China Tightens Grip on Web

[Ninja]

From Wired.com

The French organization Reporters Without Borders condemned the Chinese government Tuesday for its increasing censorship of the internet.

RWB claims that the Chinese government has expanded its efforts to block Chinese citizens from accessing Google, Google News and Google Mail, and that software programs like Chicken, Tikka, Massala, which were designed to allow users to bypass China’s censorship methods, have been “neutralized.”

"It was only to be expected that Google.com would be gradually sidelined after the censored version was launched in January," RWB said in its statement. "Google has just definitively joined the club of western companies that comply with online censorship in China. It is deplorable that Chinese internet users are forced to wage a technological war against censorship in order to access banned content."

Bill Xia, CEO of Dynamic Internet Technology, the company that designed Chicken and Tikka, said that his company has already figured out the method used to block their network, that they have already updated their servers and that traffic is recovering from the sudden drop they noticed on May 24.

“(The Chinese government) has been updating their blocking technology without success, but this time they used more resources and monitored our network more closely,” Xia said.

Internet users in China can still go to Google.cn, a version of the search engine introduced in January that Google itself censors -- by hiding the search results of subjects which may be sensitive to the Chinese government -- in order to maintain a presence on computers within China.

Google could not immediately be reached for comment.

[roddy]

Post above is triggering the filters, trying to edit it . . .

- Ok, that seems to be fine now. It was the names of specific firewall-hopping software that was causing the problem. Note that the Wired link will also trigger your filters.

[roddy]

Currently relevant links:

Google access

POP3 access

Gmail access

[Ninja]

So, no Google Mail, Google Reader, Google Calendar ... and presumably no access to the Google's rebranded Writely when that comes out or Google's new spreadsheet editor. Depressing. Much of the best of the web is becoming more and more unusable here in China, at the risk of sounding naive what is it that the Government is so scared of? Do they really think the Chinese people can't take onboard an alternative point of view without turning on them?

[imron]

Post above is triggering the filters, trying to edit it . . .

- Ok, that seems to be fine now. It was the names of specific firewall-hopping software that was causing the problem.

And there was me thinking someone had named a software product Chicken Tikka Massala

[md1101]

all the censorship REALLY does bother me... its such a shame its making me lose interest in the idea of working in china which i had always planned to do sometime. and ive spent so much time learning the language too...

[pookie]

The filtering wont last forever, I think they will eventually give up.

But I was very sad to learn that the software wasn't called Chicken, Tikka, and Masala. I was amazed by the innovative and creative naming strategy. Never mind

[md1101]

i always thought that they were slowly giving more and more freedoms as well but instead it seems as though they are doing more and more to curb the internet... i think they are getting braver because as their trade ties become more entwined with the west and western businesses are beginning to rely more and more on china for their economy they are less likely to criticise china for what they are doing... i certainly can't imagine howard stepping up and condemning the latest reports of censorship.

[self-taught-mba]

That really sucks because I depend on gmail and like some of their other products like the other poster says. It does make it harder to try and do business here in China

Roddy how do you know whether something is "activating a filter or not"? If there is a tool that we can use to check could you let us know? That way we can make sure our blogs were web sites don't mistakenly activate something.

[roddy]

If you're in China, trust me, you'll know

The only way I can do it when one of the forums pages starts disappearing (will partially load first time then cut out, entire site is the unavailable for about 5 minutes) is to come in through a proxy, edit out anything I think might be causing the problem, then try to access normally. It's quite a simple process, but the five trial - error - wait five minute - thing can get dull . . .

[self-taught-mba]

I am here in China. I didn't know it was that quick. Like that for all sites or is it just ones like this that have an RSS feed or update all the time?

Thought there were some kind of cool toy that we could use to check, but your description of trial and error appears to have dashed my hopes

[Silver Surfer]

Hi everyone!

Just registered.

I lived here in China for a year an a half now and found that the censure isn't that bad so far. Of course you have some key websites which we can't access but not so many.

I was of course little bit upset when I lost Wikepedia (last september in my case) but found couple of months after bambooWeb Dictionary wich is exactly the same.

For the emails, if any of you need to be discret about anything. I've got this trick I learned from an article (though it's obviously not possible to use on a large scale). But to send an email to a friend, parent, etc. here's what you can do.

All you need is a common email address which all your contacts use with the password you told them to login with. Then you just write the messages without sending them, you save them only (put them in the drafts folder - hotmail, gmail, operamail, they all have that feature). So every now and then, your contacts should login, read the messages saved for them, delete them once read and do the same to answer you. (sh)

[roddy]

All you need is a common email address which all your contacts use with the password you told them to login with. Then you just write the messages without sending them, you save them only (put them in the drafts folder - hotmail, gmail, operamail, they all have that feature). So every now and then, your contacts should login, read the messages saved for them, delete them once read and do the same to answer you.

Unless I'm missing something, that sounds like a gigantic waste of time, at least from the point of view of avoiding censorship. You're still sending the info over http when you save the message, exactly as you would if you were actually sending the email.

[mr.stinky]

not at all, roddy. in fact you won't be sending any emails at all, nor saving them as

drafts. the filtering system puts the email system off limits, so that you cannot access

it. a common email address/password will do no good.

i haven't heard that emails themselves are intercepted and censored - possible but

not practical, even with the tens of thousands of internet censors (many are college

students) surfing the web looking out for our best interests.

[liuzhou]

I can see that it might work, but don't see the point. I've been emailing out of China and receiving emails for ten years without any significant problem!

[roddy]

Some response from Google. Starting to think there's a bit of brinksmanship going on - will China block Google, or Google block China . . .

[self-taught-mba]

i haven't heard that emails themselves are intercepted and censored - possible but

not practical, even with the tens of thousands of internet censors (many are college

students) surfing the web looking out for our best interests.

I agree also. Fortunately G. mail is encrypted (part of the reason I like to use it). But now G. Mal is down too:evil:

[mr.stinky]

must be a local issue. g-m is currently accessible from kunming. no problems no report.

have had no problems with aol either. hotmail was unavailable for a couple weeks, but

is back again.

[imron]

There are also no problems with Gmail here in Hebei province so long as you are using the https version. Standard http access seems to be blocked though.

[Ninja]

From Wired.com

China has lifted its online blockade of Google.com after a two-week crackdown that had prevented direct access to the site and temporarily thwarted popular workarounds, a media watchdog group reported Friday.

The Paris-based journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said that tests revealed the uncensored version of the search site was accessible again to internet users in Beijing and Shanghai. The crackdown overlapped with the June 4 anniversary of the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

A Google spokesperson confirmed this, saying that "we have heard no further reports from users in China of problems accessing Google.com."

On June 6, RSF reported that Google.com was blocked throughout much of China, and that programs like DynPass and Ultrsrf, which allowed users in China access to censored web content, were also being blocked on a large scale successfully for the first time.

"It's always the same thing that happens in China -- they heavily censor the internet because they think people will be discussing the event," said Julien Pain, RSF Internet Freedom desk chief.

"This year, what's new is that they blocked Google at this period."

Google in January launched Google.cn in China, a self-censored version of the search engine that conforms with official government restrictions on content, including pornography and gambling, as well politically sensitive subjects such as Tiananmen Square and the Falun Gong sect.

On Tuesday, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was quoted in news reports saying that he believed the company may have compromised its principles by agreeing to state-ordered censorship.

RSF's Pain criticized Google for creating the site, saying it gives the Chinese government an option to fall back on if they decide block Google.com.

"If you give them the option … in time of crisis they will block it. And in the long run, they will block it."

If you leave the option open to the Chinese, you have to be really naïve to think that they won't use it," said Pain.