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
Monday, December 31, 2012
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
火车票价 掀起你的盖头来 | 高铁，高铁票价，火车票价，票价成本 - 新浪新闻
火车票价 掀起你的盖头来|高铁，高铁票价，火车票价，票价成本_新浪新闻:
京广高铁全线贯通了，但“贵死了，半个月工资坐趟高铁”等吐槽，为高铁线路带来了不少尴尬。一张铁路车票，几番提速升值。当价格遇上速度，担不担得起“一分货一分钱”？服务面对受众群，又是否有一些“傲慢与偏见”？
京广高铁全线贯通了，但“贵死了，半个月工资坐趟高铁”等吐槽，为高铁线路带来了不少尴尬。一张铁路车票，几番提速升值。当价格遇上速度，担不担得起“一分货一分钱”？服务面对受众群，又是否有一些“傲慢与偏见”？
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