China Has More Internet Monitors Than Soldiers:
Lily Kuo for Quartz
China has 2 million people working as online monitors, according to a report last week by state news publication Beijing News — a new estimate that reveals the breadth of the country’s massive online censorship and surveillance systems. The monitors, who scour online comments and compile reports for officials or private businesses, outnumber even China’s 1.5 million active military personnel.
There is now an entire industry and profession dedicated to controlling — or attempting to control — China’s fast-moving social media world, where comments quickly go viral among the country’s 500 million Internet users. The People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese communist party, is holding a four-day seminar this month where successful students can be certified as “public opinion analysts,” according to a Beijing Times report. Once certified, they’re eligible for jobs with China’s propaganda department, commercial companies, news websites or public relation firms.
Social media monitoring, a measure whose ostensible goal is social stability, has been turned into a “money-making machine for local governments [and] firms,” said Guobin Yang, a professor of sociology and communications at the University of Southern California, in comments on Twitter on Monday. The People’s Daily charges up to 4,000 renminbi ($650) for four days of training to become an analyst, Yang noted.
And for businesses or officials who need more than just monitoring, “black public relations” firms offers services like wiping negative articles from the Internet or blocking certain search terms. These cost at least 10,000 renminbi and and up to 1 million renminbi, respectively, according to a February report by Century Weekly.
Showing posts with label webdev. Show all posts
Showing posts with label webdev. Show all posts
Friday, October 11, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Google backtracks on Chinese anti-censorship feature (Wired UK)
Google backtracks on Chinese anti-censorship feature (Wired UK):
Google appears to be backtracking on its once unshakeable anti-censorship stance, after removing a feature from its Chinese site designed to help users avoid getting cut off from the internet.
The feature -- which flagged up a warning message whenever a user began typing a censored word, then redirected them to a help page that explained how to avoid being cut off from the web -- appears to have been disabled some time between 5 and 8 December 2012, reports GreatFire.org.
The anti-censorship feature only came into being in June 2012, at which time it was almost immediately blocked by China. Google retaliated by embedding the function into the html of its start page, thus rendering it permanent, bar a total Google block. And on 9 November 2012, that's just what the Chinese authorities did. The site was blocked for around 24 hours and censorship of Gmail was stepped up considerably thereafter.
"It may have been an instance of the government showing off its power to Google and using it as a leverage in their negotiations," speculates GreatFire.org. "In the end, Google may have decided that providing a restricted version of Google Search and a slow but usable Gmail to Chinese users is much better than being completely cut off."
Google launched Google.cn back in 2006 and has been exchanging threats with the Chinese authorities ever since. The search engine attempted to tread a fine line between keeping the authorities and its users happy, but by 2010 tensions had escalated exponentially. Google announced it would no longer censor its search results in China, but instead redirect traffic to its uncensored Hong Kong site, following a cyber attack that it claimed originated in China.
At the time, Sergey Brin commented that Google would continue in its aim to preserve "the principles of the openness and freedom of information on the internet". Meanwhile, however, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong asserted that Google should step in line with the law or "pay the consequences".
"What needs to be shut down will be shut down, what needs to be blocked will be blocked," she said at the time.
Google might appear to be selectively abiding by the web's freedom of information motto, but it has done more than some in challenging China's stranglehold on internet freedoms.
The actions do, however, echo Brin's despondence with the situation as relayed to the Guardian in April 2012. He said that somewhere between the rampant censorship and ongoing global cyberwars, he had been proven wrong in his belief that no country could restrict the internet for too long. "I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle," he said.
It may just be that Google has also come to the realisation that with its meagre five percent marketshare in China -- compared to competitor Baidu's 74 percent -- it will not be able to achieve much when it comes to making a dent in the country's censorship policies, nor the public's access to information. You have to be in the game to win it, so perhaps the search giant is opting to shelve its futile cat and mouse game with China for a while, and play ball instead.
This could make a lot of sense, particularly since some commentators view Google's anti-censorship as nothing more than a self-congratulatory course of action that harms usability more than improving it.
When news first emerged about the feature, sociologist Tricia Wang commented: "I don't see how this actually reaches their goal. First it only antagonises the government more, and thereby could make it even harder for the existing user base to access Google. So it could be counterproductive. Second, it's targeting people who are already their existing users, so they're preaching to the preachers."
Essentially, no one is going to stick with your service if it keeps getting them booted off the internet or bothering them with pop-ups telling them things they already know. Competitors don't come with these irritations, because they've already allowed themselves to be censored -- that might not be in-keeping with Google's morals, but it makes for a far better user experience. When Wired.co.uk spoke to a few Chinese residents about the disabled Google feature, they were not even aware of it because they used VPNs, demonstrating Google might not be taking into account just how savvy its users are at all.
Google's apparent appeasement of the Chinese authorities might also have something to do with its potential new deal with Chinese search engine Qihoo. The latter launched 16 August 2012, and by early December -- around about the same time Google apparently disabled its anti-censorship feature -- reports emerged that the new player in town had begun eating into Google's market share. By late December, rumours began circulating that the two would join forces to take on dominant Baidu, and on 4 January that deal was reportedly near completion. The news caused ABR Investment Strategy to alter its 2013 search revenue estimates substantially from $62 million to $90 million (£39 million to £54 million). If Google wanted to secure that deal and ensure the permanence of any long-term strategy at all, it probably assumed it should tow the line -- at least for a little while.
Wired.co.uk contacted Google for comment but had not heard back at the time of publishing.
Google appears to be backtracking on its once unshakeable anti-censorship stance, after removing a feature from its Chinese site designed to help users avoid getting cut off from the internet.
The feature -- which flagged up a warning message whenever a user began typing a censored word, then redirected them to a help page that explained how to avoid being cut off from the web -- appears to have been disabled some time between 5 and 8 December 2012, reports GreatFire.org.
The anti-censorship feature only came into being in June 2012, at which time it was almost immediately blocked by China. Google retaliated by embedding the function into the html of its start page, thus rendering it permanent, bar a total Google block. And on 9 November 2012, that's just what the Chinese authorities did. The site was blocked for around 24 hours and censorship of Gmail was stepped up considerably thereafter.
"It may have been an instance of the government showing off its power to Google and using it as a leverage in their negotiations," speculates GreatFire.org. "In the end, Google may have decided that providing a restricted version of Google Search and a slow but usable Gmail to Chinese users is much better than being completely cut off."
Google launched Google.cn back in 2006 and has been exchanging threats with the Chinese authorities ever since. The search engine attempted to tread a fine line between keeping the authorities and its users happy, but by 2010 tensions had escalated exponentially. Google announced it would no longer censor its search results in China, but instead redirect traffic to its uncensored Hong Kong site, following a cyber attack that it claimed originated in China.
At the time, Sergey Brin commented that Google would continue in its aim to preserve "the principles of the openness and freedom of information on the internet". Meanwhile, however, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong asserted that Google should step in line with the law or "pay the consequences".
"What needs to be shut down will be shut down, what needs to be blocked will be blocked," she said at the time.
Google might appear to be selectively abiding by the web's freedom of information motto, but it has done more than some in challenging China's stranglehold on internet freedoms.
The actions do, however, echo Brin's despondence with the situation as relayed to the Guardian in April 2012. He said that somewhere between the rampant censorship and ongoing global cyberwars, he had been proven wrong in his belief that no country could restrict the internet for too long. "I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle," he said.
It may just be that Google has also come to the realisation that with its meagre five percent marketshare in China -- compared to competitor Baidu's 74 percent -- it will not be able to achieve much when it comes to making a dent in the country's censorship policies, nor the public's access to information. You have to be in the game to win it, so perhaps the search giant is opting to shelve its futile cat and mouse game with China for a while, and play ball instead.
This could make a lot of sense, particularly since some commentators view Google's anti-censorship as nothing more than a self-congratulatory course of action that harms usability more than improving it.
When news first emerged about the feature, sociologist Tricia Wang commented: "I don't see how this actually reaches their goal. First it only antagonises the government more, and thereby could make it even harder for the existing user base to access Google. So it could be counterproductive. Second, it's targeting people who are already their existing users, so they're preaching to the preachers."
Essentially, no one is going to stick with your service if it keeps getting them booted off the internet or bothering them with pop-ups telling them things they already know. Competitors don't come with these irritations, because they've already allowed themselves to be censored -- that might not be in-keeping with Google's morals, but it makes for a far better user experience. When Wired.co.uk spoke to a few Chinese residents about the disabled Google feature, they were not even aware of it because they used VPNs, demonstrating Google might not be taking into account just how savvy its users are at all.
Google's apparent appeasement of the Chinese authorities might also have something to do with its potential new deal with Chinese search engine Qihoo. The latter launched 16 August 2012, and by early December -- around about the same time Google apparently disabled its anti-censorship feature -- reports emerged that the new player in town had begun eating into Google's market share. By late December, rumours began circulating that the two would join forces to take on dominant Baidu, and on 4 January that deal was reportedly near completion. The news caused ABR Investment Strategy to alter its 2013 search revenue estimates substantially from $62 million to $90 million (£39 million to £54 million). If Google wanted to secure that deal and ensure the permanence of any long-term strategy at all, it probably assumed it should tow the line -- at least for a little while.
Wired.co.uk contacted Google for comment but had not heard back at the time of publishing.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Great Firewall of China getting harder to scale
Great Firewall of China getting harder to scale:
The Straits Times - December 30, 2012
By Ho Ai Li, China Correspondent
Exchange student Lim Wee Kiat, 35, let out a cry of joy at the thought of wrapping up months of research here and going home to Singapore.
"Hallelujah!" he told The Sunday Times two days before he left Beijing on Boxing Day.
It was not so much the glacial weather as the glacial Internet speeds and patchy connection that had made his life frustrating here.
Many foreign websites are blocked here, along with social media sites such as Facebook, under Web controls popularly known as the Great Firewall of China.
But foreigners and a small group of Chinese have been scaling this wall by using a VPN, or virtual private network.
Now, this lifeline is becoming frayed as the authorities tighten Internet controls again, a move likely to hit foreign research and business operations in China.
Paid VPN services were greatly disrupted in the lead-up to the Communist Party's leadership change last month, and things still have not gone back to normal.
Some providers such as Astrill have had to apologise to their subscribers for the disruption.
Access to Google-linked websites has also become rather erratic, as Mr Lim, who depends on Google for searches, would attest to.
According to The Global Times, a nationalistic English-language newspaper, China has beefed up its cyberwall, making it even harder for Web surfers here to circumvent its controls.
More curbs are on the cards: The National People's Congress, China's legislature, gave the green light on Friday to new rules requiring Net users to register real names and to increase the penalties for those who spread untruths online.
"Overall, since commercial Internet access began in China back in 1995, there has been a steady increase in the level and scope of censorship," Mr Duncan Clark, a consultant who has lived in China for 18 years, told The Sunday Times.
While VPN providers, in particular the free ones, have been blocked in the past, paid ones costing US$5 (S$6) to US$7 a month have generally been left untouched, he noted.
"Recently, though, the government has clearly been targeting these VPN providers, preventing new customers from signing up," said Mr Clark, who is chairman of BDA Consultancy.
It is also disabling existing subscribers - especially those using L2TP services, as opposed to PP2P ones, which offer dynamic IP addresses and are perhaps harder to target - he added.
Businesses have also been hit as many depend on VPNs to share confidential data and access global work processes such as payroll, he said.
The efficiency of businesses in getting information from the Internet has been hit by China's enhanced firewall, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
But protests by foreigners and foreign businesses are unlikely to matter, said Hong Kong-based activist Wen Yunchao. Instead, the authorities want to control the flow of information on the Net during a period of leadership transition, he told The Sunday Times.
"They have to prevent dissension and information from outside coming in," he said. Some officials might have been leaking information to overseas Chinese websites to bring down their foes, he added.
The websites of The New York Times and Bloomberg continue to be blocked in China after they ran reports detailing the wealth and connections of the families of leaders Xi Jinping and Wen Jiabao in June and November.
There has also been talk that the move to strengthen Web controls is linked to the growing use of micro- blogs to expose official wrongdoing. In recent weeks, whistle-blowers have posted online allegations of misdeeds such as graft, forgery and blackmail by officials.
But media expert Zhan Jiang of the Beijing Foreign Studies University warns against reading too much into the recent online whistle-blowing and the proposed new Internet rules, saying it is unclear why VPN services have been hit.
What is certain, though, is that the VPN disturbance has given companies and individuals a lot of headaches.
It may exact a heavy cost on China in the long run as it goes against China's bid to become a creative and innovative country, said Mr Clark.
Many foreign organisations may choose to move elsewhere if the going remains tough, he added.
However, Beijing resident Lum Kayli, 27, who has been having problems with her VPN service, had resigned herself to Internet curbs even before moving here from Malaysia eight months ago.
"It's annoying but what can you do?" she said.
hoaili@sph.com.sg
The Straits Times - December 30, 2012
By Ho Ai Li, China Correspondent
Exchange student Lim Wee Kiat, 35, let out a cry of joy at the thought of wrapping up months of research here and going home to Singapore.
"Hallelujah!" he told The Sunday Times two days before he left Beijing on Boxing Day.
It was not so much the glacial weather as the glacial Internet speeds and patchy connection that had made his life frustrating here.
Many foreign websites are blocked here, along with social media sites such as Facebook, under Web controls popularly known as the Great Firewall of China.
But foreigners and a small group of Chinese have been scaling this wall by using a VPN, or virtual private network.
Now, this lifeline is becoming frayed as the authorities tighten Internet controls again, a move likely to hit foreign research and business operations in China.
Paid VPN services were greatly disrupted in the lead-up to the Communist Party's leadership change last month, and things still have not gone back to normal.
Some providers such as Astrill have had to apologise to their subscribers for the disruption.
Access to Google-linked websites has also become rather erratic, as Mr Lim, who depends on Google for searches, would attest to.
According to The Global Times, a nationalistic English-language newspaper, China has beefed up its cyberwall, making it even harder for Web surfers here to circumvent its controls.
More curbs are on the cards: The National People's Congress, China's legislature, gave the green light on Friday to new rules requiring Net users to register real names and to increase the penalties for those who spread untruths online.
"Overall, since commercial Internet access began in China back in 1995, there has been a steady increase in the level and scope of censorship," Mr Duncan Clark, a consultant who has lived in China for 18 years, told The Sunday Times.
While VPN providers, in particular the free ones, have been blocked in the past, paid ones costing US$5 (S$6) to US$7 a month have generally been left untouched, he noted.
"Recently, though, the government has clearly been targeting these VPN providers, preventing new customers from signing up," said Mr Clark, who is chairman of BDA Consultancy.
It is also disabling existing subscribers - especially those using L2TP services, as opposed to PP2P ones, which offer dynamic IP addresses and are perhaps harder to target - he added.
Businesses have also been hit as many depend on VPNs to share confidential data and access global work processes such as payroll, he said.
The efficiency of businesses in getting information from the Internet has been hit by China's enhanced firewall, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
But protests by foreigners and foreign businesses are unlikely to matter, said Hong Kong-based activist Wen Yunchao. Instead, the authorities want to control the flow of information on the Net during a period of leadership transition, he told The Sunday Times.
"They have to prevent dissension and information from outside coming in," he said. Some officials might have been leaking information to overseas Chinese websites to bring down their foes, he added.
The websites of The New York Times and Bloomberg continue to be blocked in China after they ran reports detailing the wealth and connections of the families of leaders Xi Jinping and Wen Jiabao in June and November.
There has also been talk that the move to strengthen Web controls is linked to the growing use of micro- blogs to expose official wrongdoing. In recent weeks, whistle-blowers have posted online allegations of misdeeds such as graft, forgery and blackmail by officials.
But media expert Zhan Jiang of the Beijing Foreign Studies University warns against reading too much into the recent online whistle-blowing and the proposed new Internet rules, saying it is unclear why VPN services have been hit.
What is certain, though, is that the VPN disturbance has given companies and individuals a lot of headaches.
It may exact a heavy cost on China in the long run as it goes against China's bid to become a creative and innovative country, said Mr Clark.
Many foreign organisations may choose to move elsewhere if the going remains tough, he added.
However, Beijing resident Lum Kayli, 27, who has been having problems with her VPN service, had resigned herself to Internet curbs even before moving here from Malaysia eight months ago.
"It's annoying but what can you do?" she said.
hoaili@sph.com.sg
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Why 2013 Will Be the Worst Year Ever for China Tech
Why 2013 Will Be the Worst Year Ever for China Tech:
Amidst all the 2012 in review madness, I thought it might be fun to turn our eyes to the future for a moment and make some predictions about what’s coming in 2013. Well, “fun” is a relative term. Call me a pessimist, but I think 2013 is going to be the worst year ever for China’s tech industry. Why
Internet censorship will get worse. China’s Great Firewall got an upgrade this month, and the blockage of many popular VPNs has already begun to affect businesses. There’s no reason to expect that will get any better in the new year, with government mouthpiece the People’s Daily calling for stricter internet regulation and reports suggesting the government may implement mandatory real-name registration for anyone who wants to get on the internet at all. All indications are that next year, China’s internet is going to be less free than ever before.
Social media censorship will get worse. Sina Weibo had a pretty ridiculous year when it comes to censorship, but with the new 7-day search delay and rumors of a new, more thorough real-name system don’t make the future sound all that bright. But the bad news isn’t just limited to Weibo; we have seen indications that the government is concerned about newcomer WeChat — even as it uses the service to track dissidents — so expect that to get a censorship smackdown in the coming year, too.
The mobile market will be restricted. One of China’s tech regulatory bodies, MIIT, is planning to reach its cold, bony hands into the world of mobile app development and sales. Exactly how that will turn out isn’t yet clear, but MIIT’s regulatory processes are the reason an iPhone takes an extra three months to come out in China. App developers are understandably concerned that they’re going to be slowed down — which can be a death sentence in the fast-paced mobile ecosystem — or censored, or very possibly both. Whatever happens with this round of regulation, I would guess that this won’t be the only time we see MIIT interfering in the mobile space in 2013.
More state control is coming, or at least is planned. While the government has been pushing state-owned companies to operate like real companies and try to actually make money rather, it hasn’t gone to much effort to support domestic innovators in the private sector. For example, SARFT (China’s fun police and film censorship bureau) recently smacked-down Chinese startup Xiaomi’s attempts to get into the TV game, and it has also established a state-run subsidiary company that it hopes will control the domestic internet, mobile, and television industries.
All of this is bad for business. In addition to just being off-putting and restrictive, almost all of this is bad for business and development. China’s internet is increasingly isolated from the rest of the world’s, which stifles domestic innovation and discourages foreign investment. And China’s restrictive policies, coupled with the unethical behavior of some high-profile Chinese tech companies, have helped ensure that it is tougher than ever for Chinese tech companies to expand overseas.
Now, are there some signs of good things, too? Of course. Smartphone and broadband penetration are up and will likely continue climbing rapidly throughout next year. Internet speeds are getting faster, and we might even see China’s first 4G network in 2013 (but probably not). Still, though, speed and access are less meaningful when the number of things you can actually do on China’s internet seems to be dwindling by the day.
I think 2013 will be the worst year ever for the web/tech industry in China. Here’s hoping that I’m really, really wrong.
Amidst all the 2012 in review madness, I thought it might be fun to turn our eyes to the future for a moment and make some predictions about what’s coming in 2013. Well, “fun” is a relative term. Call me a pessimist, but I think 2013 is going to be the worst year ever for China’s tech industry. Why
Internet censorship will get worse. China’s Great Firewall got an upgrade this month, and the blockage of many popular VPNs has already begun to affect businesses. There’s no reason to expect that will get any better in the new year, with government mouthpiece the People’s Daily calling for stricter internet regulation and reports suggesting the government may implement mandatory real-name registration for anyone who wants to get on the internet at all. All indications are that next year, China’s internet is going to be less free than ever before.
Social media censorship will get worse. Sina Weibo had a pretty ridiculous year when it comes to censorship, but with the new 7-day search delay and rumors of a new, more thorough real-name system don’t make the future sound all that bright. But the bad news isn’t just limited to Weibo; we have seen indications that the government is concerned about newcomer WeChat — even as it uses the service to track dissidents — so expect that to get a censorship smackdown in the coming year, too.
The mobile market will be restricted. One of China’s tech regulatory bodies, MIIT, is planning to reach its cold, bony hands into the world of mobile app development and sales. Exactly how that will turn out isn’t yet clear, but MIIT’s regulatory processes are the reason an iPhone takes an extra three months to come out in China. App developers are understandably concerned that they’re going to be slowed down — which can be a death sentence in the fast-paced mobile ecosystem — or censored, or very possibly both. Whatever happens with this round of regulation, I would guess that this won’t be the only time we see MIIT interfering in the mobile space in 2013.
More state control is coming, or at least is planned. While the government has been pushing state-owned companies to operate like real companies and try to actually make money rather, it hasn’t gone to much effort to support domestic innovators in the private sector. For example, SARFT (China’s fun police and film censorship bureau) recently smacked-down Chinese startup Xiaomi’s attempts to get into the TV game, and it has also established a state-run subsidiary company that it hopes will control the domestic internet, mobile, and television industries.
All of this is bad for business. In addition to just being off-putting and restrictive, almost all of this is bad for business and development. China’s internet is increasingly isolated from the rest of the world’s, which stifles domestic innovation and discourages foreign investment. And China’s restrictive policies, coupled with the unethical behavior of some high-profile Chinese tech companies, have helped ensure that it is tougher than ever for Chinese tech companies to expand overseas.
Now, are there some signs of good things, too? Of course. Smartphone and broadband penetration are up and will likely continue climbing rapidly throughout next year. Internet speeds are getting faster, and we might even see China’s first 4G network in 2013 (but probably not). Still, though, speed and access are less meaningful when the number of things you can actually do on China’s internet seems to be dwindling by the day.
I think 2013 will be the worst year ever for the web/tech industry in China. Here’s hoping that I’m really, really wrong.
TODAYonline | World | China | More bricks added to Great Firewall of China
TODAYonline | World | China | More bricks added to Great Firewall of China:
Tightening of access to sites like YouTube could be tied to recent leadership change
04:45 AM Dec 24, 2012
HONG KONG - China appears to have reinforced its Internet firewall in recent days, blocking some of the leading services that allow people on the mainland to access forbidden sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
International business transactions also are being affected, Internet analysts said. At least three foreign companies - Astrill, WiTopia and StrongVPN - have apologised to customers whose virtual private networks, or VPNs, have been slowed or disabled. VPNs are used to circumvent the Communist government's firewall. The companies, meanwhile, were suggesting some work-arounds.
The Global Times daily, which is affiliated with the Communist Party, acknowledged the firewall had been "upgraded", but it also warned that foreign providers of VPN services were operating illegally.
The Chinese government blocks online searches of politically sensitive terms, smothers embarrassing news events, blocks online messages from dissidents and deletes any microblog posts that it dislikes.
The Great Firewall of China, as it is known, also blocks countless websites that are available to users elsewhere around the world - from pornography sites to news reporting, political activism and religious proselytising. Users on the mainland thus have to use VPNs to reach the banned sites.
Mr Liu Xiao Ming, the Chinese Ambassador to Britain, told the BBC on Friday that there was "a misconception about the Internet and development in China".
"In fact, the Chinese are very much open in terms of the Internet," he said, quoted in an article in The South China Morning Post. "In fact, we have the most number of Internet users in China today."
An estimated 600 million Chinese have access to the Internet.
Foreign businesses also use VPNs not only to safeguard their transactions but also to keep government censors and rival companies from seeing their corporate communications.
Global Times quoted an anonymous executive at a foreign technology company operating in China who said the lack of a VPN would damage the firm's operations.
Mr Josh Ong, China editor of the tech monitoring site The Next Web, said in an interview with the Voice of America that international companies were reporting disruptions in their corporate VPN services.
"A lot of companies have a general policy that they must use their own proxy network in order to transfer data, especially into and out of China," Mr Ong said.
"So you are looking at banks or e-commerce companies, anyone who is transferring very sensitive information, a lot of them use corporate VPNs," he said.
Mr Ong suggested that the tightening of the firewall could be tied to the recent leadership change in the Communist Party.
"It is certainly possible that some of it is just a general flexing of might, kind of coming in with a strong arm to really show who's in control," he said.
"But there is definitely something intentional happening when these VPN services are being restricted."
Ms Barbara Demick, The Los Angeles Times' Bureau Chief in Beijing, offered this cautionary tweet: "Note to Chinese censors: If you pull our VPNs, main Asia news bureaus will have to move to Tokyo. Not good for China." THE NEW YORK TIMES
Tightening of access to sites like YouTube could be tied to recent leadership change
04:45 AM Dec 24, 2012
HONG KONG - China appears to have reinforced its Internet firewall in recent days, blocking some of the leading services that allow people on the mainland to access forbidden sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
International business transactions also are being affected, Internet analysts said. At least three foreign companies - Astrill, WiTopia and StrongVPN - have apologised to customers whose virtual private networks, or VPNs, have been slowed or disabled. VPNs are used to circumvent the Communist government's firewall. The companies, meanwhile, were suggesting some work-arounds.
The Global Times daily, which is affiliated with the Communist Party, acknowledged the firewall had been "upgraded", but it also warned that foreign providers of VPN services were operating illegally.
The Chinese government blocks online searches of politically sensitive terms, smothers embarrassing news events, blocks online messages from dissidents and deletes any microblog posts that it dislikes.
The Great Firewall of China, as it is known, also blocks countless websites that are available to users elsewhere around the world - from pornography sites to news reporting, political activism and religious proselytising. Users on the mainland thus have to use VPNs to reach the banned sites.
Mr Liu Xiao Ming, the Chinese Ambassador to Britain, told the BBC on Friday that there was "a misconception about the Internet and development in China".
"In fact, the Chinese are very much open in terms of the Internet," he said, quoted in an article in The South China Morning Post. "In fact, we have the most number of Internet users in China today."
An estimated 600 million Chinese have access to the Internet.
Foreign businesses also use VPNs not only to safeguard their transactions but also to keep government censors and rival companies from seeing their corporate communications.
Global Times quoted an anonymous executive at a foreign technology company operating in China who said the lack of a VPN would damage the firm's operations.
Mr Josh Ong, China editor of the tech monitoring site The Next Web, said in an interview with the Voice of America that international companies were reporting disruptions in their corporate VPN services.
"A lot of companies have a general policy that they must use their own proxy network in order to transfer data, especially into and out of China," Mr Ong said.
"So you are looking at banks or e-commerce companies, anyone who is transferring very sensitive information, a lot of them use corporate VPNs," he said.
Mr Ong suggested that the tightening of the firewall could be tied to the recent leadership change in the Communist Party.
"It is certainly possible that some of it is just a general flexing of might, kind of coming in with a strong arm to really show who's in control," he said.
"But there is definitely something intentional happening when these VPN services are being restricted."
Ms Barbara Demick, The Los Angeles Times' Bureau Chief in Beijing, offered this cautionary tweet: "Note to Chinese censors: If you pull our VPNs, main Asia news bureaus will have to move to Tokyo. Not good for China." THE NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday, December 29, 2012
China tightens Internet rules - Channel NewsAsia
China tightens Internet rules - Channel NewsAsia
BEIJING: China has approved new rules that require Internet users nationwide to provide real-name identification, state media reported on Friday, as the government increases its already tight online grip.
The National People's Congress (NPC), the country's legislature, adopted the measures at a meeting on Friday, the official Xinhua news agency and other media said.
According to Xinhua, the decision, which came at the end of a five-day session of the NPC Standing Committee, requires Internet users to offer their names as identification to telecommunication service providers when seeking access to their services.
"Network service providers will ask users to provide genuine identification information when signing agreements to grant them access to the Internet, fixed-line telephone or mobile telecommunication services or to allow users to post information publicly," Xinhua said, quoting the decision.
Popular microblogging sites similar to Twitter have been used in China to air grievances and even to reveal wrongdoing by officials, and such muckraking is tolerated when it dovetails with the government's own desire to rein in corruption.
But with more than half a billion Chinese now online, authorities are concerned about the power of the Internet to influence public opinion in a country that maintains tight controls on its traditional media outlets.
Beijing already regularly blocks Internet searches under a vast online censorship system known as the Great Firewall of China, but the growing popularity of microblogs, known as "weibos", has posed a new challenge.
The firewall has been built up over time since the Internet began to develop in China, and uses a range of technologies to block access to particular sites' IP addresses from Chinese computers.
Censors also keep watch on the weibos that have been used to organise protests and challenge official accounts of events such as a deadly 2011 rail crash that sparked fierce criticism of the government.
Dissident artist and fierce government critic Ai Weiwei on Friday criticised efforts to hinder Internet discourse.
"Blocking the Internet, an action that will limit the exchange of information, is an uncivilised and inhumane crime," he said on Twitter, which is banned in China, but accessible for Internet users with more sophisticated equipment.
Li Fei, a senior member of the legislature, said on Friday that there was no need to worry that the new rules could hinder citizen exposure of wrongdoing, Xinhua reported.
"Identity management work can be conducted backstage, allowing users to use different names when posting material publicly," Xinhua further quoted him as saying earlier this week.
Previously, only microblog users in five cities -- the capital Beijing, the commercial hub of Shanghai, the northern port city of Tianjin and the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- were required to provide their real names under a trial that started a year ago.
In the past, users had been able to set up microblog accounts under assumed names, making it more difficult for authorities to track them down, and allowing them to set up new accounts if existing ones were shut down.
It was not immediately clear if users would be able to find ways to skirt the requirement, though according to Xinhua, the trend has been towards registration.
It said that by last month, nearly all fixed-line users and 70 percent of mobile users had registered with their own names, citing figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
The ministry, which regulates the online sector in China, said in June that the then-proposed legal changes were needed to protect state security.Xinhua, in a separate commentary on Friday, said the new rules are meant to defend the legal rights of Internet users "and will help, rather than harm, the country's netizens" by, for example, protecting their privacy.
-AFP/ac
BEIJING: China has approved new rules that require Internet users nationwide to provide real-name identification, state media reported on Friday, as the government increases its already tight online grip.
The National People's Congress (NPC), the country's legislature, adopted the measures at a meeting on Friday, the official Xinhua news agency and other media said.
According to Xinhua, the decision, which came at the end of a five-day session of the NPC Standing Committee, requires Internet users to offer their names as identification to telecommunication service providers when seeking access to their services.
"Network service providers will ask users to provide genuine identification information when signing agreements to grant them access to the Internet, fixed-line telephone or mobile telecommunication services or to allow users to post information publicly," Xinhua said, quoting the decision.
Popular microblogging sites similar to Twitter have been used in China to air grievances and even to reveal wrongdoing by officials, and such muckraking is tolerated when it dovetails with the government's own desire to rein in corruption.
But with more than half a billion Chinese now online, authorities are concerned about the power of the Internet to influence public opinion in a country that maintains tight controls on its traditional media outlets.
Beijing already regularly blocks Internet searches under a vast online censorship system known as the Great Firewall of China, but the growing popularity of microblogs, known as "weibos", has posed a new challenge.
The firewall has been built up over time since the Internet began to develop in China, and uses a range of technologies to block access to particular sites' IP addresses from Chinese computers.
Censors also keep watch on the weibos that have been used to organise protests and challenge official accounts of events such as a deadly 2011 rail crash that sparked fierce criticism of the government.
Dissident artist and fierce government critic Ai Weiwei on Friday criticised efforts to hinder Internet discourse.
"Blocking the Internet, an action that will limit the exchange of information, is an uncivilised and inhumane crime," he said on Twitter, which is banned in China, but accessible for Internet users with more sophisticated equipment.
Li Fei, a senior member of the legislature, said on Friday that there was no need to worry that the new rules could hinder citizen exposure of wrongdoing, Xinhua reported.
"Identity management work can be conducted backstage, allowing users to use different names when posting material publicly," Xinhua further quoted him as saying earlier this week.
Previously, only microblog users in five cities -- the capital Beijing, the commercial hub of Shanghai, the northern port city of Tianjin and the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- were required to provide their real names under a trial that started a year ago.
In the past, users had been able to set up microblog accounts under assumed names, making it more difficult for authorities to track them down, and allowing them to set up new accounts if existing ones were shut down.
It was not immediately clear if users would be able to find ways to skirt the requirement, though according to Xinhua, the trend has been towards registration.
It said that by last month, nearly all fixed-line users and 70 percent of mobile users had registered with their own names, citing figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
The ministry, which regulates the online sector in China, said in June that the then-proposed legal changes were needed to protect state security.Xinhua, in a separate commentary on Friday, said the new rules are meant to defend the legal rights of Internet users "and will help, rather than harm, the country's netizens" by, for example, protecting their privacy.
-AFP/ac
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