4 ms·

This doesn’t work. The DDoS requests actually come from outside China when oversea visitors are hit by the malicious js while browsing Chinese websites.

jacquesm 7y ago
So it does work. It doesn't really matter where you break the chain as long as it gets broken.
- xucheng 7y ago
  It only works if you somehow remove entire China from the Internet.
  - tantalor 7y ago
    No big loss.
    - throw5543265 7y ago
      Maybe for you, but there are millions of people that work with people in China everyday.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    That would be the kind of signal that would be hard for the Chinese to spin in such a way that it would make them look good, and the economic effect would be pretty much instantaneous. There is plenty of historical precedent for this: spammers' IP ranges would be blackholed to send a message to their ISPs that such behavior wasn't tolerated. That the Chinese authorities decide to play this game at the nation state level should not give them a free pass, but should result in a nation state level response. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_(networking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_(networking)
    - pwnguin 7y ago
      I'm not sure 'We have the technology to censor the internet, and it's okay to deploy it' is the message you want to give the CCP.
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        That's not censorship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship The criminal co-opting of networks and nodes on those networks is not speech by any definition.
        earenndil 7y ago
        That's not the issue. The issue is that there is speech accompanying the malware, which should not be systematically censored. (Though any individual is free to do so for themselves.)
        RHSeeger 7y ago
        > The issue is that there is speech accompanying the malware I'm either misunderstanding what you're saying, or it doesn't make sense. If a bunch of people take signs (with legitimate messages, free speech) and hang them off a bridge over the highway (causing accidents), then those people go jail. The fact that their message is free speech is irrelevant. The source of the message is being punished/jailed, not the message. Am I mis-representing your statement?
        jacquesm 7y ago
        Another iteration of this and we'll have bullets with text on them and killing someone with those bullets will be an expression of free speech. The degree to which the 'free speech' analogy is contorted is amazing, more so because the original scope was quite narrow, both legal and geographical.
        derefr 7y ago
        The problem is closer to a ne'er-do-well taking someone else's signs and hanging them off a bridge over a highway. The person producing the speech is having their speech hijacked for malicious purposes by an MITM; that doesn't mean that it's not censorship when the sign's/webpage's creator gets caught in the censorship crossfire during the attempt to take down the malicious actor. To put it another way: if someone steals my car and uses it to rob a bank, even if that car is now evidence in a criminal investigation, it's still my car. The police have every right to confiscate it from the thief—it's not their car—but that doesn't mean that it suddenly belongs to them; it belongs to me. In both this case and the above case, I have a right to not be unduly punished for the actions of an unrelated third party (by having my website taken down; or by having my car permanently confiscated, respectively.) The context here is very similar to a story that was on HN just yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671579). Banning a site from the internet for happening to be MITMed by China is very similar in its ethical implications to banning a site from the Internet for happening to have a domain-name that fits a pattern used by a botnet.
  - indemnity 7y ago
    Who cares? China is a net negative on the Internet, they can stay over in their intranet as far as I am concerned, nothing of value would be lost.
    - wadkar 7y ago
      Ohh no! Human to human connections are far too important to maintain in today's glocalized world.
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    It is possible: De-peer AS4134 (China Telecom) and reject all of their routes. They are the only international ISP that lands into mainland China. They are extensively peered around the world.
    - kitteh 7y ago
      It's not just them. AS4837 (China Unicom) and a few others who have intl permission to route in and out of China. That said, you're going to hurt a lot of non-china multinationals who operate there.
      - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
        > That said, you're going to hurt a lot of non-china multinationals who operate there. Not my problem. Figure out a better way than getting in bed with fascist countries and then complaining when the inevitable door swings shut due to rightful backlash.
        yspeak 7y ago
        China is communist.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    China can easily operate any number of servers outside China.
linuxftw 7y ago
Seems like it could work, there would be no way to pull down the JS.

jacquesm 7y ago

So it does work. It doesn't really matter where you break the chain as long as it gets broken.

xucheng 7y ago
It only works if you somehow remove entire China from the Internet.
- tantalor 7y ago
  No big loss.
  - throw5543265 7y ago
    Maybe for you, but there are millions of people that work with people in China everyday.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  That would be the kind of signal that would be hard for the Chinese to spin in such a way that it would make them look good, and the economic effect would be pretty much instantaneous. There is plenty of historical precedent for this: spammers' IP ranges would be blackholed to send a message to their ISPs that such behavior wasn't tolerated. That the Chinese authorities decide to play this game at the nation state level should not give them a free pass, but should result in a nation state level response. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_(networking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_(networking)
  - pwnguin 7y ago
    I'm not sure 'We have the technology to censor the internet, and it's okay to deploy it' is the message you want to give the CCP.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      That's not censorship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship The criminal co-opting of networks and nodes on those networks is not speech by any definition.
      - earenndil 7y ago
        That's not the issue. The issue is that there is speech accompanying the malware, which should not be systematically censored. (Though any individual is free to do so for themselves.)
        RHSeeger 7y ago
        > The issue is that there is speech accompanying the malware I'm either misunderstanding what you're saying, or it doesn't make sense. If a bunch of people take signs (with legitimate messages, free speech) and hang them off a bridge over the highway (causing accidents), then those people go jail. The fact that their message is free speech is irrelevant. The source of the message is being punished/jailed, not the message. Am I mis-representing your statement?
        jacquesm 7y ago
        Another iteration of this and we'll have bullets with text on them and killing someone with those bullets will be an expression of free speech. The degree to which the 'free speech' analogy is contorted is amazing, more so because the original scope was quite narrow, both legal and geographical.
        derefr 7y ago
        The problem is closer to a ne'er-do-well taking someone else's signs and hanging them off a bridge over a highway. The person producing the speech is having their speech hijacked for malicious purposes by an MITM; that doesn't mean that it's not censorship when the sign's/webpage's creator gets caught in the censorship crossfire during the attempt to take down the malicious actor. To put it another way: if someone steals my car and uses it to rob a bank, even if that car is now evidence in a criminal investigation, it's still my car. The police have every right to confiscate it from the thief—it's not their car—but that doesn't mean that it suddenly belongs to them; it belongs to me. In both this case and the above case, I have a right to not be unduly punished for the actions of an unrelated third party (by having my website taken down; or by having my car permanently confiscated, respectively.) The context here is very similar to a story that was on HN just yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21671579). Banning a site from the internet for happening to be MITMed by China is very similar in its ethical implications to banning a site from the Internet for happening to have a domain-name that fits a pattern used by a botnet.
- indemnity 7y ago
  Who cares? China is a net negative on the Internet, they can stay over in their intranet as far as I am concerned, nothing of value would be lost.
  - wadkar 7y ago
    Ohh no! Human to human connections are far too important to maintain in today's glocalized world.
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  It is possible: De-peer AS4134 (China Telecom) and reject all of their routes. They are the only international ISP that lands into mainland China. They are extensively peered around the world.
  - kitteh 7y ago
    It's not just them. AS4837 (China Unicom) and a few others who have intl permission to route in and out of China. That said, you're going to hurt a lot of non-china multinationals who operate there.
    - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
      > That said, you're going to hurt a lot of non-china multinationals who operate there. Not my problem. Figure out a better way than getting in bed with fascist countries and then complaining when the inevitable door swings shut due to rightful backlash.
      - yspeak 7y ago
        China is communist.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  China can easily operate any number of servers outside China.

linuxftw 7y ago

Seems like it could work, there would be no way to pull down the JS.