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How does news like this even get out of the country with the information controls in place?

by jxi 8y ago

saagarjha 8y ago
China’s information control, while extensive, is not nearly effective enough to suppress news like this. It’s the same reason we hear of human rights abuses happening in the country.
adtac 8y ago
You just need one person to leak it (or 2-3, if you care about journalistic integrity and receive the information from multiple sources). Remember, you don't need true cryptography -- you just need to get information out. It's okay to violate kerckhoff's principle and have a scheme that's dependent on the algorithm itself so that the government can't automatically decrypt your data. Like using obscure steganography. You might be discovered later, but once the information is out, it's out.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  It's the communication version of diffusion. It's also what makes things like "Secret societies", and massive conspiracies to be so damned hard to maintain. Information in a high level area wants to equalize to lower levels.
tivert 8y ago
> How does news like this even get out of the country with the information controls in place? China isn't North Korea. There's a lot of travel of both Westerners and Chinese into and out of China, and free-ish communication between them. Within China, you can talk about many things privately without having to worry about the police showing up. The government's big red lines are public advocacy and especially political organization. https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/randomized-experimental-study-censorship-china https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/randomized-experiment... Fear No Evil by Natan Sharansky describes a similar situation in the Soviet Union: https://www.amazon.com/Fear-No-Evil-Natan-Sharansky/dp/1891620029/ https://www.amazon.com/Fear-No-Evil-Natan-Sharansky/dp/18916.... (As in aside, is there a Chinese translation?)
- saagarjha 8y ago
  News comes out of countries like North Korea as well, since it is incredibly hard to suppress the spread of information, even despite the numerous policies the government has put into place aimed at curbing propagation.

How does news like this even get out of the country with the information controls in place?

by jxi 8y ago

How does news like this even get out of the country with the information controls in place?

China’s information control, while extensive, is not nearly effective enough to suppress news like this. It’s the same reason we hear of human rights abuses happening in the country.

adtac 8y ago

You just need one person to leak it (or 2-3, if you care about journalistic integrity and receive the information from multiple sources). Remember, you don't need true cryptography -- you just need to get information out. It's okay to violate kerckhoff's principle and have a scheme that's dependent on the algorithm itself so that the government can't automatically decrypt your data. Like using obscure steganography. You might be discovered later, but once the information is out, it's out.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
It's the communication version of diffusion. It's also what makes things like "Secret societies", and massive conspiracies to be so damned hard to maintain. Information in a high level area wants to equalize to lower levels.

tivert 8y ago

> How does news like this even get out of the country with the information controls in place? China isn't North Korea. There's a lot of travel of both Westerners and Chinese into and out of China, and free-ish communication between them. Within China, you can talk about many things privately without having to worry about the police showing up. The government's big red lines are public advocacy and especially political organization. https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/randomized-experimental-study-censorship-china https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/randomized-experiment... Fear No Evil by Natan Sharansky describes a similar situation in the Soviet Union: https://www.amazon.com/Fear-No-Evil-Natan-Sharansky/dp/1891620029/ https://www.amazon.com/Fear-No-Evil-Natan-Sharansky/dp/18916.... (As in aside, is there a Chinese translation?)

saagarjha 8y ago
News comes out of countries like North Korea as well, since it is incredibly hard to suppress the spread of information, even despite the numerous policies the government has put into place aimed at curbing propagation.