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> Connections FROM the West (e-commerce connections, "we buy from you", "you are a merchant to us", etc., etc.) TO Alibaba.com (in China) -- are not blocked, an

by vitus 3y ago

> Connections FROM the West (e-commerce connections, "we buy from you", "you are a merchant to us", etc., etc.) TO Alibaba.com (in China) -- are not blocked, and would NOT be blocked by the Chinese government! Um, conspiracy theories aside, Alibaba has servers in the US.

peter_d_sherman 3y ago
Which would have two-way data paths (inbound/outbound) to the Alibaba company (or other e-commerce company in the case of a different e-commerce company) in mainland China, or, more broadly, to the interior of other countries whose Nation-State firewall blocks outgoing connections... Point is, if there's a way out, then there's a way in... How does the data on the Alibaba servers in the U.S. get updated? Probably not by carrier pigeon... Someone (or a group of people) in the Alibaba offices in China updates that server when prices change, when new products are added, etc., etc. And how does that happen, if there isn't an outgoing Internet connection? And if so, then that's proof of a non-blocked outgoing connection from China. And if that's true, then we need to raise the question of which types of outgoing connections are selectively permitted from China (because obviously the Alibaba update on U.S. servers is permitted!) Which would in turn start to crumble the western mainstream media narrative that China blocks all outgoing connections... In other words, if China doesn't block all outgoing connections, then we need to know (if we care at all about global Internet censorship) which types of connections are blocked, which ones aren't, and what the exact criteria for a blocked or permitted connection is... Because if you are correct, then it would seem that connections from mainland China to Alibaba's U.S. servers are NOT blocked... Conspiracy theories aside!
- zokier 3y ago
  Obviously not all connections from China are blocked! That is not news. Try reading the basic Wikipedia articles for starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  >we need to raise the question of which types of outgoing connections are selectively permitted from China (because obviously the Alibaba update on U.S. servers is permitted!) That question was raised decades ago, and the answer is already known: traffic which sufficiently disagrees with the current government of China is blocked. >Which would in turn start to crumble the western mainstream media narrative that China blocks all outgoing connections I have never seen anyone (other than you) claim that China blocks all outgoing connections. That seems to be your narrative, rather than some mythical, conspiratorial, "western mainstream media narrative". I don't think it does us any good to invent divisive narratives like this. You could instead invent narratives that unite people and ideas and nations. The reality that the world realizes, is that the current government of China blocks traffic containing content telling narratives which sufficiently disagree with them, using the tool they developed specifically for that purpose.
  - peter_d_sherman 3y ago
    >"the answer is already known: traffic which sufficiently disagrees with the current government of China is blocked." "Sufficiently disagrees" is not an exact understanding of exactly when/where/why and how the Chinese (or more broadly, any other Nation-State's) government blocks connections, or even if they indeed block connections (I have not personally tested Internet connectivity to the world at large from within China, so I'm going by secondhand information, western news reports -- that make the general claim that at least some aspects of China's Internet are censored and/or blocked: https://www.google.com/search?q=great+firewall+of+china https://www.google.com/search?q=great+firewall+of+china ) >I have never seen anyone (other than you) claim that China blocks all outgoing connections. I did not claim that... Did I not say in the first message in this chain: "And let's suppose for the purposes of discussion that what the western Mainstream Media says about China's Internet is completely true -- that outgoing connections to the West from China -- are blocked." ? The purpose of this message chain was not about China nor western mainstream media! The purpose of this message chain was to discuss the following: >"what happens if a TCP/IP connection is initiated from another country to a TCP/IP address inside of an outwardly blocked country?" ? ??? China, in this context, was only used as an arbitrary choice for the purposes of a philosophical discussion... We could substitute China with any other country for the purposes of this same discussion, if it pleases you! Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT_traversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT_traversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_punching_(networking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_punching_(networking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICMP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICMP_hole_punching

by vitus 3y ago

peter_d_sherman 3y ago

Which would have two-way data paths (inbound/outbound) to the Alibaba company (or other e-commerce company in the case of a different e-commerce company) in mainland China, or, more broadly, to the interior of other countries whose Nation-State firewall blocks outgoing connections... Point is, if there's a way out, then there's a way in... How does the data on the Alibaba servers in the U.S. get updated? Probably not by carrier pigeon... Someone (or a group of people) in the Alibaba offices in China updates that server when prices change, when new products are added, etc., etc. And how does that happen, if there isn't an outgoing Internet connection? And if so, then that's proof of a non-blocked outgoing connection from China. And if that's true, then we need to raise the question of which types of outgoing connections are selectively permitted from China (because obviously the Alibaba update on U.S. servers is permitted!) Which would in turn start to crumble the western mainstream media narrative that China blocks all outgoing connections... In other words, if China doesn't block all outgoing connections, then we need to know (if we care at all about global Internet censorship) which types of connections are blocked, which ones aren't, and what the exact criteria for a blocked or permitted connection is... Because if you are correct, then it would seem that connections from mainland China to Alibaba's U.S. servers are NOT blocked... Conspiracy theories aside!

zokier 3y ago
Obviously not all connections from China are blocked! That is not news. Try reading the basic Wikipedia articles for starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
>we need to raise the question of which types of outgoing connections are selectively permitted from China (because obviously the Alibaba update on U.S. servers is permitted!) That question was raised decades ago, and the answer is already known: traffic which sufficiently disagrees with the current government of China is blocked. >Which would in turn start to crumble the western mainstream media narrative that China blocks all outgoing connections I have never seen anyone (other than you) claim that China blocks all outgoing connections. That seems to be your narrative, rather than some mythical, conspiratorial, "western mainstream media narrative". I don't think it does us any good to invent divisive narratives like this. You could instead invent narratives that unite people and ideas and nations. The reality that the world realizes, is that the current government of China blocks traffic containing content telling narratives which sufficiently disagree with them, using the tool they developed specifically for that purpose.
- peter_d_sherman 3y ago
  >"the answer is already known: traffic which sufficiently disagrees with the current government of China is blocked." "Sufficiently disagrees" is not an exact understanding of exactly when/where/why and how the Chinese (or more broadly, any other Nation-State's) government blocks connections, or even if they indeed block connections (I have not personally tested Internet connectivity to the world at large from within China, so I'm going by secondhand information, western news reports -- that make the general claim that at least some aspects of China's Internet are censored and/or blocked: https://www.google.com/search?q=great+firewall+of+china https://www.google.com/search?q=great+firewall+of+china ) >I have never seen anyone (other than you) claim that China blocks all outgoing connections. I did not claim that... Did I not say in the first message in this chain: "And let's suppose for the purposes of discussion that what the western Mainstream Media says about China's Internet is completely true -- that outgoing connections to the West from China -- are blocked." ? The purpose of this message chain was not about China nor western mainstream media! The purpose of this message chain was to discuss the following: >"what happens if a TCP/IP connection is initiated from another country to a TCP/IP address inside of an outwardly blocked country?" ? ??? China, in this context, was only used as an arbitrary choice for the purposes of a philosophical discussion... We could substitute China with any other country for the purposes of this same discussion, if it pleases you! Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT_traversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT_traversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_punching_(networking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_punching_(networking) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICMP_hole_punching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICMP_hole_punching