8 ms·

Chinese Man Sentenced to Prison for Selling VPN Software

165 points by campuscodi 9y ago

saagarjha 9y ago
The man was charged with "violat[ing] state regulations and intrud[ing] into computer systems with information concerning state affairs, construction of defense facilities, and sophisticated science and technology." It's bizarre interpretations of the law like this, that don't even fit the "crime", that show that the underlying reason was to send a message instead of actually performing a legitimate arrest.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  China doesn't really have rule of law. If they want to make an example of you, they will find a way to do it. Judge's are completely deferrent to officials in that way, and there is no judicial review. It is just classic rule by law (laws are weaponized to serve whatever purpose vs. being fairly applied).
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Selective enforcement is a really annoying way of seeing the law applied. And it is happening in more places than just China.
    - elefanten 9y ago
      GP was describing more than just selective enforcement. And while that may happen elsewhere, it's particularly bad in China relative to their level of development and size. At what point do we stop drooling over the market size and advocate for dignity and rights for 18% of the world's population? Not to mention the danger authoritarian regimes pose just by existing. An apparatus that powerful that could be structurally hijacked by a tiny number of people is a scary thing.
      - bobjordan 9y ago
        The 18%, Chinese people, do not want outsider's input on their governmental structure. On the whole (edit: "on the whole" means "most people"), they are perfectly happy with the way things are going. Standards of living increase year-over-year every single year. Until that stops, they don't want a thing to change. Now if that stops for a decade or so, maybe it will change. But that's unlikely to happen. So, it's futile to bring your western view to bear on their issues. A one party government is the way they want it here.
        chibg10 9y ago
        As if the CCP's "miracle" of economic development hasn't already been done in South Korea, Taiwan, etc. without the authoritarians who also brought the wonders that are The Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution. Or as if India isn't already basically replicating the same feat with a democracy, but 10 years delayed. It isn't a "Western view" to understand that governments that respect human rights generally lead to happier civilizations in the long run. It's simply observable from empirical data.
        namelost 9y ago
        Do you really think that China is capable of an easy and bloodless transition to a democratic system? Perhaps Chinese people know better than anyone just how violent revolution can be.
        DashRattlesnake 9y ago
        > Do you really think that China is capable of an easy and bloodless transition to a democratic system? I suppose that really depends on the Communist party...
        vkou 9y ago
        Was the Soviet Union?
        girzel 9y ago
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      True. Rule of law is just an ideal, western developed governments are setup to help realize it, but abuses still occur. In china, rule of law is not even an ideal, its system is not setup to support it, it is considered a western imperialistic concept that does not fit china. Third world problems vs. first world ones.
      - whoareyouagain 9y ago
        Laws are made to help ruling class to rule the country. This is the first assert statement Chinese students learn when they are having middle class politics. I would not simply equate western big-money-lawyer cluster to a system of 'rule of law'. Given I have seen quite a few rich white guys are easy to get away with rapist indictment where other poor black guys get 20 years sentence.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    "Rule of law" is really a spectrum. China may be toward the arbitrary end, but maybe not as much as we'd like to believe. Prosecutors in the US have enormous power, which is why 98% of US federal cases are pled out.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      Totally, though that most cases are pled out says nothing about the cases that never are. An overzealous prosecutor can be beat down by a judge in the USA at least. In china, there is no real difference between prosecutor and judge, someone makes a decision somewhere and that's it. The only recourse is bad publicity. Rule of law is a spectrum, but we are talking about drastically different ends of it. What's more, rule of law is not even a goal for the Chinese government, who think an independent power-checking judiciary is unnecessary given that the CCP only consists of wise and uncorrupt officials.
  - mercurialshark 9y ago
    Short answer, no, they do not. As a former law professor of mine explained, thirty years ago, if you visited a "law firm" in China, they resembled a back-alley bodega. This example serves to elucidate that the nation itself is a Party-based system, which is by definition entirely different than a nation based on the rule of law or a constitutional system. It's not merely the enforcement that is arbitrary, but the defining, application, ruling and interpretation of "law" is actually simply just attempting to appease the enigmatic communist party and its policy agenda.
- c3534l 9y ago
  I remember seeing a documentary about China where a reporter interviewed a judge. When asked about the conflict between the law and the communist party, she said matter-of-factly, as if it were unthinkable for it to be any way else, that the party always comes first and the law second, because she is a judge appointed by the party and so she has to do what the party tells her. It was just so straight-forward; you're a member of the party first and the law is a secondary concern.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dfps 9y ago
    Wow. Doc name please?
    - simonh 9y ago
      A family member is a policeman in China and this is the way it is. I won't offer proof, for reasons I hope are obvious.
      - otp124 9y ago
        Considering you're posting under an anonymous premise. You should change the description to "family member". Less specific the better. =)
        stordoff 9y ago
        This is good advice, though it's really the sort of thing you need to get right first time if it matters to you - caches/archives will make "undoing" an edit possible a lot of the time.
    - c3534l 9y ago
      I don't know the name, it was more of a hour+ news special than something in theaters.
pasbesoin 9y ago
Rubber hose policing of the Internet. Just remember that, as with The Great Firewall and the (commercial) development and initial sales of its technologies, so too with this: China is the prototype.
- nthcolumn 9y ago
  They get all their best ideas from UK.
zhong 9y ago
今天抓卖的，明天买用的。
mirimir 9y ago
It's iffy for Chinese nationals to run VPN services. But then, it's similarly iffy for American nationals to run other sorts of services. Such as online gambling. Or money transfer businesses that don't respect KYC regulations. That's just how it is. Each country gets to choose its policies. I mean, that's one of the fundamental points of being a country, isn't it?
- djrogers 9y ago
  > That's just how it is. Each country gets to choose its policies. I mean, that's the fundamental point of being a country, isn't it? Yes, but that’s not what’s happening in China. The fundamental point of being a country is to serve the common good, and to protect the life and liberty of your citizens. In China the ruling party doesn’t care about any of those things. A policy such as this would be a lot less horrible if ‘the country’ actually chose their own rules and rulers instead of a small handful of permanent party appointees. 1.3(?) billion people who have no say in these policies or in those who make them should be a tragedy no matter how cynical you are.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    That's a rather simplistic characterization of the Chinese political situation. Or at least, it seems so to me, to the extent that I know enough to have an opinion.
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    >The fundamental point of being a country is to serve the common good, and to protect the life and liberty of your citizens. Important to recognize that this is your worldview, and one I agree with, but it is not the only view available! There are other motivations for government to maintain the existence of the state which they govern. For example, for some governments the motivation is to maintain the current lifestyle of them and those around them, at the expense of the populace.
  - skummetmaelk 9y ago
    > The fundamental point of being a country is to serve the common good, and to protect the life and liberty of your citizens. China values the first more than the other two and so if it has to choose those will be compromised on. America used to value liberty over the common good, but that is slowly turning.
zvrba 9y ago
What about using Windows 10 then which comes with a built-in VPN client? (A genuine concern of mine, we're building an embedded product based on Win 10 IoT and using its PPTP VPN for remote diagnostics.)
- novaleaf 9y ago
  a vpn client isn't very useful without a server to connect to, so I assume that means win10 with a vpn client isnt a problem. have any more technical details on how this is an issue?
  - zvrba 9y ago
    He was sentenced for selling "VPN software", which Win10 has built-in. Did he also run a VPN server (not mentioned in the article)?
- alviezhang 9y ago
  The GFW(Great Firewall) has blocked many protocols, such as IPSec, L2TP/IPSec, PPTP and OpenVPN.
  - zvrba 9y ago
    SSTP (tunneling via HTTPS) is the interesting one.
- JulienSchmidt 9y ago
  PPTP is obsolete and fundamentally insecure. And that isn't news but known at least since 1998 (!): https://www.schneier.com/academic/pptp/ https://www.schneier.com/academic/pptp/ It is unlikely that it would be blocked in China since eavesdropping is easily possible. (Vanilla) OpenVPN is blocked in China, likewise is IPsec and L2TP. SSTP can also easily be detected via Active Probing but I'm not sure if the GFW currently does that.
odiroot 9y ago
I would really recommend setting up a VPS in Hong Kong or Singapore (good fiber connections to mainland) and using Shadowsocks as a proxy. Can be as cheap as 3€/month. You can even put OpenVPN on top of that (SOCKS) if you need to use your company network. I have an impression Beijing doesn't care so much about restricting IP blocks of small hosting companies from the region. It'd probably change if millions of people went this road.
kwhitefoot 9y ago
Coming soon to a democracy near you I suspect.
whoareyouagain 9y ago
Most Chinese sellers are warned to take down their services and can get away with it, I wonder why this guy was sued. It sucks though.

165 points by campuscodi 9y ago

The man was charged with "violat[ing] state regulations and intrud[ing] into computer systems with information concerning state affairs, construction of defense facilities, and sophisticated science and technology." It's bizarre interpretations of the law like this, that don't even fit the "crime", that show that the underlying reason was to send a message instead of actually performing a legitimate arrest.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
China doesn't really have rule of law. If they want to make an example of you, they will find a way to do it. Judge's are completely deferrent to officials in that way, and there is no judicial review. It is just classic rule by law (laws are weaponized to serve whatever purpose vs. being fairly applied).
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Selective enforcement is a really annoying way of seeing the law applied. And it is happening in more places than just China.
  - elefanten 9y ago
    GP was describing more than just selective enforcement. And while that may happen elsewhere, it's particularly bad in China relative to their level of development and size. At what point do we stop drooling over the market size and advocate for dignity and rights for 18% of the world's population? Not to mention the danger authoritarian regimes pose just by existing. An apparatus that powerful that could be structurally hijacked by a tiny number of people is a scary thing.
    - bobjordan 9y ago
      The 18%, Chinese people, do not want outsider's input on their governmental structure. On the whole (edit: "on the whole" means "most people"), they are perfectly happy with the way things are going. Standards of living increase year-over-year every single year. Until that stops, they don't want a thing to change. Now if that stops for a decade or so, maybe it will change. But that's unlikely to happen. So, it's futile to bring your western view to bear on their issues. A one party government is the way they want it here.
      - chibg10 9y ago
        As if the CCP's "miracle" of economic development hasn't already been done in South Korea, Taiwan, etc. without the authoritarians who also brought the wonders that are The Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution. Or as if India isn't already basically replicating the same feat with a democracy, but 10 years delayed. It isn't a "Western view" to understand that governments that respect human rights generally lead to happier civilizations in the long run. It's simply observable from empirical data.
        namelost 9y ago
        Do you really think that China is capable of an easy and bloodless transition to a democratic system? Perhaps Chinese people know better than anyone just how violent revolution can be.
        DashRattlesnake 9y ago
        > Do you really think that China is capable of an easy and bloodless transition to a democratic system? I suppose that really depends on the Communist party...
        vkou 9y ago
        Was the Soviet Union?
        girzel 9y ago
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    True. Rule of law is just an ideal, western developed governments are setup to help realize it, but abuses still occur. In china, rule of law is not even an ideal, its system is not setup to support it, it is considered a western imperialistic concept that does not fit china. Third world problems vs. first world ones.
    - whoareyouagain 9y ago
      Laws are made to help ruling class to rule the country. This is the first assert statement Chinese students learn when they are having middle class politics. I would not simply equate western big-money-lawyer cluster to a system of 'rule of law'. Given I have seen quite a few rich white guys are easy to get away with rapist indictment where other poor black guys get 20 years sentence.
- gozur88 9y ago
  "Rule of law" is really a spectrum. China may be toward the arbitrary end, but maybe not as much as we'd like to believe. Prosecutors in the US have enormous power, which is why 98% of US federal cases are pled out.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Totally, though that most cases are pled out says nothing about the cases that never are. An overzealous prosecutor can be beat down by a judge in the USA at least. In china, there is no real difference between prosecutor and judge, someone makes a decision somewhere and that's it. The only recourse is bad publicity. Rule of law is a spectrum, but we are talking about drastically different ends of it. What's more, rule of law is not even a goal for the Chinese government, who think an independent power-checking judiciary is unnecessary given that the CCP only consists of wise and uncorrupt officials.
- mercurialshark 9y ago
  Short answer, no, they do not. As a former law professor of mine explained, thirty years ago, if you visited a "law firm" in China, they resembled a back-alley bodega. This example serves to elucidate that the nation itself is a Party-based system, which is by definition entirely different than a nation based on the rule of law or a constitutional system. It's not merely the enforcement that is arbitrary, but the defining, application, ruling and interpretation of "law" is actually simply just attempting to appease the enigmatic communist party and its policy agenda.
c3534l 9y ago
I remember seeing a documentary about China where a reporter interviewed a judge. When asked about the conflict between the law and the communist party, she said matter-of-factly, as if it were unthinkable for it to be any way else, that the party always comes first and the law second, because she is a judge appointed by the party and so she has to do what the party tells her. It was just so straight-forward; you're a member of the party first and the law is a secondary concern.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dfps 9y ago
  Wow. Doc name please?
  - simonh 9y ago
    A family member is a policeman in China and this is the way it is. I won't offer proof, for reasons I hope are obvious.
    - otp124 9y ago
      Considering you're posting under an anonymous premise. You should change the description to "family member". Less specific the better. =)
      - stordoff 9y ago
        This is good advice, though it's really the sort of thing you need to get right first time if it matters to you - caches/archives will make "undoing" an edit possible a lot of the time.
  - c3534l 9y ago
    I don't know the name, it was more of a hour+ news special than something in theaters.

pasbesoin 9y ago

Rubber hose policing of the Internet. Just remember that, as with The Great Firewall and the (commercial) development and initial sales of its technologies, so too with this: China is the prototype.

nthcolumn 9y ago
They get all their best ideas from UK.

zhong 9y ago

今天抓卖的，明天买用的。

mirimir 9y ago

It's iffy for Chinese nationals to run VPN services. But then, it's similarly iffy for American nationals to run other sorts of services. Such as online gambling. Or money transfer businesses that don't respect KYC regulations. That's just how it is. Each country gets to choose its policies. I mean, that's one of the fundamental points of being a country, isn't it?

djrogers 9y ago
> That's just how it is. Each country gets to choose its policies. I mean, that's the fundamental point of being a country, isn't it? Yes, but that’s not what’s happening in China. The fundamental point of being a country is to serve the common good, and to protect the life and liberty of your citizens. In China the ruling party doesn’t care about any of those things. A policy such as this would be a lot less horrible if ‘the country’ actually chose their own rules and rulers instead of a small handful of permanent party appointees. 1.3(?) billion people who have no say in these policies or in those who make them should be a tragedy no matter how cynical you are.
- mirimir 9y ago
  That's a rather simplistic characterization of the Chinese political situation. Or at least, it seems so to me, to the extent that I know enough to have an opinion.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  >The fundamental point of being a country is to serve the common good, and to protect the life and liberty of your citizens. Important to recognize that this is your worldview, and one I agree with, but it is not the only view available! There are other motivations for government to maintain the existence of the state which they govern. For example, for some governments the motivation is to maintain the current lifestyle of them and those around them, at the expense of the populace.
- skummetmaelk 9y ago
  > The fundamental point of being a country is to serve the common good, and to protect the life and liberty of your citizens. China values the first more than the other two and so if it has to choose those will be compromised on. America used to value liberty over the common good, but that is slowly turning.

zvrba 9y ago

What about using Windows 10 then which comes with a built-in VPN client? (A genuine concern of mine, we're building an embedded product based on Win 10 IoT and using its PPTP VPN for remote diagnostics.)

novaleaf 9y ago
a vpn client isn't very useful without a server to connect to, so I assume that means win10 with a vpn client isnt a problem. have any more technical details on how this is an issue?
- zvrba 9y ago
  He was sentenced for selling "VPN software", which Win10 has built-in. Did he also run a VPN server (not mentioned in the article)?
alviezhang 9y ago
The GFW(Great Firewall) has blocked many protocols, such as IPSec, L2TP/IPSec, PPTP and OpenVPN.
- zvrba 9y ago
  SSTP (tunneling via HTTPS) is the interesting one.
JulienSchmidt 9y ago
PPTP is obsolete and fundamentally insecure. And that isn't news but known at least since 1998 (!): https://www.schneier.com/academic/pptp/ https://www.schneier.com/academic/pptp/ It is unlikely that it would be blocked in China since eavesdropping is easily possible. (Vanilla) OpenVPN is blocked in China, likewise is IPsec and L2TP. SSTP can also easily be detected via Active Probing but I'm not sure if the GFW currently does that.

odiroot 9y ago

I would really recommend setting up a VPS in Hong Kong or Singapore (good fiber connections to mainland) and using Shadowsocks as a proxy. Can be as cheap as 3€/month. You can even put OpenVPN on top of that (SOCKS) if you need to use your company network. I have an impression Beijing doesn't care so much about restricting IP blocks of small hosting companies from the region. It'd probably change if millions of people went this road.

kwhitefoot 9y ago

Coming soon to a democracy near you I suspect.

whoareyouagain 9y ago

Most Chinese sellers are warned to take down their services and can get away with it, I wonder why this guy was sued. It sucks though.