Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#41

Post by judk » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 3:27 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #10

lazyjones wrote: post #3

No, because surveillance is censorship too.

As far as I'm aware Google hasn't ever shot anyone in the head, which is a common occurrence in China. (China executes more people than all other nations combined. Real numbers are hard to find, but about 5,000 people in 2009 is accepted for a low end figure by most people. That's 13 per day, or one person every two hours.) Comparing Google's surveillance to Chinese totalitarian state is obscene.

What about when China gov hacks into Google (has already happened) (and NSA is still happening) and uses Google user data for China Govt "common occurrences"?

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#42

Post by oddx » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 3:29 PM UTC

lambda wrote: post #40

oddx wrote: post #36

I'm not native english speaker, so sorry if I wrong. But does Schmidt actually means '10 days'? If I understood correctly Schmidt mean that if we (all people who do internet) starts to encrypt everything (http 2?) then it will be more difficult to do censorship. And he unlikely mean 10 days, probably 10 years.

He meant that Google could encrypt their own traffic in 10 days, and offer mirrors of blocked websites via their cache feature; not that everyone could encrypt all traffic in 10 days.

Can you provide quote for your interpretation? For me "You cannot stop it if it’s a good idea broadly held" sounds more about global technological and ideological shift.

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#43

Post by lambda » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 3:37 PM UTC

oddx wrote: post #42

lambda wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He meant that Google could encrypt their own traffic in 10 days, and offer mirrors of blocked websites via their cache feature; not that everyone could encrypt all traffic in 10 days.

Can you provide quote for your interpretation? For me "You cannot stop it if it’s a good idea broadly held" sounds more about global technological and ideological shift.

Sorry, Eric Schmidt had said that we could end censorship in a decade (10 years). That's the quote at the top of the article: "We can end government censorship in a decade. The solution to government surveillance is to encrypt everything."

The author of this article, "charlie", is contending that actually, Google could end it in 10 days, simply by turning on encryption for their own service and offering cached versions of any sites that are blocked.

So yes, Schmidt was talking about a global technological shift, while this author was talking about a simple pragmatic step that could be taken by one company, Google, and which they already have the infrastructure for as they already do everything needed (encrypt traffic, offer caches) for their other properties.

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#44

Post by yapcguy » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 3:47 PM UTC

kryptiskt wrote: post #9

magicalist wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, a number of those are regularly and/or completely blocked in China, e.g. Google Drive[1] and encrypted.google.com[2] completely (if I'm reading those right) and gmail[3] often enough to be notable. [1] https://zh.greatfire.org/https/drive.google.com [2] https://zh.greatfire.org/encrypted.google.com [3] https://zh.greatfire.org/https/mail.google.com

Also, Android in China is completely degoogleified. No Google accounts, no Play, no GMail...

Surely that's a good thing?!

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#45

Post by MichaelTieso » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 3:49 PM UTC

While I support the work they are doing, the Chinese themselves don't care all that much about the sites that are blocked. Having lived in China, everyone I spoke to did not care about Facebook being blocked. I'm making a huge generalization but to them if Facebook is blocked then it must not be very important. Why use Facebook anyway when I have QQ?

Changing the public view from within China to fight against censorship is harder but I think it would be far more effective.

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#46

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

teawithcarl wrote: post #6

FreakyT wrote: post #4

How is the author overlooking the most obvious course of action the Chinese government could take? China could easily block Google outright -- while the Github reversal the author mentions is certainly surprising, Google represents only a small sliver of Chinese search engine use [1] and probably wouldn't result in much of a mass outcry. [1] http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/09/17/baidu-still-tops-china...

Sincerely, you're wrong. GreatFire.org exists to end China's censorship - they have pondered long, researched, and have not missed your point. China's weakness is they cannot censor where it crimps the economy too much. Read: Collateral Freedom https://openitp.org/pdfs/CollateralFreedom.pdf China blocking all Google products would make such a backlash in China that it's not a feasible move for the China government. J…

[deleted]

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#47

Post by ams6110 » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:19 PM UTC

I supposed that encrypted search is better than not, but won't help when the NSA is tapping from inside their machine rooms.

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#48

Post by _mvuc » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:23 PM UTC

Keep in mind this quote comes from the same man who said, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#49

Post by yapcguy » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:23 PM UTC

charliesmith wrote: post #33

smoyer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't dispute that GreatFire.org is at the cutting edge of research, I just think the solution is naive. And you haven't addressed my real point which is that they're giving up nothing (certainly nothing of their own) if Google gets kicked out of China but you've conceded my point that there's an economic reason Google has behaved the way it has. All I was stating is that part one of the two-part proposal (encrypti…

We're not giving up anything of our own, but we really have nothing to give up. If Google ignores this and life goes on, life will go on for us, too. We will continue to do what we are doing. If I could do what we suggest Google does, then I would. But we are not Google. They have the power to do this, they can do it now - we should not have to wait for ten years. Eric Schmidt is saying today that Russia is taking cu…

Who is funding you?

Why are you tackling censorship in China first and not any other country, like your own?

Re: Google Can Bring an End to Censorship in 10 Days

#50

Post by sseveran » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:26 PM UTC

If Google did encrypt traffic in China what would prevent China from serving Google China with a subpoena for the SSL private key under a gag order?