The Great Firewall of China - Samples of Filtered Sites 351
Loligo writes "Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society has released a study listing some of the sites filtered by Chinese internet connections. Sites about Taiwan are maybe understandable, but Red Lobster?" We've mentioned the ongoing Berkman study before; one of their interesting findings is that the list of blocked sites is a moving target, and some sites are blocked only intermittently. Here are summaries from The New York Times and MSNBC, by way of The Censorware Project. Update: 12/04 21:03 GMT by T : Seth Finkelstein points to his report "Searching Through the Great Firewall of China," which "describes a simple technique which can be used
with some search engines to bypass censorware bans on searching for
forbidden words. Particular emphasis is placed on the situation of the
Great Firewall Of China."
my site is blocked as well (Score:2)
Re:my site is blocked as well (Score:4, Funny)
Re:my site is blocked as well (Score:3, Insightful)
Your site seems to be about a BBS. Perhaps they don't want chineese people visiting discussion forums outside china. This seems the most likly answer from a quick look at the list of blocked sites, losts of discussion forums are blocked.
SO.... (Score:2)
Though China says a main justification for censorship is the proliferation of pornography, its blocking of such sites is less dogged. The study found that China blocked fewer than 15 percent of the most popular sexually explicit sites. Saudi Arabia banned 86 percent of the list.
I can view 85% of the worlds pr0n in china....COOOL..oh wait...no red lobter? Awww nuts!
Red Lobster? (Score:2)
Red=Communist (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't hit any sites above (except for redlobster), so - does anyone know how to check if the GFOC blocks a particular site? How about sites like "redpaint.com".
Re:Red Lobster? (Score:4, Funny)
And why wouldn't they?
Lobsters are commonly found in cold waters. This is symbolic of the cold war that the communists lost. Communism was founded by Marx in Vienna. Notice that Vienna is the same shape as a lobster's claw. Turn the first letter of the founder of communism's name upside down and you get a W - two V's. Just like a lobster.
In addition, when a lobster is boiled they turn red, and then are consumed - by western capitalists.
It's obvious that the communists saw through the thinly veiled allegory to the slanderous attack on their party and beliefs. The Red Lobster site is the western equivalent of 'We will bury you - in butter and lemon'.
You would have to be a fool not to see it...
Red Mountain Ski/RedHorse Records also blocked (Score:4, Interesting)
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
geez
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Why do you ask? If you don't understand why China would want to filter those Taiwanese sites, I feel incredibly sorry for you.
Dinivin
Understanding != Agreeing (Score:4, Insightful)
I can understand why Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews and other "undersirables."
I can understand why Britain wanted to keep the American colonies under their control.
I can understand why Bush ended up president.
I can understand why my ex-girlfriend broke up with me.
I can understand why the police officer doesn't cut me any slack when he pulls me over for speeding on an empty highway at 3 in the morning.
In more than one of those cases that understanding involves realizing and accounting for the fact that the people involved were immoral nutcases (you can try to guess which is which if you wish =) but that doesn't prevent me from understanding why they choose to do the things they did, given their view of the world.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Never mind that you can't understand why China would block taiwanese sites.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I don't have children, but if I did, you'd better believe I'd set up a mandatory web filter until they reached a reasonable age.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I *do* have a proxy that blocks ads.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I have an email spam filter.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
My browser does not display ads when they're obvious.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I use google with the lowest level of filter (that isn't off) just to avoid the crap.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I use killfiles when reading usenet.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
Finally, I imagine I'll add you to my "enemies list" (hate that term - it's just a kill file) here at slashdot.
If I drank coffee, I'd use a filter there, too. Have a nice life - look out for the grinds...
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
My Sex Gateway is private, and in no way is it "understandable" for the that guy to offer himself to me like that.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
OK, help me put a little context on the statement
"Filtering is bad, PERIOD."
I thought I'd covered just about all the angles. I guess the only one I left out is
"China filtering outgoing web request is bad, PERIOD"
, but I got the feeling that was not what the original author meant. Maybe I'm wrong.
It turns out that I think our speech is a little too unfettered, as well, so I'd probably disagree with that assertion too. See also cases of the French government banning/blocking/whatever Nazi sites...
Are you in politics?
No; I tend to state my mind. It also bothered me that TE's 2 line post with no seeming thought to the content was rated "Insightful".
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
1: it's "foes list" not "enemies." All the "dot" settings start with an F. (Friend/Fan/Foe/Freak)
2: It's not a killfile. It's a non-anonymous automatic user-indictaed moderation setting with notification of jounrals of those you add to the "friend" list. You can set whatever value you want for it in your settings.
A little effort not to sounds trite? (Score:3, Interesting)
You might as well scream, "Information wants to be Free!"
If you want to be the next Richard Stallman hardliner, you should note that Richard Stallman always puts the effort into explaining his vision rather than simply asserting it with cheap dramatics.
I'm sorry I had to be tough...
OF COURSE Red Lobster is blocked! (Score:2, Funny)
Damn It. (Score:2)
Hardline Democrat = FUN BAD
Hardline Muslim = FUN BAD
Almost all humor makes fun on somebody.
Left this off. (Score:2)
Re:Left this off. (Score:2, Funny)
Intermittent blocks huh? (Score:2, Informative)
That's interesting. Let me create, then, an "ancient Chinese secret":
while true; do wget http://site.intermittent.com;sleep 60;done
Re:Intermittent blocks huh? (Score:2)
Americans?
is goatse.cx blocked? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:is goatse.cx blocked? (Score:5, Funny)
Other sites (Score:3, Interesting)
MIT?
The Learning Channel?
Why do these sites need to be blocked?
Also, for Red Lobster, it's only the receipe and lobster delivery sections.
Re:Other sites (Score:2)
Sourceforge?
Probably a site where free software is available that wasn't written under the voluntary guidelines for moral computing.
Eg., software for encrypted tunneling would expose Chinese Internet users to all of the filthy and slanderous material that may be found on the Internet at large. Plus, of course, such software would make it exceedingly difficult for the powers that be to monitor what people are viewing and posting.
Re:Other sites (Score:2, Insightful)
Contains programs that might be used to subvert the Chineese efforts to restrict internet use.
MIT?
Same as above as well as political speach that may be there.
The Learning Channel? ;) But, most likely for political reasons or there are documentaries that show China or it's leaders in a poor light.
Er...It shows animals 'doing it'?
Re:Other sites (Score:4, Informative)
Sourceforge probably hosts software that could be used to bypass such filters. But most importantly, they host the development of Freenet [freenetproject.org], a thorn in web censor's side =)
Possible Profit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Possible Profit? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Great FIREwall? (Score:2, Funny)
Red Lobster is obvious... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Red Lobster is obvious... (Score:2)
Logical consequences (Score:3, Insightful)
Making for a "+5, Funny" moderation probability of almost 100%.
Punny people (Score:2)
What happens if a punny person meets another punny person? They go out and have a steak and eggs--instant breakfast. (And, pretty quickly, friends.)
Reciprocal Effect (Score:2, Insightful)
Most revolutions start when such activities occur. I wonder if they decided to debate over the issue: 'Free access to all information available', or 'Block what we consider harmful to our socialist government and hope the people aren't smart enough to realize what we are doing'.
Sometimes I forget just how much I love the good old USA.
Re:Reciprocal Effect (Score:2)
They have to. Anarchy would break out if the Chinese knew that we offer delicious all-you-can-eat jumbo shrimp for only $14.99 for a limited time.
Speaking of censorware... (Score:5, Interesting)
Summary of Censorware Drama (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you ignore what happened before, the current situation is that the Censorware project had to start up a new site at censorware.net, and Sims is using the original URL - censorware.org, as a rant page against Finkelstein.
Sims admits at the top of this page that many people visiting it will be hoping to find information pertaining to censorship. However, rather than do what most people who claim to be concerned about censorship would do (allow the visitor to get the information they are looking for), he just rants on about Finkelstein.
Seemingly, for Sims - ego and flaming Finkelstein gets a higher priority than educating people about censorship. Don't take my word for it, visit censorware.org and see for yourself.
Oh, also - be warned. Sims is known to use his Slashdot editor status to remove these discussion threads, claiming they are off-topic (he can't really use that excuse here).
Re:Michael Sims.. You are an enemy of freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I think it this battle is an utterly childish act on both parts and its disgusting to see a perfectly good URL (censorware.org) used for this rediculous Michael vs Seth soap opera.
At this point, no one cares who is at fault, but many slashdotters would be very happy if one or both sides would just fucking grow up and quit furthering this war of egos and blame throwing.
Peronsally, I'd like to see censorware.org turned back into what it was supposed to be. Michael owns it, so he should be able to do what, even without Seth on the project. If he can't then he should turn it over to more capable hands, such as the EFF or Amnesty International or someone who actually wants to create a nice site which educates about censorware instead of pushing a personal grudge against someone else.
big deal (Score:2, Funny)
Re:big deal (Score:3, Informative)
Blocking quotient (Score:2)
Blocking quotient: inacessible due to slashdot effect
also... (Score:3, Informative)
here [amnesty.org] is more information on Chinas control
Since its slashdotted, Google cache (Score:5, Informative)
Historical rationale for blocking the website... (Score:5, Interesting)
From this perspective, I hope you can understand why they might find the idea of plunging a 'red' lobster into a tank of boiling water to be as offensive as any pornography our country has to offer.
Re:Historical rationale for blocking the website.. (Score:2)
So with that reasoning all the things that can be seen as offensive to some is to be censored? I personally find religious acts offensive, like eating the flesh of the alleged savior to name a grotesque ritual, does that mean I have a case for banning religious sites? Think not.
In Other News... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the US that much better? At least in China I wouldn't be arrested (because I wouldn't be able to find the site).
Porn is OK, News is not. (Score:2)
"Maybe Porn For Nerds, Stuff that Splatters." would get through OK.
Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:3, Flamebait)
China blocks and censors the net? Look, in the USA we have the RIAA tracking people down, raiding colleges, shutting down file sharing networks, and censoring websites, software, music, movies, art, and everything else which they make a profit out of.
So its ok for the USA to censor in the name of Capitalism, but its bad for China to censor in the name of Communism?
I hate looking at such hypocritical stories, stop picking on China's government and fix ours. Lets talk about the fucked up DMCA, lets talk about the RIAA, lets talk about IP and the fact that none of us here have IP yet we all must sacrafice our freedom to protect something only 5% of our population owns.
Its pathetic, leave China alone for a moment and whoever is moderator of Slashdot, please post an article comparing China and the USA's censorship and see that we are just as bad.
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:3, Insightful)
One does not preclude the other.
Posting a story about Chinese censorship does not mean that you implicit condone censorship somewhere else.
Re:True but why should people be critical of China (Score:3, Insightful)
Selective reading, my friend? There's plenty of US, DMCA, Congress-bashing all of the time. Look at nearly every Slashback in recent memory...
Actually, the only reason that China gets so much bashing is that, well, inside of China you don't get to bash them. In America (and Europe, and many if not most other places), we get to bash our government in every medium, as often as we're willing to bother. Granted, it gets old eventually, so we tend to concentrate on something more important to us personally. Like which Willow is better
We all know the USA is not perfect so what gives us the right to Bash China as if we are better or something?
Our government doesn't do what China's does. It doesn't censor directly; it doesn't ban religions (even pseudo-religions); it does allow criticism and free political speech.
And when someone criticises the US, our government doesn't throw a hissy fit. You haven't noticed us breaking diplomatic relations or trade ties with Germany, now, have you? And you won't; our goverment disagrees with Germany's government (hell, it disagrees with me too!), but that isn't going to interfere with business as usual. And note, the US criticizes Germany's stance on declaring Scientology a cult rather than a religion, so such disagreements are certainly not new nor interesting...
As citizens and residents in the US, we have the right (check the First Amendment here [archives.gov]) to whinge about not only our government, but our neighbors and city councilmen and international conglomerates and the French... and yes, the government of the PRC. Get used to it, bucko, it's a big world out here
Ok I understand us Bashing the taliban, but China?
China does some very nasty things; to wit:
So, my lad, if you can't take the heat, you'd best get out of the kitchen!
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:2)
If all these people are willing to 'Help out a cause' why don't they start looking here? Oh, thats right, its not as glamerous. Thats pretty pathetic.
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:2, Insightful)
Theres starving kids here. Theres homeless kids here , Families in fact are homeless here. Theres kids growing up with a single parent here in ghettos filled with drugs and whore houses, why give money to people in etheopia or anywhere else when people HERE are on welfare, people here need help, its funny how a republican office can hate welfare, but when its supporting their Agenda suddenly its ok. When American Airlines was attacked Bush steped in with the corperate bailout work 20 billion. When we destroyed afganastan, we now spend billions a year on economic development,
if we attack Iraq its going to cost us billions a year.
We dont even spend 1 billion a year on welfare but Republicans complain like welfare is draining every penny out of their pockets, they dont want to help homeless people in this country yet we spend billions each year helpinng homeless people in Africa. We dont protect our own borders yet we have thousands of troops protecting the korean border. What the fuck?! when are we going to stop policing the world, and become America again instead of the world government that we are trying to be?
Thats why we keep getting attacked by terrorists, we spread ourselves thin and focus everywhere but where we should focus.
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:2)
While I agree with the statements in your post, the U.S. goverment and state governments spent over $430 BILLION dollars on welfare in FY 2000.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/Test03
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:3, Insightful)
The solution is not money. These problems are extremely, extremely tough to fix. It can't be fixed in a generation. (in fact, I left wondering if a solution can ever be found). As soon as someone 'pulled themselves up by the bootstraps' (often with aid) and went to school, they immediately moved out of the city. This simply leaves 'everything else' in the inner cities. Very few want to stay once they become productive.
Don't get me wrong. I still have many friends who live in inner Chicago (not that it matters, but FYI, almost all black people who grew up there). They are working to fix the problem, but it's not about money. It's about changing culture. It's about changing families. More than anything, it's about getting fathers to get married to those they impregnate and take care of their kids (instead of running off to the next woman). Strong families would solve the problem.
I agree that we should focus on our own problems, but that doesn't preclude us from working with other countries as well. Cities don't need money. They need people to go in and help change culture. How do we do that? I don't know. But after my experience there I don't worry about money the US spends helping other countries. We need a whole lot more than money in the inner city.
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:2)
Since I live poor right now I can tell you the solution. The solution to poverty is better schools and economic development.
How can this be done? First give more venture capital to people who want to start business in these areas, the government should set it up so venture capital is not given all to one spot like silicon valley.
Private and Public schools should have residential options, this means kids who are being raised by 1 parent in a bad enviornment should be able to go to a residential school, they should qualify for residential school based on need, if you are a kid with only one parent and you dont make alot of money, you should be able to go to a residential school where you will have teachers teaching you 24/7, you will be in a good enviornment with role models and have a proper safe childhood, you go home on the weekends or whenever your parents decide to pick you up and take you. (I was in a residential school for a year so I know from experience)
" They are working to fix the problem, but it's not about money. It's about changing culture. It's about changing families. "
Families? The problem is lack of family, too many single parents, children who come home to empty houses because the one parent is working 2 jobs and cant raise their kids properly. Lack of positive influence and role models, etc, its not a culture issue because you put this same kid in the proper enviornment and they will do fine, the problem is money. When you work 2 jobs you do not have time to teach your kid anything, your kid has no guide, you are never around enough to help them, the school your kid goes to if it sucks your kid wont learn anything, and the only option left really is the streets because your kid comes home to an empty house.
The first issue is proper education, residential schools solves this, the second solution is economic development, by spending money in the proper fashion it will create jobs so that kids who dont have any money can work a legit job instead of be forced into selling drugs or doing something stupid, venture capitalist funding should be placed in these areas, and businesses should be started, I think this could all be fixed within a generation if people started building residential schools now, if they started throwing money into the actual community and not give money away to welfare, and instead of the boys and girls club, kids should be able to live on campus at school, our tax dollars should pay for this for parents who cannot afford to pay, and for parents who can afford to pay they can continue working 2 jobs and pay.
Also getting married is not a solution, if you think it is, guess what, 70 percent of people who get married end up getting divorced, so eventually the same situation will end up happening anyway, instead of promoting getting married we should just set things up in a way so that a single parent can raise kids in this society.
You cannot expect people to get married and stay married when statistics clearly show that the majority of people who get married divorce. You can stop teen pregnancy, residential schools would make it damn hard for children to get pregnant because if you are a parent you could put them in an all girl school.
Yes strong families is one solution but its not a realistic solution, a more realistic solution is to adapt the system to support single parent families.
If we spent the billions of dollars we spend on helping other countries on helping build residential schools and bring jobs into the poorest communities, people in these communities would at least be more educated and when growing up they will at least have the OPTION to stay out of trouble, these kids will also have the CHANCE of getting a job when they finally do grow up, because if your only option after your highschool diploma is mc donalds, you'd make more money selling drugs, until you give them other options, legit options so people can get certifed in something and have a legit job at a local business in their community, theres not really many options after highschool. College? sure they can go to college but if they went to shitty highschools chances are they arent going to be thinking about college.
How can I say all this stuff? I grew up in a single parent home, poor as hell in a cheap apartment, and now I'm in college, I know exactly what the problems were from EXPERIENCE, I know what helped me, so I know the solutions. Culture has less to do with it, its more about enviornment, you put someone of any culture in a bad enviornment and dont give them any way out of it (shitty public schools) these people might not know anything else but the streets, me? I got lucky and had access to the internet, I taught myself things which the school did not teach me, its all about havinng the resources to be successful, with no resources at all and a bad enviornment on top of that, your chances of success are slim.
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:2)
your worldview is what is known as "noninterventionist"
it would be nice, wouldn't it? it would be nice if america pulled out of everything and looked completely inward and solved all of its domestic problems instead, no?
but your perspective lacks complexity. its not that simple. your worldview is based on naivete, not an understanding of the problems involved, domestically or internationally.
your naive, dude.
you are either 12 years old, or, if you are older, you have the understanding of the world of a 12 year old. just because you have an opnion does not mean it is the most informed one. it is in fact, rather simplistic. come back to us and post some more when you understand the way the world really works.
here's a question for you: why did the terrorists who flew airplanes into skyscrapers on 9/11 not stay home and work on domestic saudi problems instead? and if you pose the answer to that in a cause and effect kind of vein, that is, the us got what it deserved because of their messing around outside us borders, then you don't understand the islamic fundamentalist agenda. if the us disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow, do you think all of the islamic fundamentalists would go home and stop bothering the nonbelievers? if you begin to understand that their agenda has a life all of its own, regardless of what the us does, then maybe you can begin to understand the world beyond your simplistic "us bad, everyone else victims" worldview.
and please don't attack me as a warmongering us patriot. or an anti-islamic christian fundamentalist. christian fundamentalism is just as bad islamic fundamentalism. the problem is fundamentalism, not islam. additionally, these problems are the world's problems, not america's problems, so i am not coming from a us patriotic point of view, but from a worldwide it's-a-problem point of view.
MOD PARENT DOWN -1 OFF-TOPIC (Score:2)
The RIAA is trying to restrict the flow of entertainment, in an effort for them to try to make more money. However, over-the-air TV and radio remain, so as long as you have reception equipment you can still receive some limited choices of entertainment programming.
China is restricting the flow of information and opinions, so that the abuses of the government's power go undectected because nobody is allowed to talk about them. That is what is absolutely unacceptable.
Let's keep RIAA-bashing in its designated threads, because although what the RIAA dpes os bad, what China does is worse.
How so? Provide evidence. (Score:3, Insightful)
The record companies, Microsoft, or any of these big giant companies, they are just like government, they tax you for stuff you dont even need like Microsoft Windows coming with your PC even if you dont want it, or record companies trying to rob you and musicians at the same time with $30 cds.
So because our government is Capitalist somehow we are immune to the problems China has? Hell no, we have the same problems, we are run by big business and China is run by elite government officials, both of us however are not run by the people.
No one in the USA but these big businesses want intellectual property. I dont know ANYONE who thinks napster and file sharing should be illegal, I dont know a single sick person who wants their medicine to cost x10 more money because of patents, and I dont know anyone in general who makes money from patents, even musicians i know make most of their money from concerts.
The only people making money from the patent and intellectual property industry are fakes like britney spears and guys in suits who sit around bossing people but who have no purpose.
We are a democracy right? I'll believe it when file sharing and marijuana are made legal.
Re:How so? Provide evidence. (Score:2)
The danger here in China is that people don't have the freedom to express their own opinions when they are contrary to the government's.
Arround here, you're prefectly welcome to say that the government should change its policies because marijuana should be legal. We won't torture you, we won't kill you, we won't put you in jail, we won't even charge you a fine... we'll just laugh at you.
So the creator has the right to censor you say? (Score:2)
So thats still censorship, you can re-word it any way you like, it doesnt matter if the governments censoring me, or the creator of something is censoring me, i'm censored and i dont like it.
Re:So the creator has the right to censor you say? (Score:2)
Summoning (Score:3, Funny)
Oh no. He has summoned the moderator John Katz.
RUN!
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:5, Insightful)
USA:
Miniscule control of contested content as part of an on-going struggle over intellectual property. This control is almost entirely public, and any punishment is delivered openly after proper trials. An open and energetic debate is taking place within the USA regarding the correctness of these actions.
China:
Sweeping control of political expression. This control is as covert as possible. Much of the punishment is delivered in an arbitrary and concealed manner. Public debate within China is limited because people fear arrest if they complain.
Neither situation is ideal, but equating the situation in the USA with the situation in China diminishes the situation the Chinese people must endure.
Is it ok for priests to rape children? (Score:2)
If the same person saying you shouldnt do something is doing it themselves whats that say?
Remember being a kid and your parents said "dont drink, dont smoke, dont do drugs" but they did it right in front of you? It kinda makes you just ignore anything they say and rebel.
This is how the USA sounds, like the parents of the world telling the world what they can and cannot do.
Re:Such Hypocrites Americans are. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah. And they're being reported on doing it. And getting sued for civil liberties violations.
lets talk about IP and the fact that none of us here have IP
Speak for yourself. I'm a coder. I have IP. And, frankly, if you had a clue about the IP laws you'd know you had IP too. But instead of educating yourself about IP and what's right and wrong with the current IP system, you'd rather just whine and moan about the RIAA and MPAA being evil and horrible, and compare them to draconian authoritative regimes clouding the issue... all so that you can not pay the artist for their time when you download a song or movie off a P2P network.
I happen to agree that the RIAA and MPAA have wildly overstepped their bounds, but I've yet to see anyone figure out a decent scheme that still ensures the artist will be paid. I don't give a flying fuck about the middlemen and their dieing business model, but I damn well do want to see the inventor properly paid for their time and effort.
Its pathetic, leave China alone for a moment and whoever is moderator of Slashdot, please post an article comparing China and the USA's censorship and see that we are just as bad
Wow... that's such an incredible stretch it's not even funny.
Are you worried about someone coming to your home tonight, arresting you and your family, and throwing you into prison for the rest of your (possibly drastically shortened) life because of the post you made on
There may very well be issues in the US. We can strive to fix them. That doesn't mean we can't point at someone else and say "no, that's wrong".
I can't believe there were enough moderators that thought this was "interesting" or "insightful" to get you modded up past all the proper "flamebait" mods. This is pure tripe.
Good work if you can get it (Score:3, Funny)
It's those imperialist hush puppies (Score:2)
Probably the censors think "Red Lobster" is some sort of subtle political metaphor.
The tradition of allegorical criticism in Chinese literature and art makes that a suspicious name. When intellectuals want to confront the government in China, and this isn't just since 1948, they write a metaphorical poem about flowers. (When the leadership wants to prove they're still vital despite the criticism, they fake pictures of themselves swimming in the Yangtze river.)
Or maybe Red Lobster's on the list because of some sort of fluky algorithm -- though I doubt it. The Chinese economy is all about labor-intensive everything. Huge buildings there are coated in tile, because the material's cheap and the labor doesn't cost anything. They'd do this with brute human force. I imagine a beehive of busy IS professionals is steadily clicking through the internet every day, identifying illicit sites and disconnecting people who try to access them. Wow.
Lets see (Score:4, Insightful)
If all of these sites China was censoring were protected by the DMCA, and there was source code or illegal files on them, suddenly its ok to censor it!
Are we complaining about China because they are Chinese or because of their so called censorship?
China isnt the country locking people up for sharing files, in fact up until recently it was perfectly legal to share your files, they had freedom of speech in that area until WE the so called freedom loving Americans forced them to adopt our censorship laws to protect our intellectual propery from the evil warez pirates of China who cant afford to buy our software anyway.
Its funny how we complain about every nation, China, Afganastan, Pakistan, Iraq, everywhere but if anyone dares complain about the USA they are unAmerican.
I expect to get flamed by a bunch of patriots who will tell me that America is not a country of hypocrites but if you look throughout history, this country was founded by hypocrites who said it was all about freedom, freedom to enslave millions of people and rob the natives of all their land?
So should the masses have absolute freedom of speech? No more DMCA? Or should the elite few people who happen to have some kinda intellectual propery, should these people have freedom to protect it?
I think considering 95 percent of us dont own any intellectual propery, why should we try so hard to protect it? It reduces our freedom.
Re:Lets see (Score:2)
Why should we try to protect it? Simple. 99% of us don't own a Ferrari, either. If we use that as a rationale, why should we reduce our freedom to steal Ferraris; after all, we don't have them, right?
Also, while I'm anything but a fan of the DMCA, there's a really big difference between preventing people from reading about politics the gov't finds inconvenient, and preventing them from downloading warez. There is, in spite of what some folks around here would like to believe, a difference between a novelist publishing his book online and me scanning the latest Ludlum book and putting that online.
Re:Lets see (Score:2)
Wares are not physical, software are 1s and 0s, not a physical object like a ferrari, there can only be one farrari, you cannot copy a farrari and share it with a friend, if i steal your ferarri then you lose something.
If i download a file and then send a copy of it to someone else, no one loses anything but someone gains something.
MOD PARENT DOWN -1 OFF-TOPIC (Score:2)
Censoring the ability to publish in the first place represses the people, and makes them unable to complain when the government abuses its authority. At least here in the USA, you're allowed to complain about the DMCA all you want.
BTW, you do own intellectual property. That nonsense post you just made is yours. It's worthless, but that's because of its lack of quality... it's not even worth the Slashdot mod points it has now.
Create content people value
?????
PROFIT!
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 OFF-TOPIC (Score:2)
Just like I dont own the answer to a math problem that i happen to solve, well at least not in my opinion, but someone else may believe they own the patent on math.
What happens when all the patents are owned? then the same patents hold back progress.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 OFF-TOPIC (Score:2)
However, I'd argue that The Matrix is too recent to deserve the same treatment.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 OFF-TOPIC (Score:2)
Whats the difference? When you are on a computer which is essentially a machine which doesnt distribute physical objects but information, if you tell someone they cannot copy and then send out information you are denying their freedom of speech.
Its not physical objects likee you keep trying to say it is, its not a ferrari, its not a ham sandwich which only one person gets to eat, its information.
IF i cannot share information with you because of somee stupid DMCA, thats removing my freedom of speech.
I do not consider this post intellectual propery because I do not believe information can be owned, its not a physical thing. Owning information is like trying to own the air and charge for it. Its a stupid worthless idea in the first place.
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN -1 OFF-TOPIC (Score:2)
I did? When? Where?
Re:Lets see (Score:2)
The USA is not be as bad as China, Iraq, North Korea, etc., but it is a fact that we have quite a few very restrictive laws in place that reduce our freedoms now in the name of the "War on Terrorism" or "War on Drugs" or any "War on X that politicians can use to boost their approval ratings."
It is my opinion that people who blindly defend the federal government's actions, blindly support anything that President Bush does, and blindly accuses anyone who critiques the government of being "UnAmercian" is not a REAL Patriot, and does not really love Freedom.
Just because you stick an American flag on your SUV does not make you a patriot.
In my opinion, it is the PATRIOTIC duty of American Citizens to be ever-mindful of the government and actively defend every single one of their Constitutional rights completely. In this area, I believe that the majority of Americans have failed.
Re:Lets see (Score:5, Insightful)
does america suck big time on some issues? sure. no one is denying the obvious criticisms you have pointed out.
but surely you can see that america has more freedoms when it comes to the press, speech, etc., then china, which actively seeks to control these things. or the other nations you mentioned: pakistan, iraq, afghanistan.
does this make america better than china or these other nations? of course not. that is just nationalism. nationalism stinks like racism or sexism stinks. so maybe we, and this includes you, can move beyond the america sucks/ america is better rhetoric and focus on the issues at hand: basic freedoms, regardless of where in the world we are.
because no one else is talking about these issues in this thread as an "america is better" or "america is worse" kind of way except you. who cares about that. china censors these sites. that sucks. all by itself that sucks. whether america is the center of all evil in the universe or all americans walk around with haloes of purity and innocence on their heads. either way, this censoring of sites by china still sucks. period. end of story. get it?
so i'll make you a deal: we'll move beyond the nationalist rhetoric as soon as YOU move beyond the nationalist rhetoric, capice?
geez.
Re:Lets see (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey there,
I think this paragraph totally lacks a sense of perspective. Well, yes, filesharing is illegal in the US, but do you really equate a right of trading music over the Internet to a right of political free speech or even the right to read political material of your own choosing?
I don't see why one should necessarily exclude the other. I'm not terribly keen on the US government, but they're not the topic we're discussing. This is not about the DMCA, or the recording industry, or filesharing, or Americans saying stupid things. This is about a country which has a government that is denying its own citizens the right to information. This is insanity and must be stopped. I'd hope we could get a discussion about what it's possible for hackers and human rights activists to do about this without resorting to vandalism or script kiddie tactics. Making it a US vs. China discussion is really terribly arrogant, the US and its stupid copyright laws isn't really that relevant in this matter.
Note: I am not an "American patriot". I'm probably as "unAmerican" as it's humanly possible to get: I'm not Christian, I'm an active socialist, I'm not an American citizen, I'm against intellectual property at least in its currently practiced form, and I think George W. Bush is likely to be one of the three stupidest specimens this species has inflicted on the Earth in the million or so years hominids have been around. (the two others would be Steve Ballmer and an anonymous cave-dweller from Central Europe, circa 250.000 B.C.). However, if I could choose between repealing a stupid American copyright law or bringing down the Great Firewall, I'd choose the latter any day. These people have the right to read, nobody should accept a government trying to take that away from them. The fact that America has a stupid government too doesn't make the Chinese one one bit better.
A List of censored US sites and links (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.sharereactor.com/
oh lets not forget about all the illegal sites like hacking/security sites which I'm not even allowed to legally LINK to.
And what about that site with the illegal Microsoft Windows 2000 Beta source code?
Re:A List of censored US sites and links (Score:2, Interesting)
Now I admit most corn-fed, SUV-driving, tv-numbed Americans don't really act. And the fact that we are powerful, we could control our government, makes that terrible. Of course, if you were femal in terms of freedom the Communist takeover was a wonder, and your freedoms expanded in a manner way that could have taken capitalism centuries ot manage.
Yet the US does not treat its own citizens with the same contempt for life, limb, and religious freedom as the Chinese gov't treats its people. It is true the US treats some _other_ countries that way, but it is also true that US and the UK are the only countries where colonialism was stopped by domestic objection.
That wealth and power are spiritually dangerous is not some uniquely American thing. Rather it is that more Americans have wealth and power.
-Jean
Red's Lobster (Score:2, Informative)
Chinese citizens are like children... (Score:3, Interesting)
- Children and Chinese citizens must use Net-Nanny-ish software.
The term "What about the children?" in Chinese must translate to "What about the citizens?".I wonder if my site is blocked.
IN COMMUNIST CHINA... (Score:3, Insightful)
China has a long history of being run by idiots. A long series of emperors squandered China's treasures and people to build stupid things for themselves, like stone armies, terraced mountains, and The Great Wall. The Great Wall of China was started by a schizophrenic paraniod emperor who was afraid of being attacked from the north. It was continued by his descendants, who didn't have the sense to look at this project and realize it was a Big Waste Of Time.
What usually happens is that an imperial dynasty is started by a strong, good emperor, and then all his descendents are idiots. Eventually, they get overthrown by another group that sets up another imperial dynasty, and the cycle starts over again. Sort of like what caused the French Revolution, except it kept happening every century or so. The Communists are just the last in a long line of dynasties.
Idiots vs. Morons. (Score:2, Insightful)
We have successful, capitalist, legal-schooled morons versus soon-to-be-successful, partial-capitalist, state-schooled idiots.
You just can't win.
Re:IN COMMUNIST CHINA... (Score:2)
As opposed to pyramids, emperal yards, and who-knows-what the Egyptians/Greeks/Romans/Europeans/Whatever made.
Hello? That was several thousands of years ago! People's thinking were VERY different from now! Almost no ruler in the past wasn't an "idiot" (by your definition).
Red Lobster (Score:2, Funny)
Is this meaningful? (Score:5, Interesting)
******
It occured to me that this is only interesting because of the very large number of potentially affected people. If the same study was done about filtering in the country of, say, Morocco, I probably would not have bothered to read it. As such, I feel that the analysis sort of begs the question. How many people in China actually have Internet access, and what parts of the society are they in?
If only 1% of the country uses the Web on a regular basis, and 90% of those are "well to do", then the filtering has much less significance because the potential impact of Internet access is already minimalized.
(I have made the assumption that "well to do" citizens are less likely to want to modify the status quo, meaning that Web content would have minimal impact on their actions, filtered or not.)
Does an increase in filtering correalate in any way to an increase in Chinese Internet users?
******
(The gist of the response was that the study was not concerned with any implications of the filtering, just the filtering itself.)
Re:Is this meaningful? (Score:2)
Red Lobster (Score:2)
It would make comunism look too underdeveloped for the human race.
Highlights, since it seems to be slashdotted (Score:2, Informative)
Here are the names of the highlighted blocked sites. I have all the other stats too but the filter system won't let me post them for some reason.
Title: Asian American Baptist Church
Title: ABC.com
Title: ABC Online
Title: About Reuters
Title: Association of Christian Community ComputerCenters
Title: American Cancer Society - Northern California Chinese Unit Air Intelligence Agency
Title: AltaVista - The Search Company
Title: MIT Alumni Association
Title: American Feed Magazine Welcome to America's Party
Title: Amnesty International USA - Defending and PromotingHuman Rights Worldwide
Title: Center for Anti-Communism The Nando Times
Title: The University of Arizona
Title: The United States Army Homepage
Title: Russian Christian Orthodox church in BostoUSA
Title: MIT Computer Architecture Group Home Page
Title: Christian Academy in Japan
Title: The Cancer Information Network US Army War College and Carlisle Barracks, alsoCenter for Strategic Leadership, Military History Institute, ArmyPhysical Fitness Research Institute, Parameters, and Strategic Studies Institute CBS.com
Title: Welcome to ITS
Title: Charlotte.com - Your Guide to Charlotte
Title: Welcome to the US Army Research Institute of ChemicaDefense
Title: Chichester District Online
Title: The China Times
Title: Bilingual Chinese children's books, Chinese movieDVDs, Chinese cultural products! Learn Mandarin Chinese, LearnCantonese, books, traditional chinese music & songs, CD's, CD-ROM,stories, and cassett tapes. Chinese language/mandarin culture/heri christopherlydon.org
Title: Welcome to CKS International Airport
Title: Columbia University
Title: Le Consulat General de France - Hong Kong Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS)Calgary/Banff Chapter
Title: The Stanford Daily Online Edition
Title: Deep Impact Defend AMERICA - US Department of Defense News AboutThe War on Terrorism
Title: DefenseLINK - Official Web Site of the U.S. Department of Defense
Title: DFW.com - Your Dallas/Fort Worth Everything Guide
Title: Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Home Page
Title: DefenseLINK - Official Web Site of theU.S. Department of Defense
Title: Defense Technical Information Center
Title: Study Tour to JAPAN 97
Title: Economic Services (Macau) MIT EECS - Home Page
Title: Taipei e-campus
Title: Environmental Protection Agency - Taiwan
Title: Falun Dafa Canada Falun Dafa in Ireland
Title: Canada Family Action Coalition - CFAC
Title: Faith Bible Church, Seattle, WA USA
Title: Feng Shui USA Homepage Federal Judicial Center
Title: The Free Methodist Church in Canada - MAINPAGE
Title: Fair Trade Commission - Taiwan Japan Fukuoka Mission
Title: Government Information Office, Republic ofChina
Title: The George Washington University Haneda Japanese Tutorial School
Title: The Happy Hacker -- the web site computer criminalsdon't want you to visit!
Title: Integrity Episcopal Church U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence
Title: INTERHIT RECORDS ONLINE
Title: Irish Chronicle: news from Ireland and around the world Ice Rink Management Asia & Ice Rink Resources
Title: CIC - Canberra Islamic Centre
Title: Islamic Virtual School
Title: The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Israel Tour Connection - Free Bar/Bat Mitzvah toIsrael
Title: The Judicial Yuan of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Kaohshiung - Taiwan's Maritime Capital
Title: Kinsman Redeemer Ministries
Title: Los Angeles Times
Title: Welcome to the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Title: The Learning Channel
Title: The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
Title: MIT Libraries
Title: Wellesley College Library
Title: Miami.com - Your Miami Everything Guide
Title: The Official State Web Site of Mississippi Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Title: City of Light; The Path to the True Islam
Title: Critical in-depth studies of Christianity, Islam, Ismailism, Evolution and Atheism MotorBikeAssociation
Title: The Nando Times: Front
Title: U.S. Navy's Official Web Site: Welcome Aboard
Title: The National Guard Bureau Notre Dame Academy {Catholic High School inMiddleburg, Virginia}
Title: National Public Radio
Title: oneworld.net homepage Parti federaliste du France - POUR UNE FRANCEFEDERALE - POUR UNE EUROPE FEDERALE
Title: Philly.com - "The Region's Home Page"
Title: FCIC - Home Page Radio Canada International
Title: Red Horse Records-Independent record label, recordingstudio, music publisher, distributor, and online music store. Bobby Carlson, Mustang Mesa, Michael Razz, Melissa Bates, and DebbiGrant.
Title: Red Lobster Seafood Restaurants - Recipes and LiveLobster Delivery
Title: Home Page: American Memory from the Library oCongress
Title: Saudi Times - latest news stories and topheadlines.
Title: æ--...å¥åç"Yèè¼æoefTaiwaStudent Club in Austria
Title: Welcome to the National Food and Agriculture HomePage
Title: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute Yahoo! Singapore News
Title: Singapore Millennium Study Tour
Title: Welcome to Red Mountain
Title: SonyStyle USA SourceForge.net: Welcome
Title: National Statistics of Taiwan, the Republic ofChina
Title: New Mexico State Government Welcome to Streamripper
Title: Sunnyside Jazz Records first page
Title: Scott Wiggerman's Poetry Pages
Title: Tibetan Incense Company : Incense for MeditationHealth and all Spiritual Practices
Title: Welcome to TIME.com
Title: The Truth in America Project
Title: Tucows Downloads - Download freeware and sharewarsoftware.
Title: United Nations Moldova
Title: Welcome to UNICEF Canada
Title: United Nations - daily news and currenevents
Title: The Federal Judiciary
Title: Official Website for the United States Marine Corps Uyghur American Association
Title: Veterans Affairs Commission, Taiwan
Title: Voice of America
Title: washingtonpost.com - News Front Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Title: Space Science Division, NASA
Title: The University of Virginia
oh no, SlashDot and politics again... (Score:3, Insightful)
I always dread seeing political issues on
It is illegal to possess or distribute certain types of content in China. The penalties for doing these things can be quite severe. It does not matter whether a site is blocked or not. If you get caught viewing porn, that is a crime. It doesn't matter if you got it from an unblocked site or from a blocked site via some circumvention technique. Circumventing the law (any law) is also a crime in China (as it is in the US and many countries), and that is a separate crime over and above the crime of possessing/distributing forbidden material.
China's net control is not limited to blocking of the internet. They also do very extensive monitoring, thanks to their friends at Cisco. Think "FBI in the 50s" - lots of people collecting lots of files on lots of other people. Just because you can view restricted material does not mean you are getting away with anything. In fact, it is much more likely that you are not getting away with squat. They are just sitting on the info should they ever need to use it.
That said, China is primarily concerned with people who are distributing illegal materials. People who are engaging in this activity are doing so with full knowledge of the (possibly severe) punishments. This makes them either heroes or troublemakers, depending on your political view of the stuff they are distributing (i.e., kiddie porn vs. leaked gov't papers).
If you want to stop the censorship, you need to understand why the censorship is there in the first place. The sophomoric attitude of "we should force the US way on the rest of the world" is overly simplistic at best, and is one of the reasons other countries hate us. It is no help to the people actually trying to solve real problems and create change. The social and political situation is very different in China than in US. The attitude of the people towards the government, and the role government plays in the society is quite different. The US was founded on an extreme distrust of government, so it is hard for us to understand cultures who do not share this distrust.
For example, try to imagine this in the US: a senior military commander is arrested and thrown into prison. After many years, he is released. The government (this is the same government, mind you) tells him that after much investigations, it was a mistake, gives him an apology, gives him his back pay, and gives him his old job back, commanding a large part of the military. When asked about it, he says "everyone makes mistakes."
Sidney Rittenberg once said something like "The Chinese government is among the most corrupt, repressive, dysfunctional governments on Earth. It is also one of the best, and is the only one that can save China." This is from a man who lived in China 35 years - 16 of which were spent in Chinese prisons.
Most Americans also have comically extreme anti-communism attitude burned onto their collective subconscious from the 50's. Why otherwise intelligent people don't realize this is just BS government PR is beyond me. In any case, China is hardly communist in the Marx sense anyway - it is really a socialist state with increasing privatization. In some ways, it is even more capitalistic than the West. China describes its system as "socialism with Chinese characteristics", and I think that is pretty accurate.
BTW, China is NOT anti-Internet. China provides free (28.8 dial-up) internet access to their citizens. As of 10/2002, there are about 40 million internet users in China, growing at about 3%/month (from http://www.stats.gov.cn).
Re:Red Lobster is banned (Score:2, Funny)
The day I see a red lobster waving its claws is the day I start oiling my chainsaw garlic butter: "Evil Dead IV: Undead Lobster Grooviness!"
Re:Too many links (Score:2)
Re:Thats nice of you guys... (Score:2, Funny)
one of the nice side effects of running a for-profit business.