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China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#131

Post by grzm »

justboxing wrote: post #127

> By blocking the heavily encrypted WhatsApp service while making less secure applications like WeChat available to the public, the Chinese government has herded its internet users toward methods of communication that it can reliably monitor. How could they possibly monitor millions of messages sent per hour? Even if they have some ML / Bot, what are the odds that they'll miss some protest, or plot??

> Even if they have some ML / Bot, what are the odds that they'll miss some protest, or plot??

Do they need 100% accuracy for it to be effective? Nothing of this sort is, and that's accepted as part of using it. Of course people work to minimize false positives and false negatives, but it's understood that they can't be reduced to 0.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#132

Post by Asdfbla »

The article mentions that, as in years before, the Chinese tighten censorship when important party meetings or other events of political significance come up. But does anyone know if the longer term trend is toward more isolation of the Chinese internet (or intranet, almost) or did the overall level of censorship stay constant over the last few years?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#133

Post by AndrewKemendo »

chaostheory wrote: post #128
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree that they will further cement their power, but it won't be at the cost of innovation and growth IMO. China's access to leading technologies and technologists is absolutely unparalleled. The amount of Chinese students that are publishing some of the leading CS and ML research from the best universities and corporations worldwide is staggering when compared to all other nations. China isn't 'Closing up…

> The amount of Chinese students that are publishing some of the leading CS and ML research from the best universities and corporations worldwide Yes most of them are in the West. Most of them also end up staying in the West too. > Unless the US, Canada, France, Israel etc... closes the visa program for Chinese workers Chinese companies... Consider that Tencent, Baidu etc... all have major offices in SV, Seattle, LA…

Most of them also end up staying in the West too.

Not true anymore - maybe a decade ago but it's not the case today.

Even for the ones that do stay, in my experience with the Machine Learning world they are going to work at Chinese owned or financed companies like the ones I mentioned.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2017/04/17/chinas-bes...

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#134

Post by technologyvault »

Over the past several months, I have had increasing difficulty communicating with suppliers and business partners in China, who have become very frustrated that they can only communicate via Skype. All of their VPNs seem to have been shut down. They can't access Facebook, YouTube, and now WhatsApp.

Does anyone know of a simple workaround that would allow someone inside of mainland China to regain access to what's been blocked recently?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#135

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

victornomad wrote: post #29

Last year I went to China, wanted to show a web project I had in internet and it didnt work at all. My hosting was working perfectly and not blocked at all since I could SSH there. Then I realized that I had some jquery loading from a Google CDN and of course the cdn was banned there. And of course CSS fonts from google and youtube videos didnt work either... I learned 2 lessons. 1) dont rely on CDNs if you want to h…

> dont rely on CDNs if you want to have global access

So don't rely on CDNs for their primary purpose?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#136

Post by phonon »

paralelogram wrote: post #21
EGreg wrote: post #4

How does the blocking actually happen? What if people used a decentralized service, that worked over https?

All traffic to/from some IP addresses is blocked, additionally all Chinese DNS servers respond with random A records when the domain name is banned, for example: $ host facebook.com 202.97.0.6 facebook.com A 8.7.198.45 $ host facebook.com 202.97.0.6 facebook.com A 243.185.187.39 $ host facebook.com 202.97.0.6 facebook.com A 243.185.187.39 $ host facebook.com 202.97.0.6 facebook.com A 46.82.174.68 $ host facebook.com…

So you can get around the block if you use 8.8.8.8 for DNS?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#137

Post by princetontiger »

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 hasn't invented anything. Why would this change today? I'm not sure why you're surprised.

For a billion people, I think the WSJ says there is maybe 1 or 2 patents assigned to the country.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#138

Post by lumberjack »

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…

Sorry, I have to disagree. How do you suppose more innovation would have happened if instead of China, blocking US tech, they let them have the whole market from the get go and instead of WeChat there would be Whatsapp and instead of Baidu, there would be Google? How is that more innovation?

You can just look at Europe.

I'm not advocating any policies or supporting anyone. I am just disputing the claim that free markets maximise innovation in this particular instance.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#139

Post by mrtron »

Animats wrote: post #123

Naomi Wu's comment on China's surveillance: "That's basically the social contract. Someone grabs your purse, you go to the police station, they show you the video, usually catch them. ... Honestly, I hear more anger on Weibo/Wechat when there's not camera footage of a crime than any unhappiness over cameras on the street etc."[1] [1] https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg?lang=en

I have several friends who have said that they feel more safe walking around alone at night due to the cameras, when compared to major north american cities.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#140

Post by JigglyGigalo »

badosu wrote: post #8
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

This feels to me like the war on the Internet has entered a new phase.

Next step should be enabling censored services to citizens with 4-star+ social scores.

No I expect it to be more like only the rich will be able to afford the data rate fees that will apply to any Inter-Zone communications.
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