Googling Behind China's Great Firewall 344
xcham writes "The OpenNet Initiative, a joint project of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, and the Advanced Network Research Group at Cambridge, have released a bulletin regarding the type of filtering applied to Google by the Chinese government. Most notably, certain keywords are filtered, as well as Google's 'cache' function. More information on how the keyword filtering is implemented is available in a previous bulletin."
I'm behind the (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm behind the (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm behind the (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm behind the (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm behind the (Score:5, Informative)
As an aside, I set up a simple unencrypted squid proxy on a box in the USA, and whenever I encounter "the block", I just hit F12-x in Opera, and reload the site. The simplest of proxies will defeat the Great Firewall.
Re:I'm behind the (Score:5, Funny)
"I no you! Understand?"
Re:I'm behind the (Score:3, Funny)
do think cute?
Re:I'm behind the (Score:3, Funny)
No Problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if the chinese propaganda ministry has
re: the list of English words (Score:3, Funny)
China also requires its citizens to wipe twice after excreting.
Re:I'm behind the (Score:2, Insightful)
They'll never even see this?! (Score:4, Funny)
Triangle Man beats Firewall man!
Re:They'll never even see this?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They'll never even see this?! (Score:2, Funny)
Or perhaps some people are sick of garcia's continual karmawhoring.
tunneling (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:tunneling (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:tunneling by the authorities (Score:4, Interesting)
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Re:tunneling (Score:2)
Most ssh users don't use it as a way to avoid censorship--they use it to e.g. keep their passwords secret. Do they have no script kiddies in China?
--Bruce Fields
Re:tunneling (Score:3, Interesting)
OK. My only point is just that if I were, say, a Chinese geek setting up a linux box, ssh would probably be one of the first things I'd install and use, for the same reasons it's one of the first things I install here. So there are probably plenty of people using ssh there for the usual stuff--logging into their server to check their mail, encrypting a remote X session, etc.
Thus I'm questioning the clai
Re:tunneling (Score:2, Informative)
Re:tunneling (Score:5, Insightful)
BUT! They're not bothered. If a few geeks read forbidden stuff, that won't change much. I'm sure there's already dissident minority. What they don't want is some critical mass of people getting the wrong idea. Which won't happen for a while, because most Chineese haven't seen a PC. On the other the peasants never really mattered in China, so maybe they (Chineese government) have a good reason to be paranoid.
And the /. effect... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And the /. effect... (Score:2)
Yeah, but before the site goes down, we'll all know how to swear in Chinese! W00t!
We're next (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't help but wonder how long until this begins to happen in the US, all in the name of fighting terrorism
Re:We're next (Score:4, Insightful)
And that something is the freedom to view porn. Once the US government decides that it is acceptable to expand their reaches to cover the indecency of porn on the net people WILL get pissed off enough to end that bullshit.
Re:We're next (Score:2)
you can watch it.
Aparently, if 9/11 didn't happen, Bush's war on terrorism would be a war on pron.
Re:We're next (Score:3, Informative)
Most people who hear the words "air rifle" remember the lever action Daisy B-B guns, and they remember B-B gun battles with their friends. The worst anyone ever went home with was a stinging bruise, (no, Mom, nobody put their eye out) and everyone had a great time.
Modern air rifles are nothing like those B-B guns. Compare the Daisy to my rifled RWS Diana 350 which fires a pellet at 1250 fps. You can even buy actual rimfire .22 [impactguns.com]
Re:We're next (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We're next (Score:2)
Tinfoil hatters also yelled censorship when the U.S. news outlets declined to air the beheadings enough though a simple web search turns up tons of websites with the footage.
Re:We're next (Score:2)
anyways, just show the nipple and make a huge fuss over it so you don't have to discuss ugly things(and lets face it, if you can't show a fucking nipple accidentall
Re:We're next (Score:2)
>
> I can't help but wonder how long until this begins to happen in the US, all in the name of fighting terrorism
The proper thing for the government to do is to allow its citizens access to the content... and to log all the traffic instead.
You're free to read whatever you want. Most people Googling for sensitive topics are merely researching them. If your clickstream indica
Re:Or Copyrights? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We're next (Score:2, Funny)
Re:We're next (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We're next (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We're next (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We're next (Score:5, Insightful)
The right to due process of law as granted in the 5th Amendment.
Want more to be listed, smart guy?
Re:We're next (Score:2)
MikeMacK would have replied, but his right to free speech has been taken away.
Re:We're next (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We're next (Score:5, Informative)
Re:We're next (Score:4, Insightful)
Corps paying for the convention and all the closed door parties at it is OK but if normal people spend their personal money it's a crime.
Tell me how that makes sense.
Re:We're next (Score:2)
This is insane (Score:5, Interesting)
Talk about censorship going out of control.
Well, atleast they can search for 'cthulhu'
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
Re:This is insane (Score:2)
Except that it doesn't. If you get flagged by Echelon, that usually just results in a black Chevy Impala outside your house for a few months before they figure out that you're nobody. They're worse than they used to be, but it's not like they're StaSi...
Re:This is insane (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to work in intelligence for the US Army. The first thing you do is filter out the crap (e.g. random losers saying "bearded middle east man") so you don't waste limited resources chasing dead ends. Believe it or not, intelligence professionals look at context. In fact, context often gives produces better intelligence than the initial flag. Contrary to the beliefs evinced by their paranoid rantings, most people will never warrant a second look, no matter what they say in email, on the phone, etc. Like most of us, they're not that fuckin' important because they're just another random slob. The best defense against government poking its nose into your business is to be boring and lame. Fortunately, most of us here already qualify in that regard.
Re:This is insane (Score:4, Informative)
Talk about censorship going out of control.
Triangle Boy is/was a anonymous, encrypted proxy system that had a distributed structure. Anyone could run one, and publish it's IP. I think you can understand why the Chinese gov't would want to block people from finding it.
I don't know if it still exists, but Google [google.com] brings up lots of (old) links.
Personally, I use SSH to tunnel to a remove private Squid proxy to get around evil corporate firewalls/filtering. I don't know if SSH would work from within China or not though. It would probably be dreadfully slow though.
Re:This is insane (Score:3, Funny)
heh. Everyone deserves the opportunity to be devoured first.
They filter by RESULTS, not KEYWORDS (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What the ... ! (Score:2, Funny)
Did you know? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Did you know? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Did you know? (Score:5, Informative)
"Can You See The Great Wall of China from The Moon?
For some reason, some urban legends tend to get stated and never disappear. This legend even appears as a erroneous Trivial Pursuit question. The legend? Many are familiar with the claim that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space or from the moon with the naked eye. This is simply not true. From a low orbit of the earth, many artificial objects are visible on the earth, such as highways, ships in the sea, railroads, cities, fields of crops, and even some individual buildings. While at a low orbit, the Great Wall of China can certainly be seen from space but it is not unique in that regard. However, when leaving the earth's orbit and acquiring an altitude of more than a few thousand miles, no man-made objects are visible at all. NASA says, "The Great Wall can barely be seen from the Shuttle, so it would not be possible to see it from the Moon with the naked eye." Thus, it'd be tough to spot the Great Wall of China or any other object from the moon. Furthermore, from the moon, even the continents are barely visible."
Re:Did you know? (Score:2, Informative)
Joking aside - to quote a China-friendly source, their first astronaut said it indeed wasn't visible when he was up in the space.
Incest banned, Pedophilia OK? (Score:5, Funny)
A sample list (Score:4, Funny)
- DVD license
- Human Rights
- Tibet
- Taiwan
- "fall of communism"
- "Cuba" and "Fidel Castro"
- "funky cold medina"
- "Fragglerock"
Brutal! (Score:5, Funny)
I work behind my company's firewall.
I live off of Google's cache.
Re:Brutal! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Brutal! (Score:2)
Confidentiality is not the issue. I've nothing to hide, and it is the company's equipment. The brain-dead Websense content filter is the issue, blocking many
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Freedom (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Freedom (Score:2)
So... you should arrive at a conclusion based on whatever your impression of them is?
Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting detail, but I wouldn't go as far as drawing conclusions.
Re:Freedom (Score:3, Funny)
Sure, except that it's not.
Can we draw conclusions from that?
See above.
Re:Freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
China is friends with the US, foreign-policy-wise, in spite of being a massive aggressive communist country with ongoing gross human rights violations and a stated desire to invade other democratic countries. The US government seemingly has no pro-democracy agenda whatsoever, nor are they 'defenders of democracy and human rights' in any sense, in spite of what they claim are amongst the main reasons for spending billions of dollars of tax-payer money, sending thousands of Americans to die, and killing many
workaround (Score:2, Funny)
No wait.. nevermind.
easy to get around? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:easy to get around? (Score:2)
Re:easy to get around? (Score:2, Interesting)
Censorship everywhere (Score:2)
Or perhaps they want people to know so when you are successful at using one of the banned keywords you are that much easier to prosecute.
That's the sort of meaningless statement .. (Score:2)
There is censorship in any form, internet or print in any country. It just happens to be that China is not as sophisticated in hiding their techniques as other countries that have had better practice at it.
That's the sort of meaningless statement that means you spent too much time in college.
Whatever you think is "censorship" in your 1st world western country ain't jack compared to the real thing. Saying that it is sucks - just the children of privilege pretending to be victims again.
Forbidden Chinese sentence (Score:3, Funny)
For those who dont Speak Chinese (Score:2, Informative)
Pig Latin (Score:4, Interesting)
Insofar as instant/SMS messaging in English is also concerned (also discussed in the article), surely nothing more advanced than Pig Latin [snowcrest.net] (known to confuse many poor parents... for a while) would be necessary to circumvent this.
(I'd thought this was a novel idea, but I understand from a quick Google [google.com] that it's been done for similar reasons...)
What they're gonna do with Gmail? (Score:3, Interesting)
If they can block those from HTML content (shouldn't be too hard to eliminate contents of that table cell with ads), perhaps they can commercialize the technology
On the other hand it's going to be fun to see how Google reacts to this type of control - if it weren't for their don't be evil stuff, they'd still want to protect revenue from ads - even now, if only 3% of searches time out, they lose some advertising money. And the visitors get the idea that "Google sucks".
The list of blocked words is really funny - "naive" is considered dangerous, but "biatch" is not on the list...
I wonder if it makes any sense - it's only 1000 words...
elgooG (Score:5, Informative)
l33t h4x0r s3k3 in Kanji? (Score:2)
It seems like all the Chinese government will accomplish with keyword filtering is to force people to butcher their written language conventions in order to communicate.
Except that.. (Score:3, Interesting)
But, regardless, how would google be able to find anything using a search query 'encoded' in leet-speek anyway? We're not talking about person to person communications here. These are google searches they're filtering.
wiki (Score:5, Informative)
I read the list... (Score:2)
I wonder how many people have hacked that DLL?
My Own Experience (Score:5, Interesting)
After I first presented this hack, I had these three Chinese guys walk up to me, and start asking quite literally the most detailed questions about my architecture that I had ever heard. It quickly became clear that, for the rest of the world, censorship avoidance is a sort of "first step" that anyone who's serious about network access learns to master. The whole line about censorship being damage that the Internet routes around is astonishingly true; the level to which complete non-geeks participate in proxy bouncing, encrypted tunnelling, and whatever else it takes to get out is quite astonishing.
--Dan
Re:My Own Experience (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My Own Experience (Score:3, Informative)
--Dan
Does not work on XP SP2 (Score:3, Informative)
What diffrence does it make? (Score:4, Informative)
People will notice in the course of daily conversation that certain words when typed won't go through and they will improvise. Soon a whole sub-language will develop and the goverment will be back at square 1.
I'd ask my housemate from China about it, but i can't articulate this sort of topics very well in Chinese.
Man-searchian Candidate (Score:3, Funny)
Uncensor@home (Score:2, Interesting)
The "banned" mathematics problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
How do I calculate the GCD of the sides of a simple triangle that is drawn out on a sheet of paper?
I can't resist (Score:4, Funny)
If only they turned that blocking . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, the people at Yahoo and Cisco that helped them implement this filtering regime (custom firmware for routers and consulting services), along with the executvies, should be tried for crimes against humanity and hanged. Slowly (the hanging, not the trial).
Re:Proxy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Proxy (Score:2)
Question: What's stops someone from doing SSH forwarding to a US box, or using a US proxy?
Answer: Because everyone wants to run BitTorrent in the background.
Re:Proxy (Score:2, Informative)
It's encrypted, you know.
Re:s.e.x is filtered out... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Impressive (Score:2, Informative)
Wow, that's news to me. Sources please?
missing the whole point (Score:5, Insightful)
i would have thought that this slashdot story would have served as an object lesson of something to be thankful for in the west: a tradition of adherence to free expression not found in other areas of the world
this is of course a right we must always be vigilant of encroachment upon and something we must always fight for
but how you can still find reason to attack the west is laughable to me in the context of this censorship by the chinese government, a lesson in how rights of free expression don't exist in other places, and must be fought for in those places
silly me, the real lesson here is for me, not you: some people are just hell bent on attacking the west for whatever it does, whether it is an intelligent criticism or not, simply because, apparently, that is all they know how to do
how about you fight the real fight for free expression: not on hypersensitive esoteric issues like security patches for software, but instead on real, fundamental issues like some of the words you find in the censorship list on the link in the story
i will of course get angry replies to this diatribe of mine if this gets modded up
proof that those who obsess over molehills, while missing the mountains, need a heated rhetorical approach to maintain their pov
always attacking the west is simplistic and navel gazing
there are great fights, much more important fights, going on outside the borders of the western democracies for rights most of us take for granted, and that is a shame, as real good can be done if the children of the western democracies took up ideological and rhetorical arms in that fight, rather than obsessing over comparatively much more minor issues in their home countries
Re:missing the whole point (Score:3, Insightful)
The grandparent poster was pointing out, quite correctly, that there are individuals in public office and private business who would like to see some 'objectionable' content on the Internet filtered. (What precisely constitutes such objectionable content is the subject of heated debate, of course.) Internet access in the United States is often screened for content in certain contexts--many public schools, workpl
i am of the belief... (Score:3, Insightful)
call me crazy, but i think the mountain is more important than the molehill
to say that, as a citizen of the west, you don't have control over things outside your country, is wrong on 2 counts:
1. then you are guilty of navel gazing and selfishness, thinking basic rights end at the rio grande, a sin of xenophobia more commonly used as a criti
hyperbole (Score:3, Insightful)
As of now, I AM treated like the people in China.
this is patently false, and reveals in you an ignorance of the rest of the world, and perhaps even the country you live in
We need the voters to take action...
reason number one why you are not treated like the people in China
you are full of some major hyperbole
and a good dose of fear, uncertainty and denial as well
what i am looking for you to have instead is wisdom, and intelligence
you ha
Re:Let's block Slashdot from Chinese access! (Score:2)
So much for the dog shows.
hypermart
Hypermart? Google's first result is a simple web hosting [hypermart.net] service. Is that really so dangerous.
freedom
Let [] ring from sea to shining sea.
unixbox
Better not let anyone find those shell accounts. Use a "safe" OS like Windows Crippled Edition!
bignews
Small results.
boxun
Slashdotters beware!
Re:OT-Gmail invites (Score:2)
Btw, I took the last one..for whom it matters.