HN Gopher Feed (2017-07-23) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
VPN crackdown 'unthinkable' trial by firewall for China's research
world
63 points by Sami_Lehtinen
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2103793...___________________________________________________________________
AlexCoventry - 2 hours ago
It's very likely this will all lighten up after the National
Congress in the Fall.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_National_Co
ngress_of_the_...
KaoruAoiShiho - 2 hours ago
What's the point of this article... the VPN block was fake news
anyway.
mtgx - 2 hours ago
Or maybe the OneParty was trying to see just how far they push
their censorship, after it already passed a draconian
"cybersecurity" law recently.
camdenlock - 33 minutes ago
> "Universities ? which fall under the control of Communist Party
committees ? have repeatedly been told to maintain purity in their
socialist ideology, including steering clear of teaching topics
such as press freedom and civil rights."This isn't new or anything,
but every time I read about it, I find myself really angry. The
behavior of the Chinese communist party is shockingly, disgustingly
immoral.Blocking information because it might undermine the grip
your ideological brainwashing has on a population. It really is a
sort of fundamental evil, a primary stain on the history of the
human species.I have some anecdotal stories from friends in China.
It's actually quite a bit worse for the average academic than we
think. The pressure to include communist party propaganda in one's
research is incredibly strong ? and in some cases mandatory (e.g.
if you want funding).
blacktulip - 3 hours ago
I think a more efficient way for China to 'block the internet' is
to stop teaching English altogether in schools. And I won't be
surprised if that actually happens.
gbog - 2 hours ago
Some people are happy to shoot themselves in the feet (looking at
your brexit) but I don't think Chinese are like that. Stopping
right now all English courses in China would be harmful and
unproductive. As would be blocking VPNs for real.
adventured - 28 minutes ago
> Some people are happy to shoot themselves in the feet
(looking at your brexit) but I don't think Chinese are like
that.History disagrees with that statement. Communism was China
shooting itself in the foot in the first place. The Great
Firewall is China shooting itself in the foot. The lack of
numerous freedoms the developed world takes for granted, is
China shooting itself in the foot. China has a very long
history of regularly shooting itself in the foot. They'd be a
far more advanced nation economically, scientifically and
culturally, were they to end the Communist Party oppression.
jamescostian - 3 hours ago
I know Google Translate and other translation services make loads
of mistakes, but they often give you a pretty good idea of what's
being said.
zczc - 1 hours ago
There is a lot of Chinese language content to censor coming from
Taiwan, Hong Kong and diaspora
OnlineCourage - 2 hours ago
I would be absolutely shocked if this happens. Less than 1% of
China's population speaks English beyond learning for business
purposes. Making learning English illegal would be impossible to
enforce, you would have to build additional infrastructure on the
internet just to specifically block english courses. What you are
suggesting is actually more complex.
heroprotagonist - 2 hours ago
To be fair, there is a world of difference between 'stop
teaching English in schools' and 'making learning English
illegal'.
cpncrunch - 3 hours ago
In some ways it might be good if they do manage to block VPNs. At
least then people won't have any option other than to put real
pressure on the government to give up their ridiculous censorship.
zzzcpan - 3 hours ago
It's the other way around, censorship makes it harder to pressure
governments.
cpncrunch - 2 hours ago
That's not what I'm saying...The censorship is already there,
and the government is hard to pressure. What I'm saying is that
blocking VPNs will make more people put pressure on the
government. Right now there is very little pressure, so they
can get away with it. Can they get away with it if a large
percentage of highly educated and well connected people are
very strongly opposed to it and can't do their jobs properly?
zzzcpan - 2 hours ago
There will be even less pressure once those highly educated
get censored too.
OnlineCourage - 2 hours ago
> Can they get away with it if a large percentage of highly
educated and well connected people are very strongly opposed
to it and can't do their jobs properly?Well, Mao certainly
could during the cultural revolution.
mikeash - 2 hours ago
Not repeating the cultural revolution is one of the top
priorities of the Chinese government now.
cpncrunch - 2 hours ago
>Well, Mao certainly could during the cultural
revolution.Political conditions were very different during
the cultural revolution than they are now.
orblivion - 1 hours ago
I've tended to think that determined people can get full Internet
access in China because people can get around the firewall, and the
Chinese government wouldn't want the economic hit associated with
blocking the Internet altogether.Lately, though, it sounds like the
government is making gains on the technical workarounds. So, maybe
the most effective sort of activism right now would be to produce
something that the Chinese government wants to exist, which can't
exist without VPN traffic.
xwvvvvwx - 2 hours ago
He now bypasses the firewall with his university?s VPN system.
Since researchers could still access legal VPNs through work, he
did not think the restrictions were harmful to China?s academia ?
?at least for now?.Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like
this won't affect academics.What seems more interesting is that
China is apparently creating a two tier system for access to
information.
greglindahl - 2 hours ago
People have been commenting for years that westerner-oriented
hotels appear to have less filtering than other places in China.
bonzini - 1 hours ago
Not just hotels, it's common for businesses to be able to
access Google (though not necessarily Facebook, Twitter,
etc.).Interestingly, in one such westerner-oriented hotel it
was pretty much impossible to use other (TCP-based) VPNs,
presumably because they were already doing some kind of
tunneling to Hong Kong and three layers of congestion control
were too much...
nayuki - 2 hours ago
Why is China still doing this? What do they have to fear about the
outside world and the open Internet?
camdenlock - 45 minutes ago
The ruling socialist/communist party fears any discussion of its
characteristics and its flaws. It's a way of keeping total
control of a society when you can be sure that people won't just
naturally find themselves aligned with the ideology the
government is trying to push.
laretluval - 1 hours ago
As an example, think of all the nastiness on social networks and
the role they played in the most recent US election. Why would
you want to invite that into your country?
tlrobinson - 2 minutes ago
Was this sarcasm or are you suggesting censorship is an
acceptable solution to fake news, internet trolls, etc?
duncan_bayne - 1 hours ago
They already have it! The only difference is that the only
party legally allowed to be awful and partisan is the Communist
Party of China.
pmontra - 3 hours ago
While I was reading the article I thought that this kind of issues
don't apply only to China. If people focus on workarounds instead
of addressing problems they get burned when the workarounds don't
work anymore.
seanmcdirmid - 55 minutes ago
Yes. It's a kind of technical debt. If you are offered a job in
china, you can't just assume that you'll be able to work around
all the gfw problems; even your work might be forced to give up
their unfiltered connection eventually.Any other place that has
similar restrictions must be treated the same.
curiousgal - 1 hours ago
r/titlegore
smegel - 3 hours ago
> will be permitted only to connect to a company?s headquarters
abroadAnd HQs gateway to the wide world web?
CamperBob2 - 2 hours ago
From the standpoint of international competition, the Great
Firewall isn't such a bad thing. Wasn't it Sun Tzu himself who
said, "When your enemy is making a mistake, don't interfere?"But
research (ideally) benefits us all, so we'd be making a mistake of
our own to adopt such a provincial attitude. The Chinese
scientific community is not our "enemy." It's a shame the Great
Firewall can't be worked around as easily as sci-hub worked around
Elsevier and other artificial roadblocks to scientific
communication.
gbog - 2 hours ago
It's very annoying to see such a comment assuming that HN
readership is all and only US citizen. Very exclusive of the
other people.
CamperBob2 - 1 hours ago
It's very annoying to see such a comment assuming that HN
readership is all and only US citizen.Sorry, that wasn't my
intention at all. But:Very exclusive of the other people.It's
not the US who's running the Great Firewall, remember.I'd like
to think we wouldn't tolerate such a thing here. I've been
wrong a lot lately, though.
jstanley - 2 hours ago
It's not just the Chinese scientific community that "isn't our
enemy" - it's the entire Chinese population, with the possible
exception of those in government.