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You dont see a chilling effect when the choice is either host your content on github or be blasted off the internet? Was there any doubt about China's ability
by moe 12y ago
You dont see a chilling effect when the choice is either host your content on github or be blasted off the internet?
Was there any doubt about China's ability to blast sites much bigger than Github off the internet to begin with?
They're the second largest economy in the world. They don't need to play painfully obvious MITM tricks on their own infrastructure to carry out an attack - which then doesn't even have enough oomph to make a dent on a large but probably not particularly hardened site.
Lets not forget this wasnt an easy thing for github to handle.
That doesn't change the message that this random, half-assed neck-slap sends.
If this was really done by Chinese authorities and if I was a Chinese dissident then I'd be thrilled rather than chilled. Who knew keeping my stuff online could be as easy as uploading it to Github!
- pekk 12y agoNobody ever said China couldn't run DDOS tools. This is a deterrent signal sent to businesses outside of China. It publicly demonstrates that China has the will to punish businesses for serving certain kinds of content. Although it's obvious who benefits, it's just deniable enough that they have avoided international censure; today nobody can reasonably think "China wouldn't do that because they fear reprisals," since they just did it; which helps China maintain a credible threat to businesses. They aren't trying to destroy GitHub, just to exert control over businesses which are out of their regulatory reach.
- moe 12y agoIt publicly demonstrates that China has the will to punish businesses for serving certain kinds of content. Do you really think anyone concerned with these things (activists, VPN providers, companies doing business with China) needed a half-assed, unsuccessful Github attack as a "deterrent signal"?