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China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#71

Post by tryingagainbro »

dmix wrote: post #43
meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

> It's important for Westerners to realize that the Chinese never had a Locke, or a Rousseau, or a Hobbes. Neither did South America but they were inspired by all of them when they formed their modern republics after the various revolutions, after kicking out the Spanish rulers in the 1800s the military generals had a choice to form democracies and they sought inspiration from Europe, just as America did a century ea…

Serious question: what would happen if China abolished the Communist Party or whatever they call and chose democracy. Chaos? Breakdown of the country into separate states /provinces? Civil war? Military rule?

I would not want to the one in charge the day after. Obviously (moderated) rule by the people is best but not sure how China and say countries in the mold of Saudi Arabia will handle it.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#72

Post by criddell »

meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

Do you think it's changing? Are young adults in China as accepting of government controls as their great-grandparents were?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#73

Post by [deleted] »

meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

[deleted]

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#74

Post by terminalcommand »

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 might get comprimised.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#75

Post by barkingcat »

EGreg wrote: post #45
barkingcat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mechanism of blocking is the Internet firewall with deep packet inspection and protocol sniffing, together with lots of human intervention and tracking.

What if a common enough encrypted protocol is used to carry all communication, such as https TLS protocols?

It's not a technology problem. Be aware that human operators are hired specifically for correlating internet traffic with these kinds of evasions. In the end, unless it's a robot talking to another robot, all internet traffic in China can be resolved to people. And people can be arrested or jailed or killed.

Of course, if you want to "go tech" you can go underground, but being illegal has disadvantages in a state like china

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#76

Post by micaksica »

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 copy machine has worked very well for those in power in China. Why not sustain that as long as possible? What other country has the stability and resources to replicate that? Most countries with extremely cheap labor don't have the supply chain.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#77

Post by DPW_ »

terminalcommand wrote: post #20
meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

IMHO it is not just the hierarchy of values. In Turkey Wikipedia has been blocked for months, without a court order. The government man-in-the-middle's its own citizens and makes wikipedia unreachable. Even if you use a dns, they spoof the dns and redirect you to their own IP. It seems to me that people do not care, when it is the internet. The thoughts of Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes are taught nearly in every university…

Apathy is conformity by default.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#79

Post by adventured »

azurezyq wrote: post #26
mikeash wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's any sign it will stop. The standard prediction used to be that prosperity would bring democracy, but that's looking to be either wishful thinking or bad extrapolation from past events.

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 exceptions are smaller, resource nations like Qatar (even Saudi Arabia hasn't achieved high-level prosperity at the median, their median income is nearly 1/3 that of the US).

Here's the list of nations that are prosperous at the median -

Democratic: US, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Ireland, Japan, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Israel, South Korea

Not Democratic: Singapore, Qatar, Kuwait, Brunei, UAE

Questionable inclusions: Czech, Portugal, Taiwan, Slovenia, Greece, Estonia, Slovakia; vs Saudi Arabia on the other side

I don't see how this could be any more blatant.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#80

Post by chaostheory »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #70
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 think the blocking of foreign corporations also serves as a way to eliminate competition for services that are created inside the country. Obviously they would be able to pressure the in country services to do whatever they want.

You're right. There's definitely protectionism, but imo moves like limiting VPN's go beyond that.
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