8 ms·

Major Chinese-made web browsers are reportedly blocking 996ICU's GitHub repo

133 points by rqs 8y ago

rqs 8y ago
Without Google Translation (In Chinese): https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/pull/24904#issuecomment-478881871 https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/pull/24904#issuecomment-47...
- yorwba 8y ago
  > 加?问号随机参数试试，微信可以打开 The block isn't very smart if it can be circumvented by adding random query parameters with a question mark.
  - duxup 8y ago
    Maybe, but you have to know to do that in order to get around it. If you don't know much about the page and get a 404, maybe you just roll on. If you know to circumvent it, then you probabbly know a bit more about the page anyway, maybe not the person they're trying to filter it from. At least from UI testing we know that a thing not working, or just working slowly is enough to turn away a lot of people.
    - b_tterc_p 8y ago
      Maybe But it is a github repo. Only a small number of interested people are going to be headed there
duxup 8y ago
The actual browsers are hard coded to filter a single github repo? Is it common for them to filter at the browser level?
- rqs 8y ago
  Maybe those web browsers are linked to a online URL database. If any URL is matched in the database, then they will refuse to load the page. But if true, that also means those web browsers are querying a online database when user is trying to access a URL. Not a good news no matter how you hold it.
  - duxup 8y ago
    Yeah no doubt that would be concerning. Sadly not surprising.
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    Doesn't Chrome and Firefox do the same for known malicious websites? IIRC they use hashes and / or a local database of hashes, but I can't be sure. Pretty sure that caused major controversy in its earlier days too.
    - 32032141 8y ago
      It checks a bloom filter.
    - codedokode 8y ago
      Yes, they download a database of forbidden sites from Google (SafeBrowsing) [1] [1] https://safebrowsing.google.com/ https://safebrowsing.google.com/
- baybal2 8y ago
  If you put UC into a debugger, you see a function with a very telling name "blocklist" pointing on a code with strings containing some github urls and, surprise, some defunct urls at microsoft.com and adsense cdn. It's 2019, and people still keep forgetting stripping debug symbols.
  - duxup 8y ago
    Well it is important to name functions clearly ;) Good for them I guess!
hyper_reality 8y ago
Discussion last week on HN with more info about what 996ICU is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179
noeatnosleep 8y ago
Shocking!
jnmandal 8y ago
This is outrageous. 团结
yorwba 8y ago
According to this thread on V2EX, the block was changed to a redirect to GitHub's 404 page: https://www.v2ex.com/t/551405#reply19 https://www.v2ex.com/t/551405#reply19
- zachguo 8y ago
  So it seems this is actually done by private companies since they are on the blacklist.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
censorship is a 'control fetish' signal
SimeVidas 8y ago
Are these browsers popular in China? I’m only aware of UC.
- yorwba 8y ago
  The QQ browser is the default for opening URLs in Tencent's popular messaging apps QQ and WeChat, so it probably has a larger market share than UC. The others are a bit more niche I think, but I don't know for sure. There should be some statistics on this page by Baidu, but I can't confirm because it requires Flash (!) and I'm on mobile: https://tongji.baidu.com/data/browser https://tongji.baidu.com/data/browser
maimeowmeow 8y ago
How come operators of the github page are not in some reeducation camp, or elimitated? Seems like the censors are not as knowing as we thought.
- duxup 8y ago
  This seems more like corporate entities reaching to silence dissent. Not sure they always reach for a solution like " reeducation camp, or elimitated" in such cases... I don't think it says anything about censorship or the autocracy in China that some folks who don't like working long hours aren't in prison, or are still alive.
- narrator 8y ago
  As long as you are very clear you are not directing your anger at the government, it's usually ok to protest in China. For example, there are often mass protests if wages are not paid to factory workers, etc. https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-migrant-workers-protest-unpaid-wages/3682577.html https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-migrant-workers-protest-un...
  - outloudvi 8y ago
    Maybe I interpret it wrong, but here is a tricky point: You have to apply for government's permission to do a legal on-street protest. ref: http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/gongbao/1989-10/31/content_1481217.htm http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/gongbao/1989-10/31/content_148121... (Chapter 2 Article 7, Chinese)
    - IloveHN84 8y ago
      Also in Germany, you have to announce it to the Police
    - maccio92 8y ago
      I believe in the US as well if you're organizing a protest on public property you need a permit in some areas.
    - 8y ago
abc-xyz 8y ago
I suspect in the near future devices sold in China will be unable to install certain apps (similar to how Apple recently removed Taiwan's national flag for all Macs sold in China with its latest update - https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1110923561882058754 https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/11109235618820...), foreign browsers will stop working (and be forced to implement support for this functionality to the extent that the Chinese government can not only block specific pages on https (as we see here) but also replace the individual page with their own content).. This will make it very easy for China to not only censor the internet, but also to rewrite history completely. Replace the Wikipedia article related to the Tienanmen massacre with their own, replace Googles search results with their own, etc. To make matters even more scary, they'll put great emphasis on promoting their own browsers in foreign countries, force hardware vendors to preinstall their browsers on devices sold outside China. Forget about the Chinese Firewall, this will take censorship and rewritten history to a whole new level that will affect people all over the world, and make it much much easier to affect foreign policies and elections. Now for the sad part, even after they've showed their cards, companies and governments will still continue to invest in China, continue to bend over and do whatever they ask for.
- koboll 8y ago
  >Now for the sad part, even after they've showed their cards, companies and governments will still continue to invest in China, continue to bend over and do whatever they ask for. Publicly-traded companies are completely enslaved to profit-seeking because of their overriding need to appease shareholders, lest shareholders fire them and install someone more willing to do whatever it takes to seek profit. This is why regulation is necessary -- not because businesses are amoral, but because shareholders are, and businesses have to be whatever shareholders want them to be. If we want businesses to act a certain way toward political and social freedoms abroad, we have to either tie the hands of employees through prohibitions or incentivize shareholders toward other avenues of seeking profit.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
AFascistWorld 8y ago
Overtime in China is the norm, in factories, if you do 40 hrs per week, you will only get the minimum wage in your city, mostly around 200 dollars a month, and you will get kicked real quick. This looks more like an industry behavior, which is not uncommon in China, for example Tencent blocked on its WeChat self-media platform(a little like Facebook's Instant Articles but much more low-brow and dominant) unflattering articles about PinDuoDuo when it was goinf public in the US, which they invested in. Cellphone reviewers has long been under control of the brands, they give out guidlines about how to write the review along with test units, manage them in their work groups. The 360 Chrome brower queries these URLs every time you start the browser or open a URL, namely to give the url a safety and info badge. site.browser.360.cn cdata.browser.360.cn cdn.weather.hao.360.cn
beatle_sauce 8y ago
This is currently listed as the most starred repository on Github with 153k stars: https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E0&s=stars&type=Repositories https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E0&s=stars&type=Reposi... (There was the freeCodeCamp repo with 300k stars, but I don't see it in the list anymore.) I am surprised that this protest does not get more media coverage. Also, Alibaba and Huawei are in the list of companies...
- Grue3 8y ago
  I see freeCodeCamp, it's currently #1 for me, while 996.ICU is #2.
alexnewman 8y ago
i work 996 because i am so impressed with china. now i’m reconsidering this behavior
- chillacy 8y ago
  Unless your workdays are full of playing games and drinking with coworkers you’ll probably burn out with that schedule. But then again startups founders work those hours or more
  - alexnewman 8y ago
    OOh right, i'm a founder. I feel the opposite of burning out.
kimown 8y ago
uc browser and qqbrowser are monitor pages you visited.
deogeo 8y ago
I've noticed that this story is sliding off the front page incredibly quickly, despite the large number of points accumulated in a short amount of time. Does anyone know why?
- shadofx 8y ago
  It's political in nature

133 points by rqs 8y ago

rqs 8y ago

Without Google Translation (In Chinese): https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/pull/24904#issuecomment-478881871 https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/pull/24904#issuecomment-47...

yorwba 8y ago
> 加?问号随机参数试试，微信可以打开 The block isn't very smart if it can be circumvented by adding random query parameters with a question mark.
- duxup 8y ago
  Maybe, but you have to know to do that in order to get around it. If you don't know much about the page and get a 404, maybe you just roll on. If you know to circumvent it, then you probabbly know a bit more about the page anyway, maybe not the person they're trying to filter it from. At least from UI testing we know that a thing not working, or just working slowly is enough to turn away a lot of people.
  - b_tterc_p 8y ago
    Maybe But it is a github repo. Only a small number of interested people are going to be headed there

duxup 8y ago

The actual browsers are hard coded to filter a single github repo? Is it common for them to filter at the browser level?

rqs 8y ago
Maybe those web browsers are linked to a online URL database. If any URL is matched in the database, then they will refuse to load the page. But if true, that also means those web browsers are querying a online database when user is trying to access a URL. Not a good news no matter how you hold it.
- duxup 8y ago
  Yeah no doubt that would be concerning. Sadly not surprising.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  Doesn't Chrome and Firefox do the same for known malicious websites? IIRC they use hashes and / or a local database of hashes, but I can't be sure. Pretty sure that caused major controversy in its earlier days too.
  - 32032141 8y ago
    It checks a bloom filter.
  - codedokode 8y ago
    Yes, they download a database of forbidden sites from Google (SafeBrowsing) [1] [1] https://safebrowsing.google.com/ https://safebrowsing.google.com/
baybal2 8y ago
If you put UC into a debugger, you see a function with a very telling name "blocklist" pointing on a code with strings containing some github urls and, surprise, some defunct urls at microsoft.com and adsense cdn. It's 2019, and people still keep forgetting stripping debug symbols.
- duxup 8y ago
  Well it is important to name functions clearly ;) Good for them I guess!

hyper_reality 8y ago

Discussion last week on HN with more info about what 996ICU is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179

noeatnosleep 8y ago

Shocking!

jnmandal 8y ago

This is outrageous. 团结

yorwba 8y ago

According to this thread on V2EX, the block was changed to a redirect to GitHub's 404 page: https://www.v2ex.com/t/551405#reply19 https://www.v2ex.com/t/551405#reply19

zachguo 8y ago
So it seems this is actually done by private companies since they are on the blacklist.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

censorship is a 'control fetish' signal

SimeVidas 8y ago

Are these browsers popular in China? I’m only aware of UC.

yorwba 8y ago
The QQ browser is the default for opening URLs in Tencent's popular messaging apps QQ and WeChat, so it probably has a larger market share than UC. The others are a bit more niche I think, but I don't know for sure. There should be some statistics on this page by Baidu, but I can't confirm because it requires Flash (!) and I'm on mobile: https://tongji.baidu.com/data/browser https://tongji.baidu.com/data/browser

maimeowmeow 8y ago

How come operators of the github page are not in some reeducation camp, or elimitated? Seems like the censors are not as knowing as we thought.

duxup 8y ago
This seems more like corporate entities reaching to silence dissent. Not sure they always reach for a solution like " reeducation camp, or elimitated" in such cases... I don't think it says anything about censorship or the autocracy in China that some folks who don't like working long hours aren't in prison, or are still alive.
narrator 8y ago
As long as you are very clear you are not directing your anger at the government, it's usually ok to protest in China. For example, there are often mass protests if wages are not paid to factory workers, etc. https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-migrant-workers-protest-unpaid-wages/3682577.html https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-migrant-workers-protest-un...
- outloudvi 8y ago
  Maybe I interpret it wrong, but here is a tricky point: You have to apply for government's permission to do a legal on-street protest. ref: http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/gongbao/1989-10/31/content_1481217.htm http://www.npc.gov.cn/wxzl/gongbao/1989-10/31/content_148121... (Chapter 2 Article 7, Chinese)
  - IloveHN84 8y ago
    Also in Germany, you have to announce it to the Police
  - maccio92 8y ago
    I believe in the US as well if you're organizing a protest on public property you need a permit in some areas.
  - 8y ago

abc-xyz 8y ago

I suspect in the near future devices sold in China will be unable to install certain apps (similar to how Apple recently removed Taiwan's national flag for all Macs sold in China with its latest update - https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1110923561882058754 https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/11109235618820...), foreign browsers will stop working (and be forced to implement support for this functionality to the extent that the Chinese government can not only block specific pages on https (as we see here) but also replace the individual page with their own content).. This will make it very easy for China to not only censor the internet, but also to rewrite history completely. Replace the Wikipedia article related to the Tienanmen massacre with their own, replace Googles search results with their own, etc. To make matters even more scary, they'll put great emphasis on promoting their own browsers in foreign countries, force hardware vendors to preinstall their browsers on devices sold outside China. Forget about the Chinese Firewall, this will take censorship and rewritten history to a whole new level that will affect people all over the world, and make it much much easier to affect foreign policies and elections. Now for the sad part, even after they've showed their cards, companies and governments will still continue to invest in China, continue to bend over and do whatever they ask for.

koboll 8y ago
>Now for the sad part, even after they've showed their cards, companies and governments will still continue to invest in China, continue to bend over and do whatever they ask for. Publicly-traded companies are completely enslaved to profit-seeking because of their overriding need to appease shareholders, lest shareholders fire them and install someone more willing to do whatever it takes to seek profit. This is why regulation is necessary -- not because businesses are amoral, but because shareholders are, and businesses have to be whatever shareholders want them to be. If we want businesses to act a certain way toward political and social freedoms abroad, we have to either tie the hands of employees through prohibitions or incentivize shareholders toward other avenues of seeking profit.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

AFascistWorld 8y ago

Overtime in China is the norm, in factories, if you do 40 hrs per week, you will only get the minimum wage in your city, mostly around 200 dollars a month, and you will get kicked real quick. This looks more like an industry behavior, which is not uncommon in China, for example Tencent blocked on its WeChat self-media platform(a little like Facebook's Instant Articles but much more low-brow and dominant) unflattering articles about PinDuoDuo when it was goinf public in the US, which they invested in. Cellphone reviewers has long been under control of the brands, they give out guidlines about how to write the review along with test units, manage them in their work groups. The 360 Chrome brower queries these URLs every time you start the browser or open a URL, namely to give the url a safety and info badge. site.browser.360.cn cdata.browser.360.cn cdn.weather.hao.360.cn

beatle_sauce 8y ago

This is currently listed as the most starred repository on Github with 153k stars: https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E0&s=stars&type=Repositories https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E0&s=stars&type=Reposi... (There was the freeCodeCamp repo with 300k stars, but I don't see it in the list anymore.) I am surprised that this protest does not get more media coverage. Also, Alibaba and Huawei are in the list of companies...

Grue3 8y ago
I see freeCodeCamp, it's currently #1 for me, while 996.ICU is #2.

alexnewman 8y ago

i work 996 because i am so impressed with china. now i’m reconsidering this behavior

chillacy 8y ago
Unless your workdays are full of playing games and drinking with coworkers you’ll probably burn out with that schedule. But then again startups founders work those hours or more
- alexnewman 8y ago
  OOh right, i'm a founder. I feel the opposite of burning out.

kimown 8y ago

uc browser and qqbrowser are monitor pages you visited.

deogeo 8y ago

I've noticed that this story is sliding off the front page incredibly quickly, despite the large number of points accumulated in a short amount of time. Does anyone know why?

shadofx 8y ago
It's political in nature