An Inside Look at the Great Firewall of China

alphadogg writes "An interview with James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, who has experienced 'The Great Firewall of China' firsthand, an experience people from around the world will share this summer when the Olympics comes to that country. Based in Beijing, Fallows has researched the underlying technology that the Chinese use for Internet censorship. One good thing to know: With VPNs and proxies, you can get around it pretty easily." Will these Olympics lead to a more free China, or is it just corporate pandering?

Good luck

[elrous0]

With VPNs and proxies, you can get around it pretty easily

Ha, I can't even get around my blocking software at work with proxies. You think China isn't going to be smart enough to block proxies and proxy lists, or reset odd VPN connections? Shit, even Websense is smart enough to do stuff like that.

Besides, the fear factor is what's REALLY going to scare most Chinese into avoiding "bad" sites. They're probably more afraid of being logged than blocked.

Re:Good luck

[MulluskO]

Enter the HTTPS proxy.

Why would the Olympics lead to a freer China?

[Reality Master 201]

What does an athletic competition have to do with the internal politics of a country?

At the risk of running afoul of Godwin's law, Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics before the beginning of WWII. They mostly used it as a propaganda opportunity, and it's hard to say that the event led to any more openness or political moderation on the part of the German government.

Re:Good luck

[aengblom]

Because China is trying to figure out a "balance" .... they want foreigners to be able to come in and communicate home, but don't want the general population getting too much unfiltered information.

It's about controlling the politics, not maintaing some information purity.

And, simply by blocking these sites, the government is able to mark them as bad or dangerous, which has weight with a lot of the population.... usually at least until the blocking hits too close to home. (As in all free speech issues).

Re:What kind of stupid question is this?

[Dallas Caley]

It's not that the Olympics games themselves will actually lead to anything, it's that in order for them to take place China will have to expose itself to western culture in a way that it hasn't previously. Millions of people in China will see their first glimpse of the outside world through these games and that is what could lead to significant change in the country.

As Americans, we look at China and say "well why don't they want freedom?" The reality is that they don't even have a concept of what our type of freedom is, for them it's probably something to be feared because that's what they have been told. But the more that the people are exposed to the western world the more they may realize what it is that they are missing out on

Re:A political trojan horse

[Shakrai]

I am serious- of all injustices in the world why has the Western world particularly adopted Tibet? No matter how you look at it, it's a rightful conquest. Do we expect France to come over and tell us to relinquish Puerto Rico? No- imperialist gains are imperialist gains. I don't see why China's dominion is evil while ours is not.

One suspects that if I made the same argument and replaced 'China' with 'the United States' and 'Tibet' with 'Iraq' that I'd be quickly modded troll. And since you mentioned Puerto Rico -- are we repressing an independence movement in Puerto Rico at gunpoint? Are the people of Tibet free to vote in local elections and choose their own destiny as the people of Puerto Rico are?

They revolt out of nationalistic pride, but in reality they are better off with China's modernizations.

If I made the same argument about Native Americans I'd be modded down faster then you can say "gunpowder". What the hell gives one group of people the right to impose "modernization" on another group of less well armed people? This isn't the 19th century anymore.

Re:CORPORATE pandering?

[ScentCone]

ll three are self-serving, but the Chinese government are the most socially responsible of the lot.

I see. That would be the China that just shouted down any attempt by the UN to even hold discussions about whether to try to bypass the Burma junta and get international aid directly to the million people that are about to die there? That IS socially responsible!

And corporations? They exist to serve the people that form and invest in them. That's their actual purpose. Of course, many of them are lining up to provide goods and services to aid the people who are about to die in Burma, while China and Russia are backing the junta's demands to funnel all of the aid through them (you know, the people who elected not to warn their coastal population that they were about to die in droves, even though the rest of the world scrambled to let that military regime know what was about to happen). You know, the military regime that is confiscating such aid as IS allowed to land there, and which they are labeling with their own stickers and political propoganda before handing it out. You know, the military regime that China is insulating from so much as a formal rebuke from the UN.

What's your motivation, here, exactly? You find the Chinese government - who jail and even kill people for saying the sorts of things you can sit at a US corporate desk and say all day long, and who harbor and sanction outright network vandalism and malware propogation around the world, and prop up hell holes like North Korea - more trustworthy than Honda, or Bayer, or LG, or Nokia, or Virgin Atlantic, or AMD, or your local grocery store chain? Really?

Re:CORPORATE pandering?

[Free the Cowards]

I dunno, the Chinese government doesn't strike me as being particularly socially responsible. They may do their best to maintain order and stop various "vices", but their environmental record totally stinks. That they apparently couldn't give a rat's ass about Beijing's polluted air for so long, and then suddenly decided that It Must All Be Cleaned Up right when a horde of foreigners are about to descend upon the city doesn't speak well for them at all. For whatever reason, they seem to be more concerned with looking good than doing good.

Re:A political trojan horse

[Tweenk]

I am serious- of all injustices in the world why has the Western world particularly adopted Tibet? No matter how you look at it, it's a rightful conquest. Do we expect France to come over and tell us to relinquish Puerto Rico?

I think that if there were anti-American protests in Puerto Rico, US military wouldn't bomb in and outright shoot the protesters. In other countries, it's usually the separatist groups that are responsible for the violence, not the government.

Tibet was a theocratic feudal kingdom before China invaded, where most people were serfs who lived in hovels underneath lords. They revolt out of nationalistic pride, but in reality they are better off with China's modernizations.

It is beyond me why US won't invade Cuba. They would be better off with US's modernizations.

Re:What kind of stupid question is this?

[zoogies]

There are bigger problems in China than your concept of "freedom". Such as staking out a decent living. If you think the Chinese people look at their government and say, "Well, gee, don't we have a swell government? They tell us so, better believe them!" then I think you have a very badly misconceived notion of China.

Maybe I do too, but I get the sense that in China, the people aren't exactly giggles over the government. It's more of a bitter sentiment, and deservedly so, because when has the government really taken to looking after its populace? There's more problems with corruption than with not being able to vote (I won't look up the turnout numbers on American elections).

Look, the Chinese aren't stupid. In America, we tend to think, "Well, gosh, they have a Communist government with a state-owned media" and consider everyone to be poor brainwashed souls. I really do not think so - and I may be wrong, of course - but I really don't feel that the Chinese rely on the media for truth, for good journalism, for ways to think. Again, it's a kind of bitterness that comes along with a government you can't depend on to look out for what's best for its people.

Honestly, I think that media dependence (for ideas, general conceptions, etc) is more true in America. Wake up, guys! Our western media is not exactly a glorious, unbiased bastion of truth. Your last paragraph smacks of reliance on nebulous, preconceived Western impressions, not of experience.

Millions of people already see a glimpse of the outside world. Television. KFC. Expose itself to Western culture in a way it hasn't previously? Western culture is ALL over the place. What will likely is happen is the people of Beijing will be like, "psh. *AMERICANS*." Unfortunately, we (America) aren't that popular around the world these days. Even if we are glorious and full of freedom, we also have kind of a recent history of being an arrogant state trying to police the world. Founded or not, that's another argument, but anyway.

Here's what the Olympics will NOT do: help out Beijing's denizens. It's all for show, to show off the mighty progress of the government and the pride of China. What it really does is make life a lot harder for the millions of denizens who are going to face roads being blocked off or reserved, incredible travel restrictions into and out of the city, etc. The LAST thing I expect these millions of people to do is go all starry eyed and think, "Wow! These westerners! There is just so much to learn from them and their culture." Just another difficulty the people endure at the hands of a government that, while you could say is slowly improving, doesn't hold the people as a high priority.

Re:Just more corporate pandering...

[Sigismundo]

Actually, Russia has lately been sliding back into old Soviet ways recently. Putin is ex-KGB, and his hand-picked successor recently became president. Most media outlets are very fearful of criticizing the government. I wouldn't exactly point to Russia and call it a success story.