U.S. Tries To Open Up Web Access To China

An anonymous reader writes "CNET has a story about the U.S. funding software that will thwart firewall technology in China. It seems funny to me that while the U.S. tries to limit our access they are trying to open up China's. I wonder if I could use this technology in Michigan?" The agency funding the software is the International Broadcasting Bureau, an "independent federal government entity."

Cute.

[HaloZero]

So we kick the shit out of Saddam for beating on his people, oppressing them, etc.

Are we going to do the same to China's 'net infrastructure? I'd love to see the DoD try to stuff an M1A1 Abhrams and six dozen marines through a 1 gigabit pipe.

Next thing you know, the White House will start publishing press releases stating that China is a threat for producing w32.* worms.

Re:Cute.

[drdink]

They're too busy waving their fists at Syria right now. The media can't cover two things at the same time. Just look at the coverage of North Korea, or lack thereof. And have you seen the current ongoings in Cuba mentioned much on the news lately?

Re:Cute.

[Zarquon]

It was repeatedly mentioned on NPR today, along with some singer from Somalia (must be a fairly slow news day.. I got tired of hearing those two stories over and over and changed stations.)

Re:Cute.

[clonebarkins]

Are we going to do the same to China's 'net infrastructure? I'd love to see the DoD try to stuff an M1A1 Abhrams and six dozen marines through a 1 gigabit pipe.

Well, as Howie Day says [howiefan.com]:

In the future, packages will be sent to distant worlds through beams of light

Just gotta upgrade the trans-pacific cable to fibber optick [sic] and we'll be all set.

China's Great Firewall

[GreyWolf3000]

My dad used to work in China for British Petroleum near Hong Kong. In high school I'd spend summers there, and when I did I just ssh'ed to my box here in the US and fire up links whenever I hit a blocked site.

If we had decent broadband I might have tried tunneling an x session over the Pacific Ocean, but I bet it'd require too much bandwidth.

Re:China's Great Firewall

[GigsVT]

You could have used an ssh tunnel to a web proxy running on the unrestricted computer.

Curious that...

[pjgeer]

...the Bureau website [ibb.gov], with its editorials [voanews.com] against human rights violations, its copy [ibb.gov] of the Freedom of Information Act, and all its press releases [ibb.gov] about sticking it to fascist regimes, hasn't a single thing on China.

Here's hoping that China retaliates...

[RalphBNumbers]

...by producing and distributing software to combat government sponsored censorship of the net here in America.

DMCA violation?

[redelm]

Isn't this a violation of the US DMCA or other US laws prohibiting unauthorized access to computer systems?

Just because government employees or agents are committing the felonies does not make them legal, although it does reduce the likelihood of prosecution. But that's what [runaway] Grand Juries are for!

Re:DMCA violation?

[clonebarkins]

Isn't this a violation of the US DMCA or other US laws prohibiting unauthorized access to computer systems?

Uh, last I knew China wasn't part of the US....

Re:DMCA violation?

[redelm]

Very true, China is NOT part of the US. But US law doesn't distinguish where the attacked systems are located. The offense is the attack. Boston, Birmingham, Berlin or Beijing is still a felony.

Re:DMCA violation?

[clonebarkins]

But US law doesn't distinguish where the attacked systems are located. The offense is the attack. Boston, Birmingham, Berlin or Beijing is still a felony.

Firstly: IANAL

True the law doesn't distinguish where the attacked systems are located. However, neither do other laws distinguish that it matters where a murder happens. Yet if I murder somebody in Japan, the US can't prosecute me because the US has no jurisdiction in Japan. That's why extradition treaties exist....

There has to be a point of acce

Re:DMCA violation?

[Blaine Hilton]

This is probably OT, but can the US Government sue itself? Like the DOJ sueing the DOD?

Sounds like Peek-A-Booty?

[rculkin]

Peek-A-Booty [peek-a-booty.org] promises to do the same thing that this project does - allow unrestricted access to the Internet even when procluded by your firewall or governmentall policy.

What I'd prefer to see is the US Gov donate money to the Peek-A-Booty project, which is open and written by some fine hackers (in the positive sense of the word) instead of building it from scratch.

I trust things when I can get source. NSA Linux (now SELinux) was denounced originally because it was done partly by the NSA, but it included full source and now is an accepted valid way to secure a linux box. The article doesn't seem to indicate that their peek-a-booty-like software will be open, so how can you trust it as much? Are you sure you're getting the actual Internet content, or just a US-propagandized version

" U.S. tries to limit our access"

[xagon7]

WTF are you talking about? Am I missing something? I have the $ to pay for access, I get it. Simple as that. Pass some of whatever you're smokin my way.

Re:" U.S. tries to limit our access"

[xagon7]

Perhaps, but I am not being censored.

The software the article is talking about: OpenSA

[Exocet]

Straight from Bennett Hasselton at Peacefire.org: http://www.peacefire.org/circumventor/simple-circ u mventor-instructions.html

Unfortunately, OpenSA is Windows-only and isn't really very open-source friendly. Some of the source code is available for older versions. CGIProxy, the "other half" of Peacefire.org's firewall-bustin' solution, is a perl program and thus "open source", but the licensing is somewhat muddled: http://www.jmarshall.com/tools/cgiproxy/faq.html#q 9

The good news is that if you alread

Official USG policy, we don't pick on China..

[phrackwulf]

They supply us with millions of dollars of goods produced by slave labor in gulag camps. If you speak out against the communists or do anything they don't like, you can get sent away for a very long time. But we certainly don't want to raise a fuss about that. Holding China accountable would be bad for business. And the Bush administration has a very succint motto, "Dissent is bad for business." We're one big happy global family folks. Just want to point out that we didn't beat the USSR by buying thei

Re:Official USG policy, we don't pick on China..

[forii]

They supply us with millions of dollars of goods produced by slave labor in gulag camps.

Parents: Rhetoric can be fun to use, but please, be careful. Don't let it get into the hands of children.

The whole thing can be summed up in 1 word!

[Blaine Hilton]

Hypercritic

Go Calculate something [webcalc.net]