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China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#101

Post by eyeareque »

chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

I used to think this way too until I went to china. The current batch of US apps are also copies of earlier apps. Remember chatting on bbses? IRC, ICQ, etc?

China doesn’t need western internet companies, they have a quarter of the world’s population. Can you blame them for wanting to promote home grown apps to build wealth within their country? Also, they like control, why would you let an foreigner end to end encryption app into your country? I don’t agree with their control but it’s not my country.

I’m surprised iMessage worked for me while I was there. I wonder what consessions Apple had to give for that?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#102

Post by zaro »

corndoge wrote: post #66
rubatuga wrote: post #62

It makes sense, as a country you wouldn’t want US companies taking over your social media. It’s only alarming from a US centric view.

I hope this is a joke

Well it's very valid reason. Companies like Google and Facebook do influence their users, and do define how they interact.

So banning the big tech companies is kind of protection against this, as US influence can be really toxic for local businesses. Even the EU starts to fight back against them.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#103

Post by eyeareque »

dmoy wrote: post #27
rubenbe wrote: post #13

This is getting really strict. I went to China around 2012: * Facebook was already blocked * Google and wikipedia magically stopped working when you searched for "tiananmen" * Gmail worked fine I returned in early 2017, oh god what a change: * Don't even think about Facebook * Ironically Facebook messenger worked until my session expired * No gmail, google at all (don't remember about Wikipedia) * Whatsapp worked fin…

Google didn't work for me at all in 2011. The VPN I used worked, but then stopped after 2015 ish. I now use free roaming on e.g. t mobile / Google fi / etc which gets around all blocks.

L2TP tunneling works when you use an ip address for the vpn server.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#104

Post by throwanem »

EGreg wrote: post #42
gruez wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What if people used a decentralized service, that worked over https? that sounds great until you realize that most people don't run tls servers on their computers/phones. so running one would immediately raise suspicion. not to mention that if they can block tor/vpn, they can block whatever tls chat service you have as well.

Why is running a webserver going to arouse suspicion? Furthermore, with https authentication, non members wouldn't even know that a chat is going on.

Traffic analysis will tell you that something far from the norm is going on. You don't need to be able to read packets to recognize that the pattern is all wrong for an HTTPS website session. And it's not ordinary for a client machine or network to be listening for TLS sessions on port 443 in the first place.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#105

Post by zabana »

adventured wrote: post #79
azurezyq wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy and prosperity are orthogonal concepts. I agree both of them are good but prosperity without democracy exist (China and in some sense Singapore) and democracy without prosperity also exists (everywhere).

> prosperity without democracy exist There has never been a large nation example of that in world history. China has yet to get there in any broad sense. Further, there are exceptionally few examples of it, regardless of nation size. A solid 80% to 90% of the prosperous, well developed nations use representative government systems, and not a single large nation that is prosperous at the median doesn't. Most of the ex…

Are you saying that before democracy appeared (300 or so years ago) humankind didn't prosper economically, financially and culturally ?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#106

Post by rubenbe »

hellofunk wrote: post #32
rubenbe wrote: post #13

This is getting really strict. I went to China around 2012: * Facebook was already blocked * Google and wikipedia magically stopped working when you searched for "tiananmen" * Gmail worked fine I returned in early 2017, oh god what a change: * Don't even think about Facebook * Ironically Facebook messenger worked until my session expired * No gmail, google at all (don't remember about Wikipedia) * Whatsapp worked fin…

I'm curious, what is the difference between "Facebook was already blocked" and "Don't even think about Facebook", other than 5 years?

There is no real difference, I kinda wanted to stress that no site ever gets unblocked (AFAIK).

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#107

Post by vim_wannabe »

eyeareque wrote: post #101
chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

I used to think this way too until I went to china. The current batch of US apps are also copies of earlier apps. Remember chatting on bbses? IRC, ICQ, etc? China doesn’t need western internet companies, they have a quarter of the world’s population. Can you blame them for wanting to promote home grown apps to build wealth within their country? Also, they like control, why would you let an foreigner end to end encryp…

The elite still probably likes to use iDevices themselves. Once they get some other luxury brands going its time for the concessions.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#108

Post by chaostheory »

micaksica wrote: post #76
chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

> The people who will get ahead in China in the future are the ones who are somehow able to live outside of China to experience new ideas. So in other words, the ruling class continues to rule, as they will be the only ones with the sanctioned political freedoms to study abroad, etc. > China's fate as being relegated to being the world's giant copy machine is sealed unless things revert China being the world's giant…

> China being the world's giant copy machine has worked very well for those in power in China. Why not sustain that as long as possible?

Someone may correct me...

1. having a more open society results in more innovation, which results in more economic development which allows the ruling class to become even wealthier and more powerful globally

2. currently, only 18-20% of China is middle class. About 78% of China is still poor. If things slow down due to a lack of innovation, historically things get ugly.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#109

Post by shpx »

mtgx wrote: post #39
hellofunk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what is the difference between "Facebook was already blocked" and "Don't even think about Facebook", other than 5 years?

VPNs probably. They've started to crack down on those lately, too. Also, a random tweet I saw today apparently with a recording of China's CCTV surveillance system: https://twitter.com/0XDEDBEEF/status/912026226658652160 No wonder China wants to be #1 in "artificial intelligence". Surveillance and censorship are likely the primary motivators for that.

"One of the prominent Chinese VCs, Neil Shen from Sequoia China, was on the Economist's podcast recently talking about AI in China. When the host asked Shen about the Chinese state's use of AI in monitoring the citizens of China, Shen clammed up. It is an amazing bit of audio (starts around minute 8.)

https://www.acast.com/theeconomistasks/theeconomistasks-howd... "

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15017622

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#110

Post by bitcuration »

chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

China does have one hope, the need of censor will drive its technology innovation and even takes the bulk of its economy GDP. As you hinted China's leading censorship will inspire the world how much human can revert the process of internet, un-internet is what China will make its name for.
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