Free Tools To Evade China's Web Censorship

narramissic writes "The Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC) offers a set of free tools that can be used to circumvent Chinese Internet censorship. The group claims approximately 1 million people in China use its tools to access the Internet. And, says Tao Wang, director of operations for GIFC, 'it's a very good time to remind Western reporters that there are such tools.'"

Evasion is good

[dedazo]

That way you won't have to see the cute internet police [cnet.com] on your browser every 30 minutes.

it is good these tools are developed

[ezh]

soon they will be needed here, in the western world, where instead of stopping you they just slow you down when you go in 'unwanted' direction. does not look there is too much difference to me. they do it for political reasons, we do it for business reasons. either way, people are restricted.

Re:Like they won't just block the site?

[Daimanta]

Call it silver-backing, that will be a smashing buzzword.

Can we use them to circumwent out own censorship?

[muuh-gnu]

Severe punishment of people who freely share information bites (1) which are deemed a threat to the functioning of the system (2) by the ruling classes is not only happening in China, you know...

So when is the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC) going to offer tools to circumwent our own capitalistic censorship machine? Or do they count censorship as such only if somebody else does it?

(1) aka "files"
(2) aka "intellectual property"

Will you be caught though?

[derekw]

The big question is will you be caught circumventing the censorship.

From what I understand, it's not that hard to break through the censorship. But will you leave any tracks behind--however small--for the government to see? That's the big question.

If you just want to read one NYT article, go ahead and chances are nothing would happen to you. But if you plan on doing this day in day out, from your home connection, then a few months down the road you may get a knock on your door in the middle of the night.

Re:Like they won't just block the site?

[Spikeman56]

Yeah, but they don't. I'm surfing this right from behind the Great Chinese Firewall.

The Great Chinese Firewall recently has been quite erratic. Surprisingly searching for a lot of open source software will set off Google, and lock me out for a few minutes. Maybe it's got something to do with being 'free'

Introduction to Chinaâ(TM)s Laogai

[not_hylas( )]

Introduction to China's Laogai:

Up to 30,000 "Internet Police" monitoring your every move.

"The Laogai institution known as laodong jiaoyang --- commonly abbreviated as
"Laojiao" - also serves as a tool for the Chinese Communist Party in its constant efforts to silence critics and punish political criminals without having to bother with investigations and legal proceedings."

"There is an end to Laogai, but Jiuye (forced job placement) is forever"

      " In 1979 and 1980, many jiuye renyuan or âforced-job-placement-personnel" who had completed their sentences but were still forced to labor within the Laogai camps under a policy that denied their release, were finally allowed to return to their homes. Previous to this change in practice, upwards of 90 percent of all Laogai and Laojiao prisoners remained in detention indefinitely under this Jiuye policy even after they had completed their sentences.

"There used to be a saying in the labor camps: "There is an end to Laogai, but Jiuye is forever.""

Laogai:

http://www.laogai.org/hdbook/hb_intro.htm

http://www.laogai.org/news/index.php

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=280233-6

Think "Soviet Gulag".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

Can't happen here?

Ex Machina:

https://tagmeme.com/exmachina/a/002450.html

Re:Like they won't just block the site?

[Anonymous Coward]

The new way to block a site is to abusively register it as malware-ridden. Take a look at the results of a Google search on site:tibet.com (the Tibetan gov in exile)... http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atibet.com [google.com]

Pauvre Tibet (French) [discu.org]

Re:Here we go again...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Nah, the rights are still there. It's just the corrupt media that abuses its position. The Western media is fully aware that it can influence elections and policy just by the choice of which stories it covers and which stories get ignored (Obama's Communist mentor would be the latest example). Living in China and viewing the officially censored media year after year gives you a real feel for what it's really like living with censorship. Then, you look at the US media, and they censor themselves as well, just with different objectives. In China, it's to maintain social cohesion at all costs, and promote the government as good guys who try really hard but sometimes fail. In America, the media is uncontrolled by the government, but nontheless its objective is societal engineering and the manipulation of elections. You should see the effect that running positive news about the country has on people...Chinese people think that China is doing all right. With the constant drumbeat of bad news about America, no wonder some Americans are down on their country. They even say things like "lazy masses" without even realizing that they have the opportunity to start their own media and say what they want freely. Here, forget it. You need to find a license and a censor to publish anything, and both of those are pretty darned hard to find.

Re:Like they won't just block the site?

[mrogers]

One of the things that I have found in my travels to China is that they do not regard their govt the same way we do (I'm assuming the parent and GP poster are Americans, b/c I'm American, and that's what we do :-) ). Chinese do not identify their country with their govt, they're two separate things.

I'm intrigued to hear that, because I'd started to form the opposite impression: whereas Americans consider it patriotic to criticise their government (attacking the government == defending the people), Chinese seem to consider it unpatriotic (attacking the government == attacking the people). But I've never been to China - perhaps the crucial difference is whether the criticism comes from inside or outside the country?

I must admit I find it hard not to get defensive about my country's actions, even when I disagree with them, if I feel I'm being blamed. If Chinese people feel the same way then maybe it's more productive to focus on tools that help them organise resistance within their own country, than on tools that help them access Western media (with the implication that they should aspire to be more like the West)?