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Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide

variety of laws and administrative regulations. In accordance with these laws, more
than sixty Internet regulations have been made by the People's Republic of China
(PRC) government, and censorship systems are vigorously implemented by provincial
branches of state-owned ISPs, business companies, and organizations.[1][2]

Most national laws of the People's Republic of China do not apply to the Special
Administrative Regions of Hong Kong or Macau. There are no known cases of the
Chinese authorities censoring critical political or religious content in those
territories.

The escalation of the government's effort to neutralize critical online opinion

comes after a series of large anti-Japanese, anti-pollution and anti-corruption
protests, many of which were organised or publicised using instant messaging
services, chatrooms and text messages. Although the existence of an Internet police
task force, estimated at more than 30,000,[3] has been known for some time,
attention is mostly focused on their work as censors and monitors. Critical
comments appearing on Internet forums, bulletin boards, blogs, vlogs or any major
portals such as Sohu and Sina are usually erased within minutes.

As of March 31, 2008, China has unblocked access to some Internet Web sites,
including English Wikipedia, at the request of the International Olympic Committee
(IOC). [4]
Enforcement

The banning appears to be mostly uncoordinated and ad hoc, with some sites being
blocked and similar sites being allowed or even blocked in one city and allowed in
another.[5] The blocks have been often lifted for special occasions. One example
was the New York Times which became unblocked when reporters in a private interview
with Jiang Zemin specifically asked about the block and he replied that he would
look into the matter. During the APEC summit in Shanghai during 2001, normally-
blocked media sources such as CNN, NBC, and the Washington Post suddenly became
accessible. Since 2001, the content controls have been further relaxed on a
permanent basis, and all three of the sites previously mentioned are now accessible
from mainland China. In fact, most foreign news organizations' web sites are
accessible,[citation needed] though a small number (including the Chinese-language
service of BBC News) continue to be blocked.

Mainland China agencies frequently issue regulations about the Internet, but these
are often not enforced or are ignored[citation needed]. One major problem in
enforcement is determining who has jurisdiction over the Internet, causing many
bureaucratic turf battles within the PRC government among various ministries and
between central and local officials. The State Council Information Office has the
mandate to regulate the Internet, but other security agencies in mainland China
have a say as well.

Some legal scholars have pointed out that the frequency at which the PRC government
issues new regulations on the Internet is a symptom of their ineffectiveness,
because the new regulations never make reference to the previous set of
regulations, which appear to have been forgotten.
Golden Shield Project

Main article: Golden Shield Project

The Golden Shield Project (Chinese: ????; pinyin: ji-nd�n go-ngch�ng) is owned by
Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China (MPS). It started in
1998, began the process in November of 2003, and the first part of the project
passed the national inspection on November 16, 2006 in Beijing. According to MPS,
it is to construct a communication network and computer information system for
police to improve their capability and efficiency. According to China Central
Television (CCTV), up to 2002, the preliminary work of the Golden Shield Project
cost US$800 million (equivalent to RMB 6,400 million or �640 million).[6]

The Golden Shield Project is part of what is sometimes known outside of mainland
China as the Great Firewall of China (in reference both to its role as a network
firewall and to the ancient Great Wall of China). The system blocks content by
preventing IP addresses from being routed through and consists of standard firewall
and proxy servers at the Internet gateways. The system also selectively engages in
DNS poisoning when particular sites are requested. The government does not appear
to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically
impractical.[7]

Researchers at the University of California, Davis and the University of New Mexico
have asserted, however, that the Great Firewall is not a true firewall since banned
material is sometimes able to pass through several routers or through the entire
system without being blocked.[8]

Legislation[9]

In September 2000, the State Council Order No. 292, created the first content
restrictions for ICPs . China-based Web sites cannot link to overseas news Web
sites or carry news from overseas media without separate approval. Only �licensed
print publishers� have the authority to bring out news on-line. Non-licensed Web
sites that wish to broadcast news may only publish information already publicly
released by other news media. These sites must obtain approval from state
information offices and from the State Council Information Agency . Article 14 of
this Order, gives Chinese officials full access to any kind of sensitive
information they wish: � [�] an IIS provider must keep a copy of its records for 60
days and furnish them to the relevant state authorities upon demand in accordance
to the law.� Finally, article 15, officially establishes an online dictatorship:
�IIS providers shall not produce, reproduce, release, or disseminate information
that: [�] endangers national security, [�]is detrimental to the honor of the state,
[�] undermines social stability, the state�s policy towards religion, [�] other
information prohibited by the law or administrative regulations�. Article 12
mentions that �content providers are responsible for ensuring the legality of any
information disseminated through their services�.

Technical information

Some commonly used methods for censoring content are:[10]

* IP blocking. Access to a certain IP address is denied. If the target website

is hosted in a shared hosting server, all websites on the same server will be
blocked. This affects all IP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and POP. A typical
circumvention method is to find proxies that have access to the target websites,
but proxies may be jammed or blocked, and some websites, such as Wikipedia (when
editing), also block proxies. Some large websites like Google have allocated
additional IP addresses to circumvent the block, but later the block was extended
to cover the new IPs.
* DNS filtering and redirection. Don't resolve domain names, or return
incorrect IP addresses. This affects all IP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and
POP. A typical circumvention method is to find a domain name server that resolves
domain names correctly, but domain name servers are subject to blockage as well,
especially IP blocking. Another workaround is to bypass DNS if the IP address is
obtainable from other sources and is not blocked. Examples are modifying the Hosts
file or typing the IP address instead of the domain name in a Web browser.
* URL filtering. Scan the requested Uniform Resource Locator (URL) string for
target keywords regardless of the domain name specified in the URL. This affects
the HTTP protocol. Typical circumvention methods are to use escaped characters in
the URL, or to use encrypted protocols such as VPN and TLS/SSL.[11]
* Packet filtering. Terminate TCP packet transmissions when a certain number of
controversial keywords are detected. This affects all TCP-based protocols such as
HTTP, FTP and POP, but Search engine results pages are more likely to be censored.
Typical circumvention methods are to use encrypted connections - such as VPN and
TLS/SSL - to escape the HTML content, or by reducing the TCP/IP stack's MTU/MSS to
reduce the amount of text contained in a given packet.
* Connection reset. If a previous TCP connection is blocked by the filter,
future connection attempts from both sides will also be blocked for up to 30
minutes. Depending on the location of the block, other users or websites may also
be blocked if the communication is routed to the location of the block. A
circumvention method is to ignore the reset packet sent by the firewall.[12]
* Web feed blocking. Increasingly, incoming URLs starting with the words "rss",
"feed", or "blog" are blocked.[13]
* Reverse surveillance. Computers accessing certain websites including Google
are automatically exposed to reverse scanning from the ISP in an apparent attempt
to extract further information from the "offending" system.

Censored content

See also: List of notable websites blocked in the People's Republic of China

Research into mainland Chinese Internet censorship has shown that censored websites
include:

* Websites belonging to the outlawed qigong group Falun Gong [14] [15]
* News sources that often cover some taboo topics such as police brutality,
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech, democracy, and Marxist sites.
[16] These sites include Voice of America, BBC News, and Yahoo! Hong Kong
* Media sites which may include unregulated content, social commentary or
political commentary censored by the PRC. Youtube[16], Wikipedia, or blogs such as
Blogspot[16], or Livejournal.
* Sites hosted by Taiwan government and major newspaper and television media
and other sites with Taiwanese independence [17]
* Web sites that contain obscenity, pornography, and criminal activity.
[citation needed]
* Sites linked with the Dalai Lama and his International Tibet Independence
Movement, including his teachings.[18]

Blocked websites are indexed to a lesser degree, if at all, by some Chinese search
engines, such as Baidu and Google China. This sometimes has considerable impact on
search results.[19] According to a Harvard study, at least 18,000 websites are
blocked from within mainland China.[20] According to The New York Times, Google has
set up computer systems inside China that try to access Web sites outside the
country. If a site is inaccessible, then it is added to Google China's blacklist.
[21] However, once (if) unblocked, the websites will be reindexed.
Self-censorship
Jingjing, a cartoon police mascot that encourages Chinese Internet users to observe
proper online conduct
Jingjing, a cartoon police mascot that encourages Chinese Internet users to observe
proper online conduct

Internet censorship in the PRC has been called "a panopticon that encourages self-
censorship through the perception that users are being watched".[8] The enforcement
(or threat of enforcement) of censorship creates a chilling effect where
individuals and businesses willingly censor their own communications to avoid legal
and economic repercussions.

Search engines

See also: List of words censored by search engines in the People's Republic of
China

One part of the block is to filter the search results of certain terms on Chinese
search engines. These Chinese search engines include both international ones (for
example, yahoo.com.cn and Google China) as well as domestic ones (for example,
Baidu). Attempting to search for censored keywords in these Chinese search engines
will yield few or no results. Google.cn will display the following at the bottom of
the page: "According to the local laws, regulations and policies, part of the
searching result is not shown."

In addition, a connection containing intensive censored terms may also be closed by

The Great Firewall, and cannot be reestablished for several minutes. This affects
all network connections including HTTP and POP, but the reset is more likely to
occur during searching.

Before the search engines censored themselves, many search engines had been
blocked, namely Google and AltaVista.[22] Technorati, a search engine for blogs,
has been blocked.[23]

Cernet

Several Bulletin Board Systems in universities were closed down or restricted

public access since 2004, including the SMTH BBS and the YTHT BBS.[24]

Local businesses

Although blocking foreign sites has received much attention in the West, this is
actually only a part of the PRC effort to censor the Internet. The ability to
censor content providers within mainland China is much more effective, as the ISPs
and other service providers are restricting customers' actions for fear of being
found legally liable for customers' conduct. The service providers have assumed an
editorial role with regard to customer content, thus became publishers, and legally
responsible for libel and other torts committed by customers.

Although the government does not have the physical resources to monitor all
Internet chat rooms and forums, the threat of being shut down has caused Internet
content providers to employ internal staff, colloquially known as "big mamas", who
stop and remove forum comments which may be politically sensitive. In Shenzhen,
these duties are partly taken over by a pair of police-created cartoon characters,
Jingjing and Chacha, who help extend the online 'police presence' of the Shenzhen
authorities.

However, Internet content providers have adopted some counter-strategies. One is to

post politically sensitive stories and remove them only when the government
complains. In the hours or days in which the story is available online, people read
it, and by the time the story is taken down, the information is already public. One
notable case in which this occurred was in response to a school explosion in 2001,
when local officials tried to suppress the fact the explosion resulted from
children illegally producing fireworks. By the time local officials forced the
story to be removed from the Internet, the news had already been widely
disseminated.

In addition, Internet content providers often replace censored forum comments with
white space which allows the reader to know that comments critical of the
authorities had been submitted, and often to guess what they might have been.

In July 2007, the city of Xiamen announced it would ban anonymous online postings
after text messages and online communications were used to rally protests against a
proposed chemical plant in the city. Internet users will be required to provide
proof of identify when posting messages on the more than 100,000 Web sites
registered in Xiamen.[25]

Some hotels in China are also advising internet users to obey local Chinese
internet access rules by leaving a list of internet rules and guidelines near the
computers. These rules, among other things, forbid linking to politically
unacceptable messages, and inform internet users that if they do, they will have to
face legal consequences.[26]

In September 2007, some data centers were shutting down indiscriminately for
providing interactive features such as blogs and forums. CBS reports an estimate
that half the interactive sites hosted in China were blocked. [27]

International corporations

One controversial issue is whether foreign companies should supply equipment which
assists in the blocking of sites to the PRC government. Some argue that it is wrong
for companies to profit from censorship including restrictions on freedom of the
press and freedom of speech. Others argue that equipment being supplied, from
companies such as the American based Cisco Systems Inc., is standard Internet
infrastructure equipment and that providing this sort of equipment actually aids
the flow of information, and that the PRC is fully able to create its own
infrastructure without Western help. By contrast, human rights advocates such as
Human Rights Watch and media groups such as Reporters Without Borders argue that if
companies would stop contributing to the authorities' censorship efforts the
government could be forced to change.

A similar dilemma faces foreign content providers such as Yahoo!, AOL, Google and
Skype who abide by PRC government wishes, including having internal content
monitors, in order to be able to operate within mainland China. Also, in accordance
with mainland Chinese laws, Microsoft began to censor the content of its blog
service Windows Live Spaces, arguing continuing to provide Internet services is
more beneficial to the Chinese.[28] Michael Anti, a Chinese journalist whose blog
on Windows Live Spaces was removed by Microsoft, agreed that the Chinese are better
off with Windows Live Spaces than without it.[29]

The Chinese version of MySpace, launched in April of 2007, has many censorship-
related differences from other international versions of the service. Discussion
forums on topics such as religion and politics are absent and a filtering system
that prevents the posting of content about Taiwan independence, the Dalai Lama,
Falun Gong, and other "inappropriate topics" has been added.[30] Users are also
given the ability to report the "misconduct" of other users for offenses including
"endangering national security, leaking state secrets, subverting the government,
undermining national unity, spreading rumors or disturbing the social order."[31]
Reactions

Legal action

May 9th 2007, Mr. Yetaai (??) sued Shanghai Telecom, a sub-company of China
Telecom, because one of his sites[citation needed] was blocked from access in
China. He then took a series of steps including raising maintenance request and
notarization. His lawsuit was accepted by Pu Dong Court, Shanghai. Mr. Yetaai
reported it through his online diary (English). He also raised an item for online
ticketing through an article on Digg.

Liberalization of sexually oriented content

Although restrictions on political information remain as strong as ever, several

sexually oriented blogs began appearing in early 2004. Women using the web aliases
Muzi Mei (???) and Zhuying Qingtong (????) wrote online diaries of their sex lives
and became small celebrities. This was widely reported and criticized in mainland
Chinese news media, and several of these bloggers' sites are blocked in China to
this day. This has coincided with an artistic nude photography fad (including a
self-published book by dancer Tang Jiali) and the appearance of pictures of
minimally clad women or even topless photos in a few mainland Chinese newspapers,
magazines and websites. It is too early to tell how far this trend will go, but
increasingly, censorship is applicable to political content rather than to
sexuality. This does not hold true for many dating and "adult chat" sites, both
Chinese and foreign, which have been blocked. Some, however, continue to be
accessible although this appears to be due more to the Chinese government's
ignorance of their existence than any particular policy of leniency.

Corporate responsibility

On November 7, 2005 an alliance of investors and researchers representing twenty-

six companies in the U.S., Europe and Australia with over US $21 billion in joint
assets announced that they were urging businesses to protect freedom of expression
and pledged to monitor technology companies that do business in countries violating
human rights, such as China. On December 21, 2005 the UN, OSCE and OAS special
mandates on freedom of expression called on Internet corporations to "work together
... to resist official attempts to control or restrict use of the Internet."

Efforts at breaking through

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can (September 2007).
Wikibooks
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of
Transwiki:Bypassing the Great Firewall of China

The firewall is largely ineffective at preventing the flow of information and is

rather easily circumvented by determined parties by using proxy servers outside the
firewall. VPN and SSH connections to outside mainland China are not blocked, so
circumventing all of the censorship and monitoring features of the Great Firewall
of China is trivial for those who have these secure connection methods to computers
outside mainland China available to them.

Since free hosting blog services like Blogger and Wordpress frequently face
blockage, bloggers and webmasters aiming for an audience in China often debate
merits of the various paid hosting services. Some China-focussed services
explicitly offer to move IP address within 30 minutes if your site is blocked by
the authorities.[32]
Anonymizer, Inc. provides a free service to allow uncensored and anonymous browsing
in China. The software is available through a number of sources, including a China-
accessible website.

Psiphon[33] is a software project designed by University of Toronto's Citizen Lab

under the direction of Professor Ronald Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab.
Psiphon is a circumvention technology that works through social networks of trust
and is designed to help Internet users bypass content-filtering systems set up by
governments, such as China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates
and others.

"We're aiming at giving people access to sites like Wikipedia," a free, user-
maintained online encyclopedia, and other information and news sources, Michael
Hull, psiphon's lead engineer, told CBC News Online.[34]

Neither the Tor website nor the Tor network are blocked, making Tor (in conjunction
with Privoxy) an easily acquired and effective tool for circumvention of the
censorship controls. Tor maintains a public list of entry nodes, so the authorities
could easily block it if they had the inclination. According to the Tor FAQ
sections 6.4 and 7.9, Tor is vulnerable to timing analysis by Chinese authorities,
so it allows a breach of anonymity. Thus for the moment, Tor allows uncensored
downloads and uploads, although no guarantee can be made with regard to freedom
from repercussions.

In addition to Tor, there are various HTTP/HTTPS Tunnel Services, which work in a
similar way as Tor. At least one of them, Your Freedom, is confirmed to be working
from China and also offers encryption features for the transmitted traffic.

It was common in the past to use Google's cache feature to view blocked websites.
However, this feature of Google seems to be under some level of blocking, as access
is now erratic and does not work for blocked websites. Currently the block is
mostly circumvented by using proxy servers outside the firewall, and is not
difficult to carry out for those determined to do so. Some well-known proxy servers
have also been blocked.

Some Chinese citizens used the Google mirror elgooG after China blocked Google. It
is believed that elgooG survived the Great Firewall of China because the firewall
operators thought that elgooG was not a fully functional version of Google.

As Falun Gong websites are generally inaccessible from mainland China,

practitioners have launched a company named UltraReach Internet Corp and developed
a piece of software named UltraSurf to enable people in mainland China to access
restricted web sites via Internet Explorer without being detected.

Other techniques used include Freenet, a peer-to-peer distributed data store

allowing members to anonymously send or retrieve information, and TriangleBoy.

Browsing Wikipedia is also possible with a custom browser called Gollum, which can
be used without installing it. At present, the Chinese government has not banned
searching for Gollum on Google.

Another application that can be used is Freegate.

See also

* Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China

* Censorship in the People's Republic of China
* Internet in the People's Republic of China
* Media of the People's Republic of China
 * Digital divide in the People's Republic of China
* International Freedom of Expression Exchange - monitors Internet censorship
in China
* Human rights in the People's Republic of China
* Internet brigades
* �ser

References

1. ^ II. How Censorship Works in China: A Brief Overview. Human Rights Watch.
Retrieved on 2006-08-30.
2. ^ Chinese Laws and Regulations Regarding Internet
3. ^ Watts, Jonathan (2005-06-14). China's secret Internet police target critics
with web of propaganda. The Guardian.
4. ^ [1]
5. ^ for an example, see Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China
6. ^ ???????8??? ???????? (Chinese)
7. ^ War of the words. The Guardian.
8. ^ a b ScienceBlog.com. China's 'Eye on the Internet' a Fraud. Retrieved on
2007-09-12.
9. ^ http://www.cecc.gov/pages/virtualAcad/exp/explaws.php
10. ^ Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China.
11. ^ For an example, see Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great
Firewall
12. ^ Academics break the Great Firewall of China
13. ^ Cheng, Jacqui (2007-10-05). China's Great Firewall turns its attention to
RSS feeds. Ars Technica. Retrieved on 2007-10-05.
14. ^ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ Empirical Analysis of
Internet Filtering in China
15. ^ http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/5.htm How Multinational Internet
Companies assist Government Censorship in China
16. ^ a b c Marquand, Robert (2006-02-04). China's media censorship rattling
world image. Christian Science Monitor.
17. ^ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ Empirical Analysis of
Internet Filtering in China
18. ^ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ Empirical Analysis of
Internet Filtering in China
19. ^ controlling information: you can't get there from here -- filtering
searches. The Tank Man. Frontline (pbs.org).
20. ^ Jonathan Zittrain, Benjamin Edelman. Empirical Analysis of Internet
Filtering in China. Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
21. ^ Thompson, Clive (2006-04-23). Google's China Problem (and China's Google
Problem) 8. The New York Times.
22. ^ See History of Google.
23. ^ Schwartz, Barry (2006-04-28). Technorati Blocked In China.
SearchEngineWatch.
24. ^ Students protest restrictions on most influential BBS. China Digital Times
(2005-03-20).
25. ^ Chinese city bans anonymous web postings. United Press International (2007-
07-07). Retrieved on 2007-07-08.
26. ^ Chinese Internet Browsing Rules & Guidelines. Freeman China (2007-06-17).
Retrieved on 2007-07-25.
27. ^ Why Did China Shut Down 18,401 Web sites?
28. ^ Congressional Testimony: �The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or
Suppression?�. Microsoft.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-30.
29. ^ Roundtable: The Struggle to Control Freedom. PBS.org (2005-04-11).
30. ^ Lu Enjie (2007-04-26). MySpace now available in China - minus politics and
religion. Texyt.com.
31. ^ MySpace.cn?????? (Chinese). MySpace.cn. Retrieved on 2007-04-28.
 32. ^ The Best Hosting Services to Sidestep China's Great Firewall
33. ^ Psiphon Official Homepage
34. ^ Tool to circumvent internet censorship set to launch

External links
Wikinews has related news:
Bi-directional Censorship from the Great Firewall of China

Official websites

* Cyberpolice.cn - Ministry of Public Security P.R.China Information & Network

Security

News reports

* China Internet Explainer CNN

* The Development and the State Control of the Chinese Internet by Xiao Qiang,
Director, China Internet Project, The Graduate School of Journalism, University of
California at Berkeley, 14 April 2005
* The Epoch Times | Communist Internet Censorship an "Internationally Common
Practice"? 20 February 2006
* Blogging on report on blogging in China, 16 Mar 2006
* Behind China's internet Red Firewall BBC, 3 September 2002
* China's Internet Censorship 3 December 2002
* People's Republic of China: State control of the Internet Amnesty
International, 27 February 2002
* Cherry, Steven (2005). "The Net Effect: As China's Internet gets a much-
needed makeover, will the new network promote freedom or curtail it?". IEEE
Spectrum Online (2005).
* Tao, Wenzhao (2001). "Censorship and protest: The regulation of BBS in China
People Daily". First Monday, v.6, n.1 (January 2001).
* Walton, Greg. China's Golden Shield. International Centre for Human Rights
and Democratic Development, 2001.
* Tsui, Lokman (2001). "Big Mama is Watching You: Internet Control by the
Chinese government". Unpublished MA thesis, University of Leiden.
* Internet Filtering in China in 2004-2005: A Country Study, from the OpenNet
Initiative (Also available as an Adobe PDF file here).
* CHINA: Government blocks religious websites Forum 18 News, 21 July 2004
* The Click That Broke a Government's Grip The Washington Post, 19 February
2006
* Clayton, Murdoch, and Watson (2006). "Ignoring the Great Firewall of China".
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Workshop, Cambridge, UK. To appear in workshop
proceedings.
* The Internet "black holes" - China Reporters sans fronti�res - Internet press
releases from 2002 to 2007
* Crandall, Zinn, Byrd, Barr, and East (2007). "ConceptDoppler: A Weather
Tracker for Internet Censorship". ACM Conference on Computer and Communications
Security, Alexandria, VA, USA. To appear in conference proceedings.
* Discussion about the best hosting services for websites and blogs looking to
get around the Great Firewall.

Analysis

* WebSitePulse.com - Website Test behind the Great Firewall of China

* Translation of the Filtered Key Words in Chinese Cyberspace 24 June 2005
=
Monday, March 17, 2008
Chinese censorship a headache for Google
China's government has blocked access to news aggregator Google News and video-
sharing site YouTube to suppress material about the civil unrest in Tibet.

This is no small problem for Google now, and it could develop into a much larger
headache. Google wants access to the fast-growing Chinese market. But will it
resort to self-censoring its own Chinese sites in order to please the government
there?

It would be worse in PR terms but more effective in business terms for Google to
engage with Chinese censors in reshaping Google News and YouTube to please them.
Since Google already censors chinese search results, perhaps that won't be too long
in coming. How the company would square that with its "don't be evil" motto is hard
to imagine.

Foreign media have been banned from Tibet and foreign TV stations are temporarily
blanked in China when reporting on event there. Google may be hoping this latest
action will also be short lived. But if the Chinese government thinks brokering
censorship deals serves its interests better, Google and others could be in a
difficult position.

Meanwhile, are there any Chinese-literate readers out there that would care to
search for "Tibet riots" on google.cn and tell us how the results differ from
results on google.com?

Tom Simonite, online technology reporter

Labels: internet, politics, security

* Posted by Tom at 6:08 PM

* Permalink
* del.icio.us
* digg this

Comments:
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a
particular comment breaks these rules then please let us know, quoting the comment
in question.
This is a major headache for Chinese researchers, academics, and just about any one
who has the nerve to express them selves, out side the party line. Is anyone really
surprised?
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 17, 2008 8:54 PM
The situation is beyond ridiculous. Remove all censorship and provde the people
with a means by which they can bypass government controls.
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 17, 2008 9:05 PM
I've been trying to contact Google about this, but oddly, contact information is
nowhere to be found on their Web page. You get re-directed to technical support,
with only pre-set options for what might be wrong, and in an utterly ridiculous
move, when you click on the link to Google, Inc., you're sent to Google Maps so you
can see where they are; incredibly handy when you happen to be on the wrong
continent.

They don't appear to want to have to meet the users. It seems like they have been
taking lessons from the Chinese leadership.
By Anonymous Pelotard on March 17, 2008 10:27 PM
Given sufficient time all corporations become value entropic.

Google will eventually have to compete with replication, at which point it will
dissipate moral values like a heat engine in overdrive.
In the end, the only thing that will be left is a company with a power base
captured by the people with the least scruples and the most capital.

Why are we still pretending anything else every happens?

By Anonymous Anonymous on March 17, 2008 10:29 PM
I Have Been in china for 3 years
I have expirenced these black outs on tv and the search results for google.cn turn
up nothing apart from propaganda when searching for tibet riots. BBC news web page
and CNN are both banned
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 17, 2008 10:50 PM
As Orwell noted over 60 years ago (in his unpublished preface to Animal Farm), self
censorship is even more insidious.

The self-censorship that western media engage in is worse really since people tend
not to realise what is happening. In contrast people in totalitarian regimes
usually know that the news is complete rubbish.

Anyone interested in the way the media works should watch "Manufacturing Consent"
on Youtube, or better still read the book of the same name by Herman and Chomsky.
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 17, 2008 11:12 PM
>> The situation is beyond ridiculous. Remove all censorship and provde the people
with a means by which they can bypass government controls.

Government control is what a communist regime is all about... i don't think that's
going to happen any time soon.
By Anonymous Dan on March 18, 2008 12:30 AM
There are 1.2 billion people in China, 56 distinct ethnic groups, and many of these
people are illiterate or barely literate. Free speech and a free press are fine
principles, but have to be balanced with people's right to life and basic living
conditions. The Americans and many of the European governments would like nothing
better than to see China disintegrate into a confederation of quasi independent
states, but it would be a disaster for the people who actually live here.
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 18, 2008 1:14 AM
When the issue of government censorship on the internet is raised, I can't help but
wonder if there isn't a way around this for the people that really want to know
what is going on. Why can't someone using the internet in China type in .com rather
than .cn? (A subject I should do some research on.)

It seems to me that many of the people that have internet access are literate and
possibly have a good grasp of the English language. It is incomprehensible to me
that the Chinese people can not get information if they are determined to get it:
Telephone a friend that doesn't live in China, write a letter, subscibe to the New
York Times. Are phone calls and the mail censored? On the other hand, there is
probably a large percentage of Chinese that don't want to know because there is
nothing they can do about it anyway. It is possible that we are more outraged than
they are because this is something they are used to, as we are not.

It is disappointing that Google has agreed to censor information in China. Probably

other countries, too. I think this censorship should be made plain, as in a
disclaimer saying that the site is censored. That would at least allow the Chinese
people to know that they are not getting the whole truth.
By Blogger Bethany on March 18, 2008 2:34 AM
This story makes me wonder what ever happened with elgoog and its censorship
defeating abilities.
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 18, 2008 3:18 AM
Here is an opportunity for technology whiz-kids.

Surely, in this day and age, there must be a smart technological way for people
outside of China to break through the technology-jamming and free the information
for people within China.

Lets make censorship simply impossible!

By Anonymous Anonymous on March 18, 2008 3:36 AM
The stage is set for China to be far ahead of all other single countries in 20
years or more. To continue in China, Google must bend over and it will probably do
so willingly rather than withdraw completely. The West is at least uneasy about
China's view on how things should be done. However, after only a few thousand years
of recorded civilization, nobody is an expert.
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 18, 2008 4:02 AM
I don't know were you all are getting your information from, probably bogus; But I
am in the northern central area of China and can get all the news through the
Internet and TV, CCTV China English showed the Tibet news live with the rioters all
were of about 18 yrs.the coverage was probably better than the western edited
version. I can get both sides of all stories and can see the manipulation is on
both sides of the fence; The censorship in China is no more than anywhere else; I
find the news here is far more explicit and truthful;
By Blogger Squizy on March 18, 2008 4:17 AM
I dont see the problem Each country should have the right to do what they wish with
the internet and everyone else should just back off.
Not all countrys have to be the same. The more people push for china to become
another USA or similar the more they probably will not. They have far more history
then most countrys let them run themselfs
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 18, 2008 4:18 AM
Internet is the only media which is free from cast creat nation language
politics.This cannot be supressed by any big or small nation. For example the
entire muslim world is annoyed by the Cartoons of Mohemmed Saheb published in
Danish news paper. Print and electronic media is in fear but the internet media is
still giving manymany cartoons of Mohemmed saheb. No body can check them.So is true
for China if tehy will try to suppress the news of Tibet much more detailed and
image blurring news will come out. It is impossible to check
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 18, 2008 6:21 AM
if China become another USA one day, the world is doomed. Given that each American
use 10x more energy than each Chinese. China must open up a whole new way to
develop itself instead of following USA/Europe
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 18, 2008 6:22 AM
As a chinese in mainland china, i would say that google is trying their best:
providing services to chinese public, with as less censorship as possible.

The great firewall of china is highly advanced. To bypass it takes expertise, and
will usually result in extremely low bandwidth and unreliable connection, which is
definitly not a choice for the mass public.
By Anonymous eio on March 18, 2008 9:51 AM
Technologically the Chinese are very capable of censoring the internet and it's no
trivial matter to bypass that.

All the outbound links from China are government controlled. If they don't want you
to to see google.com then nothing (simple) that you do will let you see it. If you
get a bit fancier and connect to an anonymiser then you can probably get access
(until they block the anonymiser), but you might also get a visit in the middle of
the night and never be seen again.

As to countries having the right to do what they
extent. But we 'enlightened' peoples of the west
these include relative freedom from interference
what we like, read and write what we like and to
This isn't the case in communist regimes as they
order to stay in power. Censorship is a big part
doesn't like it.
like... well yes, to a certain
like to talk about human rights,
by the government, we can think
a large extent do as we please.
need to maintain strict control in
of this, which is why the west
By Blogger Steve on March 18, 2008 10:13 AM
"if China become another USA one day, the world is doomed. Given that each American
use 10x more energy than each Chinese. China must open up a whole new way to
develop itself instead of following USA/Europe"

Energy is not the problem per se.

Nuclear power is easily scalable, competitive with coal in a sane regulatory

climate(see France) and the average bit of the Earth's crust contains more
available energy than the same weight in coal, extractable with proven technology.
By Anonymous soylent on March 18, 2008 12:28 PM
This reminds me of the article of news that one middle east country downed youtube
across the net because of a video.
The Great FireWall of China is high and forbidding. But... do the chinese know
about the blocked sites? Couldn't the Chinese work out a way of just editing the
web.cn so they never know about it?Does it protect China from all the spam?
By Anonymous The anonymous man on March 20, 2008 8:49 PM
To be honest if the info isn't in Chinese, 99.999995% of the people living in China
don't care about it.

How interested are most of *you* in Chinese media if you can't read or understand
it?

The average Chinese surfer could give a crap if CNN is blocked - its biased and in
a different language.

The main set of people who complain about lack of access are foreigners living in
China (and they all know how to use a proxy anyway).

The Tibet riots were well covered by the media here - TV showed it daily, the
papers were full of coverage too. Chinese media is definitely more explicit than
western media, which tends to gloss things over.

Living here, you see that every media source has a bias, and I'm talking about
Western Media, not Chinese....

Its not perfect, but its nowhere near as bad as people make out.

Learn the language, and read what actually happens rather than spouting what you've
been fed.

Its not much different here than other places when it comes down to it.
By Anonymous Anonymous on March 26, 2008 11:39 PM
=
How to bypass UAE Proxy?

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Member since:
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Total points:
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* Add to My Contacts
* Block User
Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
There are many methods to bypass websense...first method is to use the Public proxy
IPs that are freely available on net. Put ur ip in ur browser and surf...like
bikiniproxy.com

second is there are many sites which gives u facility of anonymous web surfing. put
the web site name it takes u there...

third very intersting one...let s say u want to open site www.yahoo.com..and web
sense blocking it...follow my way as given below.

open google.com and type yahoo.com(without www).it will give results . dont click
there.look below there will be written 'use google's cache' try that.it works...

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Other Answers (2)
Show:

You can use a website called siteunlocker located at

http://www.siteunlocker.com , There all you got to do is put the url in the box and
press go and it will take you there.
=
Wikipedia talk:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Miscellany for deletion This page was nominated for deletion on 2007-06-19.
The result of the discussion was Speedy keep.

Please add new sections to the bottom of the page

Contents
[hide]

* 1 I'm using Tor

* 2 Problem
* 3 report from China
* 4 Possible new workaround
 * 5 What does this do?
* 6 Hysterics from SJMurdoch
* 7 Possible privacy improvement
* 8 Rename...
* 9 What the hell?!?
* 10 Not very helpfull
* 11 Chinese translation?
* 12 Secure servers blocked too
* 13 Wikipedia is banning users from China
* 14 Using a computer as a tor router
* 15 help for the Arabs
* 16 Another Idea
* 17 If not blocked, don't use elaborate measures...
* 18 Advise on Softblock
* 19 Closed proxies WikiProject proposal
* 20 TOR

[edit] I'm using Tor

plarq 08-01-2007

Now en.wikipedia.org is partially unblocked in Mainland China. However, I want to

edit some "sensitive" pages using TOR, only to find TOR proxies are blocked, even
when I use my username. Who can help?

[edit] Problem

This seems to work for editing a page, but it breaks my access to, for example, the
mailing list archives. E.g. http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-
October/031345.html. I get the following:

Not Found
The requested URL /pipermail/wikien-l/2005-October/031345.html was not found on
this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an
ErrorDocument to handle the request.

-- Klortho

Try the updated configuration that I just posted -- Tim Starling 19:47, 26 October
2005 (UTC)

As of 20 April 2006, I can't access Wikipedia using 145.97.39.155 as is in the

sample config file posting, but using 145.97.39.132 seems to be fine. Is this IP
address 145.97.39.155 valid,or has Wikipedia changed the ip address of its load
balancer in Amsterdam?

Confirmed, same here; .155 doesn't work, .132 does. It's possible that "they" found
this page and blocked .155. LaloMartins 07:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] report from China

I use Tor in Debian in China. I have to use wikipedia's proxy because a lot of IPs
which are Tor's exit node have been blocked by WP. But wp's proxy is unencrypted,
so now I can't edit any articles which is not liked by Beijing GOV in WP. The GFW
will easily find what I do with WP. Could you change the policy, then if I have
login in, do not matter what IP I use. Thank you. --Farm 12:20, 14 November 2005
(UTC)

[edit] Possible new workaround

Another possible way to bypass the firewall is to use the Google translation
service as a proxy by translating from english to english (or whatever language you
wish). See "Google free proxy!" for the full description. This doesn't mask your IP
address, so it can't be used to circumvent blocks on Wikipedia. Although using your
real IP address on Wikipedia might be a problem for users in the more restrictive
countries, this should be a non-issue if you register a username. // Pathoschild
14:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Google translation service was also blocked when I was in Beijing.--Skyfiler 14:43,
1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What does this do?

I'm hesitant about adding lines into Privoxy which I don't understand. What does
this do? What is 145.97.39.155?

It doesn't matter now, 145.97.39.155 is blocked. I think we might be better off

relying on independently operated proxies inside China now, such as
http://wikipedia.cnblog.org . That should make it slightly harder for the
authorities to get our addresses, rather than reading them off a web page they'd
have to sniff the traffic. -- Tim Starling 03:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

What did it used to do?

It used to be a live proxy, displaying the Chinese Wikipedia with URLs

rewritten. It was running inside the firewall. -- Tim Starling 15:15, 20 June 2006
(UTC)

[edit] Hysterics from SJMurdoch

I'm in contact with a number of users from Mainland China, and I've read
extensively on this subject. All the majority of users want to do is access
Wikipedia. Privacy is a very distant second priority. The authorities have shown
very little interest in prosecuting readers to date, rather they have concentrated
on those who produce or disseminate subversive writing. Nevertheless, no Chinese
person should doubt that the Government will be able to find out who is editing
Wikipedia, if they really want to, whether or not the user is using Tor. Tor is
flawed and must be used very carefully if you wish to maintain privacy against the
Chinese authorities. And of course, it's not like you can hide the fact that you're
using the software.

To suggest that using open proxies is better for privacy than HTTPS is just
bizarre. I've dealt with a number of attempted DoS attacks from behind open proxy
networks, and I've never had any trouble tracking down the originating IP. The
advantage of HTTPS over open proxies comes from the technical nature of the Great
Firewall: all unencrypted traffic is sampled at the firewall, and proxies which are
used to download prohibited material are systematically blocked. HTTPS resists this
sampling.

I can only assume by the way SJMurdoch is going on about HTTPS images that he
believes I am advocating that Tor users should disable proxying for SSL and then
navigate the web at large believing they are completely safe. Rather, I am saying
that Tor users who only installed Tor in the first place so that they could read
Wikipedia can go ahead and switch it off now because there's another option. Anyone
who believes they are completely safe from persecution because they have Tor
installed is deluded.

-- Tim Starling 15:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've actually found only one good thing from my studies of how tor and other
proxying systems are working and that is that instead of showing up as an http
packet with a blatant header leading direct to Wikimedia servers you end up with a
packet that will pass a casual scan for http traffic (assuming the proxy is not
using port 80) and takes a little more work to work out where it's going so at
least and possibly at most it's good for that. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email
---- 07:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible privacy improvement

Could the SSL frontends be configured to hold edits for random amounts of time? --
64.232.164.63 00:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rename...

Mainland China controlled by PRC =/= China. -- ??????????? 23:30, 30 June 2006
(UTC)

Good point Naming this article "XXX in China" is pov, as there are two Chinas.
-Justin (koavf)�T�C�M 02:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Renamed to Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great

Firewall. Might be a mouthful, but it's a more accurate name. -- ??????????? 06:30,
26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What the hell?!?

If I read this correctly, this page is instructing people in China on how to break
the law. Regardless of the validities of these laws, this page should be deleted.
It is not the job of a neutral encyclopedia to explicitly tell a group of people
how they can circumvent laws. There can be a page stating how to edit this site
with Tor, but not one directed at such users in a certain country for the sole
purpose of allowing a circumvention of laws. This page should be deleted. Bsd987
23:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It is relating methods used to access the website hosting the advice. Seems
reasonable to me, although maybe it should be in wikipedia namespace? 86.140.170.23
12:09, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Besides, if the Chinese government is going to treat the law arbitrarily, which
they do in a way that Americans can hardly imagine, why shouldn't citizens and
expats? Circumventing the Golden Shild might not even be formally illegal in
China...the gov never bothers to write a lot of laws because it's easier just to
accuse someone of being a traitor and lock them up.

There are a couple of issues with your reasoning Bsd987, first is that
there technically is no law permitting them to do this so it's less a codified
issue and more of an issue of the PRC enforcing existing laws in a way that allows
them to do this in the name of national security and protecting morality (sic),
also since Wikipedia is based in the Florida in the United States even if it were a
law Wikipedia would be under no legal or moral obligation to help the PRC oppress
it's people and I doubt the board would choose to do so given the chance though of
course I cannot speak for them, unlike Yahoo I would hope that we would be more
open to the spread of free information. Thygard - Talk - Contribs - Email ----
06:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 I have asked, and there is no law against accessing Wikipedia. In fact, the
official stance is that the Golden Shield does not block any content (of course we
know better). It's illegal to write "subversive" or immoral content, but not to
read it. --LaloMartins 06:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not very helpfull

Why can't IP's be softblocked by default? I have created an account so you can
track my actions despite the fact I am using Tor.

Yet 8 out of 10 IP's I use are hardblocked. Why should I have to request an
softblock for each and every IP I use? The internet is not static. NegativeNed
23:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese translation?

Is there a Chinese translation of this page on the Chinese Wikipedia? If not,

someone should put up a translation there. --Ixfd64 00:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Secure servers blocked too

One possible solution is to use Wikimedia's HTTPS gateway, which is still

accessible at the time of writing.

That's incorrect. After using secure.wikimedia for about an year during the
previous block, I found that after the Nov-2006 reblocking the secure servers were
blocked too. :-( I'd like other people to verify that before editing, though; I
don't know if the whole section should be removed, or rephrased to "accessible from
some ISPs", or what. Right now I'm relying on tor and softblocking.--LaloMartins
07:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia is banning users from China

The policy against open proxies effectively bans users from China. Since I've
upgraded to Firefox 2.0, Switchproxy doesn't work and I can't use Tor any more. Tor
doesn't work any more, the SSL-based URLs don't work any more - for me the only way
to view and to contribute to Wikipedia articles and discussions is to use open
proxies, so I'm violating a Wikipedia policy. Will I be blocked for that? This
situation is ridiculous and Wikipedia policies have to change. �Babelfisch 09:32, 9
February 2007 (UTC)

As there has been no reaction here , I've started another discussion here:
Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Softblock for Tor proxies. (But why should anybody
care for users in China? There are only some 137 million of them. see Natalie Pace,
China Surpasses U.S. In Internet Use, Forbes 2006; Net firms criticised over China,
BBC 2005; China net use may soon surpass US, BBC 2007.) �Babelfisch 02:27, 4 April
2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, meta:No open proxies is a Foundation-wide policy applying to

all Wikipedia projects. It is not an issue of certain admins making up rules you
don't like. Thatcher131 19:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Using a computer as a tor router

I want to support the Tor project by donating my bandwidth, but I do not want to be
blacklisted from WP when I do. Is there some way I can do this? ffm yes? 19:41, 22
February 2007 (UTC)
 WP blocks only exit nodes, since that's all it can see. If you set your .torrc
to only act as a middleman, I suspect you will be fine. --Gwern (contribs) 18:06 6
May 2007 (GMT)

[edit] help for the Arabs

Could we add such a helpful site for other groups such as the Arabian speaking
population? They have similar problems (even in the Gulf states with quite a lot of
internet access) and resort to proxies. Wandalstouring 17:00, 25 February 2007
(UTC)

as of a few days ago, I reinstalled Tor+Privoxy without the Vivillda

controller. But prior to that, there where two exit nodes displaying in the middle
east; one straddeling the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border (couldn't tell which side; which
side do you think it's more likely to get bombed on?) and one in the UAE; so I
agree with your notion {2007 03 02 06:16 UTC}

Perhaps we could rename and rescope this entry to deal with bypassing all internet
censorship? TewfikTalk 23:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another Idea

There is a project that has just been finalized called Psiphon that also allows
people to use trusted computers to browse the internet from other countries over a
secured connection. psiphon.civisec.org/ Aranjedeath

[edit] If not blocked, don't use elaborate measures...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/11/2320220&from=rss

So, if China isn't blocked, it seems to add yet-another layer of deception; the
"Great Firewall" is daily touted as the reason for allowing TOR. Yet, in fact, it
seems to be a ruse?

--Connel MacKenzie - wikt 09:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Parts of Wikipedia were unblocked in China a few days ago (see Net Nanny
Follies � Wikipedia unblocked, danwei.org), but that has happened before. This
time, many articles can still not be viewed and edited without Proxies because
there are content filters in place (e.g. against the �evil cult�), the Chinese
version is still completely blocked, and who knows how long it's going to last this
time. �Babelfisch 05:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advise on Softblock

The following paragraphs have been deleted:

Request a softblock
Tor proxies can now be softblocked so logged in account users can edit via a
tor connection. If you find an IP that has this problem please request an unblock
to a softblock for tor.
Need an account & Tor won't let you create one?
Ask someone outside of mainland China to set you up with an account and then
email the username / password (account creation is blocked from tor proxies due to
vandalism issues). You should immediately change the password after logging in.

The reason given was "we can't advise people to violate policy; in this case
Wikipiedia:No open proxies" [sic]. The rationale behind this was not correct or at
least is not correct any more. The proposed policy (yes, it is just a proposal, not
a binding policy!) states: "Open or anonymising proxies may be blocked from editing
for any period at any time. While this may affect legitimate users, they are not
the intended targets and may freely use proxies until those are blocked." (my
emphases)

Hardblocking of open proxies obviously isn't consensus. I've thus restored those
two paragraphs. Please don't delete them again without discussing this here.
�Babelfisch 03:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

When did hardblocking of open proxies stop being the norm? Softblocking makes
abuse impossible to trace for administrators. Kusma (talk) 11:15, 12 August 2007
(UTC)

How? Softblocking prevents abuse by anonymous users, limiting it to logged-

in user accounts, which can simply be indefinitely blocked on a case-by-case basis.
If for some reason it becomes necessary to "trace" the IP address used, this can be
done by a checkuser... but this is very rarely necessary: if abuse is obvious, just
issue a block, why bother rooting around for other types of abuse that may be
happening simultaneously? � Gurch 19:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Closed proxies WikiProject proposal

I've proposed a WikiProject intended to help editors create closed proxies for
editors in China to use. You can see the proposal at
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Closed_Proxies. If this WikiProject draws
enough interest, we'll be able to get enough servers running to draw in a
substantial amount of editors in China and allow them to edit. Shadow1 (talk)
18:50, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Now Wikipedia:WikiProject on closed proxies. Shadow1 (talk) 00:35, 18 October

2007 (UTC)

[edit] TOR

Whats all this about TOR being blocked? I'm using TOR right now. Occasionally I get
a blocked message, but you simple click "use a new identity" and your good to go.
�Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.145.8.92 (talk) 12:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
=