[liberationtech] Cryptocat Censored in China

[Ralph Holz]

Hi,

Sorry for the continous update.

But while GreatFire reports our site as 100% blocked, I have no
difficulty accessing it from my host in Shanghai. So, that's why I'd
love to hear more about how you conduct your measurements.

https://en.greatfire.org/search/all/https%3A//pki.net.in.tum.de

BTW - the same site is listed as 0% blocked when accessed via HTTP.
Maybe we are really dealing with a measurement artefact in combination
with SSL handshakes going through other border routers here?

Ralph

On 12/23/2012 12:57 PM, Ralph Holz wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> FWIW, our PKI site with our measurements and data sets gets reported as
> "100% blocked" by GreatFire. ;) I wonder how I should interpret that. ;)
> 
> https://en.greatfire.org/search/all/https%3A//pki.net.in.tum.de
> 
> Ralph
> 
> On 12/23/2012 04:28 AM, Martin Johnson wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm the founder of GreatFire.org. Let me try to explain how we run our
>> tests. I'd very much like to get your feedback on how our system can
>> become more accurate and transparent.
>>
>> The two Crypto.cat URLs being tested can be viewed here:
>> https://en.greatfire.org/https/project.crypto.cat
>> https://en.greatfire.org/https/blog.crypto.cat
>>
>> Both pages state that the URLs are "x% restricted in China" but "0%
>> blocked". Next to the "Otherwise restricted" label, there's a link to
>> "Throttling" explaining our definition which in turn refers
>> to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling. A throttled
>> websites is slow but not blocked. Labeling it as throttled also suggests
>> that it's intentionally slow, which we cannot prove. A lot of foreign
>> websites are slow in China, but there are big differences. For example,
>> we strongly suspect that GMail and other Google services are actively
>> throttled, to discourage people from using them. Other websites could
>> simply be slow because of where they are hosted and the speed from China
>> to that web host.
>>
>> On our test pages, if you click on any date in the calendar, you can
>> view our detailed test data. You can for example see that the "Host IPs"
>> for Crypto.cat returned when tested from the US and different locations
>> in China are the same. You can also verify the HTML title and the
>> download size, etc.
>>
>> Crypto.cat is not blocked in China now, but if it becomes popular, it
>> will most likely be blocked. If they use DNS poisoning you'd have to
>> setup mirror websites. If they block the IP, however, you can rotate the
>> IP addresses to get around it. We offer a service that does this
>> at https://unblock.cn.com and we'd be happy to help you reach as many
>> users as possible in China.
>>
>> Feedback very welcome.
>>
>> Martin Johnson
>> ---
>> https://FreeWeibo.com <https://freeweibo.com/> - Uncensored, Anonymous
>> Sina Weibo Search.
>> https://GreatFire.org <https://greatfire.org/> - Monitoring Online
>> Censorship In China.
>> https://Unblock.cn.com <https://unblock.cn.com/> - We Can Unblock Your
>> Website In China.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 1:04 AM, Joss Wright
>> <joss-liberationtech at pseudonymity.net
>> <mailto:joss-liberationtech at pseudonymity.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 05:48:34PM +0100, Ralph Holz wrote:
>>     >
>>     > PS: While I was at it, I checked the current DNS rewriting for
>>     > twitter.com <http://twitter.com>. It still points to a Korean IP.
>>
>>     Some of the more fun DNS poisoning in my experiments[1] were >=15
>>     apparently unrelated servers across China all redirecting
>>     torproject.org <http://torproject.org>
>>     to 'tonycastro.net <http://tonycastro.net>' or 'tonycastro.com
>>     <http://tonycastro.com>', and a separate set redirecting
>>     to 'thepetclubfl.net <http://thepetclubfl.net>'.
>>
>>     A New Scientist journalist wrote up that work[2] and contacted both
>>     sites. Tony Castro[3] instantly threatened to sue everyone in sight for
>>     implying that he was a Chinese sleeper agent. The Pet Club webmaster had
>>     noticed the Chinese traffic and was interested to know where it had come
>>     from. :) (I suggested setting up a few China-focused pay-per-view
>>     adverts.)
>>
>>     Joss
>>
>>     [1]
>>     http://www.slideshare.net/josswright/through-a-router-darkly-remote-investigation-of-chinese-internet-f
>>     [1b
>>     <http://www.slideshare.net/josswright/through-a-router-darkly-remote-investigation-of-chinese-internet-f
>>     [1b>]
>>     http://www.pseudonymity.net/~joss/doc/work/presentation/2012/10/wright-censormap.pdf
>>     (Original)
>>     [2]
>>     http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628936.300-florida-pet-spa-mystery-link-to-chinas-great-firewall.html
>>     (Requires registration.)
>>     [3] http://tonycastro.net/ (A life story worth Googling...)
>>
>>     --
>>     Joss Wright | @JossWright
>>     http://www.pseudonymity.net
>>     --
>>     Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at:
>>     https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
>>
> 
> 


-- 
Ralph Holz
Network Architectures and Services
Technische Universität München
Phone +49 89 28918043
http://www.net.in.tum.de/de/mitarbeiter/holz/
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