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China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

bloomberg.com

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Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#61

Post by furyg3 »

68c12c16 wrote: post #47
dis-sys wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, the GFW helped to created the "most dramatic periods of economic development" in Chinese history. Back in 2010, when Google chose to exit China, many argued the exact same that China is isolating itself from the outside. Such feeling is understandable from a western point of view, I mean for anyone from a western background there is simply no Internet if google/twitter/fb etc. are all unavailable. How…

> Like it or not, the GFW helped to created the "most dramatic > periods of economic development" in Chinese history. Like it or not, several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, slavery helped to build many great pyramids -- the "most dramatic periods of economic development" in ancient Egyptian history... > You don't need Google/fb/twitter etc to have > booming Internet/high tech economy. But one does need Goog…

Slaves did not build the pyramids: http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-ht...

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#62

Post by CamperBob2 »

bitcharmer wrote: post #36

The way things are going I'm expecting to see the same initiative in the UK or Germany sooner than you think. That will stop them evil terrorists.

A strange thing to downvote, considering that the UK government has basically promised exactly this sort of measure.

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#63

Post by l5870uoo9y »

imron wrote: post #53
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was never the official or even the implicit position. There has always been a war with VPNs, want VPNs work and don't can change monthly, and it's been like that for the last 10 years. Xi's nationalism is nothing new here, they just think that the tech is good enough to cut off VPNS for good now. China has been trying to close their internet since after the Olympics. It isn't surprising that they would eventuall…

Since well before the Olympics actually. I was in China when 9/11 happened and for a brief period of time they opened access to a large number of previously blocked foreign news sites so that people could read what was happening.

The have periodically been discussions about "opening up" in China. Fore-instance the party where split in the decision to crack down on the Falun Gong movement who also included many party members. Likewise were there some opposition to the violent crack down on Tiananmen square. Hardliners seems to win.

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#64

Post by beisner »

AzMoo_ wrote: post #40
dis-sys wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, the GFW helped to created the "most dramatic periods of economic development" in Chinese history. Back in 2010, when Google chose to exit China, many argued the exact same that China is isolating itself from the outside. Such feeling is understandable from a western point of view, I mean for anyone from a western background there is simply no Internet if google/twitter/fb etc. are all unavailable. How…

Where are you in China? I just spent a week in a relatively small city in Shandong and there were so many places that were cash only. Couldn't even use card, let alone mobile.

I just spent the last 6 weeks in Beijing and Shanghai (currently in Shanghai) and I have run into several places that don't even accept cash anymore, and only accept WeChat Pay or Alipay.

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#65

Post by aninhumer »

68c12c16 wrote: post #57
imron wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't downvote people who reply to you, so more likely is that rather than being 'double downvoted' by someone, multiple people find your argument unpersuasive.

thanks for giving me that information... Well, I noticed there had been a pattern for my multiple posts on this topic that, for several times, each time when a post was downvoted, it was double downvoted... So either it was a very synchronized move by several independent minds, or more likely, it was from a same mind who operates several accounts... Edit 1: I personally would not mind at all that any of my posts has…

I downvoted your initial post because, even if I don't think information restriction is right, I don't think it's on the same moral level as slavery.

And additionally, modern archeologists don't believe the workers constructing the pyramids were slaves as such. They were citizens working for the state. In some theories, the arrangement is arguably a form of slavery, but I think we'd usually call the arrangement serfdom, and consider it differently in a historical context.

And I downvoted your subsequent posts because I always downvote people complaining about downvotes. It's offtopic, and usually pointless.

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#66

Post by oblio »

powstudio wrote: post #11

China is one black swan event away from an economic collapse and possible Arab spring. The authoritarian Chinese government is starting to have some sense of fear now. Between the 300%+ gdp/debt ratio, second real estate bubble bursting in shanghai/tier1 cities, huge spike in shadow lending, stalled stock market, complete frozen capital control, Trump's 100 day ultimatum to China regarding trade deficit, demographics…

> Trump's 100 day ultimatum to China regarding trade deficit

What is this ultimatum and why would China actually care or do anything about it?

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#67

Post by andy_ppp »

So what we need is a VPN that looks like https traffic or is https forbidden in China too? Is anyone working on this?

After a quick read it's apparent that even the most sophisticated defences are going to be open to the one endpoint having loads of data against it. It would need lots of different "real" IP connections and my guess peer to peer would be difficult too.

Statistics and machine learning will always be good enough to evade attempts I can think of here.

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#68

Post by yorwba »

tluyben2 wrote: post #48
reustle wrote: post #42

I'm headed to china next week for a few weeks. I need access to at least Gmail. Are there any suggestions here on an easy way to get around it for a VPN noob? I'm usually fine using PrivateInternetAccess but I'm sure that is blocked there.

VPNs still work; ExpressVPN gives good results. Although I usually just forward gmail to outlook for the time being and will just use that for the weeks I am there.

FWIW, I have been able to access imap.googlemail.com from all Chinese networks I have tried so far. However, the first few times, Google blocked the attempt and I had to use a VPN to log into my Google account and whitelist the access.

This highlights another issue that makes internet access in China inconvenient: Many websites flag Chinese IP addresses by default, presumably because they couldn't handle the spam otherwise.

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#69

Post by IIAOPSW »

powstudio wrote: post #11

China is one black swan event away from an economic collapse and possible Arab spring. The authoritarian Chinese government is starting to have some sense of fear now. Between the 300%+ gdp/debt ratio, second real estate bubble bursting in shanghai/tier1 cities, huge spike in shadow lending, stalled stock market, complete frozen capital control, Trump's 100 day ultimatum to China regarding trade deficit, demographics…

Look at the graph of Chinese Urban population and Chinese GDP. These graphs are in lock-step. Now look at the graphs of fully developed countries and extrapolate. The rural population is the economic fuel. So long as its there there will not be an economic downturn. There may be slow downs and specific cases of mismanagement, but never a true negative growth rate recession. IMO anyone predicting any change in the Chinese status quo before the mid 2030's is full of it.

Re: China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

#70

Post by 68c12c16 »

furyg3 wrote: post #61
68c12c16 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like it or not, the GFW helped to created the "most dramatic > periods of economic development" in Chinese history. Like it or not, several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, slavery helped to build many great pyramids -- the "most dramatic periods of economic development" in ancient Egyptian history... > You don't need Google/fb/twitter etc to have > booming Internet/high tech economy. But one does need Goog…

Slaves did not build the pyramids: http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-ht...

touché...

I did not know that before...thanks for sharing...

But the whole point is about a fair income distribution in a society...

If you think that as a Pharaoh, without contributing much to a society but could still get all the best things -- including the pyramids -- provided by the people in the country, by telling them that his ruling is god's will -- which does not seem to hold much truth in it...I just feel that this is not justifiable...

This is a similar thing happening in China right now -- with all the propaganda and censorship and limitation on what people could read and talk at their own will, and hence influence the way people think and reason...

If the pyramids were not built by slaves, then there were plenty of other magnificent monuments or grand palaces or great economic achievements that were the labor of masses of hard working coolies who never got what they really deserve...

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