Hong Kong's Apple Daily To Live On in Blockchain, Free of Censors (reuters.com) 28
Hong Kong cyber activists are backing up articles by pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily on censorship-proof blockchain platforms after the newspaper was forced to shut down as it became embroiled in a national security law crackdown. From a report: The latest drive to preserve the paper's content comes after activists rushed to upload documentaries by local broadcaster RTHK investigating people in power after the media outlet said it would remove materials older than one year from its social media platforms. Under the national security law, the Hong Kong government can request the blocking or removal of content it deems subversive or secessionist, raising fears over internet freedom in the global financial hub. The Hong Kong government says use of the internet will not be affected so long as its use is within the law.
"Law enforcement actions taken by Hong Kong law enforcement agencies are based on evidence, strictly according to the laws of Hong Kong, and for the acts of the person(s) or entity(ies) concerned," a spokesman for the Security Bureau said. This year, the company that approves internet domains in Hong Kong said it would reject any sites that could incite "illegal acts." Internet service provider Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) said it had blocked access to HKChronicles, a website offering information about anti-government protests.
"Law enforcement actions taken by Hong Kong law enforcement agencies are based on evidence, strictly according to the laws of Hong Kong, and for the acts of the person(s) or entity(ies) concerned," a spokesman for the Security Bureau said. This year, the company that approves internet domains in Hong Kong said it would reject any sites that could incite "illegal acts." Internet service provider Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) said it had blocked access to HKChronicles, a website offering information about anti-government protests.
blockchain is unnecessary baggage (Score:5, Informative)
so someone still feels the need to tout blockchain hooplah, what nonsense. A file with a checksum is all you need, not the cpu and energy wasting blockchain which is the very worst distributed database farce ever foisted on mankind. blockchain is a solution with no known use for a problem no one had
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Blockchain is just a complex and unwieldy variant of using cryptographic certificates to manage data. You can get the same benefits in a more coherent manner. If you want to be sure the doc isn't altered, then just cryptographically sign it with your private key and let everyone have access to the public key that's available outside of China's control. If the outside internet is cut off then spread the public key around on thumb drives.
Blockchain is also like hemp. I'd be much more amenable to believing
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Blockchain is also like hemp.
The difference is that hemp has more uses.
Re: blockchain is unnecessary baggage (Score:2)
And how do we know the public key is for "your" private key ? Or owned by some random dude or govt agent with his own version of the article ?
Maybe you will publish it at some trusted authority's web page - like HK Govt or say Apple News type organization ?
And where should I get the article copy from? Your website? Some website outside HK ? BitTorrent?
And these people distributing public keys on pendrive? You will get them or give them a govt ID I guess?
Re: blockchain is unnecessary baggage (Score:2)
And how do we know the public key is for "your" private key ? Or owned by some random dude or govt agent with his own version of the article ?
Maybe you will publish it at some trusted authority's web page - like HK Govt or say Apple News type organization ?
And where should I get the article copy from? Your website? Some website outside HK ? BitTorrent?
And these people distributing public keys on pendrive? You will get them or give them a govt ID I guess?
It's crazy how people assume to have solutions to pro
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How do I trust your blockchain? All of the above questions apply to it also.
Re: blockchain is unnecessary baggage (Score:5, Interesting)
Meh, it's essentially a distributed file store with paid incentives to keep the nodes current. You could use BitTorrent, but then if it ages out, the content might disappear forever.
The value of the Blockchain here isn't its just typical resiliance to modification (and thus de-indexing content), but also its always-on distributed nature.
What's the alternative to archiving potentially illegal content without requiring trusted parties to keep copies? If I'm trying to archive terabytes of content that I know won't disappear when someone fails to pay a bill?
Oh great. (Score:2)
Now it will take 3gb of disk space and bandwidth just to read a three paragraph article.
You gotta know... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:You gotta know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Shut up, Xi. The Chinese government going aftter newspapers and other media which report on China's corruption, it's genocide against Yhugurs, it's attempt to control the life of every person under its control is the issue. The U.S. is not doing anything to its citizens in the remotest fashion to even attempt a comparison.
Go crawl back under your Winnie the Pooh sheets and leave the discussion to the adults.
Also, the massacre in Tiananmen Square happened in 1989. The world has the documentary evidence of China's crimes when it gunned down hundreds of people whose only "crime" was to want free speech and democratic rule.
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The U.S. is not doing anything to its citizens in the remotest fashion to even attempt a comparison
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] /s
Yeah selectively locking up a minority race for taking drugs and forcing them into manual labor is completely different to what China does.
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The US might not have a great justice system but at least it's not sticking CCTV on people's properties for racist reasons and then locking those people up for years if it deems their movements to be non-standard. The US doesn't forcibly sterilise people base upon their race. The US has some of the strongest freedom of speech in the world. I'm not American, this is just my observation. The US doesn't lock people up when they criticise the gov't.
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What does one have to do with the other?
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As a person of Hong Kong descend the fact you are comparing what's happening in HK right now to US is a disgrace, both to the remaining pro-democracy protesters and your laughably naive US-centric view.
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>Care to tell us how this is any different than what the Unites States is doing to its own citizens.
Why tell you anything when you can find out for yourself?
Fly to the US and post criticism of the government or advocacy for decent treatment of minorities.
Then fly to Xinjiang and post pro-democracy material and call for humane treatment of Uighurs.
Document any differences you encounter, and there's your answer.
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The only hate I see are the deep minds of slashdot telling me their opinion and not technical reasons.
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Blockchain is probably the most complex way to solve the problem with getting the news out uncensored. It's only here as a story because of the word "blockchain" anyway.
Re:You gotta know... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there are a lot of people that care about what is going on in HK quite a lot, but as this is a technical site for nerds, perhaps one of the best things we can put our minds to is thinking about ways in which the people and press in Hong Kong can best accomplish their goals around a free press.
The censorship resistance of blockchain is one way, but there are quite probably others that are more accessible, easier, scale better, and are less resource intensive, perhaps only at the cost of a fraction of the censorship resistance properties of blockchain.
I would personally find that much more interesting than another hand-wringing fest about China (usually teetering on the edge of outright racism). Maybe we can use our giant brains to discuss different technical merits that might give someone in HK an idea that helps them.
I don't have any good ones, other than simply publish their site in a jurisdiction that won't bow to Chinese pressure. But it seems like the Great Firewall is descending slowly on HK so eventually will be trivial to block?
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If you can read a block, so can the government. If they want to stop you from reading it, they can block access to any server that provides a copy. It's the same whack-a-mole game you'd play with bit torrent, or bulletin boards.
If you don't want the government to know, you encrypt the content. But you can already do that without blockchain. And if it's content intended to be shared with people, the government will eventually find it.
An oppressive government can outlaw enc
...on censorship-proof blockchain platforms... (Score:5, Insightful)
on censorship-proof blockchain platforms
Oh my God, will people please stop woefully and willfully misunderstanding blockchain. Please. The world as a whole gets just a little bit dumber when phrases like "censorship proof blockchain" get bandied around. There is no such thing as "censorship proof". Blockchain is not the magic bullet people think it is. It is like any other sort of distributed database - it requires sockets and packets and internet infrastructure just like all forms of internet communications does, and it is eminently blockable.
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It is like any other sort of distributed database - it requires sockets and packets and internet infrastructure just like all forms of internet communications does, and it is eminently blockable.
Maybe if you use the socket and packet only once or intermittently at random intervals. Move around, kind of like how a spread spectrum transmitter works.
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Presumably they're just sticking up a link, the same way NFTs do. So you could still censor them by killing that server.
If they're actually putting content into the blockchain, well, it does get mirrored all over the place. Kind of like making a torrent, except your stuff still gets mirrored even if nobody gives a crap about it. That doesn't have anything to do with blockchain though. If you stuck your article on CRAN it would also get mirrored all over the place.
Blockchain cured my erectile dysfunction! (Score:4, Funny)
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Yes, it was a scandal rag, but the way they treated Jimmy Lai was disgraceful. I'll admit that publishing articles calling for other countries to impose sanctions on you is pushing your luck, but the government response has been even worse. The HK I knew no longer exists.