Is China's "Great Firewall" a Fraud? 185
An anonymous reader notes an article up on ScienceBlogs that calls into question the efficacy of the touted "Great Firewall of China" — a program by the government of the People's Republic of China to block users from reaching content it finds objectionable. Researchers at UC Davis and the University of New Mexico have performed experiments on the Great Firewall, sending test content to destinations inside China and observing what gets through. They conclude that the Great Firewall is more of a "panopticon" that encourages self-censorship through the perception that users may be being watched, rather than a true firewall.
Re:It's also entirely possible... (Score:4, Informative)
I live in China ... (Score:5, Informative)
I live in China. I have always been amused reading about the "Great Firewall of China" in the Western media. It really isn't that big of a deal. Very little is blocked, other than porn. Websites advocating Tibetan/Mongolian*/Xinjiang separatism, or Taiwanese independence in Chinese are blocked, but similar sites in English rarely are. The BBC is blocked, not sure why. That is about it.
Proxy lists are widely available. You can ask for one in almost any Internet cafe. So the Firewall is easy to bypass. 99.9% of people using the proxies are looking at porn.
The "Great Firewall" is actually fairly popular in China, because it means people can let their kids browse without worrying about them seeing erect penises.
* Yes, I know that Mongolia is already an independent country. But most Mongolians don't live there. 80% of them live in China.
Re:It's also entirely possible... (Score:5, Informative)
It's there (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's there (Score:3, Informative)
last time I could not reach bbc, flickr or wikipedia as a few examples.
Wikipedia is no longer blocked, but some specific pages (Tibet, Fulan Gong) are. I just tried accessing Flickr, and had no problem. The BBC is still blocked.
Having Just Been in Beijing... (Score:4, Informative)
-Bill
Re:Not surprising. (Score:3, Informative)
The chinse firewall works. (Score:3, Informative)
It is actively censuring the most common adult *cough*Porn*cough* sites, many news sites, a lot of blogs are inaccessible etc. For about 1/5 of the links from
Sometimes when I get too annoyed about this unreasonable amount of blockage and then cross-check with TOR running I get about 99% functional pages.
It works in another way as well, the basic communication from China to abroad is VERY slow. Basically downloading anything, that be software, articles playing WOW in EU server and so on is excruciating, if at all possible. Downloading from Chinese sites I can max out my band width.
Bigger hotels in international cities such as Shanghai and Beijing seems to by-pass the firewall, so for many visitors they will never notice this. On a related note, the big hotels also have permission to show international TV such as CNN, BBC, HBO, where local people can get StarMovie, TCM and the Hallmark.
If the authorities are actively monitoring what we try to get hold of, I don't know, but the functional effects of 200.000 people actively banning the internet can not be denied.
For anyone who doubt the existence of the firewall, I suggest trying to live in China.
STDK
Re:It's there (Score:2, Informative)
Actually it seemed to be different in different places. BBC and Flickr was blocked everywhere I tried but Wikipedia was blocked only at the office but not in my apartment.
Re:Not surprising. (Score:4, Informative)
That's kind of odd really given that the concept was invented and advocated by that great champion of individual liberty Jeremy Bentham, and given that the concept has been influential in western prison design. I guess it just goes to show that not enough people read Foucault ;).
For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Panopticon [wikipedia.org] was a prison design in which prisoners could at any time be under surveillance, without any way of telling whether they in fact were.
I also live in China (Score:4, Informative)
I am not going to bother listing the NON-PORN sites that I can not access. Rest assured that I hit one of these sites almost daily. Most Chinese are not aware of the firewall, this is true, they just think that this is the way the Internet works.
Wikipedia? (Score:3, Informative)
Though Wikipedia was blocked for most of my year in china from August 2005 to August 2006. So annoying...
Re:Wikipedia? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I live in China ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's also entirely possible... (Score:3, Informative)
Long story short, things seem to be more lax now, and it's my understanding that hotels and apartment complexes with high foreigner densities (mine is not one of them, we're the only foreigners in our complex), have even fewer restrictions. Skype is fine (although PSTN connections can suck) and China Telecom blocks any thing like Gizmo Project that use whatever port SIP phone uses (evidently Skype has a VOIP license, but none of the others do, although the government is set to approve more I think). Just my two jiao
Re:Not surprising. (Score:3, Informative)
pan-op-ti-con (Score:4, Informative)
panopticon (pan opti con)
noun historical
a circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners could at all times be observed.
ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: from pan- [all] + Greek optikon, neuter of optikos 'optic.'
Hope this helps some one :-)