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"Threat" aside, it does seem fair for the West to reciprocate bans on Google/Facebook etc, but not sure the best way to communicate with family in China now if
by sidibe 6y ago
"Threat" aside, it does seem fair for the West to reciprocate bans on Google/Facebook etc, but not sure the best way to communicate with family in China now if the western messaging apps are banned there and vice versa
- mdorazio 6y agoEmail? I know that seems dismissive, but people got along just fine before Facebook, texting, WeChat, etc. I suspect in reality there will be an endless whack-a-mole game with messaging services where people use a different one fairly frequently.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 6y agoInteresting the the proprietory chat systems are struggling with this turn if events. Email has no problem. I wonder if had the big players embraced open chat earlier if we would in this situation.
- yegle 6y agoThe great firewall of China does block email. If your email address is blocked 1. When you send an email to a recipient in China who is using an email service provider whose MTA does not support SSL/TLS/STARTTLS: the delivery attempt by your email service provider will result in a TCP reset. 2. Similarly, if someone in China want to send an email to your blocked email address but their MTA doesn't support SSL/TLS/STARTTLS: their attempt to send the email will result in a TCP reset. I know this because my Gmail account is blocked in this way.
- rsecora 6y agoAnd if you can reach the MTA, that means the email itself is unencrypted. So the MTA can monitor the email content.
- yegle 6y agoThis goes both ways. If I want to send an email to someone but their MTA doesn't do encryption, I might choose to encrypt the content of my email, but I have no way to hide my FROM. Blocking the MTA server is not unheard of.
- rsecora 6y agoRight, metadata is not encrypted for the MTA. That's the flaw in the email protocol for full anonymity, even using PGP.
- rsecora 6y agoThe problem with email is "most emails are unencrypted". Only the transmission over SMTP is mostly encrypted worldwide. So the ones who owns the MTA can eavesdrop the contents. The mail content encryption, GPG/OpenGPG/PGP are not widely deployed, (complex setup for non tech users), and even in that case, the headers are not encrypted. This is the gap Telegram, Line, Blackberry (partially) have filled over the years.
- dicomdan 6y agoThe family in China should contact their representative and ask them to unblock Signal, Telegram, or any other method of communication. If they care about their citizens abroad they will surely do so.
- mandeepj 6y agoHave u tried connecting via a vpn ?