GreatFirewallOfChina
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China orders telecoms to block personal VPNs by February
China declared that virtual private networks were illegal back at the start of the year, and now it's giving telecoms no choice but to fall in line. Bloomberg sources understand that the government has told carriers to block individual access to VPNs by February 1st. Companies can still use VPNs internally, and will reportedly be allowed to use leased lines (registered with officials, of course) to access the full internet, but everyone else appears to be out of luck.
The Great Firewall of China blocks even its own creator
Fang Binxing is being mocked online, because he was forced to set up a VPN in front of a live audience to get past the Great Firewall of China, according to BBC. If it were anyone else, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but Fang Binxing isn't just anyone: he's known as the "Father of China's Great Firewall" and is one of the system's staunchest defenders. More amusingly, this happened during his lecture at the Harbin Institute of Technology in the mainland, wherein he talked about countries that also control what you can visit on the internet.
How to defeat the 'Great Firewall of China' with an iPhone
Visitors to China are often perplexed to find that they can't access Twitter, Facebook or other sites. The reason isn't that they don't have access to cellular or WiFi networks; instead, it's state censorship and surveillance courtesy of the Golden Shield Project, aka "The Great Firewall of China." Roman Loyola at TechHive recently visited Beijing and used the trip as a research opportunity to see how visitors with iPhones can bypass the Great Firewall and tweet their trip to friends back home. It turns out to be somewhat easy; you just need to have an unlocked GSM iPhone and then purchase a SIM card when you arrive in China. Before you leave, though, you also need to sign up for a virtual private network (VPN) service. Loyola highlights two in particular -- Express VPN and AirVPN -- and taps Express VPN as being much easier to set up. During his time in Beijing, Loyola says he was able to hit Apple, Bing and Instagram without resorting to the VPN. However, Facebook and Twitter weren't available. That's where the VPN came in handy, and Loyola mentioned that other than a noticeable four- to five-second lag when sending a tweet or posting on Facebook, everything worked well. It's a good read for travelers, and an absolute must for those who live or work in China and want unfettered access to the internet. As Loyola points out, "the Chinese government is actively (and endlessly) trying to prevent the use of VPNs to access the 'outside world,'" so it's possible that the methods described in his post may change in the future.
Chinese state media squashes claims of less restricted internet in Shanghai zone (updated)
A few days ago, the South China Morning Post claimed that blocks put on websites like Twitter, Facebook and The New York Times were to be lifted in Shanghai's new free-trade zone. And the justification made sense, too: relax restrictions to make visitors happy, and potentially cash in on accelerated foreign investment as a result. Plausible, sure, but according to state-run news outlet the People's Daily, completely untrue. As it turns out, the Chinese powers that be allegedly have no intention of allowing web traffic in the free-trade zone to circumvent the Great Firewall, which means visiting Twitter addicts will still have to turn to Weibo for their social network / microblogging fix. [Image credit: Wikimedia Commons] Update: People.com.cn (not the People's Daily, as reported earlier) has since pulled its post. There's no explanation as to why.
China said to be unblocking sites like Facebook, Twitter and the NYT, but only in a small part of Shanghai
Given how large a mobile market China has become, and its role in gadget manufacturing globally, we sometimes forget the government of this increasingly tech-aware country still dictates what corners of the web its peoples can see. Today, the South China Morning Post reports the state has decided to unblock several foreign internet sites "considered politically sensitive," but only in the free-trade zone of Shanghai's Pudong New Area. According to "government sources," the move to open access to sites including Facebook, Twitter (both of which were cut off in 2009) and The New York Times (blocked last year) is so visitors can "live and work happily in the free-trade zone." The greater goal is to make the area more attractive to foreign companies, beyond the favorable regulatory and tax environment, of course. Furthermore, the Chinese are allegedly beckoning overseas firms to come in and "provide internet services" for the new, 30 square kilometer zone. The Great Firewall may remain firmly up for the rest of the country and its billion-odd population, but one step at a time and all that. [Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]
Apple uses HTTPS in China, thwarts censors
Intentionally or not, Apple has made a switch to the hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) Internet communications protocol for the App Store. By doing so, the company has made it impossible for censors in China to block users from searching for certain types of apps. Before the change, searching for VPN apps -- which are popular with Chinese users for allowing access outside of the "Great Firewall of China" -- would cause connections to the App Store to reset. That kept Chinese users from being able to download such apps if they were available in the Chinese App Store. HTTPS keeps the Great Firewall of China from interrupting the connection to apps. The Next Web and Greatfire.org (a site that monitors Chinese Internet censorship) performed testing and found that certain apps blocked under HTTP are available now that HTTPS is being used to access the App Store. It's unlikely that the authoritarian government of China will allow this loophole to remain open.
Daily Update for December 21, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Google to flag 'censored' searches for Chinese users (video)
Google is announcing that it's going to place a flag on contentious search terms for users in mainland China. Mountain View's Alan Eustace euphemistically described how some searches break a connection to the service, leading to users being frozen out for around a minute each time. He theatrically added that the company has checked its servers several times and found no error, so whatever issue causes these outages must be external. Whenever a term is typed that is likely to cause an "outage," the error message in the picture above will appear, with a suggestion to search for something else, or use Pinyin to search for a term where contentious keywords appear inside otherwise natural searches.
Beijing's rolling out city wide 'free' public WiFi, just hand over your phone number
Heads-up, locals: China's Mobile, Unicom and Telecom carriers are building a city-wide public WiFi network across Beijing. Residents will enjoy free 2Mbps internet for up to three years, if they sign up to the "My Beijing" service. Like most things that are gratis, there's a catch: you have to submit your phone number in exchange for access. Privacy enthusiasts aren't thrilled at the idea, (you know, since it's backed by the Government), though a representative said that the numbers would only be used for "identity authentication" -- insinuating that they would only be tracing individuals whose online activity might "endanger social security." High-minded privacy concerns aside, there's the very real danger of phones being bombarded with spam, not to mention what happens when the three year trial period expires -- users of the service could get stung with exorbitant costs to feed a public WiFi addiction.
Great Firewall of China getting a small cloud-based silver lining
China, it seems, is getting ready to punch a cloud-shaped hole in its infamous Great Firewall. A massive six square mile office park currently being built in the southwestern city of Chongqing is set to escape the filtering that dominates the rest of the company's internet access. The area, affectionately known as the "Cloud Zone," will be home to technology companies and Chinese startups that will presumably require free access to sites like Twitter and Facebook to do their jobs. Freedom, after all, is just another word for being able to update your status from your cubicle.
Google says Android should 'flourish' in China, effectively concedes a point
Whether for real or for show, Google tried to make the world believe it would use Android OS as a bargaining chip during the company's terse, slow negotiations with China. Now, the company has seemingly abandoned that option. During an educational webcast about the future of Google's mobile business, CFO Patrick Pichette told viewers that he expected the company's Android platform to do well in China despite all the recent threats and ultimatums in the country. "The Android platform is available to everybody," said Pichette, "and China is obviously another great market in which Android should flourish." Good to hear that Google and China are finally in accordance, right? Thing is, with China circumventing Android's default search engine, Google's stance against Chinese censorship of search depended on taking Android handsets hostage. But if the OS is indeed available to everybody, that's not going to happen. The mobile market might one day be dominated by Android, but if Google doesn't step up, mobile search will go to competitors more willing to play wallball with the Great Firewall of China.
Google to stop censoring Chinese search results 'soon,' China warns of consequences
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is making headway with its plans to stop filtering search results in China. Quoting Eric Schmidt as saying that "something will happen soon," the latest report is that Google is engaged in negotiations with multiple government agencies in China, and the likeliest scenario at this point is that the search giant will remain in the People's Republic, though it may be in a slightly altered state. "There will be a way for Google to not pull out 100%," says a source familiar with the ongoing discussions, who expects that El Goog will find a patchwork arrangement by which it'll be able to maintain some parts of its business running while no longer adhering to China's censorship fiat. For its part, China is keeping up its tough posturing, with the latest statement from its IT ministry describing Google's plans as "unfriendly and irresponsible" and warning that the company will have to bear the consequences of its actions. What appears certain at this point, however, is that there'll be no going back to censored Google search results, which is a win in our books whatever the final outcome.
PC exports to China to potentially be blocked due to pirated filtering software
We're not exactly supportive of the Chinese government requiring new PCs to be imported with content-filtering software, but like we keep saying, karma's a bitch: CyberSitter developer Solid Oak says it's found stolen code inside the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering software mandated by Chinese authorities, and it's considering filing a lawsuit to halt shipments. In the meantime, the company has asked heavy hitters like Dell and HP to refrain from installing Green Dam; Dell says it's still reviewing the Chinese requirements and hasn't yet shipped any machines with the software, but some nine million copies of the software have already gone out. For its part, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has "ordered the problem be fixed," but it's unclear when that'll happen -- and it still doesn't change the delicious multilayered irony of Chinese censorship efforts being thwarted by a copyright infringement action.Update: Things were getting a little out of control down there, so we've disabled comments on this one.
CCC's "Freedom Stick" circumvents China's firewall, just in time for The Games
Rumor has it that a large quantity of genetically-superior human beings are amassing in Beijing at the moment and attempting to squeeze into spandex-like outfits for your entertainment. Those interested in watching such tight-outfitted goings on are going to find themselves faced with even tighter internet restrictions when they get back to their hotel room or local internet cafe, thanks to that handy dandy Great Firewall of China. Lucky for them, the Chaos Computer Club has prepped a solution called the "Freedom Stick" which when plugged into a computer redirects its internet traffic over The Onion Router, a worldwide network of anonymous computers designed to hide your steps. Naturally, you can just download the software yourself, but the $30 USB dongle could come in handy if you're not on your own PC, or just want to leave behind material evidence of your indiscretion. The Freedom Stick will only be available through the duration of the Olympics, so get one while you can.[Via Wired]
