialect). While it is true that many big Western news sites (like CNN) are blocked, many Chinese are not interested in the the viewpoint of the US and Western Europe.

    ---end of political statement---

    Hearing that the Chinese want to develop their own Internet style backbone reminds me of the history of our own Internet. It was NOT established so you could share your pr0n with users around the world. The Internet was made to serve the purposes of the American government.

    What the Chinese government wishes to use their national infrastructure for is none of the West's business.

    While it would be nice if this new network would be compatible with the Internet, and it may lead to better communications between cultures that are very different (so we can see each other without the tainted vision of the medias), it is really up to China to decide what their money is being spent on.

  • The way I see it, China'd be better off to just let its citizens see everything. They'll enjoy their little "pr0n" sites at home, read the news once in a while, and be content with their lives as always.

    You severely misunderstand their motives. It isn't meant to stop people from looking at pr0n but rather to control freedom of information (ideologies). The government is eliminating the ability to view news media which criticizes it's actions/policies.

    The summary: People hate being held back, so let them see what they want and a week later they won't care anymore.

    They don't like being held back if they don't understand anything else. Go read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley for a good understanding.

  • ADSL works above and below the frequencies that can be detected by a human ear. Unless you have equipment to search for such frequencies, you will not hear anything suspicious, especially if someone is having a meaningful conversation in the normal frequencies...

  • nice troll (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OK, I'll bite (I wouldn't normally, but this stupid thing is at 3 now). I'm assuming you are from Canada. You can't judge someone else's culture unless you have lived there a significant portion of your life. My guess is that you didn't grow up in China, so how can you possibly judge this culture by a free country's perspective. I'm from the US, so I don't know how the chinese people feel about this. However, my guess is that they are used to their form of government and don't have the extreme view that you believe they do. Just a thought.
  • it is really up to China to decide what their money is being spent on.

    Don't you mean the money that has been pulled over the broken backs of its people though fifty years of communism, social revolution, and human rights violation? I doubt they have any say in it.
    ------------------------
  • There's one simple way I can think of to stop this kind of thing.
    If they want to stop all politically objectionable sites, and presumably sites that link to them, all you have to do is start a 'Stop Internet Censorship in China' Colored Ribbon Campaign. If it becomes as popular as the blue ribbon was, there simply won't be any pages to speak of that don't speak negatively (at least a little) of the chinese government.

  • Re:FP Losers (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Damn it!! Why are there still first posters? Why do so many people waste their lives trying to get first post, while all the other spam/troll "favorites" have died out??? Meept, Hot Grits, John Katz bashing, moderation system bashing, and Natalie Portman are all now quite rare troll topics. Beowulf is still moderately strong, but it too is fading. So why the explitive-deleted is first post still alive? Die damn it. Look in the mirror, and recognize those eye-bags that stretch to your jaw for what they are....
  • I've asked this question once to a visiting student.

    Just get yourself a shell account in Hong Kong, and run a slip connection. Or look for a Windows webproxy... they're usually unsecured and don't have logging (logging has a tendancy to lag inferior OS's like Microsoft's :)

    Heck, if they block everything well enough, they could resort to that TCP/IP over DNS trick posted here a while back.

    Of course, if the government fails to maintain hold on power, it won't become a pipe-dream democracy. It will probably be controlled by the same corporations owned by the China goverment... who will promptly buy out all of the national press (much like the USA with self-sensoring networks).

    If things REALLY look radical in China, they could just impose an Electoral College. It's a time-tested technique for maintaining a duopoly.

    Posted anonymously, because my name is in my email address, and someday my employer could always be bought out by a foreign corporation...
  • I was able to access cnn.com from one place in Shanghai. I was using internet in around 10 cities in China and it was mostly functional for web browsing and telnetting except in peak hours.

    All major foreign news sites were banned wherever I tried, except in Shanghai. Also, there was CNN on hotel cable. Seems like Shanghai is the most liberal city in China.

  • If so, try plugging in your phone without using one of those filters. You hear all kinds of wierd machine noises...
  • Jesus -- "up to your knees?" There's nothing cute about a government curtailing individual freedom -- and racism doesn't help. It wouldn't be funny if it were happening to you -- and objectifying the people involved into some little teddy bears is just ... insensitive and boring...
  • oh gee, golly gosh... i SHOULD have said SOME anoncows, and FYI i said 'fascist', not 'fascism'... and perhaps i should've said 'fascistic', as A PERSON or PERSONS may demonstrate fascistic tendencies by advocating fascism or a fascist gov't or even by advocating fascist ideologies, or fascist modes of thought evident by their expression through speech... but the point would likely be lost on most people anyway... heh heh... and misogyny means, in short, a hatred of women. GYN is a root of the word that would have given you a clue... heh heh free prozac!!!

  • Re:An Evil Government... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    While I kind of agree with your rant about Chinese government, I cannot help but remember that another certain government recently used fascist methods to silence the people during WTO meeting...
  • and lest i forget to address the fact that many posts to the topic (NOT this particular subthread, mind you) are rascist... just look at the post which is few posts above this one that uses the n-word and the k-word... you had best believe that is racist and there are always those who sprinkle that VILE type of speech throughout many many of /. topic threads... fine, let them reveal themselves to be subhuman by using such words, free speech and all that, right? but call 'em as they are: rascist... so shoot me dead, ok? and while you're at it, mod me down for calling 'em as i see 'em... China? let 'em eat cake!

  • Re:An Evil Government... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They routinely kill babies and violently surpress religious freedom, and you say censorship is evil? That's such a twisted take on "evil" as to be cognitively dissonant. Evil is about HURTING PEOPLE. HURTING PEOPLE is evil. Denying people access to information is not nice, but censorship never directly killed anyone. The same cannot be said of the butchers of Beijing.
  • This is kind of OT but in anycase. If you don't know what it is (I did not) follow the link and read about rubberhose. It is simply very cool and important they deserve to have our support. I'm going to send in a /. story on this it is important stuff.
  • Who gives a shit.. they are chinese..
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • thank you CNN [cnn.com] clee-tuhs
  • Damn 31337 m0ng015!!!!

  • 1.Entering computer information networks involved with national affairs, national defense or advanced technology

    2.Spreading slander and rumors or publicizing harmful information on the Internet

    3.Stealing or disclosing state, intelligence or military secrets through the Internet

    4.Inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination or sabotaging national unity through the Internet

    5.Organizing a cult and keeping in touch with cult members, or undermining the enforcement of state laws and regulations through the Internet

    6.Selling fake or substandard products, or advertising goods and services in a deceitful way through the Internet

    7.Damaging the reputation of a business or a commodity through the Internet

    8.Infringing upon the intellectual property of others through the Internet

    9.Fabricating false information affecting securities and futures trading or otherwise disturbing the financial order through the Internet

    10.Setting up pornographic Web sites or Web pages, providing access to pornographic Web sites, or spreading pornographic books, movies, video products and photos on the Internet

    11.Insulting or defaming other people on the Internet

    12.Illegally intercepting, altering or deleting others' e-mail or data, infringing upon citizens' freedom and confidentiality of communication, and

    13.Committing theft, fraud and atrocities through the Internet.

    Considering some of these laws [internet.com] it should come as no surprise they would attempt something like this. What strikes some odd notes is the buddhists practices in China which teach so much about life. Its pretty sad.

    So let everyone rant on about Chinese people who can go about using proxy servers but the fact of the matter is not too many Chinese people will risk going to jail trying to circumvent issues. Sure there will be those who will attempt to circmvent the systems there, but I highly doubt anyone will be risking penalties.

    Circumventing Carnivore [antioffline.com]

  • Its the ass of the year. I'm glad to see idiots like you still exist it makes me glad to know that minoroties have come so far and ignorance such as yours can remind us when we forget this.

    Maybe you should re-read your history and check where you came from since I'm almost sure somewhere down the line you were intermixed with some minority group like it or not.

    You should humble yourself to life and get a grip on your anger. Even while this may be a joke and I sure as hell love to joke, you have issues. White, black, chinese, Indian, really wouldn't make a difference to me, I determine how, where my life goes and the choices which would allow me better opportunities in life, not some political based `illuminist' theory based group who's catapulting minorities to save face.

    Color blind [antioffline.com]
  • I remember some time ago reading messageboards used to exchange IP's to open proxy servers on the "outside" that they could use to bypass the filters, is that still going on?
    --------

  • "Speaking practically, how easily can the worldwide dataflow be arrested in a country as populous and geographically diffuse as China?"

    -- geophile

    "The freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."

    -- A.J. Liebling

    How can one control data? By funnelling it through a few discrete points and heavily controlling what gets transmitted, which is exactly what Sun Microsystems is doing for China (they have the contract.)

    By filtering what ports are used, analyzing transmitted content, forbidding & prosecuting use of cryptography (with a distinct lack of due process) etc. China call well control internet use within it's borders.

    China has one of the lowest penetration rates of telephones in the world. Computers are generally only available limited circumstances. The percentage of computers with internet access is even lower, not something one sees in private homes of even the wealthy. Under these heavily controlled and highly accountable conditions can you imagine much "unauthorized use"? Particularly considering the possible repercussions?

    Information wants to be free, and yes the 'net does route around censorship, but when one controls all of the lines one controls all of the routes around. Even in cases where material makes it though the dangers of being caught with it make it unlikely to propagate far.

    Sure there are ways around it but we're not talking US school kids getting access to porn; we're talking ruined careers at best, an involuntary organ donation or a bullet through the back of the head at worst. As time goes on opportunities for 'getting lost in the flow' become greater but so does the technical sophistication of those monitoring use.

    I'm sure the expat. Chinese news sites have guesstimates but from all accounts I've seen information flow within the PRC is indeed tightly controlled and by-and-large remaining so. General information gets through but politically sensitive material seems to be rather effectively smothered. Indeed the CIA World Factbook 2000 ed.(generally fairly good about numbers) lists China as having only 3 ISPs.

  • Of course censorship kills. (Score:4)

    by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @08:24PM (#526121)
    Censorship never directly killed anyone.

    Nor did many Nazi leaders.

    Censorship can prevent life-saving information from being spread. Much of the overpopulation of the last 2000 years can be attributed to lack of knowledge about contraception, which has been (and still is) actively censored by religious pressure groups.

    The Dark Ages were the best example for the killing power of censorship. During that time, the church held a monopoly on the truth -- and the consequence was that most knowledge of ancient times was lost or suppressed, and science stagnated, which was especially important with regard to the medical profession, which practically did not exist. I have a huge file on the absurd rituals and practices that were used to "heal" people in the Dark Ages. Demons were believed to cause all illnesses, and those who strayed from this belief were outcasts and often persecuted. As you may know, exorcism is still practiced by the Catholic Church, even in the Vatican.

    The fact that repressive governments like China can remain in power and continue to kill people is also a direct consequence of the fact that they censor information that could mean change. Censorship prevents change, and change can save lives.

    Recently on German TV, there was a documentary about a US sect that prevented the use of traditional medicine. They showed a cemetery where all the victims of this irrationality, many of them children, were buried. Surely these people would love it if nobody had access to this information. By trying to pass legislation that would have outlawed a lot of drug-related information on the Net, the US gov't would have done the first step in that direction.

    Always remember: Where they burn books, people are next. Censorship kills. Sooner or later.

    --

  • &nbsp
    I really don't get it. China kills a bunch of students in Tiannamen, is a ruthless communist dictatorship, and yet the USA has, at every opportunity, sucked up so bad to them.

    Why doesn't the USA treat China like it treats Cuba?

    Why is it China gets preferred trading status with the USA, while Cuba gets an embargo?

    It seems to me that the USA _wants_ China to have a shitty government.

  • Hong Kong Island and Kowloon was annexed in 1841 and 1869, respectively. The new territories was under a lease that required it to be returned in 1997. The british could just return the NT, at the risk of spliting HK in two and also infuriating the communist party.

    BTW, China is not a communist country, at least not anymore. It is becoming more and more of a fascist state.
  • "Free" is used relatively here - Sometimes, in the light of things such as the DMCA, we forget how much freedom we /do/ have, such as the freedom to move around the country at will (with a few notable exceptions). Freedom to listen to music which has antiestablishment messages without worry of government-sanctioned censorship. Freedom to complain about our government.

    The internet is redrawing geography. It is a world mostly without borders and without government. It is for all intents and purposes an exercise in anarchy. It does have its positives (Unlimited freedom) and occasional negatives (Violations of other peoples freedoms.) China's moves to censor the internet may very well work, in the short term. But humans have a nack for eventually overcoming opression, whatever its form may be. The natural world works by slow evolution - slowly, some of the opressed of today (the majority of the country, im assuming) will enter into their government, affecting change, slowly but surely.

    The "new geography" of the internet may allow this change to happen much quicker - the electronic world works by rapid microevolution. From this outsiders view, the elder chineese are comfortable in their way of life - they view the world differently than their children. Some of their children view the world with youthful vigor and rebellion - they see the grass on the other side of the ocean, and see that it is greener - or rather, it is different. They want that to be part of their world. They will probably grow up to be part of the machine - but a slightly "flawed" part of that machine, one that may slowly affect the change to democracy, or a completely different, better system of government, in the future.

    Just my two cents.

    Democracy is the worst system of government created, except for all others - Winston Churchill

  • Do you mind explaining exactly what "discedent HTTP data" is? I'd be curious to know how a system could detect if an ethernet packet contains discedent data.
    ---
  • I have to comment on the "draconian" one-child policy... It's not like the government is doing this to punish people, or out of spite. It is a necessity in a country that is as populous as China. And it only applies to people of the Han nationality who live in cities. If you are a minority or live in the countryside, where you need more children to work the land, you can have more than one child. If I remember correctly, you can have two children if you fit into those categories.. Unless neither of those two is a boy, then you can try again for a boy (and again and again if you keep abandoning your third daughter.. but that's a whole different thing..) But in reality, the one child policy is not really enforced that much in the country. Only in the cities where overpopulation is very much of a problem does the policy really get enforced.

    -Leto (always giving the unpopular view a voice)
    Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
  • Ahem... ADSL is just above 4000Hz, pretty easy to listen for, actually...

    From the xdsl FAQ [interaccess.com]:

    [3.1]How does xDSL work?

    xDSL utilizes more of the bandwidth on copper phone lines than what is currently used for plain old telephone service (POTS). By utilizing frequencies above the telephone bandwidth (300Hz to 3,200Hz), xDSL can encode more data to achieve higher data rates than would otherwise be possible in the restricted frequency range of a POTS network. In order to utilize the frequencies above the voice audio spectrum, xDSL equipment must be installed on both ends and the copper wire in between must be able to sustain the higher frequencies for the entire route. This means that bandwidth limiting devices such as loading coils must be removed or avoided.

    --

  • Cuba is tiny. Economically worthless. China is the world's largest market. With their markets opening up more and more, they are the most lucrative place on the planet to do business.
  • its just your typical 15 year old with no friends or social skills to speak of. He (and it almost certainly is a he) looks for attention in any way he can get it. Our socially-lacking speciment here probably is infatuated with shock-rock/rap bands because they get tons of attention that he doesnt with their "shocking" lyrics. Such monkeys are best dealt with by pointing out their lack of social skills.
  • Much of the overpopulation of the last 2000 years can be attributed to lack of knowledge about contraception, which has been (and still is) actively censored by religious pressure groups.

    China is one of the few countries with functional restrictions on the number of children per couple. I don't care whether it's from ignorance, blindness, or censorship, population controls needed to be in place yesterday. With access to the proper information or not, the general population is too blind to understand that it's not just their problem when they pop out 10 kids.
    Condoms for Christians!

  • There is a program out for that exact reason. ITs called httptunnel. You then have a tunnel to your home box over the proxy. (Windows binaries are out too)

    TCP/IP is your friend. :)

    http://www.nocrew.org/software/httptunnel.html [nocrew.org]

  • While i normally don't pay any attention to trolls, i feel the need to reply that napster is a business, and not a government. For the purposes of the above post, i was speaking in terms of the /government/. If you can find information showing me the government is forcing napster to remove any nazi-related music, i'd be glad to listen - or send it ot the ACLU, even. Thank you, goodnight.

  • It depends on the ADSL system you're using. For a number of years, I had an Amati modem. After a few months, the splitter 'broke' and cut off my ENTIRE phone service. When the repair guy came in to fix it, he didn't have a spare splitter, so he just bypassed it. They never got around to replacing it. I couldn't tell the difference, and even (pots) modem work still connected at full speed.

    I now have a 3com ADSL modem. It has a DEFINITE noise problem without the splitter. Even without the splitter, people complain that the line sounds echoey.
    `ø,,ø!

  • But at least they won't have spam...

    --

  • This story made the AP news Saturday morning as seen here [yahoo.com], and I made mention of it earlier [slashdot.org] in the discussion of the .NET proposal of Microsoft.

    My Main observation is to take this into the larger context.

    As I said earlier, we seem to be walking in a directions where the internet is being divided into large areas of fenced in territory owned by large corporations and other entities, with small time operators getting the left overs. What makes this all the more believable are little details like this mornings AP news story about mainland China's announcement that they are building their own information superhighway. To quote from the story:

    ``In the new century, the Chinese people will build our very own information superhighway,'' the Xinhua report declared. ``The current one by itself has too many faults and is incapable of satisfying the needs of the Chinese government and companies as they enter the digital age.''
    it is very easy to take a short range cynical look at all of this. And it is very easy to "poo-poo" all this, and to say that it will never happen here, or that it will never be effective, that it won't last.

    But the problem is that we are walking in the direction of a fragmented segmented internet. We seem to be walking in a directions where the internet is being divided into large areas of fenced in territory owned by governments, large corporations, and other entities, with small time operators getting the left overs. And all to many people, governments, and companies are willing to sell us the fencing, the barbed wire, for our own good.

    Take a look at the incident with Yahoo these past few months in France. I do not think that this is what we want.

    It will surely happen if people do not constantly make the internet free.

  • advertising slogan (Score:3)

    by British ( 51765 ) <british1500@gmail.com> on Saturday January 06, 2001 @09:45PM (#526136) Homepage Journal
    China's Firewall version 6.0: So easy to use, no wonder it's number one! It's the only one!
  • They won't need it they have enough egg foo you to last for years... How do you know they're not spammed with pro-government messages ;)
  • have you ever read 1984 by ... that guy.... I can't remember his name... one day, when the chinese have no outside input, the gov's gonna tell them that we're evil and send them all over in little chamacaze (probably spelled different) and try to kill us all because were not chinese or something..... yah!
  • Because of $$$$.
    That's all that matters to this country. Talk is cheap when it comes to things like Tibetan/Taiwan rights. It's also cheap when speaking of Tiannamen square but where there's $$$ to be made, all is forgotten and forgiven.
    That's also why Rwanda happened. A group of people killed with better efficiency than the nazis efforts to the jews, but we let it go on. We probably would have let it happened to Kosovo also but that's too close to the rest of Europe.
    Then there's Iraq invading Kuwait and the stories (later proven the be false) of Iraqi soldiers dumping babies on the floor from their incubators.
    There's nothing to exploit in Kosovo or Rwanda. There is definitely something to exploit in China, money, money, money.
    Now as far as the pesky firewall is concerned, assuming China keeps a firewall up that allows some of the internet in, there's always the hope of peer to peer.
    That would be a kool idea, dissemination of news via a Gnutella like program.
  • This new info superhighway will probably have to be powered by Linux. Intellectual property rights don't exist in China (Communism). It would be interesting to know how many legitimate copies of Windows there are in China versus how many people are actually running it.
    Now that Al Gore lost the election perhaps he could go and invent the Chinese information superhighway also.
  • It's not that difficult to control the internet; the government controls the pipes. The only way sto get on through a nonCommie service is make one and hide it from the government , eat the long distance charges to another country, or use a satelite service. These are difficult - getting people to try to set up a shadow ISP would be hard given the Party's actions in 1989, and then guaranteeing that only "good" guys get on would be impossible (your best freind might turn you in - in a Communist economy it pays big to have the government like you); a satelite, but the government can do helicopter sweeps to find those (Iraq does this for TV antennas - can't have the people knowing Saddam lost), and your neighbors would probabaly turn you in to the authorities. Even if they got uncensored 'net access, the middle class can fight all it wants, the government has 3,000,000 soldiers. So even if some miracle happens and all of the middle class learns about the greatness of Capitalism, what do they do? Nonviolent protests recently ended in a massacre, even the old people of China are under attack for organizing period. People can demand change all they want, they can know about changes all they want, they can ask for those changes, but it won't do much but get them killed.

    Nick
  • The problem with this reasoning is your statement that people have a knack for overcoming oppression is not true. How long did the Roman Empire last? Egypt? China (5,000 years and no Western-style freedom, ever)? Russia? Right now freedom is winning over oppression, but if history has told us one thing it's that everything changes. So freedom's on top now? If the Religous Right has it's way that will stop. If the Arab world unites it could stop, etc. People have a knack for getting what they want, but if you make a sufficiantly grisly example of those who want freedom the survivors stop wanting freedom. I predict the Chinese will find a way to block people from seeing what they don't want the people to see - it will be ironclad enough (and backed up with harsh penalties for people who break the encryption) that nobody will bother getting around it.

    Nick
  • please. Go shoot yourself in the face. And judge how that feels. I'll judge too...but Id rather watch and judge from that perspective ;)
  • ah, but i DO care, and you have not read all that i posted on this... i decry the Chinese gov't and their systemic oppression/ repression/ suppression... and i am not too fond of any gov't, for that matter
  • AND, in an earlier post i said that everyone has a right to say/post what they want to, even if it is hateful and/or ignorant, etc... reading ALL that i posted would have been informative, ya know... but NO! heh heh
  • um, er, ah... you are just another that did not read everything i posted... or is it bad drugs? heh heh... avoid speaking when under the influence!
  • the remark i posted, "let them eat cake" was TONGUE IN CHEEK, ever heard of that phrase? it was meant to be a joke: a reflection of the attitudes of some that have posted on this topic (BUT not necessarily this subthread) jeez... tweedle dee and tweedle dumber
  • oh, FOR THE RECORD, i was replying to this post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/01/06/22322 42&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=16 in my original post in this thread, ok? free prozac for the masses, now!!
  • I wanted to respond to the comments I've read in many of the above posts that attribute the "slow" speed of domestic access to international content to China's content-control policies (including its Great Firewall).

    While I've never used the Internet in China myself, I have studied the subject, and it seems that the real culprit for the slow loadtime of foreign webpages is probably the fact that the country has only 1234 Mbps of international bandwidth. Considering the pace of growth in Chinese internet use, I'm not surprised to discover that accessing foreign websites takes time.

    While official statistics peg the total number of "Internet users" at 16.9 million today, it's revealing that the government agency responsible for these estimates, CNNIC [cnnic.gov.cn], reveals that Chinese citizens have a total of 65 million email accounts. Even this figures probably underestimates the situation, considering that many Chinese use foreign-based webmail services such as hotmail (it's not clear to me if THESE accounts are factored into the 65 million estimate).

    So bascially, China has about as much international bandwidth as a large American university has domestic bandwidth (and think of what Napster ALONE did to those networks....), with literally millions upon millions of more users accessing "foreign" content. While this renders right-wing fears of DOS attacks from China somewhat silly, it explains perfectly well why accessing American sites may take a lot of time if you're in China.
  • From what I remember reading on ChinaOnline.com, Windows has about 95 percent of the country's market share, but is being loaded on only about 90 percent of all new machines sold. Since retail sales of Linux exceeded those of Windows for the first time this past summer, it seems inconceivable that more than 10 percent of all Windows users in China are using legitimate copies.

    Frankly, I think you'd have to be either stupid or foreign to buy a registered copy of the OS when you can pick up an illegal one for only a few yuan.

    (not that I'm advocating piracy....)

  • I don't believe I stated that that was better, I was simply stating that people treat other coutries with this 'for the people, by the people' attitude, and don't put a single thought into the fact this is a country that would rather beat its people into submission rather than hear even a peep from them.

    Communism is about one thing: control. Tell the people that there will be no rich people because the money will be redistributed to the poor, and they'll buy it, not realizing that they're handing over their person freedom to conduct thier lives as they see fit.
    ------------------------

  • That is precisely why they are probably trying to create their own regulated separate network. It would prevent users from accessing any and all "undesireable" material much more effectively.
    ------------------------------------ -----
  • and i tink it will not be too easy for a Non-Chinese reader to understand that symbols on the page you're linked to then.
  • The main difficulty in running an ISP in China is the fact that you are renting bandwidth from the telecom company, who then is also competing with you to provide the same services you do to users. A couple of years ago, there were quite a few Chinese ISPs (mostly in Beijing, actually) but they were more or less choked out of the market by increasing telco charges.

    So, you don't see many independent ISPs, and those that are usually run ancillary services like internet cafes.

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • Hmm..
    I say we carpet bomb them, flat out! :-)

    That is the American Way...Yeeeahaaaww!
  • If you prepared to actually block the domians of anything that might be bad in your eyes, then it's quite possible. It's not like the Chinese government care about how much is blocked for no reason. A case in point is that a compsci here at Cambridge wrote a web proxy that altered the html going through it in order to improve the presentation for visually impaired people (including himself). This also had the effect of allowing Chinese web users to view blocked sites. As a result, the Chinese government blocked the entirity of the Cambridge University domain, and only after negotiations with their embassy and a code change to prevent anyone from inside China using the proxy, was the block lifted.
  • Human rights are something that really exist, or don't exist. People who are being opressed are often in the least capable position for pressuring their opresser. Working to forward someone else's freedom is not as altruistic as it may seem at first glance.

    I was hunting for this quote [fitug.de] from the NAZI era, but I found an 'update' with a more direct bent.

    First they came...

    First they came for the hackers.
    But I never did anything illegal with my computer,
    so I didn't speak up.
    Then they came for the pornographers.
    But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway,
    so I didn't speak up.
    Then they came for the anonymous remailers.
    But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi,
    so I didn't speak up.
    Then they came for the encryption users.
    But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway,
    so I didn't speak up.
    Then they came for me.
    And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

    -- Alara Rogers [mailto]

    GRRR!

    Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted.

    Reason: Junk character post.
    !!!!?


    `ø,,ø!
  • The government of the "People's Republic of" China routinely practices censorship, sometimes by such barbaric methods as sending tanks into crowds of peaceful student protestors.

    As we all know, the US would never do anything of the kind -- say, at places such as Kent State, Wounded Knee or Waco. Of course, genocide -- of, say, Native Americans -- is right out. Government-approved slavery? Class- and race-biased justice? Fifty thousand hand-gun deaths a year? Student massacres in public schools? Shooting down civilian air flights? Blowing up of federal buildings in Kansas City? Nope. No way. Never happen. Not in "no blood on our hands" America -- the most violent society on earth.

    Now those godless, commie Chinese -- hey, you can never tell what pure evil those sub-humans are capable of.

    these (Chinese citizens) are the people who really need your help.

    Thank you so much for your (highly paternalistic) concern. The problem is America has such a myopic sense of history -- as if the world didn't know how to take care of itself before 1776. But the Chinese were tending their affairs 4,000 years before America appeared on the scene to save the world from itself. And I imagine we'll still be here long after the US has faded to a distant memory.

    There was a wise man once long ago who said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Words to live by.

  • It is not very difficult to do that, well not as far as the Chinese Government are concerned. They have a lot of poeple who have government sponsored time and internet connections to search the web for anything that may need blocking. The last thing that China needs is suddenly growing levels of education and world general knowledge.

    It needs to happen slowly.

    If china had a revolt and the existing structures fell apart, large sections of its population would start to go hungry. Hungry people are like scared people (Isralies) they go to war quickly. So let them block the internet what harm can it do, none. The world needs to be introduced to the main bulk of chinas' people slowly or china will fall apart and that would be bad... Oh, I am not a great fan of chinese way of government, I just dont see the need for lots of people to be put through the ringer for sake of adopting our western cultural ideas..

  • Re:BS (Score:3)

    by slashdot-me ( 40891 ) on Sunday January 07, 2001 @02:29AM (#526161)
    I read through 10 posts on this thread looking for the one that said:

    "None of you even know how your own telephone works. That you might even suggest making a 'long distance ADSL call' from China to the US underscores your ignorance. For heavens sake, shut up!"

    Sadly I found no such post and had to write one myself.

    Ryan
  • > your best freind might turn you in - in a
    > Communist economy it pays big to have the
    > government like you

    Shit, every neighbor reading my posts and they ALL have moderator access!

    Ryan

  • Re:oh please (Score:3)

    by slashdot-me ( 40891 ) on Sunday January 07, 2001 @04:17AM (#526165)
    They did it to Roger Rabbit.

    Ryan
  • Argh. If only this were a troll, then it would be easier to ignore. Unfortunately, people like this are part of a wave of historical revisionism: "The Dark Ages were not dark". How wrong you are. Let me go into it:

    Boy do you need a basic history refresher. As you (quite obviously) don't know, it was the Church which preserved scientific knowledge and learning throughout the Middle Ages.

    Since the church was indeed the only place where "education" was allowed, it was the only place where a faint resemblance of knowledge was preserved. Indeed, many of the ancient writings were copied, copied, and copied again, usually without giving much thought to their content. However, most of what existed in ancient times disappeared, and much of it was changed in the Middle Ages was also faked. The monks of the MA are known as the greatest fakers in history. For example, 60% of the documents of the Merowingian dynasty are known to be fakes, usually with the intention to give their creators more privileges or real estate.

    Often the actual writings of ancient scientists were overwritten for mere lack of paper:

    The motive for making palimpsests usually seems to have been economic--reusing parchment was cheaper than preparing a new skin. Another motive may have been directed by Christian piety, as in the conversion of a pagan Greek manuscript to receive the text of a Father of the Church. [Encyclopaedia Britannica, "palimpsest"]

    More interesting than what these monks have preserved is the question what we have lost, a majority of ancient writings, complete encyclopaedias, writings on palaeontology, medicine, physics, astronomy. Often writings that contradicted the "morality" of the medieval church. Some of this is still being recovered from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

    Monastic scriptoria churned out copies of Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, Homer, Virgil ... and Galen, since you mention medical sciences,

    Correct, Galen's ideas were taken and preserved without ever examining or even extending them. However, most of the knowledge by Galen and Hippocrates was not practically applied but "canonically" interpreted. Anatomy, surgery, dissection of corpses and the recognition of epidemics were seen as sins, and, as church historian Deschner points out, often punishable with death - in some places, until the 18th century! For centuries, doctors were only allowed to treat diseases of the abdomen if it was properly covered by lots of blankets. One of the most popular ways to combat the "Black Death" was sacrifice.

    Here is the official statement by Paris university on the causes of the pest:

    "We, the members of the faculty of the doctors of Paris, have, after careful consideration and debate about the current deaths, taken the advice of thet old masters of this profession... and we want to reveal the causes of the pest more clear and more open than possible by the principles of astrology and science." They recognized the cause in solar energy and the warmth of the "heavenly fire": "Steams develop which cover the sun and change its light into darkness. It repeats all the time, and this way part of our waters is spoiled." etc. They appealed to the stars to heal humanity, and suggested sexual abstinence as a preventive measure.

    Did you know that one of the most important scientists of the late MA, Roger Bacon, wrote a whole book about how to capture and ride a dragon?

    Lastly, let me quote a translation of Soldan's "Geschichte der Hexenprozesse" I started a couple of years ago:

    p92f: (...) Let us take a look at medicine first!

    The idea that diseases could come from bad juices and other organic disturbances instead of demoniac influence was already regarded as a ridiculous claim since the fourth century (1).

    The assumption of the demoniac core of diseases made by all theurgical therapies can be attributed to the Akkadians, the native inhabitants of Chaldea. Agolbard of Lyon denied all demoniac diseases and thereby still represented a rare opinion among his contemporaries of the ninth century, just as with all his other ideas. Therefore, real medicine was seldom used, and even in these rare cases only the recipe collections created in the eighth and ninth century were used, faulty compilations by rough empiricists who on their part had exploited the older Plinius (2).

    Much more frequently, patients were treated with chrism, hand laying, holy water sprinklings, formulae etc. This kind of liturgical or ritualistic medicine had precociously become a monopoly of the clergy or the monks (3). Essenic and neo-platonic theurgy had blended with this, and even the tricks of the Asclepiads were no longer disdained: Those who were not healed did not have the necessary faith.

    Thedosius and Justinian took fancy to such means; occasionally, Christian clerics using such weapons entered a challenge with pagan magicians, when, for instance, bishop Maruthas healed the Persian king Jezdergerd, who had already been given up by the magicians, using words and prayers. By means of prayers and consecrated oil, St. Martine brought a paralyzed, dying woman in Venantius Fortunatus to immediate recovery (4); using chrism and crosses,

    (1) "Sprengel" Gesch. d. Medicin, Th. II. p. 170.
    (2) "Sprengel" Gesch. d. Med., Th. II. p. 178.
    (3) "Sprengel" a.a.O. p. 150ff. - Only when medicine took on a scientific character, the monks were forbidden to practice it, like on the Council of Reims in 1131 and on the second Lateran Council in 1239. Physicians were however still considered as clerics; in France they received the permission to marry not before the 15th century.
    (4) Vita S. Martini lib. I.

    p94:
    Hospitine, Eparchius and other hermits treated deaf and dumb as well as blind people, those sick of smallpox and the lepers. Gregory of Tours writes that, immediately after the treatment, the sick started to hear, talk and see and that they became clean (1). By exorcism, the clergymen became masters of the demons; they gave protectional powers to the rosary, the relics and the Agnus Dei no Roman ever managed to give to a phylacterium [consecrated amulet, E. M.]. The bishop Gregory of Tours (t. 594) reports in his second book about the wonders of St. Martin (2) that he, when he was sick of heavy dysentery and all medical treatment had been unsuccessful, had let a deacon get some dust from Martin's tomb. The doctor had to create a potion of it based on prescriptions, which the patient drank. He felt relieved very soon and and was completely healthy three hours after the use of the remedy. He was firmly convinced that he owed his recovery only to the power of the holy dust. - The worship of such healings took such extents that it opposed medical treatments with hostility and that it made the use of natural means appear as an interference with the area of divineness.

    In the 60th chapter of the mentioned book, the religious Gregory tells how he was punished only because of one sacrilegious thought. He had already described ninty-nine miracles Martin had done and was looking for the hundredth one when he was suddenly attacked by such violent pain in the left side of his head that his veins began to knock impertuously and he burst into tears. He resisted this pain for one day and one night, but then he entered the cathedral for praying and touched the ill spot with the curtain that concealed the saint's grave. At the same moment he felt alleviation. Three days later, the same pain affected the right side and the same remedy helped for the second time. When he, however, had decided to use phlebotomy after some time,

    (1) "Gregor. Turon." Hist. Franc. VI. 6.
    (2) The work consists of four books which Gregory wrote in the years 576-595. Cf. "Loebell", "Gregor v. Tours und seine Zeit." [Gregory of Tours and his time] Leipz. 1839.

    p95:
    three days later, the evil, as he believes, gave him the idea that his earlier headache only resulted from the blood and that it could undoubtedly have been eased quickly by opening a vein the natural way. But right when he thought this, Gregory felt his had being terribly attacked by the old pain. He remorsefully hurries to the church, begs for forgiveness and touches his head with the curtain. Shortly afterwards he is completely cured. -

    The story of the archdeacon "Leonastes to Bourges" (1) is the counterpart to this. He suffered from cataract and no doctor managed to help him. Finally he resorted to Martin's Basilica and staid there for two or three months, constantly fasting and praying. Then, on a festive day, his eyesight was returned. He hurried home, ordered a Jewish doctor and placed, on his advice, cupping glasses on his neck.

    Now the blindness, however, returned to the same degree as the blood was drained. Full of shame, Leonastes returned to the church, prayed and fasted as before, but was not healed again. "Every man", Gregory concludes in his tale, "may draw the conclusion from this incident that he, if he has been healed by heavenly medicine once, should not resort to worldly arts again." - So the spirit of that time let religious therapy celebrate its triumphs over pharmacologic one, so that it seems as if the ancient time of Greek healing temples had moved into the Christian cathedrals, only more shiny and powerful.

    While the ancients had believed in bringing up names, pictures and symbols using incantations, the Christian clergy surpassed them by orders of magnitude, even into modern days. In the exorcisms that had been adopted from Judiasm and which were extended and modified later, the names of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary

    (1) "Greg. Tur." Hist. Fr. V. 6.

    p96:
    appeared again and again; with them, the devil was exorcised, the water was given the power to devour or expel the culprits in God's judgement, the fire's heat was taken away when it touched the limbs of the innocent and the weapons of the fighters for a just cause were steeled. By placing superstition against superstition, even the jesuits Schott and David recommended saints' bones, holy water and Agnus Dei against enchantments. In a bull from the 22th of March 1741, Pope Sixtus IV. declared the production and distribution of such Lambs of God as an exclusive right of the popes.

    According to him, touching the Lambs of God leads to, aside from forgiveness of sins, protection from fire, shipwreck, storm, thunderstorm and heavy hail (1). Such sacred amulets, as the jesuit Delrio calls them, were also put around the necks of obstinate witches while they were interrogated, and the society of Jesus assures that then, during the use of torture, all insensitivity to pain would disappear.

    A tale the bishop of Chartres, John of Salisbury (t. 1181), tells from his own life shows how the priests dealt with divination (2). When he learned the psalms, the priest who taught him sometimes let him and another boy take a look into a mirror-like basin covered with chrism in order to find and reveal certain information other persons were looking for. John's fellow student was docile and talked about lots of figures in misty contours; John, however, did not see anything but a blank basin in spite of his best intentions and was consequently not asked to participate anymore. Here we have the old catoptromancy [divination by examination of light reflexions, E. M.], only with the addition of consecrated oil.

    (...)

    (1) "Raynald." Annal. Eccles, ad ann. 1471.
    (2) Policraticus I. 28.

    p98:
    (...)

    The decision of doubtful cases with the help of notes which had the words "Yes" or "No" or other short answers on them and which were taken from beneath the altar's covering is old as well and has been practiced by the most respected men. Because of such a decision, the holy Patroklus from Bourges withdrew into solitude (3), and the corpse of the holy Leodegar was adjudged to the bishop of Poitiers when the bishops of Autun and Arras fought for it with him (4). The fact that in England, in the ninth century the lot had become a regular mean of making decisions even in court is proven by a ban that was enacted by Leo IV. to the British clergy for this reason (5). So a kind of Christian magic was practiced with the ritual of the church.

    3 "Gregor. Tur." vita 5. Patrocli.
    4 "Baldrici" Chronicon Camerac. I. 21.
    5 "Gratian, Derret." P. II. Caus. XXVI. Qu. V. Cap. 7.

    and which for many centuries did not exist outside of monastic libraries

    What a great perception of knowledge, where knowledge is considered too powerful or dangerous to be actually applied, examined or expanded.

    Astronomy, mathematics, cartography, botany, medicine, logic and rhetoric -- there isn't a branch of medieval learning which wasn't preserved in

    Yeah, we got it. The monks copied the stuff of ancient times without adding to it for fear of being persecuted. They changed or discarded what they disliked. Most importantly, this knowledge could not be applied until the Renaissance, when finally the intellectual handcuffs of the church began to crumble. Do you actually realize what you're writing?

    The only schools in existence for nearly a thousand years were in the monastaries and cathedrals of the Catholic Church.

    Yep, because the Catholic Church, which was the relevant source of power over the whole Middle Ages, did not want the general population to be educated. However, of course they did want the clergy to be educated to better control and manipulate the populace.

    Oh, just so you don't get a wrong impression WRT the size of the medieval libraries .. while the library of Alexandria, the largest of ancient times, held 700,000 to 1,000,000 scrolls, and the library of a rich citizen of Roman times held around 30,000 scrolls, one of the largest libraries of the Middle Ages for which we have data, that of the crusader fortress of Cluny, didn't hold 100,000 books, not 10,000, not even 1,000, no, around 420.

    All the great universities of Europe -- and many in America -- owe their origins to Church patronage of learning.

    Because that was the origin where they could have come from.

    During some of the darkest periods of Western history the monk was the most highly educated member of society.

    Yep, as I said, education for the ruling class.

    Den of ignorance?

    Yes, compared with ancient times, the monks of the Dark Ages were, well, crazy as shithouse rats, as outlined by their actual practices. If you speak German, go here [pfaffenspiegel.de], you'll find the complete copy of "Der Pfaffenspiegel", one of the most important works of church criticism, written in the 19th century. It gives you more examples than I can ever churn out, but if you insist, I will give you some.

    To the contrary, the Church was the great educational force of the medieval ages, at a time when the world outside monastic walls had abandoned the fire of knowledge.

    ROTFL. How selective can your perception get? The church was not only the only place where knowledge was preserved, it was also the center of power! The abandonment of knowledge "outside monastic walls" was not a free decision by the citizens ("Oh! All this Roman ancient knowledge stuff. Who needs it? I will rather starve or be a slave to some rich landlord!"), but a direct imposition by the church, which not only spread disinformation called belief, controlled the populace through churches and cults, but also directly persecuted and often eradicated all movements that were contrary to the Catholic belief.

    Boethius, Cassiodorus, and later the saintly Bede, Isidore of Seville, and Alcuin -- these were the great educators of their time, and they were universally children of the Church.

    You can repeat it as often as you want to, it doesn't get any more logical. Of course the educated people came from the church, as nobody else was allowed to be educated.

    In the twelfth century the Church conceived and nurtured the Renaissance.

    The church was a source of ancient knowledge when, because of the loss of power suffered by the church, it became possible to use and distribute this knowledge again. However, as you well know, the church itself remained a fiery fighter against science in the next centuries, burning thousands of books and the people who wrote them.

    The fact is that for nearly a thousand years in the West, scientific knowledge and learning existed nowhere except in monasteries and Church-sponsored centers of education.

    Thanks for, again, pointing this out.

    Instead of castigating the Church for its ignorance

    I castigate it for its fear of the truth, which was the reason that the preservation of knowledge was only permitted within church walls, its application only if reconcilable with the primitive medieval worldview.

    you should be down on your knees in gratitude for what it had preserved when all others had turned their backs.

    Your selective perception is so remarkable that a book could be written about it. The rest of your comment repeats the same "The church was the only place of knowledge, therefore the church is good" argument, which is one of the most ridiculous attempts at apologism I have ever heard. Next you're probably going to babble about how the crusades were necessary and the inqusition had to be seen in the context of history, the witchhunts weren't that bad either (hey, the Protestants did it, too!) and anti-semitism, well, uh, yeah, the church did nothing compared to the nazis!

    --

  • A government of people and by people should move towards the common good. Thats all. It is nothing about a government knowing whats best for the people.

    WTF? How can you move towards the "common good" unless you think you know what that is (i.e., think you know what's best for your people)?

    Generally, governments that assume they know the needs of their people better than their people are tyrannical.
  • Your forgetting the one simple fact that people are selfish. They will act with their own best interests in mind, not the best interests of society as a whole. People who say they are acting for the common good are dangerous and should be shot on sight. All this "common good" crap leads to is what is known as the "tyranny of the masses" that is the majority (50% +1) of the people advancing their own interests, regardless of how it affects the rest of society.

    For example in this country (well the US) it was once thought that slavery was a good and necessary thing for the "common good", after that it was believed by a majority of people (in the South) that segregation was needed to protect the "common good" I mean after all the majority of people who made up the government at the time thought these were good things, and after all the government is of the people, by the people and for the people so they must of been right.

    A more modern example would be the anti-smoking facism sweeping the country now. It's true that most Americans are non-smokers now, and of those a small percentage are the type of anti-smoking nazis that wants to outlaw it everywhere. The anti-smoking facists manage to get a motion on the ballots that would outlaw smoking in all sorts of places, all the non-smokers vote for it because it doesn't really impact them. It starts in resteraunts, then bars, and pretty soon the state is making it illegal to smoke in your car and even your own home (which I believe is the case in certian parts of California) Again the tyranny of the masses, led by some self rightous jackasses claiming to be acting for the "common good".

    What you and a lot of other people fail to realize is that there is no such thing as the "common good" People all have different ideas, different needs and different goals in life (all good things BTW!) and the only way to help advance everyone's interests is too simply provide people with as much personal freedom as possible, short of allowing them to knowlingly and directly cause others harm. In fact that should be a governments only job, to protect the freedom and liberty of it's citizens. As soon as you start legislating for the "common good" you just begin eroding peoples freedoms and liberty and pretty soon no one has any freedoms left because they've all been legislated away for the "common good".

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