8 ms·
Great Firewall rising: How China wages its war on the Internet
- 70seconds 11y agoTrust me CNN, it is hardly different from how we wage a war on the Internet (CISA, CISPA, TPP and what not). Do you not use that ton of cruft on your site with similar designs?
- finalink 11y agoTrust me, it is fundamentally different.
- voltagex_ 11y agoCISA, CISPA and the TPP aren't sending RSTs to connections they don't like, nor actively trying to negotiate with Tor endpoints so they can be blocked. They're also not rewriting Baidu to attack GitHub (yet).
- 70seconds 11y agoOh, I forgot to mention the NSA did I? Or let us talk about it's "fundamentally different" because it is always China behind all the wrongdoings against the Internet, my friends. But wait, keep the mechanics/micro aside. Tell me is there a difference in policy or what either systems want to achieve? None.
- voltagex_ 11y agoOkay, I'll even temporarily agree with you that the NSA is tapping and capturing traffic. They may even run Tor endpoints purely for analysis purposes. They're still not disconnecting people and then kicking in doors.
- venomsnake 11y agoIt is different - US is chasing monetarily goals mostly and NSA want to read everything. Chinese are trying to prevent thought crimes and political discourse. Although there are few isolated cases where DMCA was abused to stifle discourse, they are far and between.
- 70seconds 11y ago> "Want to read everything"? How is NSA wanting to read everything (if they don't already) any different from Chinese authorities reading everything? Different my foot. Looking at the quality of discussion here it seems we're living in that dumbfuck's paradise. For they say: when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It's only painful and difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid. There is little difference in intent, monetary pursuit, lust of power, size of investment and scale of techniques used by either centre of powers. For exactly the same purpose.
- rsanders 11y agoThe Chinese authorities are preventing their citizens from reading things they find counter to their aims. You don't have to create this false equivalence to find both actions undesirable.
- neolefty 11y agoI think it's also partly monetary in China. For example, Baidu is thrilled that Google is blocked.
- Frqy3 11y agoThe US tends to more of an Orwell (monitor) and Huxley (distract) approach to control rather than heavy handed blocking. But then, they have more experience in propaganda than the Chinese.
- rahimnathwani 11y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101469
- jruthers 11y agoHonest question: what is it that Chinese officials fear would happen, if they let their citizens have free access to the internet?
- venomsnake 11y agoChinese spring.
- suneilp 11y agoI thought you were being an ass but I googled 'chinese spring' anyways and found out about the Arab Spring. For those who don't know here is an article on it: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100535405 http://www.cnbc.com/id/100535405
- steve19 11y agoAt the very least it would undermine the leadership's ability to mould Chinese society (culture, thoughts, values) how they see fit. Have a read of this recent article by the BBC to learn the silly (by our standards) lengths they go to guard the myth/backstory of the President .... http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34549744 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34549744 The journalists were amused by the length they were willing to go to precisely craft the creation myth of Xi. The journalists got the impression that all the visitors/pilgrims they saw there were actually security personnel dressed up.
- girzel 11y agoPublic discourse that was not within the control of the government. Not even a particular outcome, as such, but simply a discussion the development and outcome of which was beyond their control.
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoIn the west, the thing we value (or should value) above everything else is freedom of political speech and freedom to assemble into political groups. These things allow a country to adapt over time by changing who is in power. For that reason, the Chinese cannot have those things. The whole point is that the same people must stay in power. So you can chat online all you want about hobbies or celebrities, but nothing about how the system is broken. And forget assembling in small groups in an effort to change things. The issue here is feedback loops. In the west, closely-knit political groups can "own" the government for periods of time. Once they screw up -- and they all do -- the voters can have new groups come peacefully into power. There's a way to be wrong. The Chinese have a feedback system where change happens inside the party, but it's much more creaky and brittle. Open net access would expose all of that by getting people talking and comparing political systems.
- eccstartup 11y ago1. Activists and developers are two totally different group of people. CNN is totally wrong in this point. 2. Facebook vs Renren NOT Facebook vs Wechat. Wechat is shit! 3. Most evidences are true.
- seanmcdirmid 11y agoIs CNN trying to get itself blocked too? They are like the last one (besides Fox News) that aren't.
- hugh4 11y agoI'm gonna guess that this article isn't accessible from inside China.
- seanmcdirmid 11y agoIt most definitely is accessible. I'm not running a VPN.
- zachb 11y agoThis is the same China whose central government, officially an atheist state, claims authority on deciding who the next Dalai Lama will be reincarnated as - http://time.com/3743742/dalai-lama-china-reincarnation-tibet-buddhism/ http://time.com/3743742/dalai-lama-china-reincarnation-tibet... I'd love to hear perspective on this matter from people closer to the source.
- hugh4 11y agoIs China's claim on authority at determining who the next "reincarnation" of the Dalai Lama might be any sillier than anyone else's claim of the same?
- Laforet 11y agoIt is a claim they inherited from the Qing dynasty which legitimizes their territorial claims. The current "reincarnation" process was formalised by the 5th Dalai Lama in agreement with the Manchu Emperor, and its origins are certainly more polotical than theological[0] Of course Your opinion may differ but I it is no more absurd than the President of the Fifth French Republic receiving the title of the Co-Prince of Andorra alongside a Catholic bishop.[1] [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama#5th_Dalai_Lama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama#5th_Dalai_Lama [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Co-Princes_of_Andorra#Gallery_of_current_Co-Princes_of_Andorra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Co-Princes_of_Andorra#...
- est 11y agoThis is simple, Dalai Lama by definition, since the beginning of all Dalai Lamas, is appointed by a central government. Fun fact: The Tibetan monk system is a grand scheme to reduce minority people fertility so ethics population is not a threat to central empire. Search for 黄教 减丁 if you are interested.
- kephra 11y agoSo we have two of them: one "appointed" by US, and one by China. For further enlightenment, meditate about the half zero ༳ in Tibetan unicode.
- pmlnr 11y agoSays the BBC, from a country that silently introduced a country-wide firewall of it's own for protecting people from porn, extremists and pedophiles. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/censorship https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/censorship "Whoever is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her." I know there are issues in China, but maybe fix our own problems first. P.S.: I've been to China, and I've seen people using tech even in remote places with a much higher causality for solving language barriers for example, compared to Western nations. Also, they don't give a bit about copyright ideas, so no, internet censorship is definitely not killing innovation there. Slowing it down a littlebit, maybe, but not killing it.
- berntb 11y agoThe British case seems to be a democratic country where a moral panic influenced policies similar to 1970s complaints about "satanic" hard rock? It is a bit hard to seriously compare that with a dictatorship trying to control the information to the population...
- sharetea 11y ago1.) Association fallacy (guilt by association) – arguing that because two things share a property they are the same 2.) "Whoever is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her." - pretty sure journalism doesn't work that way 3.) you didn't give any proof supporting the fact that innovation isn't being killed in China. Since you live in UK, what Chinese Brand/Product innovation do you see in stores in UK?
- pmlnr 11y ago1, nope, the statement was that there's internet censorship working in the 'free' internet land as well 2, I was trying to point out that maybe there could have been some articles about the issues in UK/EU as well with similat tones, not stating that this is for our protection. 3, Xiaomi, Oppo and similar, for example has some pretty good stuff on Amazon, and since Amazon is a massive market share in the UK, we can state, you have access, and the products are usually either surprisingly cheaper and/or better than the 'originals'. ( Another example could be the MIUI ROM, which was probably the best ROM for the HTC Desire; also Chinese. )
- kercker 11y agoMost of my friends here in China just do good without the open internet. Like the article says, for every major blocked application or website, there is a home-grown substitute. People can get the information or the service they need from these substitutes. I personally find that that the Chinese version of Wikipedia is blocked is annoying. If the Great Firewall must exist, I'd like it to be more advanced. This way, it can block in a finer granularity. Instead of blocking a whole website, it can block an individual webpage that annoys it.
- berntb 11y agoExcept for the 1984 implications, I have to wonder about the trade agreement implications with copying business plans and keeping the users inside the firewall. There really ought to be lots of clauses about illegal support of national companies over international competition which are applicable? China ought to be really sensitive about trade wars.
- sharetea 11y agoSo where does your friend go to get information about 1.) a list of corrupt officials and what activities they're involved in 2.) the richest 70 members of China’s NPC have a larger combined wealth ($89.8bn in 2011) than that of all 535 members of the US congress? 3.) Tiananmen square 4.) Great Famine 5.) China is insolvent? ?
- pmlnr 11y ago1, from their friends, as it has always been the case there. Search for "Heaven is high and the emperor is far away". 2, There was a short period in time, involving 2 World Wars when the super-rich was not that super rich. Before and after, this was always like this in history, everywhere. 3, 4, 5, China is suppressing information, yes; otherwise there were civil wars, and that is not necessarily better. See current Middle East. Yes, free information is good, but totally free information would first require solving all the other issues; otherwise it leads to fights and wars which nearly never results in any good. History has plenty to tell on that.
- kercker 11y ago