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China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#141

Post by AndrewKemendo »

pangfandang wrote: post #120
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... That's the thing. These are mostly overseas Chinese working for US/European companies who have no desire to return to China. Talk to any of them, and they're always concerned about the status of their visa and are ecstatic when they become a citizen of a democracy. > China isn't 'Closing up' they are pushing people to use the services Tencent and Baidu are used…

Tencent and Baidu are used by tiny tiny tiny portions of westerners

That doesn't matter - they are focused on China and Asia. To think that they can't innovate inside the borders and with a significant number of people inside other companies and abroad is just putting blinders on.

since you think China is doing such a good job of education

Whoa, never said that. Mainland domestic policies for 1.7B (non official number) people are mediocre at best.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#143

Post by faebi »

terminalcommand wrote: post #74
revelation wrote: post #54

Does OpenVPN still work, in normal or PSK mode? I wonder if at some point their filtering gets smart enough that they will just turn it over to a whitelist, or worse, straying too far from the "norm user" gets you a visit from police.

Even if OpenVPN doesn't work, ssh tunneling could get you onto the free internet. I imagine that using Tor would certainly get you into trouble in China. There was a statement in a documentary from an ex Syrian Intelligence Officer that they found out and tortured people who used Tor or other encryption methods. Anonymity in the Internet at the age of surveillance states is really tricky. One slip-up and your identiy…

I was in China recently and my ssh tunnel got blocked to near zero bandwith after some time. The way to go is a good VPN subscription or shadowsocks on your own server.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#144

Post by ars »

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…

> additionally all Chinese DNS servers respond with random A records when the domain name is banned

Which DOS'd one of my server when the random IP they picked was mine. Grr.

Had to add a special rule to deal with it.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#145

Post by barrkel »

Certhas wrote: post #117
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…

Alternative: Innovation happens within the context of Chinas censorship and political regime. Blocking of entrenched western competitors allows home grown solutions to spring up, and local technological know how to develop faster. Capitalism and innovation turn out to work within the context of an illiberal society just fine. Especially as China avoids the mistake of closing itself off to the rest of the world, but s…

Illiberal regimes are assumed to be kleptocratic. Historically, it's rare to get a succession of just rulers when the temptation to take is there, and there isn't a strong balance of powers.

There have been just rulers for a while, but the risk of regression to the mean is ever present. We'll see how things go.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#146

Post by iliketosleep »

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…

This situation is more nuanced that you might think. They are not preventing everybody from gaining access to outside ideas. In fact, they are actually encouraging their top students to spend time at elite universities abroad; they are aggressively pushing for more "partnerships" with top Western universities. Additionally, they have special Internet lines for approved entities, giving unrestricted access. In theory, selectively giving access to information this way is the best of both worlds; protecting the masses from "dangerous" foreign ideas that might challenge the Party's authority, whilst still gaining full advantage of the west's technical progress. In fact, what they've taken from the West has enabled their surveillance state. Western governments have being underestimating China for years, at their own peril. Sadly, China has not underestimated the West's thirst for money, and has used this to their own advantage.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#147

Post by cousamfee »

It's not just censorship, China is now openly engaged in economic warfare of foreign companies within China, closing up the Chinese economy, and preventing foreign companies from competing fairly.

"The Chinese government is blocking South Korean companies from leaving China while prohibiting assets from being taken out of China without any standards. In addition, Lotte and other large South Korean corporations are also having difficulty in their withdrawal process as the Chinese government demands huge compensation from South Korean companies restructuring their human resources management structures...

South Korean manufacturers have been not allowed to bring production facilities back to South Korea. The Chinese government has banned South Korean manufacturers from transporting simple production machines to South Korea from China while designating them as "equipment that adversely affects the Chinese economy."

http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/english/news/national/19352-e...

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#148

Post by mattmurdog »

bad_user wrote: post #116
micaksica wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 might build their own products and I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives, but I won't install Chinese alternatives to WhatsApp on my phone, which means the Chinese won't be able to talk with me, an European, all the while I'm communicating without issues with acquaintances from all over Europe and the U.S. This means that the Chinese are living in a bubble. This isn't news of course. But the other issue…

They already have an alternative it's called WeChat. Maybe other people should install that instead?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#149

Post by tonyedgecombe »

bryananderson wrote: post #130

This event is an amazing lesson in what China's rulers see as their interests and how they pursue those interests. Over the last several decades, these rulers have done a lot to open China to the world and lift the totalitarian restrictions of Maoism. This process has been the greatest poverty reduction program of all time, and thus it would be easy to mistake it for altruism, or at least a belief in governing in the…

And China's rulers will still be in power.

I wonder. When the inevitable downturn comes the population won't have the option of voting out the current government. They may well turn to other means.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#150

Post by islanderfun »

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…

Seems like the "lessons" you learned was to blame others for what the Chinese government did.

- Google being blocked in China is out of their control regardless of their "tentacles". It's well know, try another CDN.

- As already mentioned, don't use a CDN for the purpose CDNs exist. Thats really baffling to me.

Sorry, this post wasn't so productive but I'm really confused by OP.

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