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China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

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Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#91

Post by ekianjo »

madez wrote: post #84
ekianjo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The English version of Wikipedia is not free of bias either. Wikipedia is not a source of truth for everything out there.

When I see that articles about the same thing in different languages state different and incompatible numbers, then I always think that this is an obvious and easily solveable problem; separate the data from the language and reference it in the text. That way each language uses the same data. This shouldn't just be done with numbers, but with dates, and other easily convertible information. Yes, this will create conf…

The problem is that most data can never be verified. A source may never be fully accurate. A source could be a bunch of BS in the worst case. Even government data and media-based data frequently contradict each others.

For recent events we have already seen large press groups spreading misinformation. So when do you know when they actually produce facts or produce biased BS? At the end of the day somebody makes a call and we know nothing of their affiliations.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#93

Post by vaylian »

CallMePK wrote: post #66

I still remember that last year during my internship in Mainland China, clone git repository from GitHub and GitLab is a pain and my professor even have to use VPN too. China is basically hell for developers. I am afraid the new generations in China will no longer know about the real Internet. *sigh

Interesting comment. You make it sound like the real internet happens to be US-centric. Yes, many important projects are hosted on Gitlab and Github, but there are also other ways to share code. And these alternatives might not be that well known to us developers in the western world.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#94

Post by Scirra_Tom »

ekianjo wrote: post #89
krapht wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary it will be extremely effective at keeping 95% of the Chinese population ignorant of Wikipedia.

How many were already using Wikipedia in the first place? I assume that before the ban happened it was already pretty much hidden from results in Baidu and the like?

So you agree, banning access and gateways to Wikipedia is effective.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#95

Post by eeZah7Ux »

henryaspegren wrote: post #49

A favorite quote of mine “The best way to build an authoritarian regime is not to indoctrinate someone but to convince them that there is no such things as truth”

It sounds smart but it's plain false. History proves otherwise.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#96

Post by gnomewascool »

nroets wrote: post #79
gnomewascool wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an IPFS mirror of English Wikipedia[0], as well as several others[1], though not the Chinese one[2]. It's currently not a particularly up-to-date mirror, though (from late 2016). [0] https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1m... [1] https://github.com/ipfs/distributed-wikipedia-mirror/blob/ma... [2] https://github.com/ipfs/distributed-wikipedia-mirror/issues/...

And I just tried. i It's blocked

Interesting. Presumably that means that all of the ipfs.io domain is blocked(?).

You could try it on some other IPFS gateways. For instance:

https://ipfs.jes.xxx/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQk...

or

https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72...

There's a list of gateways[0][1] (hopefully github isn't blocked...) in case these two are also blocked. You could also try just using IPFS directly[2], rather than using an HTTP-to-IPFS gateway, though that's rather more involved and potentially might make you stand out more / seem more suspicious.

In brief, in case you hadn't read about it, the idea behind IPFS is that it's a decentralised, torrent-like content storage system, where content and nodes are "addressed" via their hash (e.g. QmXoyp... above), similarly to git. In order to allow people without the IPFS daemon to access the "IPFS web" there are gateways, like the ones mentioned above.

[0] https://ipfs.github.io/public-gateway-checker/

[1] I hope that I'm not just helping Chinese censors by providing a list of domains to block...

[2] https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#97

Post by blaesus »

amai wrote: post #92

Is Stackoverflow still accessible in China? Or how do programmers work there?

Yes.

Many Chinese developers are not fluent English users though. There's a "Chinese StackOverflow" called segmentfault.com, and I often see people asking fellow developers in WeChat groups.

Source: Am Chinese in China

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#98

Post by pimmen »

vaylian wrote: post #93
CallMePK wrote: post #66

I still remember that last year during my internship in Mainland China, clone git repository from GitHub and GitLab is a pain and my professor even have to use VPN too. China is basically hell for developers. I am afraid the new generations in China will no longer know about the real Internet. *sigh

Interesting comment. You make it sound like the real internet happens to be US-centric. Yes, many important projects are hosted on Gitlab and Github, but there are also other ways to share code. And these alternatives might not be that well known to us developers in the western world.

There are probably other ways but they lack the network effect of people already being there, and the fact that many major companies use Github to distribute and administer their open source projects.

In the West we have the choice to use the service that gives us all these benefits. Mmm, choices.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#99

Post by yardstick »

andreareina wrote: post #24
KayEss wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering what happens if you skip the SNI bit and just rely on the Host header in the data. Does that work?

That's called "domain fronting", the major cloud providers disallow it and enforce that the Host header must match the SNI.

This is likely the major reason why China has not yet blocked the major cloud providers. As soon as they allow ESNI/domain fronting, all bets are off as to what China will block.

Re: China is blocking all language editions of Wikipedia

#100

Post by [deleted] »

ekianjo wrote: post #91
madez wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see that articles about the same thing in different languages state different and incompatible numbers, then I always think that this is an obvious and easily solveable problem; separate the data from the language and reference it in the text. That way each language uses the same data. This shouldn't just be done with numbers, but with dates, and other easily convertible information. Yes, this will create conf…

The problem is that most data can never be verified. A source may never be fully accurate. A source could be a bunch of BS in the worst case. Even government data and media-based data frequently contradict each others. For recent events we have already seen large press groups spreading misinformation. So when do you know when they actually produce facts or produce biased BS? At the end of the day somebody makes a cal…

[deleted]
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