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Censorship The Internet Your Rights Online Technology

Bypassing The Great Firewall of China 27

An anonymous reader writes "On the BBC website they have a article about bypassing China's firewall for those living inside the country. It covers the usual idea of proxies or sending the content by e-mails. But it also suggests that with enough proxies the goverment couldn't block them all."
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Bypassing The Great Firewall of China

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  • Yeah but (Score:5, Funny)

    by MImeKillEr ( 445828 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @12:02PM (#8522096) Homepage Journal
    If you're *in China* and they're blocking the BBC, how can this be useful?
  • How Can I Help? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @12:28PM (#8522404) Homepage Journal
    Hello:

    How (specifically) can I help?

    I would like to assist with this process of free dissemination of information. If anyone has a suggestion how I might do that, please post here. I'm a normal user with an always-on DSL connection, run a normal webserver, and would like to assist with this.

    -- Kevin J. Rice
    • Check out the circumventor at http://www.peacefire.org/
    • I would like to assist with this process of free dissemination of information. If anyone has a suggestion how I might do that, please post here. I'm a normal user with an always-on DSL connection, run a normal webserver, and would like to assist with this.

      Why do you want to contribute to this obvious treason on the part of the Chinese people? If they didn't like the way their government runs things then they would have a revolution and change it. Since they don't we should only assume it is a very pea

      • Why ruin it by trying to westernize them?

        I didn't know freedom was a purely western ideal.

      • If they didn't like the way their government runs things then they would have a revolution and change it.

        Well, unfortunately since the advent of heavy weaponry, just having a revolution isn't that simple. Especially in a country that is as tightly controlled and policed as China.

        Obviously it's still possible (USSR), but it is surely not simple.
    • "Hello: How (specifically) can I help? I would like to assist with this process of free dissemination of information. If anyone has a suggestion how I might do that, please post here. I'm a normal user with an always-on DSL connection, run a normal webserver, and would like to assist with this. -- Kevin J. Rice"

      Hi, this is the Government of the Peoples Republic of China. Just to let you know, Gwai Lo, you're one dead motherfucker. Sleep tight.

      Sincerely,
      The Commies
    • http://freenet.sf.net

  • Great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by arrow ( 9545 ) <mike AT damm DOT com> on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @12:41PM (#8522591) Homepage Journal
    Just what we need to give the Chiniese people, an unlimited supply of open proxies to use!

    Don't you already get enough spam from them [spamhaus.org]?!
  • by cloudless.net ( 629916 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @12:41PM (#8522595) Homepage
    "But it also suggests that with enough proxies the goverment couldn't block them all."

    Then the government will simply block everything and allows access to "approved" website.

    The worst problem is the Chinese government heavily brainwash its people with controlled media etc, so most Chinese people don't believe in any information from the outside world. I'm glad Hong Kong still has uncensored Internet access, for now.

  • by TheLink ( 130905 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @12:43PM (#8522622) Journal
    It's pretty easy to block if you've a country like China.

    I'm sure there are a manageable number of ISP class international internet leased lines in China.

    Just stick transparent content filters on them and you'll be set for most stuff.

    Sure https/SSL stuff can be problematic, but not many big sites provide http proxies because it costs more in CPU and complexity. It's already easy enough to find normal http proxies and shut them down. You might even be able to automate some of it.

    As for peer to peer https proxies, what if the Chinese gov controls/subverts some of the "peer" machines? You're going to need some rather fancy tech - the simple method of identifying "trusted" proxies won't work coz that means the Chinese Gov can identify them and take action.
  • Ahead of the curve (Score:2, Interesting)

    by smothra ( 725684 )
    Back in my day, we didn't have no fancy peer-to-peer proxies. We tunneled [slashdot.org] through by force of will and we liked it.

    Actually, it's rather amazing how effective technologically enforced censorship is given the size of the tireless community dedicated to bypassing it.
  • *peek* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @01:48PM (#8523410) Homepage
    Isn't that what the Peekabooty [peek-a-booty.org] project was supposed to fix?
  • Can anyone give some specifics about what sites are blocked? Are only very politicized sites against the Chinese government blocked? I ask because I never came across a blocked site while surfing the net in China, while I was half expecting to not have access to things like the BCC and CNN's sites.
  • Why haven't I seen any comments about using Freenet [freenetproject.org] for this yet? Where's Ian hiding today?
    • Freenet is out of question. It's main idea of storing information on other peers with limited lifetime is flawed.

      Better system would be a network of p2p proxies. These proxies must work in chain so the original server is behind at least 5 proxies (with onion-like encryption it could be done securely). The only problem is routing requests to proxies...

It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

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