Iranians Outwit Censors With Falun Gong Software 171
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that since last year more than 400,000 Iranians began surfing the uncensored Web using software created for the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has been suppressed by the Chinese government since 1999. More than 20 countries now use increasingly sophisticated blocking and filtering systems for Internet content, according to Reporters Without Borders, including Iran, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The creators of the software seized upon by Iranians are members of the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, based largely in the United States and closely affiliated with Falun Gong. Interestingly enough, the United States government and the Voice of America have financed some of the circumvention technology efforts, and a coalition is organizing to push for more Congressional financing of anti-filtering efforts, bringing together dissidents of Vietnam, Iran, the Uighur minority of China, Tibet, Myanmar, Cuba, Cambodia, Laos, as well as the Falun Gong, to lobby Congress for the financing. 'What is our leverage toward a country like Iran? Very little,' said Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the Hudson Institute. 'Suppose we have the capacity to make it possible for the president of the United States at will to communicate with hundreds of thousands of Iranians at no risk or limited risk? It just changes the world.'"
What's old world is new world again (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully the citizens of Britain and Australia and Germany can get a hold of this software so that they can use the Internet without government censorship impeding them.
Re:What's old world is new world again (Score:4, Insightful)
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I agree.
Actually don't you find it a little ironic, that the US is apparently helping fund ways for other countries' citizens to circumvent their governments' censorship, all the while trying to clamp down and crack down on our own citizens usage of the internet?
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Exactly what I was thinking as I read the summary.
If some other country tried something like that in the USA, it would be labeled as a terrorist threat/plot.
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Quotes from US Government and European Parliament documents. "It is U.S. policy to ... use all appropriate instruments of U.S. influence to support the free flow of information; deter U.S. businesses from cooperating with Internet-restricting countries in effecting online censorship."
- The Global Online Freedom Act
I have to agree with you! The above quote comes from the GIFC (http://www.internetfreedom.org/) web page. How do they square that statement with the other Government policies that aim to restrict an individual's access?
Re:What's old world is new world again (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt the terrorist plot claim hold much water in the US any more.
No, these days you can hear the plaintive wail of "Won't someone please think of the Children" anytime someone speaks out against censorship.
Child porn is the major excuse for excessive censorship today, but Australia proposed to block thousands of legitimate sites in the pursuit of child porn, and Minnesota wants to block gambling sites.
Most censorship in the US is not done by the Federal Government, but rather by over zealous ISPs, Schools, and in the work-place.
The US government is large enough that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
However, don't expect this inconsistency to last if those pushing for more censorship gain the ear of the current administration.
That being said, I will bet you Dollars to Donunts that government censorship will arrive in the EU before it arrives in the US on any comparable scale.
This is because, when you strip away the rhetoric, the EU is based on the notion that people can not govern themselves, and the elite must assume this burden. The US has historically espoused the concept of self government.
How long either can be true to their founding principals is anyone's guess.
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government censorship will arrive in the EU before it arrives in the US on any comparable scale.
[...] the EU is based on the notion that people can not govern themselves, and the elite must assume this burden.
Speaking as a citizen of a member country, my country isn't based on that notion, but one similar to the US: that the people governs itself (through representatives, of course). On paper, the crown still has power, but in practice that power is irrelevant because it isn't wielded.
If we let the "EU Elite" govern us too much, it's because we (The People) failed to step out of a system which doesn't respect our need to govern ourselves.
In unity lies strength, but in false unity lies divisiveness.
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Interestingly enough, the United States government and the Voice of America have financed some of the circumvention technology efforts
Oh right, because their censorship doesn't match our laws, we would like to pass this on to them so they can break their own laws, because they aren't "free" (AKA not like "us").
But when other countries governments interfere (importing drugs, prostitutes, etc.) that don't break their countries laws, but ours. We see it as a problem?!
Isn't this a bit behind the back? Or did I mis-read something/not get enough details? I'm not saying free speech is bad (or drugs/prostitutes are good), I'm saying the doubl
As Always (Score:5, Insightful)
"The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it". People can do so too.
Re:Great Idea, but Wait 4 Years Please (Score:4, Funny)
Yes "I'm sorry we didn't prevent the Islamic revolution in 1979".
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"I'm sorry we didn't prevent the Islamic revolution in 1979... ... by not overthrowing your democratic government in 1953."
I agree, that would be a nice place to start.
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Yes, even people who didn't vote for Bush are responsible for his actions.
Oh, that makes sense. I suppose you should be charged for murder, because I'm sure one happened.. and you're responsible for your government NOT protecting its citizens.
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Collective blame is a substitute for thinking.
I have a dream... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have a dream... (Score:4, Informative)
And the world has not been driven to dysfunctionalty by the freewheeling Internet, so censors and critics may as well get a life
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And the world has not been driven to dysfunctionalty by the freewheeling Internet, so censors and critics may as well get a life
You just have different standards from them. Sure, yours appear to be rational, wheras theirs are based on circular reasoning, but they see justification. What they're censoring is itself often taken as evidence that we need censorship: "People are looking at naked people online?!? We're in a state of moral decay!"
If they were going to be rational about it, they'd realize that censorship doesn't have a great track record of doing much but annoying the victims.
As the son of an Iranian refugee (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Ayatollahs, Iran has politically regressed to a very dangerous stage. However, culturally the country is still very close to America. Despite the religiosity demanded by the mullahs, many consolations have been made to keep the populace from rioting.
From simple things like not requiring a full hijab to really bizarre things like ultra-temporary marriages to allow single men the pleasures of prostitutes legally under Sharia. Iran is a country struggling to break back into the modern world.
The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there, the better the odds of Iran returning to the peaceful international fold.
Re:As the son of an Iranian refugee (Score:5, Insightful)
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I've never seen it spelled like that. I wish governments would quit changing their minds on how their scripts get Romanized.
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I think what you meant was "NeoCons". The are easily confused these days...
Re:As the son of an Iranian refugee (Score:5, Insightful)
The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there, the better the odds of Iran returning to the peaceful international fold.
Hopefully the "we" is you and your fellow Iranians (wonder if /. can be read in Iran). We (as in the rest of the world) have countless examples why we should not be in the business of installing our favorite "leaders" at the heads of unstable governments. Supporting means for people to criticize, mobilize, and install a leader that meets their best interests (as determined by them, not outsiders) may take longer, but ultimately results in a more stable society.
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The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there, the better the odds of Iran returning to the peaceful international fold.
Which is why it was probably stupid of the NYT to expose the ability to circumvent censorship...
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> The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there, the better the odds of Iran returning to the peaceful international fold.
Its too late.
We are well into the second generation of forced islam fundamentalism in Iran, and those that remember anything else are the "aging hippies" of their culture.
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A strong secular leader like Saddam Hussein you mean?
Unless you are an Iranian, you have no business getting anyone in power over there.
"We" making political changes "there"? (Score:2)
The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there
I would assume that the words would go together like this: "we ~ here" (if you were in Iran) or "they ~ there" (if you were to leave Iranian matters to the Iranian people).
Oh well...
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This is Slashdot, so you're probably right about the time estimate.
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Wouldn't that make it a "in Soviet Russia" joke?
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The markets are effective at this sort of thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the military industry for example. There is a large market for guns, shells and missiles on one side, and also large market for bulletproof vests, armour and missile defense on the other side.
This is a similar situation. Especially the makers of internet filtering software, such as Cisco, should take note of this emerging market opportunity.
So, we should really keep the markets do their own thing, and the economy will grow and prosper.
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>
So, we should really keep the markets do their own thing, and the economy will grow and prosper.
Except we end up creating useless products without a point, instead of using those resources for something that might be helpful.
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Exactly! Maybe that was why I was sarcastic..
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I wouldn't dismiss this progress out of hand. Both the problems faced by censors and the problems faced by those routing around them are very significant issues in the science of networks. The solutions, even the ones used by the "enemy" (the censors) will have wider applications: For example, the packet filtering algorithms could be useful against botnets.
It's like spammers advancing OCR technology.
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If a company creates a product that people want to buy, evidently those people see a point and don't find it useless. If nobody wants to buy a product, it isn't made for very long, and the company moves on to something else. A growing, healthy economy is a two-sided sheet of paper. On one side there are producers, on the other consumers. Producers need to be free to make what consumers want to buy. If producers don't make things the consumers
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Interestingly enough, they're only called SUVs because of CAFE laws getting passed in '75 following the Arab oil embargo. Before that we just bought big cars. Since SUVs and Minivans are classified as light trucks, they don't have to meet the same mileage standards...though I think this may have changed recently.
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The counter point is that letting almost everyone pick this option destroys the environment EVERYONE shares,
Then create a better alternative. Whenever we have something better, cheaper, more reliable then a gas powered engine that will fit in an SUV sized car tell me, and I will buy it. Unfortunately as of May 1st, 2009, we don't. The alternatives we have are generally less reliable, require more maintenance and are a ton more expensive, plus they are tiny.
If enough people want "greener" cars, they can either pay extra or wait for the technology to become avalible to make cheap, decent, "green" cars and SUV
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No, it doesn't. Driving an SUV doesn't destroy anything. Allowing everyone choice doesn't destroy anything but control-freaks. Allowing everyone the same option is called "equality of opportunity", and we know that not everyone will make the same choice, so your implication that "if we allow it everyone will do it" is nonsense.
and drives up prices of gas for people that don't actually buy large cars.
No, failure t
So that's the sound that . . . (Score:2)
. . . free market sophistry makes when you stretch it almost to the breaking point.
This comparison is NONSENSE. TOA details a case of a counter culture's home-brew counter measures being used to get around state censorship. It's not like Iranians went to Best Buy to buy a copy of Freedom Industries' new app.
Not every problem in the world is amenable to "free market" solutions. Deal with it.
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Not every problem in the world is amenable to "free market" solutions. Deal with it.
I disagree, just about every single problem in the world is amendable with free market solutions, but usually the markets are not free enough. If Iran was a 100% free market economy, we wouldn't have this problem because ISPs would route around the government's servers. Problems that can't be solved with a free market solution are few and far between.
No (Score:2)
The market is only effective at maximizing profit, regardless of the consequences for human rights, or the environment, or whatever.
For instance, if there's a market for selling drugs that kill people for enormous profit, the market will kill people, buy off scientists to claim that their product does not kill people, buy politicians who will support their operations, and sell those drugs to children in countries where there is no effective legislation. If you think that petrochemicals, genetically modified
Hooray for Falun Gong (Score:5, Interesting)
Falun Gong/Falun Dafa have been brutalized by the Chinese government for years for doing nothing more than practicing a mental and physical discipline.
They are experts in software like this because their leadership is almost certainly under constant surveillance.
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Falun Gong/Falun Dafa have been brutalized by the Chinese government for years for doing nothing more than practicing a mental and physical discipline.
From what I read about the Fulun Gong is that they are pretty similar to Scientology in beliefs and certain "practices". Now even though Scientologists can be a bit shady with their cult, I would still argue that it would be wrong to throw them in jail and beat their members much like the Chinese did to the FG.
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Falun Gong/Falun Dafa have been brutalized by the Chinese government for years for doing nothing more than practicing a mental and physical discipline.
That's what Falun Gong says, but it doesn't make sense. Why, exactly, would the Chinese government repress a particular school of mental and physical health?
Unless it's more than that, of course...
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So tell me, are you an employee of the Chinese government, or just an ordinary Chinese citizen?
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perhaps because the government has been persecuting, torturing, and killing them. That's a pretty good incentive to go activist. If you look back a few years, the gov't encouraged Falun Gong, and then suddenly changed it's stance.
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Ummm.... not really true. It's because the Falun Gong ideology clashes with the government. Also, they have shown that they can organize people to protest against the government, and I think you know what the Chinese government like to do with activists.
Ethics in Falun Dafa basically consist of "truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance." These are simple principles that everyone agrees on that have nothing to do with political or religious ideology. Also, there was a long stretch in the 1990's when Falun Dafa was not only permitted by the government, but was actively encouraged by it for health reasons. For around a decade, it was quite popular among Chinese qigong practitioners in China, but relatively unheard of in the West. However, in 1999, in respons
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so Fulun Gong ws inserted into China by the CIA.
Why the surprise over Voice of America Support? (Score:5, Insightful)
Voice of America started as a radio network for broadcasting news that shows a different point of view from that by censors in the old Soviet Bloc.
This just seems a continuation of the same mission.
Information does not "want" to be free. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the same way that an object does not "want" to fall when it is dropped, or a species does not "want" to evolve.
But it will, regardless, simply because that is its natural state.
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Information does not "want" to be free.
It's more like information has a tendency to diffuse like a gas. It's hard to keep information bottled up.
Re:Information does not "want" to be free. (Score:5, Funny)
Anthropomorphism hates being used in an analogy.
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or a species does not "want" to evolve.
Oh, I can think of at least two [icanhascheezburger.com] species [ihasahotdog.com] who want, very badly, to evolve. At least to the point of not staring and begging for cheezburgers or hotdogz.
Subject lines do not want (Score:2)
to be used for starting sentences (or paragraphs) that are continued in the body of the post.
(Which isn't to say I disagree with your post, I just really dislike the habit of starting a sentence or a thought in the subject line...It makes for more a more confusing, disjointed reading of the post.)
-Trillian
Cyber attack? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, the United States government and the Voice of America have financed some of the circumvention technology efforts,
Would that count as a cyber attack on Iran or China?
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Look at it as the equivilant non-cyble technology. In this case, it would be like handing out encrypted radios to all the people in the target country. I don't know that that would constitute an attack, but it sure would piss off the powers that be.
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Of course not, it's "cyber-liberation"! ;)
Patronizing as hell (Score:2, Funny)
"'Suppose we have the capacity to make it possible for the president of the United States at will to communicate with hundreds of thousands of Iranians at no risk or limited risk? It just changes the world.'"
Right, because those dumb Iranians couldn't possibly know anything until POTUS tells 'em about it. Obama will just do a two minute webcast on how many great jobs are available in the American auto industry, bookended by lolcats, and the government will fall!
Sheesh.
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Way to let your ideology block you from getting the point.
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The major motivations for people who fight wars are pride, fear and access to resources. If you really want only one reason, its probably fear.
Fear frequently is a result of ignorance of what the other side is really saying.
The people of Iran and most populations in general, are not interested in wars. There's nothing in it for them except hardship and poverty. They will fight if they have to, however. The censorship of the media in Iran makes it possible for the mullahs to filter the information coming
Left hand, meet right hand (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I'll state that I support this, worldwide.
That said, I find it a bit whacked that on one hand we have part of our government demanding filtering and selective blocking of websites in public locations and schools. While at the same time a different part of our government is supporting and funding software to bypass filtering and blocking.
Maybe we should drop the Politically Correct filtering efforts and quit wasting everybody's money. After all, isn't that what our government seems to be saying to other countries? Or is it just our country and our allies that are allowed to filter? Come on USA, get your story straight.
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Re:Left hand, meet right hand (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes perfect sense.
We blow up foreign infrastructure only to rebuild it.
We give tax breaks while simultaneously starting new spending programs.
We fight poppy growers, who fund terrorism, while simultaneously sustaining an artificially expensive black market for drugs. In a sense, we're both funding and fighting terrorism.
So there's absolutely nothing inconsistent about our behavior here.
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The 'net is pull, not push, technology (Score:3, Insightful)
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
Actor 1 moans...
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What about the other countries? (Score:5, Informative)
No mention of the U.K., Germany, or Australia which are also implementing blocking technologies? Very western of us to ignore the other supposed free countries.
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Well, you got it all wrong.
UK, Australia and Germany are doing it for the good of the people, if the government wouldn't protect them, then who will?
China and Iran on the other hand are suppressing freedom and liberty.
Will someone think of the children!
Falun Gong a spiritual movement ? (Score:2)
Falun Gong [apologeticsindex.org]. Do we need yet another weird cult added to the very long list [watchman.org] of those already available. Something for everyone. What was wrong with the weird cults of yesteryear? Long live Mao and down with hegemony of running dogs for western capitalists exploiters.
Obviously, this won't work... (Score:2, Insightful)
Falun gong? Those suicidal ones? (Score:3, Informative)
From google cache:
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:d3NzsFRIiU4J:english.peopledaily.com.cn/200103/20/eng20010320_65533.html+falun+gong+suicides&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca [74.125.95.132]
IMHO Some things should be outlawed.
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Not to mention D&D and heavy metal music.
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No matter how fucked up the Falun Gong religion is, (or how fucked up you are led to believe it is), it doesn't justify what the Chinese government is doing to them.
There is a Holocaust going on, and the world isn't paying attention.
Imagine if the US gov't rounded up all Mormons and started selling their organs.
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You are more wrong about this issue than can be excused as innocent error.
So, *plonk*. I'm done listening to you, at least in this life.
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You're claiming that it's more likely that some Chinese soldiers burned themselves to death to frame some crazy cultists?
Radio free world (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny how certain kinds of people praise the defiance of authority like this but admonish those who defeat filters in school to access controversial information. They force their public schools and libraries to install buggy censorware which has been demonstrated time and time again to block legitimate but incorrectly categorized information.
Heck, the Australian and German governments filter their entire countries, for ostentatious "think of the children" reasons, but all it takes is a flip of a switch for it to go political. Neither country historically has much of a problem with certain kinds of political censorship.
How long ago was it that we had Republicans telling us to watch what we say?
We need a pan-national dedication to transparency and the free flow of information. The people who scream about Iranian and Chinese injustice the loudest are also some of the worst censors at home. The free world won't be until we hold our own people accountable.
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It's funny how certain kinds of people praise the defiance of authority like this but admonish those who defeat filters in school to access controversial information.
Indeed it is. A sword can be a useful tool whether it is wielded by a patriot, a terrorist, a hero, or a tyrant. People who advocate for censorship and I say censorship NOT reasonable restraints (i.e. no porno billboard in sight of the elementary school) are being foolish or un-American or both.
The people who scream about Iranian and Chinese injustice the loudest are also some of the worst censors at home.
It is frequently the case that those who seek most fervently to ban, censor, and demonize are often themselves guilty of the same "crimes" for which they are so quick to condemn others. This has been shown time and a
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U.S. government support for circumvention software must stop! A top to bottom review must be initiated and the responsible officials sacked and prosecuted!! Won't some one think of the children?!!!
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It's funny how certain kinds of people praise the defiance of authority like this but admonish those who defeat filters in school to access controversial information. They force their public schools and libraries to install buggy censorware which has been demonstrated time and time again to block legitimate but incorrectly categorized information.
It's a damn shame that the press doesn't call out hypocritical policies. I know why, of course. If a reporter asks too many awkward questions, he isn't invited to
this is so cool (Score:2)
does Iran seriously censor Obama? (Score:3, Insightful)
I seriously doubt the Iranians censor much in the way of non-pornographic English material.
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From memory, blocked sites included:
michellemalkin.com - because she says mean things about Iran
apnews.myway.com - because the AP wire service is part of a counterrevolutionary monarchist conspiracy
openvpn.org - because VPN is for terrorists
China uses Falun Gong as organs (Score:2)
Here is a speech by David Matas and David Kilgour (July 6, 2006) about their research that confirms that China has been using Falun Gong practitioners as organ inventory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkf2u1Umzi4 [youtube.com]
Cake and eat it too (Score:2)
So here is the deal. In the US I am responsible for the action users on my company Internet and Computers do. If someone hits an adult site, or even something simple as a tasteless joke can get me in trouble. If someone sneaks content onto a work PC, I am responsible. That is USA Law and/or case law.
So the category anonymous Internet is blocked.
So if the US gets behind bypass technology such as this, where do I sit? If a person on my network bypasses my Internet filtering by using sanction USA bypass
Interesting, but risky (Score:2)
In China most Falun Gong supporters just get harrassed and maybe jailed.
Iran tends to just execute people by rather brutal methods.
Falun Gong Association? I call Shame! (Score:2)
There appears to me to be a whole lot of "Validity by Association" going on here.
I looked up Global Information Freedom, Inc. - and I'm having trouble finding this close association so noted in TFSummary. Clearly, GIFInc, is very concerned about the Great Firewall - but here's the only Falun Gong reference that I could find - http://www.internetfreedom.org/The-High-Tech-Persecution-of-Falun-Gong-in-China [internetfreedom.org] (which seems to cover a helluva lot more than the Falun Gong).
The Falun Gong has become the darling pol
Iranians blocked by the software now (Score:2)
The last sentence of the article:
As for the Falun Gong software, it proved a little too popular among Iranians. By the end of last year the consortium's computers were overwhelmed. On Jan. 1, the consortium had to do some blocking of its own: It shut down the service for all countries except China.
I was in Iran 6 weeks ago and (Score:4, Informative)
Proxy aren't good enough (Score:2)
If I understand correctly all this software do is use several proxy which are then used to browse filtered website.
The problem AFAIK is that those who filter the web could get the proxy list and track the IP address of those who connect to the proxys and then these user would have *nasty* question to answer..
So this solution isn't very anonymous, a better scheme would be to hide the traffic on encrypted connections with 'normal' website, but this would require the server to be used as a relay..
Some changes in foreign policy. (Score:2)
On the surface one would think that increased relations between two dictatorships would result in less freedom for both peoples. But instead, contacts with the Chinese have benefited dissident groups in both countries immensely.
This leads to some interesting ideas. Maybe when these dictators have their lovefests, we might encourage them rather than discourage them, as, it does force those countries to open up to at least -somebody-. Thus, putting and keeping pressure on the likes of Iran and Venezuala wh
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Will this software give them a voice? Will it allow them to get a fair or timely trial or avoid being tortured by the Americans?
Hell no.
Well, for starters, we have an immanent closure of the facilities there [whitehouse.gov]. Even with the trial delays being attempted, it won't be operating for long.