Steam has been banned in China • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#231

Post by freeflight » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

legofr wrote: post #210

rootsudo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly because they don't know how to register foreign passports. If you show them how to do it and present your passport, it is not an issue. https://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/china-stuff/china-travel/for... So many foreigners/laowai spread the same misinformation. You can stay, if you have sufficient Chinese/Mandarin, you can explain the above and it works. If you have a good friend explain, it also works. Mo…

In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done. In China you either need to go through an agency that have something similar to "The Negro Motorist Green Book" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book ), or you need to speak Chinese, convince the reception that they don't need a certificate they believe they're legally required to have, c…

> In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done.

There are nearly 200 countries on this planet, in that context your claim sounds more like quite the generalization, on your part, rather than an actual fact.

edit; Wow, never would have thought that stating a simple fact could be controversial on HN.

What is going on in these comments? People acting like everybody is American/Canadian, and as if the whole world is all the same, but only China is some weird outlier, smh

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#232

Post by stelonix » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

beebeepka wrote: post #221

chunghuaming wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You call it jingoism. I call it rise against dictatorships destroying democracy's way of life.

Is that so? Have you noticed which country is the source of this war against evil communist dictatorship? The US. Now, let's take a step back and consider some facts 1. China has not attacked any country in a long time. 2. The champions of free speech and democracy have destroyed millions just this last 20 years. Seems to me the villains are the ones screaming the loudest against their economic rival. You really thin…

What's obvious for us who have been oppressed by the empire, for those who live there it might be impossible to see. They're the ones under propaganda 24/7, after all. Occam's razor works really well for many users of this site, but as soon as the subject is a rival superpower, everything is thrown out the window and it's the usual McCarthyism.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#233

Post by lnxg33k1 » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

trasz wrote: post #175

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it make it better to make our workers compete with people without rights, healthcare, holidays, sustainable pay? I don't have any problem with China they can ban what they want, I would just desire that this open borders crap would require import only from countries where workers have a compatible standard of living of importing countries

>Does it make it better to make our workers compete with people without rights, healthcare, holidays, sustainable pay? Why are you dragging USA into this again?

Lol alright.. well played

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#234

Post by learc83 » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

beebeepka wrote: post #195

learc83 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get this from? US hotels most definitely do not “register (resident or non-resident) guests with the local government”. A few states require hotel guests to present an ID at checkin.

How can you tell if a hotel registers you with the local government? I am not saying they are (never bothered to cross the Atlantic) but you have no way of knowing what they do. My assumption is they all do, directly or not. I mean, 2013 did happen. Guess not everyone was paying attention

The “local government” are my neighbors the Sheriff and the County Commissioner.

Then there are freedom of information requests, journalist, whistleblowers working for local government, and whistleblowers working for hotels.

If the Sheriff knew who you were and had probable cause he could get a warrant to get your credit card transactions from your bank and from that see you were in a hotel.

But that’s pretty far away from “hotels register you with the local government.”

There was actually a hotel owner who took it on himself to report suspected undocumented immigrants to ICE a few years ago. We know about it because it quickly made its way to the papers, and caused an enormous uproar.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#235

Post by Syonyk » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #160

NamTaf wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other posts have said, the GFW isn’t just a whole heap of blocked IPs. There’s some of that (Google, FB, etc.), but a lot more of it is DPI and other inspection techniques that also have the effect of slowing overseas data to a crawl. In that sense it is quite sophisticated. I remember getting 300KB/sec at the best of times to overseas sites. VPNs didn’t really make a difference for speed (I believe I had poor rou…

How does DPI work on encrypted traffic? Most of the web uses HTTPS now. Are they able to decrypt most of that?

SNI often allows you to discern the domain being accessed, and depending on how well you know that domain, the nature of the traffic flows can unwrap a lot more than most people would really like (timing and sizes of requests/responses - even wrapped with https, the size of a GET vs POST uploading data are pretty obvious).

The GF doesn't care about 100% accuracy either. They won't always perfectly ban stuff. But they will hinder it often enough to make some "banned" service effectively useless inside China.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#236

Post by chunghuaming » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

bnralt wrote: post #228

foverzar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really love how we all have an impression of China as a country without access to global internet, but then there are things like "Most Chinese Steam users have historically been using the global service instead". Really makes you want to visit and see how this actually works for yourself. The more I read about China, the more unbelievably contradictive it gets.

I think visiting and seeing the country for yourself is a good idea. I have a lot of experience with the country (lived there, keep in contact with many friends from there, consume a lot of TV and podcasts from there), and the picture of it usually painted by Hacker News comments is completely different from what I've experienced. I usually avoid the topic here, though, because heterodox opinions often are met with h…

I doubt you're getting the accurate picture still

> lived there

China is fast devolving into dicatorship's way of life. 2+ years away is along time.

> keep in contact with many friends

Those friends are afraid to say anything negative to a foreigner living outside the guo on a platform closely watched by the government

> consume a lot of TV and podcasts from there

Government approved safe and patriotic contents

You have to be a native citizen who is living there 10+ years to understand

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#237

Post by flohofwoe » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #165

flohofwoe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME the Great Firewall doesn't outright block global traffic apart from some selected services, but makes them so unreliable and slow that it's almost impossible to directly connect and use services from the other side (think 'analog modem speed'), companies (maybe just IT companies, not sure) can get an exemption (they need to connect to github after all), but even then it's not very reliable. If Steam had a working…

There are no such exemptions, and I don't know from where did this idea came

I worked multiple times for a few weeks at a game development company in Shanghai in 2017 which definitely had a GFW bypass in place, and it was explained to me that companies can obtain a "license" to legally do this. How much of this is true, I don't know, but I could access the global internet at full speed (minus some occasional hickups) from within the company network, but not elsewhere.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#238

Post by snicker7 » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

chunghuaming wrote: post #224

netcan wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Divest from China and diversify manufacturing sources Who is this aimed at? Major brands (apple, tesla, disney, etc.) are not going to divest from China. China is a big part of their future market, they hope. They're going to invest wherever their market is. Obviously they know that this comes with strings and risks attached. They will get sideswiped with rules, punitive or otherwise. Authoritarian government acti…

> Major brands (apple, tesla, disney, etc.) are not going to divest from China Diversification is already happening - 20,000 foreign companies have left China in the last 4 years. Samsung, LG, GoPro, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk6lkW4A7Ec > China is a big part of their future market The Unemployed and semi-unemployed might reach 300M+ people in China. Chinese consumer market is slowing down big time - Lost…

China is not a rich country per capita (on par with LATAM), but it’s massive size is what attracts businesses.

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#239

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

legofr wrote: post #85

foverzar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really love how we all have an impression of China as a country without access to global internet, but then there are things like "Most Chinese Steam users have historically been using the global service instead". Really makes you want to visit and see how this actually works for yourself. The more I read about China, the more unbelievably contradictive it gets.

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see, like VICE did in Xinjiang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ That being said, if you go then please try to walk into a random h…

[deleted]

Re: Steam has been banned in China

#240

Post by Aperocky » Sat, Dec 25, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

chunghuaming wrote: post #211

meibo wrote: post #2

Note: this refers to the global Steam service/community - Valve still offers Steam China with a very limited/censored selection of mostly-Valve games, adhering to local child protection laws. Most Chinese Steam users have historically been using the global service instead, as this Chinese version of Steam has only been available since February 2021.

As an average Chinese citizen right now: - You cannot travel abroad (no passport issued for average citizens, except for those that study/work abroad) - You cannot go beyond China's intranet legally (VPN is technically illegal in China). VPN services keep getting slowed/banned. - You cannot transfer much money out of country legally (50k limit a year, but you end up going to bank 10+ times just to be able to transfer…

> You have to work 9-9-6. Which is why many citizens are lying flat (not working/pursuing marriage)

None of the government/public workers are working that schedule. Or someone who finds a job in the private companies who aren't insane.

> You are constantly subjugated to random mass covid testing, standing hours outside in the cold.

Speaking from anecdotal experience, my parent has been subjugated to none in 2021 because they were not living in an affected location. Mass covid testing are only carried out where there are outbreaks.

> You are constantly watched, monitored, "invited" to police station for tea, banned for posts that contain any words that are on the growing banned list

Might apply to your personal case? I don't know even one person who are constantly invited to police station for tea, despite having hundreds of friends in China.

> You cannot watch Spiderman, BTS, squid game, porn and many many more things legally

Except that everyone does, and I'm not aware of any prosecutions. Also, Spiderman, BTS, squid game does not even touch laws, they just haven't been screened in cinemas, you can still get them from different sources (which often means piracy in China).

> Oh and there's the yearly flood + shoddy buildings + crashing economy + crashing real estate + aging workforce + factory jobs leaving + dictatorship

We'll see then. The rhetoric have been around for decades.

Some of what you said is true to a degree, but you are painting it in a very biased fashion. China has a lot of flaws, but what you said certainly does not apply to an 'average' Chinese citizen. In fact, all of these combined are almost impossible to happen to a single Chinese citizen, average or not.