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> Discrimination against Korean and Chinese nationals in Japan is, sadly, not an isolated phenomenon. The whole article is based on two premises: * that the G

• quink 2y ago
  I’m also confused because based on that screenshot, the page has HTTPS, which would mean either the block would be client-side, or the entire domain is blocked.
  • josephcsible 2y ago
    Or that China uses rogue root CA's to MITM their citizens' HTTPS traffic.
    • jonny_eh 2y ago
      Or they scrape sites and block domains that have pages that contain keywords.
    • tgv 2y ago
      Wikipedia says "The National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China theoretically allows the Chinese government to request and use the root certificate from any Chinese certificate authority,[60] such as CNNIC, to make MITM attacks with valid certificates." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall#Active_filtering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall#Active_filterin...]
      • gruez 2y ago
        Keyword is "theoretically". Thanks to certificate transparency, such misissuances would be detected relatively quickly, eg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42284202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42284202. To my knowledge it hasn't actually happened in practice.
    • rwmj 2y ago
      Or has a backdoor in all China-built hardware.
      • TJSomething 2y ago
        Or maybe it's just an selectively enforced ban using on software that doesn't accept their root certificates.
    • quitit 2y ago
      This is the real question. One that I would love to know the answer to. If it's a Chinese run spider that flags websites that contain banned terms, does this mean that we can effectively block certain websites from China as a form of denial attack? There are many sites which allow user submissions without a strong administrative overview. E.g. Could Booking.com be blocked to the Chinese audience by a listing including certain keywords on their page or in imagery.
      • gruez 2y ago
        >If it's a Chinese run spider that flags websites that contain banned terms, does this mean that we can effectively block certain websites from China as a form of denial attack? Yes? That's basically why a bunch of western social media sites are banned in china, because people post subversive content there and the site's administration refuses the government's request to take it down. If you tried it on booking.com or whatever, it won't work, both because your comments will be taken down by site administration for being off topic, but also because the site is big enough that they won't take automated actions (hopefully). At best you can take down small to medium sites that don't have active moderation teams. Moreover, this isn't an attack that's limited to china, it can be used against any sort of content blocking system. Sites have been blocked from google browsers (via google safe browsing) due to malicious UGC, and you can even take down the whole site if you email the abuse department of their hosting provider.
        • pastage 2y ago
          I have deep experience with black listing on the net, and nothing compares to the Chinese censor machine. A comparison with mundane things like malware is dishonest. You should not attribute the great firewall to anything else than the malice it is.
          • gruez 2y ago
            >I have deep experience with black listing on the net, and nothing compares to the Chinese censor machine. A comparison with mundane things like malware is dishonest The comparison was with how both the chinese censorship system and other blocking systems can be susceptible to the same attack (ie. people posting UGC to get a site banned). At no point did I imply that they were comparable in any other way.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • libeclipse 2y ago
    Chinese censors use active probing to scrape hosts and block anything with problematic content or services. It's not just DPI based.
  • chongli 2y ago
    No need to bypass HTTPS. Just crawl any server that shows up in the logs and block the domain if it has any blacklisted keywords.
• gruez 2y ago
  >If the government seeks to filter any and all websites containing a given string, why would the Tokyo University be guilty of discrimination just by adding that string to their website? They are not the actor performing the filtering. One can argue it's the government of China discriminating against Chinese people who want to access information abroad in general. Blame isn't a zero sum game. A swatter is just as culpable for someone getting killed/hurt, even if theoretically the actual act was caused by police negligence. Likewise, if the university added the keyword with the intention to dissuade chinese students from applying, they should be raked over the coals for doing so. The fact that actual block was implemented by chinese censors doesn't absolve them of any responsibility.
  • cogman10 2y ago
    Yup. This sort of fallacious thinking happens a lot on the Internet. "X can't be the bad guy because look at what Y did". One group doing something bad doesn't automatically make the other group innocent. It's also true that terrible acts by members of a group does not (nesissarely) justify harsh punishment to all members.
  • phoe-krk 2y ago
    > Blame isn't a zero sum game. That actually is a very good summary of your whole post, and it clarified a little bit for me. Thanks, I'll steal that quote for later.
  • jMyles 2y ago
    > Blame isn't a zero sum game. ...agreed... > A swatter is just as culpable for someone getting killed/hurt, even if theoretically the actual act was caused by police negligence. ...but this is a horrifying and repugnant example. Police violence is not "theoretical", and the critical vulnerability in society which renders an anonymous, unsworn phone call as cover for one person to murder another is bound to be exploited, regardless of we sum the blame. If we simply disband SWAT teams, there will be nothing to blame so-called "swatters" for because these murders and other acts of terror will be brought to a swift end.
  • Yizahi 2y ago
    > they should be raked over the coals for doing so Human rights are not granted for free, they are won and they protected collectively. If malicious actor is deliberately and intentionally undermines human rights they should not not be granted them themselves automatically. If some community works to devolve and degrade education, free speech and other rights for themselves, and then claims they are owed those same rights by the outside groups, they should not be granted them automatically, they should earn them. This should be a collective norm in the developed countries - treat outsiders just like those outsiders want to treat themselves. Instead of appeasing and losing those appeasements time after times. "When will we learn?"(c) Churchill about appeasing dictators
• zaik 2y ago
  It is discriminatory because someone at the university acted specifically to block Chinese students from accessing the website.
  • libeclipse 2y ago
    They didn't block anyone. They're making a mockery of Chinese censors. It's a political and satirical act.
    • brookst 2y ago
      They took an action with the intent of making the website inaccessible in China. It is political, and it is satirical, and it is discrimination. Better to argue that it is righteous discrimination than that there was no discriminatory intent.
    • locallost 2y ago
      Yes, it's the famous satire and political stance that is invisible to people. (this was satire)
  • locallost 2y ago
    I can't believe the question was even asked.
  • seeknotfind 2y ago
    Maybe they want the Chinese students who are smart enough to open their eyes to the world.
    • aprilthird2021 2y ago
      You mean a Chinese student who bypasses government restrictions? Yes, surely such a student will be great at your university and follow all your rules...
      • kbelder 2y ago
• Barrin92 2y ago
  >why would the Tokyo University be guilty of discrimination just by adding that string to their website? because we all can put 1 + 1 together and aren't stupid and understand that the intent here is to discriminate against Chinese applicants, secretly at that? The university of Tokyo is a public university, I'm pretty certain like most other universities in the world they have obligated themselves to not discriminate foreign students outside of what the law stipulates.
  • Teever 2y ago
    Or is the intent to resist the authoritarian behaviour of the CCP? And if that's the case, isn't that a noble goal that all citizens and institutions of democratic societies should strive to do? If all major websites did this it would severely degrade the ability of the CCP to function and they may be forced to stop denying the atrocities that they've committed.
    • Barrin92 2y ago
      >Or is the intent to resist the authoritarian behaviour of the CCP? No, the intent is to discriminate against Chinese people. I've lived and worked in Japan, stereotyping of Chinese and Koreans as the article points out is common. If you wanted to convince young Chinese students of democracy you'd probably take them up on the opportunity to educate and have a dialog with them. That is the liberal democratic way, instead of aiding their government in censoring them. There's nothing democratic about some random person at a public institution pulling a stunt like this, they have no authority to do so. If they don't like what students are coming to their university, in a democracy they're free to vote for people who want to change that.
      • Teever 2y ago
        Do you think there is ever a role in using an authoritarian's tools like censorship against them? Why or why not? If so why is this particular instance not a good example of it?
        • 2y ago
• slightwinder 2y ago
  > If the government seeks to filter any and all websites containing a given string, why would the Tokyo University be guilty of discrimination just by adding that string to their website? They are building on it, and continue the discrimination. And the reason for this is also discrimination in itself. Or is there any other legit reason for adding this specific keyword in an unrelated site?
• mmcwilliams 2y ago
  You're right that they are not the actor performing the filtering but neither are the students being discriminated against the actors performing the filtering. You spell it out in your post; they are "leveraging that behavior" for the purpose of preventing Chinese applicants. It would be no different than blocking all Chinese IPs if you believe that intent matters.
• kbelder 2y ago
  There's a balancing act here. Each individual Chinese citizen is innocent, but their government isn't; how much should each citizen suffer the consequences of their government's actions? On one hand, it could be argued that they're innocent, and shouldn't be punished. It's not their fault, and they nave no real ability to change their state policies. They're the primary victims, we should be helping them, not hurting them. On the other hand, any attempt to hold the government accountable for their actions will invariably impact their citizens. Tariffs, sanctions, war, all can punish a populace because of the actions of a corrupt leadership... and yet it can still be just (see the sanctions against Russia, for example). Being too precious about hurting their population just perpetuates the regime.
  • zaik 2y ago
    All very true, but in this case there is no balancing act. Blocking prospective Chinese students from receiving education abroad punishes only the students and also helps the government in perpetuating their censorship, as this student will now never get to enjoy uncensored access to the internet.
  • aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
    The democratic Japanese government could simply ban Chinese admissions as a matter of policy, but there isn't a diplomatic or security justification for doing so. The fact that U Tokyo resorted to a sneaky and underhanded tactic speaks to a bigoted motivation.
    • davorak 2y ago
      > speaks to a bigoted motivation. There is smoke there so it should be investigated. Alternatively maybe they wanted to admit more Chinese students who normally use or were willing to use proxy serves. Maybe because they think these students would be less effected or boxed in by propaganda, essentially giving more support to those they favor ideologically. Not clear from the article if this is going to get investigated and cleared up though.
• deleted 2y ago
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