[liberationtech] on the whole issue to include the topic "vpn illlegal in China"

[Lisa Brownlee]

Yes, they do. And I do but reality is, privacy is DEAD and has been for
some time in my humble opinion!

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 9:33 PM, pacificboy <pacificboy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Tricia,
>
> As I notice by the email traffic on this topic few are interested in
> figuring out how to deal with the big boy. How I see it, other countries do
> not have the man power or money when it comes to countries that stop people
> from having freedom on the Net. So, a country like China few are interested
> for the excpection of governments and companies that are threaten cyber
> wise to their way of life. beside that issue, China is not the "in tjing"
> Middile east is, i guess. Yes countries like Iran is imporant but who
> support Iran on issue that libtech is fighting against for freedom on the
> Net --- China. Perhaps I live in a different area of the States, where 90%
> of Asian and Asian American lives so the culture is mor Asian Pacific, and
> I am
> not Asian. Well I will try to communicate with those who want to know and
> help. Since Chinese in the Mainland who are netizens are aware of this
> problem. This is an issue and other countries like Australia has their
> great firewall. If we foucs on not the country political but how to crack
> the problem of this cyber arm race, before no one have Internet freedom and
> this forum with be gone.  Last point as my generation and my father
> generation protest and fought to stop the nuclear arm race during the cold
> war and how both generation since my father and I were cold warrors,
> brought down the Berlin Wall. Would you think, this generation has the same
> duty?  Foood for thought.
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 24, 2013, at 11:59 PM, Tricia Wang <mailinglists at triciawang.com>
> wrote:
>
> Bert thanks for bringing this article to libtech's attention!
> I totally missed this so thannnnkkk you!
>
> I understand that the Chinese internet is censored and its never ending
> policies to surveill the web are alarming.
> Although I don't find articles like this productive to the overall cause
> of developing circumvention solutions for Chinese people.
>
> Phillip Shishkin grossly misrepresents how Chinese people experience the
> Chinese internet. I mean really? "Two things struck me when I first flew
> into Beijing: lack of sunlight and lack of Internet."
> This article is centered on his narrative and does not qualify as a
> representative sample of how 22% of the world's internet users experience
> the Chinese internet.
>
> Several members of the LibTech list have not fallen in this same pit -
> they've asked great questions that fall on the side of facts and the actual
> experience of Chinese people.
>
> I also want to point out the work of writers like An Xiao Mina who have
> shown how the internet is incredibly lively in China DESPITE persistent
> censorship.
> On 88 Bar we document memes as a form of social protest -
> http://www.88-bar.com/category/china-meme-report/
> She also has several pieces about social media use in China  -
> http://www.anxiaostudio.com/researchwriting.html
>
> Just because they are not be using it in ways that we expect or comprehend
> doesn't mean that they are lacking internet access.
>
> I get so tired of hearing the media perpetuate this idea that Chinese
> people live in the dark because of censorship.
> It's just not true when you actually live with everyday Chinese people or
> conduct even light ethnographic fieldwork.
>
> Does anyone notice this or feel feel the same way?
>
> tricia
>
> ___________________
>
>
> *triciawang.com / 王圣捷 *
>
>
> China: +86 18627809913
>
>
> US: +1 9189379264
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 1:56 AM, Bert Arroyo <pacificboy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  This are just some articles in the news last months in this issue of
>> VPN in China. Now how these reports get the facts is one issue, one should
>> investigate deeper on this.
>> How China Is Sealing Holes in Its Internet Firewall
>> By Philip Shishkin Dec 31, 2012 7:30 AM CT
>>
>>    - Facebook Share<http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbloom.bg%2FTAiiV8&t=How+China+Is+Sealing+Holes+in+Its+Internet+Firewall>
>>    - Tweet<https://twitter.com/share?url=http://bloom.bg/TAiiV8&counturl=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-30/how-china-is-sealing-holes-in-its-internet-firewall.html&text=How+China+Is+Sealing+Holes+in+Its+Internet+Firewall&via=BloombergView>
>>    - LinkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-30/how-china-is-sealing-holes-in-its-internet-firewall.html&title=How%20China%20Is%20Sealing%20Holes%20in%20Its%20Internet%20Firewall&summary=Two%20things%20struck%20me%20when%20I%20first%0Aflew%20into%20Beijing%3A%20lack%20of%20sunlight%20and%20lack%20of%20Internet.&source=Bloomberg.com>
>>    - Google +1<https://plus.google.com/share?hl=en&url=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-30/how-china-is-sealing-holes-in-its-internet-firewall.html>
>>    - 30 COMMENTS<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-30/how-china-is-sealing-holes-in-its-internet-firewall.html#disqus_thread>
>>    - <Email?body=Two%20things%20struck%20me%20when%20I%20first%0Aflew%20into%20Beijing%3A%20lack%20of%20sunlight%20and%20lack%20of%20Internet.%0A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fbloom.bg%2FTAiiV8&subject=Bloomberg%20news%3A%20How%20China%20Is%20Sealing%20Holes%20in%20Its%20Internet%20Firewall>
>>    - Print<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-12-30/how-china-is-sealing-holes-in-its-internet-firewall.html>
>>    -  QUEUE
>>    <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-30/how-china-is-sealing-holes-in-its-internet-firewall.html>
>>    Q
>>
>>  Two things struck me when I first flew into Beijing: lack of sunlight
>> and lack of Internet.
>>
>> The sun, on many days, hangs behind a haze of pollution, its light
>> filtered down to a soupy dusk. The Internet is stuck behind a government
>> firewall, its main offerings obstructed to those living in China.
>>
>> That neither the sun nor the Web is fully gone, merely crippled, makes
>> dealing with their abbreviated selves especially annoying. You know their
>> full versions are out there somewhere because they tease you most days. The
>> sun’s orange halo might appear briefly at dawn, only to be engulfed by the
>> smog. Gmail’s homepage might begin to load tentatively, only to stumble and
>> freeze.
>>
>> In many parts of the world (with some notable exceptions), we have come
>> to count breathable air and unfettered Internet access<http://topics.bloomberg.com/internet-access/> among
>> basic human conveniences, alongside indoor plumbing and access to
>> education. That’s why it is so jarring and disorienting to suddenly lose
>> them in Beijing to man-made forces of breakneck industrialization and
>> censorship. No amount of reading or hearing about Beijing’s air pollution
>> and the Great Firewall, as the system of Internet censorship is inevitably
>> known, is enough to prepare you to deal with them.
>>
>> For the moment, I’ll leave the sun where I hope it still is, wrapped away
>> in a blanket of smog so thick I can barely see the high-rises less than a
>> mile away. It smells faintly as if someone is burning tires.
>> Registration Required
>>
>> The Great Firewall is a more complex and nuanced phenomenon, and it
>> appears to be getting more capable in tripping up undesirable Web
>> connections<http://www.miit.gov.cn/n11293472/n11293832/n11293907/n11368223/14870738.html>
>> .
>>
>> Like many foreigners in China <http://topics.bloomberg.com/china/>, I
>> signed up for a virtual private network, or VPN, geek-speak for a link to
>> an overseas server, which allows you to leapfrog the Chinese Internet and
>> plug straight into the real thing, as if you were sitting in New York<http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/>
>>  or London <http://topics.bloomberg.com/london/>. Twitter, the New York
>> Times and Gmail loaded seamlessly on my iPad, ending a tense couple of days
>> of withdrawal symptoms. And then it all crashed.
>>
>> My VPN provider, a major player in the market, explained in an e-mail
>> that the disruption was due to a recent update of the Great Firewall,
>> referred to as the GFW, which “now has the ability to learn, discover and
>> block VPN protocols automatically.”
>>
>> The next day, the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper, ran an article
>> headlined <http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/750158.shtml>, “Foreign-run
>> VPNs illegal in China: govt.” In it, the man known as the founding father
>> of the Great Firewall was quoted as saying that foreign VPN providers
>> needed to register with the government. “I haven’t heard that any foreign
>> companies have registered,” Fang Binxing, who is now president of Beijing
>> University of Posts and Telecommunications, told<http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/750158.shtml> the
>> newspaper.
>>
>> Fang gained notoriety in 2011 when a student threw a shoe at him while he
>> was delivering a lecture on cybersecurity. The shoe connected with the
>> target. The student fled the scene and went into hiding, becoming an
>> instant celebrity among the country’s many opponents of Internet curbs.
>> Sometime later, hackers broke into the homepage of Binxing’s university and
>> defaced it with an image from something called Angry Shoes, a spoof on the
>> wildly popular “Angry Birds” game. The birds at the slingshot are replaced
>> with shoes, and the pigs in the wooden house are replaced<http://yilee.info/media/fang-xiao-zhang/1.jpg> with
>> Binxing’s face.
>>
>> The most recent VPN disruption seemed intended to target mobile devices,
>> which are fast becoming an important way to access the Internet. As my VPN
>> provider promised to find a way to outwit the Great Firewall, several
>> articles in state-run media reminded readers of the dangers lurking on the
>> Web.
>>  China’s Rationale
>>
>> On Dec. 18, for instance, a commentary piece on Xinhua, China’s official
>> news agency, called<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-12/18/c_124114387.htm>for
>> new laws to govern the Internet: “If there is no strict legal punishments
>> on the violators in cyber space, the negative factors will run wild to
>> destroy the Internet order and even incite online violence, which will
>> bring great damage to people and society.” This is the Chinese government’s
>> original rationale for erecting the Great Firewall, an elaborate network of
>> blocks, network slowdowns and censorship rules that keep many of China’s
>> half- billion Internet users in the dark about events in the world and in
>> their own country.
>>
>> The unease about the broader issue of curbs on free speech was stoked
>> anew recently when Mo Yan, the Chinese writer who won this year’s Nobel
>> Prize <http://topics.bloomberg.com/nobel-prize/> for literature, seemed
>> to liken censorship to airport-security checks: an indispensable nuisance.
>>
>> China’s Internet is a strange place. Twitter and Facebook are blocked,
>> their ability to disseminate unwelcome news and serve as organizing
>> platforms for all sorts of protests deemed too grave a threat. Some of
>> Google Inc.’s services, including Gmail, are intentionally slowed down to a
>> snail’s pace, which is arguably even worse than being blocked outright
>> because it gives customers an impression of poor service.
>>
>> At the same time, Chinese clones of these American companies operate
>> freely and load lightning-fast, their searches carefully scrubbed for
>> sensitive terms by in-house censors. Western Internet companies that choose
>> to enter the booming Chinese market have to play by the government’s rules.
>>
>> The most striking example is Skype Inc., owned by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)<http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/MSFT:US> As
>> detailed by Greatfire.org, a website tracking all things related to the
>> Great Firewall (and, of course, blocked by it), when you download Skype
>> software in China, you are actually getting a product tweaked in a crucial
>> way. Chinese Skype, a joint venture majority-owned by a local company,
>> allows<https://en.greatfire.org/blog/2012/dec/china-listening-skype-microsoft-assumes-you-approve> the
>> government to monitor your chats.
>>
>> Among the many curious things about the Chinese Internet, one apparent
>> contradiction stands out. Xinhua, the mouthpiece of the government that
>> insists on blocking Twitter, recently opened a Twitter account, sending out
>> more than 3,000 tweets, and attracting 8,000 followers -- following no one
>> itself. Xinhua’s appearance on Twitter, and the one-way nature of its
>> boosterish account, invited an avalanche of ridicule<http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1102860/xinhuas-twitter-account-stirs-uproar-among-chinas-weibo-users> in
>> the Chinese blogosphere.
>>  Blocked Sites
>>
>> Western news outlets that touch taboo subjects are blocked, too.
>> Bloomberg.com<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-29/xi-jinping-millionaire-relations-reveal-fortunes-of-elite.htmland> and
>> nytimes.com are both blocked because of their recent investigative
>> reports on the financial dealings of top Chinese leaders.
>>
>> How effective is the Great Firewall, given the many ways of leaping over
>> it? China’s Internet sleuths aren’t overly concerned with how foreign
>> companies and individuals access the Web, or what they read there. They are
>> concerned about Chinese public opinion, and about ways to influence it by
>> regulating what the Chinese people are and aren’t allowed to see on the
>> Internet.
>>
>> By that second measure, the firewall achieves its objectives just fine,
>> despite the availability of VPNs and other technical tricks, many of them
>> free.
>>
>> Of China’s 500 million Web users, only about 1 percent “use these tools
>> to get around censorship, either because most do not know how or because
>> they lack sufficient interest in -- or awareness of -- what exists on the
>> other side of the ‘great firewall,’” Rebecca MacKinnon writes in “Consent
>> of the Networked,” a book on Internet freedom around the world.
>>
>> Meanwhile, the wizards at my VPN provider finally found a way around the
>> firewall’s latest crackdown on smartphones and tablets. My iPad is useful
>> again, until the firewall catches on and a new round of cat-and-mouse
>> begins.
>>
>> Sadly, there’s no good news to report on breaching the wall of smog
>> blocking the sun. No one has yet invented a virtual private network to
>> transport one through the Beijing pollution.
>>
>> (Philip Shishkin is a fellow at the Asia Society<http://topics.bloomberg.com/asia-society/> and
>> the author of “Restless Valley<http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300184365>:
>> Revolution, Murder and Intrigue in the Heart of Central Asia,” to be
>> published in May by Yale University Press. The opinions expressed are his
>> own.)
>>
>> To contact the writer of this article: Philip Shishkin at
>> Philip.Shishkin at gmail.com.
>>
>> To contact the editor responsible for this article: Katy Roberts at
>> kroberts29 at bloomberg.net.
>>
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-- 

-- 
Lisa M. Brownlee, Esq.
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