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Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

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Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#101

Post by cibyr »

mschuster91 wrote: post #79
eastbound wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, it’s a common tactic to do something unusual, in a recurrent way, so people aren’t alerted when it happens for real. (When the Mossad stole 7 boats from a French port (that they had fully paid), they prepared a few months in advance by having the pilots start the engines every night at 23:00, pretending they needed it against the cold temperatures. When they day came, they started the engines and left, no-on…

It was five boats [1], an good story nonetheless. Think whatever you want about Mossad, it can not be denied that these guys have balls . [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherbourg_Project

One might even say they have chutzpah.

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#102

Post by pas »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #99

The most depressing is that what happens in China, will eventually happen in the west too. I'm sure certain US, UK, and EU bureaucrats are already crafting campaigns about how this ability will 'save the children' and that it should be implemented immediately (politicians and certain other selected people will be exempt of course).

There's nothing inevitable about this. Civil society needs to organize, coordinate, and spend money on PR about this.

Right now liberal people mostly sit back and wait for things to get better, it's not enough. (Also going and walking up and down is not really effective.)

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#103

Post by viridian »

flohofwoe wrote: post #97
spauldo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In English, there is no continent named "America." It's unambiguously used to refer to the United States.

[flagged]

Even the phrase Americentrism undermines your point. This is like reading about a Dacian complaining about the Romans using the term Mare Nostrum. Nobody really pays any mind to the client states of an empire.

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#104

Post by woooooo »

account42 wrote: post #98
woooooo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hanlon's and Occam's razors point to it being a mistake by the GFW operators, imo. If it's on purpose, I think you have the most likely motivation.

You shouldn't use razors haphazardly or you might cut yourself. A mistake that also weirdly increments some TCP fields for the three subsequent RST packets when that's not how the existing GFW devices behave would need some explanation before you could conclude it to be the most likely explanation.

A new hardware/software rollout is one of the more common breakage situations, though. It definitely could have been on purpose but my gamble is still on a fuckup with a new system rollout.

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#105

Post by lazide »

kotri wrote: post #89
darrenf wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Route53 is AWS’s managed DNS product, not a company.

OK, AWS again, I know it not only complies with Beijing but also Russia and many other dictatorships. Banned domain fronting and recently enforced S3 bucket-based subdomains for government to better inspect.

Their point is if you’re served within China (aka hosted off a chinese IP, or accessing anything from a Chinese IP) it doesn’t matter if the other company interacts or complies with China’s rules - the other half of the transaction will be blocked.

So using DNS hosted outside won’t matter, because the destination Chinese IP will get blocked. Or if using outside hosting, it won’t matter, because anyone in China trying to access it will get blocked. Or anyone trying to publish anything to it the CCP doesn’t like. Presumably also with some follow up in-person ‘check-ins’.

The GFW is a pretty massive and actually impressively effective piece of technology, even if we don’t agree with it’s purpose.

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#106

Post by lazide »

patrakov wrote: post #93
wkat4242 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you bring something like a starlink mini for backup i wonder? Id imagine this would be very worrying being stuck there as a foreigner in such a situation.

You can still bring a foreign SIM card. 100% effective (via data roaming) at bypassing the firewall, but expensive.

Oddly, many travel SIMs have started to route traffic through China. I used one in India that clearly routed through Hong Kong, and caused a lot of problems.

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#107

Post by lazide »

ceejayoz wrote: post #68
perihelions wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very expensive to take down 10-100k at once. No one today has that many antisat-capable missiles stockpiled. Relevant, Chinese domestic media reporting on China's own perspective: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3178939/chin... ( "China military must be able to destroy Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites if they threaten national security: scientists" (2022)) > "Researchers call for development of anti-sa…

EMP?

At the point anyone is using nukes in LEO, things have gotten really out of control already.

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#108

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

pas wrote: post #102
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #99

The most depressing is that what happens in China, will eventually happen in the west too. I'm sure certain US, UK, and EU bureaucrats are already crafting campaigns about how this ability will 'save the children' and that it should be implemented immediately (politicians and certain other selected people will be exempt of course).

There's nothing inevitable about this. Civil society needs to organize, coordinate, and spend money on PR about this. Right now liberal people mostly sit back and wait for things to get better, it's not enough. (Also going and walking up and down is not really effective.)

It is inevitable, because the means by which civil society can organize, coordinate, and spend money on PR about this, are all firmly in the control of a very few people. These same people are generally on the side of more centralized control, because they are the ones who will wield it.

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#109

Post by const_cast »

johnisgood wrote: post #80
spauldo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In English, there is no continent named "America." It's unambiguously used to refer to the United States.

I would not say "unambiguously" when it comes to natural languages. And no, "America" may have referred to the US when I was a kid and here in Central Europe we had Back to the Future type of shoes with the American flag, yeah, and I would not say unambiguously so. If someone says "America" to refer to a place, they really ought to specify if they want you to understand them.

But America isn't a place. There's the Americas, as in plural, referring to the continents of North America and South America.

So America is unassigned, hence why we assigned it to the USA colloquially.

Re: Analysis of the GFW's Unconditional Port 443 Block on August 20, 2025

#110

Post by wkat4242 »

djtango wrote: post #40
wkat4242 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah if I'd sneak off to work from another place I'd pick somewhere really nice. Not China.

China spans 9.6M km. It has some of the biggest and most modern megacities (Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen to name a few) and features ancient historical wonders like the Great Wall, Forbidden City and Terracotta Warriors. The nature spans salt lakes and rainbow mountains akin to South America, to the Northern Lights in Mohe down to karst formations of Guilin shared with Vietnam's Halong Bay. The cuisine is d…

I don't want to try when they have an authoritarian government.

Visiting somewhere means submitting yourself to their laws. With China's, that's not an option for me. Having restricted communication with home is a dealbreaker too. I would not let that stand so I'd have to break their laws.

It may be a beautiful country but it's not a beautiful place to be. At least not for someone like me.

Though having said that there are many places I refuse to travel to. The US is currently one as well for obvious reasons.

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