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Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Within China

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Re: Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Within China

#51

Post by JohnTHaller »

Ezhik wrote: post #31
JohnTHaller wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is HTTPS. Unless China can compromise the whole country's OSes by forcing them to install a security certificate that lets them impersonate Wikipedia, Google, etc, they can't block individual pages on sites that only serve over https * They can only block whole sites. Wikipedia forces https sitewide for just this reason. Selective censorship isn't permitted. Fun fact #1: That's believed to be why the Chine…

Well, you could make everyone install a compromised SSL certificate... https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/perpass/current/msg019...

That's what I was referring to. It's easier in some countries than others.

Re: Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Within China

#52

Post by ethbro »

ihsw wrote: post #34
ethbro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gee, it sure would be helpful if the Chinese government had a switch they could flip at will to slant the internet to a pro-Chinese position. Why, that would be almost the definition of "secure and controllable" when faced with periods of civil unrest...

Disinformation is a natural progression after total information awareness.

Well, I see it as the typical (and smart) Chinese straddling of control and efficiency.

The government would like the capability to render the internet more favorable to their interests.

The government also recognizes that a modern economy cannot run at competitive efficiencies with incomplete/mis- information.

Ergo, it'd be perfect if you had a propaganda switch you could throw to influence the chokepoints (search engines) only when you needed to. Economy keeps humming along with mostly full internet during status quo: when dissent breaks out, you restrict information and take the hit to economy efficiency in favor of order and security.

Pretty evil genius, actually...

Re: Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Within China

#53

Post by ttflee »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #38
xiaoma wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baidu's Baike is a truly gigantic wiki. Often whole articles from the Chinese version of Wikipedia show up there, but Baike is actually much larger. I agree that blocking the international internet is harmful to innovation and the economy, but the question of how harmful is largely based on how large the market is. In China's case, Baidu isn't as extensive as Google, Youku doesn't have the Khan Academy or a lot of ot…

Youku rips a lot of content directly from YouTube; 90% of the past popular stuff is there, and of course, piracy. As a laowai, I'm beginning to feel more isolated. If it wasn't for the pollution, it would be the biggest problem in living here.

yeah, to believe or not, 'user generated content'

Re: Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Within China

#54

Post by mfjordvald »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #28
yzh wrote: post #24

I cannot believe after all these years China is still banning the whole site instead of using some keyword or content-based method. Not that those methods are right, but at least it would save a lot of programmers and researchers time. How can people make progress on anything related to scientific research without the help of Wikipedia? seven years ago I was a college student in China and I sure remembered how I have…

The answer is HTTPS. Unless China can compromise the whole country's OSes by forcing them to install a security certificate that lets them impersonate Wikipedia, Google, etc, they can't block individual pages on sites that only serve over https * They can only block whole sites. Wikipedia forces https sitewide for just this reason. Selective censorship isn't permitted. Fun fact #1: That's believed to be why the Chine…

They basically already have this. Qihoo 360 web browser and anti virus will open you up wide to spying by the Chinese government and a lot of Chinese people prefer using these because they're better tailored for Chinese culture. If HTTPS truly become adopted by mainstream Chinese people then they'd be highly "encouraging" that browser.

Re: Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Within China

#57

Post by xorcist »

Spivak wrote: post #35
Ezhik wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you could make everyone install a compromised SSL certificate... https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/perpass/current/msg019...

So you force your citizens to install a compromised SSL cert and can now impersonate any website. Now what? If you want to monitor someone don't you have to proxy all their traffic? Is that even feasible on a country wide scale? Because you can't do it intermittently since a user can just check which cert the key is signed with to tell you whether you're currently being monitored.

I would think it's not only feasible, but also more simple than what the Great Firewall already does.

You could probably do it on on 0.1% of the NSA's yearly budget. (Which, after some Googling, turns out to be 10M USD. That's even more than I expected.)

Re: Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Within China

#59

Post by dogma1138 »

bjshepard wrote: post #41
JohnTHaller wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is HTTPS. Unless China can compromise the whole country's OSes by forcing them to install a security certificate that lets them impersonate Wikipedia, Google, etc, they can't block individual pages on sites that only serve over https * They can only block whole sites. Wikipedia forces https sitewide for just this reason. Selective censorship isn't permitted. Fun fact #1: That's believed to be why the Chine…

Wikipedia is available in China without VPN. I just got onto it.

If you live in expat areas you quite likely get your internet served through HK or Macao which isn't filtered.

The roaming packages of foreign mobile users also don't get filtered.

If you are a Chinese citizen you most likely will be filtered, I've been to China multiple times companies will usually have a dedicated work station with HK internet the rest will be filtered hotels usually also get internet through HK not sure if this is only for foreign guests or not, on normal internet connecions Wikipedia and the likes were definitely blocked at least as recently as February 2015(last time I visited main land China£

Re: Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Within China

#60

Post by skj »

magicalist wrote: post #27
skj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any source about this "voluntary PRISM-like setup for the NSA"? And that this thing was the hack vector?

I assume it's https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chine... but it wasn't "PRISM-like", it was an internal database of accounts under court ordered surveillance (in this case, orders specifically "issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"), and it wasn't the attack vector, it was apparently the attack target.

Sounds like the typical twisting of facts from a conspiracy theorist.

That said, I welcome evidence of the original claim.

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