China Isolates Itself From Worldwide Web For Over an Hour (theregister.com) 51
A complete shutdown of encrypted web traffic isolated China from the global internet for 74 minutes Wednesday morning, blocking citizens from accessing foreign websites and disrupting international business operations that depend on secure connections to offshore servers. The Great Firewall began injecting forged TCP RST+ACK packets to terminate all connections on port 443 at 00:34 Beijing time on August 20, according to activist group Great Firewall Report.
The standard HTTPS port carries most modern web traffic, meaning Chinese users lost access to virtually all foreign-hosted websites while companies including Apple and Tesla couldn't connect to servers powering their basic services. The blocking device didn't match known Great Firewall hardware fingerprints, suggesting Beijing either deployed new censorship equipment or experienced a configuration error. Pakistan's internet traffic dropped significantly hours before China's incident, potentially connected through shared firewall technology.
The standard HTTPS port carries most modern web traffic, meaning Chinese users lost access to virtually all foreign-hosted websites while companies including Apple and Tesla couldn't connect to servers powering their basic services. The blocking device didn't match known Great Firewall hardware fingerprints, suggesting Beijing either deployed new censorship equipment or experienced a configuration error. Pakistan's internet traffic dropped significantly hours before China's incident, potentially connected through shared firewall technology.
A message from the CCP for Chinese citizens? (Score:5, Funny)
"Look, we know you spend a lot of time connecting to Western sites, but ya'll have been getting a bit uppity again. Don't ever forget who's boss here".
Re: (Score:1)
What did they think they saw on the big bad Web? (Score:2)
I think he deserves more credit for the opening joke than you gave him, but your version is quite plausible and I actually prefer it to the other option of their having spotted some kind of new malware and pulling the panic switch.
Actually reading something that made me wonder if the Chinese also have the capability for regional cuts without pulling the big plug. And my own feelings are mixed. On the one hand, a lot of their motivations are bad, but on the other hand I think the whole world needs to be much
Re:A message from the CCP for Chinese citizens? (Score:5, Insightful)
More likely, testing the steps to invade Taiwan, now that the Trumpistan under king donold has reneged on its promises wrt defense of the status quo.
China saw how the same king proclaimed the principle "might makes right" as the new rule of international law and sold out the allies of the country formerly known as USA basically everywhere and is preparing for a land grab.
Re: (Score:2)
"might makes right" as the new rule of international law
i understand it's not nearly as much fun when you don't have the might to make right anymore but ... "new rule of international law"? come on. :o)
https://i.imgflip.com/3bjk4l.p... [imgflip.com]
and sold out the allies of the country formerly known as USA basically
"it may be dangerous to be america's enemy, but to be america's friend is fatal." (henry kissinger)
Re: (Score:2)
"it may be dangerous to be america's enemy, but to be america's friend is fatal." (henry kissinger)
A grossly incorrect quote completely out of context, but one which the trumpistan is now implementing as you've pasted it.
Re: (Score:2)
sorry, couldn't resist.
indeed there is no verbatim reference to that quote (as happens with a lot of quotes we still keep using for valid reasons), but it actually fits quite well both kissinger's character and the context (selling out allies). i was pondering to add a n.b. about the quote not actually being confirmed but as i assume that's general knowledge and not really relevant i decided to keep my trolling simple for comedic value. thank you for your attention to this matter.
"EST BREVITATE OPUS UT CURR
Nope - no actual promises about Taiwan (Score:2)
There has long been a deliberate ambiguity about how far the US will defend Taiwan, though Biden chose to ignore that approach.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
Of course given how much the US failed to protect either South Vietnam or Afghanistan from their invaders, we can conclude that a US promise isn't to be taken at face value.
Re: (Score:2)
There has long been a deliberate ambiguity
Hardly.
There's been not much of an ambiguity - in the times when the US was able to project global power, any attempt of aggression from China was met with a demonstration of power. E.g. when China precipitated the 1995/6 crisis by shooting missiles over Taiwan in response to the 2-day visit of the then Taiwanese president, Lee Teng-huei to Cornell, the US promptly dispatched two carrier strike groups to pacify Peking.
Back in 1955, when the PRC shelled the Jinmen and other small islands under RoC control, E
Fading fading fading... (Score:2)
'Shortly after the United States recognized the People's Republic of China, [and Jimmy Carter cancelled the US commitment to Taiwan in the treaty] the U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act. Some of the treaty's content survives in the Act; for example, the definition of "Taiwan". However, it falls short of promising Taiwan direct military assistance in case of an invasion.'
From the Wikipedia article on the treaty you quoted.
And note the response of the White House staff at Biden speaking out of turn
Re: (Score:2)
About a year later, Nancy Pelosi strategically and ambiguously landed in Taipei with the Chinese ambiguously threatening an attack and the whole Chinese and ruzzkie blogosphere ambiguously rooting for a fight.
The two carrier strike groups conveniently kept in the region by the USA again pacified the bunch effectively.
It is only under the trumpistan that the threat against Taiwan looks more and more real.
Chinese military expenditure (Score:2)
China is spending a lot on its military, with expenditure rising faster than GDP. Given the expansion of the Chinese economy, the effect has been that the US Navy has ceased to be the largest in the world, as well as being denied safe access to provide the sort of protection Taiwan would need. So no, Trump really isn't responsible for this situation except in as far as he's made it worse by sending mixed messages.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah no promises, just the $571million defense contract to defend Taiwan https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com] that Biden pushed.
By the way you may want to actually read the Taiwan Relations Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Republicans have been fear mongering about China invading Taiwan for over 20 years now.
Re: (Score:3)
The story of the PRC trying to take over Taiwan begins a lot earlier than "20 years ago".
The first massive shelling of Taiwanese islands happened in 1955, the second - in 1958, the third, in 1995, the last before the putin war - in 2022/3.
The Xi administrations have escalated the threats for a military occupation significantly.
Denying the official policy of PRC on Taiwan, wishing the escalation of threats isn't real or trying to present it as some "republican" subterfuge will not make it disappear.
Re: (Score:2)
Most likely it's just a screw up. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
If it was a test and they were competent they wouldn't need to block access for the whole country.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless it was a test if they can block the whole country.
You know, the same kind of block that the best friend forever of the Xi regime, the putin regime, has been testing of late.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would they need to test that? If it works on one firewall server, it should work on them all. Besides, it's hardly difficult to block all outside access - it happens accidentally every few years, somewhere in the world.
And why would they test it for so long? It doesn't take that long to validate that it works, and the economic losses from such a long test must have been substantial. Think of all the financial transactions that were held up, all the orders delayed or diverted, and that's just the tip of
Re: (Score:2)
Why would they need to test that?
For the same reason their terrorist ally is doing it.
Re: A message from the CCP for Chinese citizens? (Score:2)
I doubt that. ~Nobody cares about sites outside China. In fact, the Web isn't used much at all in China. Ditto email. Everything is inside wechat, or perhaps alipay or one of a few other native apps.
Re: (Score:1)
Nobody cares about sites outside China.
and yet here you are
Requirements (Score:4, Insightful)
America will be doing this soon (Score:4, Insightful)
It's frustrating to watch everything the libertarians and right wingers have been screaming about government doing happening because of the people they put in charge.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Oh look! rsilvergun's alternate sock puppet accounts got mod points!
That post was pretty insightful:
It's so easy for anybody to see his shenanigans:
1) Click on the "score" in his post, you will see that he has no karma points on this post because he was modded down too much in his previous posts. Basically, almost everybody mods him down because he is such a nuisance here.
2) When his alternate sock puppet accounts are all out of mod points. He posts about technology or other non-political things to control the damage to his karma. Look at his previous posts today by clicking on his user name "rsilvergun" in the title of his post above.
3) Then, when his multiple sock puppet accounts get mod points, he goes all out on political rants and mods himself up immediately although others still mod those posts down in the following days.
4) That pattern repeats itself endlessly on Slashdot. I wonder who he thinks he is fooling.
He should really get psychological help instead of wasting his life doing that.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, they should be taught so they know how to do it right. Too many nights have been ruined because one or both partners fumbled their part.
Mod this up PLEASE! (Score:2)
Though there's a debate as to whether it's funny or insightful...
Project 2025 goons in charge of America (Score:1)
Short-term the goal will be censoring and eliminating porn.
Long term they will go after video games in general. They will start with dirty hentai games and move on to violent video games and then all video games.
They do not want competing media for their propaganda. Ideally they want you consuming specific religious propaganda so that you will tithe.
Re: (Score:2)
Are talking about eliminating section 230 of the CDA so that they can hold platform holders liable for anything that happens on their platform. Short-term the goal will be censoring and eliminating porn. Long term they will go after video games in general. They will start with dirty hentai games and move on to violent video games and then all video games. They do not want competing media for their propaganda. Ideally they want you consuming specific religious propaganda so that you will tithe.
If any of your fearmongering had real weight to it, America would have carved Tipper Gores face into Mount Rushmore by now. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. Blackie Lawless is not rotting away in prison. He’s still screaming about Fucking like a Beast, still wearing his buzzsaw codpiece, forty years after attacks on those Freedoms were tried. As we see and hear content streaming into children’s eyes and ears from every platform that would make W.A.S.P. antics look and sound like a
Re: (Score:1)
shut up, retard.
VPNs (Score:2)
On a trip to China a few years go, I found that my VPN (using OpenVPN on the standard port) would not connect, but SSH wasn't blocked, so I just used SSH tunneling to a VNC session.
In the past, I have also used OpenVPN over port 53 (DNS). I think this was because I found a WiFi network with a paywall blocked ports 80 and 443, but not 53.
Re: (Score:2)
When it came time to renew my contract I turned my employer down. Dealing with the Chinese government was mentally
Call it what it is already. (Score:5, Interesting)
..suggesting Beijing either deployed new censorship equipment or experienced a configuration error.
Call it what it is already: A Test. The only suggestion needed is a reminder of the communist regime we’re talking about here. Injecting forged packets doesn’t sound like a “whoops” error. And to leave it alone for an entire hour? If that was an error, the hell were they waiting on to fix it? Was the metric fuckton of negative impact in the first 5 minutes not quite enough?
..while companies including Apple and Tesla couldn't connect to servers powering their basic services.
Perhaps we’ll start to recognize the downsides of products being “designed” in America but manufactured elsewhere. I truly wonder if the AAR will validate how blind Greed can be.
Oh? I didn't notice. (Score:2)
I am in China. I never noticed any issue at all. I'm desperately trying to recall what I was doing online but I don't recall specifics. I'd probably be listening to Times Radio and reading Sky News website, neither of which are locked. Likewise, slashdot...
I wonder if many people noticed...western sites just aren't all that important.
Re: Oh? I didn't notice. (Score:2)
I remember I made a WhatsApp call to my mother, which worked just fine. The rumours of WhatsApp being blocked are very exaggerated. Maybe it was a different time...
Re: Oh? I didn't notice. (Score:2)
Oh, it was at 00:34 so nobody would notice, including me...never mind.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course they're not important. That's what you've been told. If they aren't important, why would your government need to censor and block them?
Cloudflare is worse (Score:2)
It is a royal pita for people inside China wanting to access sites outside China - which mostly means foreigners, of course. Cloudflare blocks or challenges almost all accesses, ime.
Re: (Score:2)
I do normally just use VPN so that I still appear to be coming from home and every site doesn't rechallenge me.
Re: (Score:2)
Because the blackout is over and people could say so by now? Unless this was a police operation on some dissidents who would be forewarned if they didn't have all access cut off. Those would be the only people who couldn't speak afterward.
That explains (Score:3)
The drop in bot activity. Noticed a site I visit had far fewer spamming posts than usual.
Damn! (Score:2)
Only 65,534 ports to go.