Intellectual Property and the Internet/Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. In accordance with these laws, more than sixty Internet regulations have been made by the People's Republic of China (PRC) government, and censorship systems are implemented by provincial branches of state-owned ISPs, business companies, and organizations. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/3.htm II. How Censorship Works in China: A Brief Overview 30 August 2006 Human Rights Watch Chinese Laws and Regulations Regarding Internet China's censorship regime remains one of the world’s most sophisticated. http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/China2011.pdf Freedom House on the Net Report: China http://web.archive.org/web/20110423033632/http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/China2011.pdf 2011-04-23 However, the censorship is not applied in Hong Kong and Macau, as they are special entities recognized by international treaty vested with independent judicial powerHong Kong Basic Law, Chapter II Article 19 and not subject to most laws of the PRC,Hong Kong Basic Law, Chapter II Article 18 including those requiring the restriction of free flow of information. The apparatus of the PRC's Internet repression is considered more extensive and more advanced than in any other country in the world. The governmental authorities not only block website content but also monitor the Internet access of individuals. Amnesty International notes that China “has the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world.” The offences of which they are accused include communicating with groups abroad, signing online petitions, and calling for reform and an end to corruption.http://www.internetfreedom.org/Background Background Global Internet Freedom Consortium (do not download anything from this site – it is a known Trojan supplier) The escalation of the government's effort to neutralize critical online opinion comes after a series of large anti-Japanese, anti-pollution, anti-corruption protests, and ethnic riots, many of which were organized or publicized using instant messaging services, chat rooms, and text messages. The size of the Internet police is rumored at more than 30,000. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1505988,00.html#article_continue China's secret Internet police target critics with web of propaganda Watts Jonathan 14 June 2005 The Guardian London Critical comments appearing on Internet forums, blogs, and major portals such as Sohu and Sina usually are erased within minutes. Background The political and ideological background of the internet censorship is considered to be one of Deng Xiaoping's favorite sayings in the early 1980s: "If you open the window for fresh air, you have to expect some flies to blow in." The saying is related to a period of the economic reform of China that became known as the "socialist market economy". Superseding the political ideologies of the Cultural Revolution, the reform led China towards a market economy and opened up the market for foreign investors. Nonetheless the economic freedom, values, and political ideas of the Communist Party of China have had to be protected from "swatting flies" of other unwanted ideologies.R. MacKinnon “Flatter world and thicker walls? Blogs, censorship and civic discourse in China” Public Choice (2008) 134: p. 31–46, Springer The Internet arrived in China in the year 1994 as an inevitable consequence of, and supporting tool for the "socialist market economy." Since then, and with gradual increasing penetration, the Internet has become a common communication platform and an important tool for sharing information. In 1998 the Communist Party of China feared the China Democracy Party (CDP) would breed a powerful new network that the party elites might not be able to control.Goldman, Merle Goldman. Gu, Edward X. [2004] (2004). Chinese Intellectuals between State and Market. Routledge publishing. The CDP was immediately banned followed by arrests and imprisonment.Goldsmith Jack L. Wu, Tim Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of Borderless World Oxford university press 2006 01895152662 91 That same year the "Golden Shield project" was started. The first part of the project lasted eight years and was completed in 2006. The second part began in 2006 and ended in 2008. On 6 December 2002, 300 people in charge of the Golden Shield project from 31 provinces and cities throughout China participated in a four-day inaugural “Comprehensive Exhibition on Chinese Information System”.首屆「2002年中國大型機構信息化展覽會」全國31省市金盾工程領導雲集 At the exhibition, many western high-tech products including Internet security, video monitoring and human face recognition were purchased. It is estimated that around 30-50,000 police are employed in this gigantic project.http://www.amnesty.org.au/china/comments/10926/ What is internet censorship? 28 March 2008 Amnesty International Australia 21 February 2011 Legislative basis China started its Internet censorship with three regulations issued by China’s central government. The first regulation was called the Temporary Regulation for the Management of Computer Information Network International Connection. The regulation was passed in the 42nd Standing Convention of the State Council on 23 January 1996. It was formally announced on 1 February 1996, and updated again on the 20th of May 1997.Qiu, Jack L. Virtual Censorship in China:Keeping the Gate Between the Cyberspaces. International Journal of Communications Law and Policy. 4. 1999. The content of the first regulation states requires that internet service providers be licensed and that internet traffic go through ChinaNet, GBNet, CERNET or CSTNET. The second regulation was the Ordinance for Security Protection of Computer Information Systems. It was issued on February 18 of 1994 by the State Council to give the responsibility of Internet security protection to the Ministry of Public Security.Taubman, G. (1998). ‘A not-so world wide web: the Internet, China, and the challenges to non- democratic rule.’ Political Communication. 15, 255–272. The Ordinance regulation further led to the Security Management Procedures in Internet Accessing issued by the Ministry of Public Security in December 1997. The regulation defines "harmful information" and "harmful activities" regarding Internet usage.Guan, S. (1995). Intercultural communication (in Chinese). Beijing: Beijing University Press. Section Five of the Computer Information Network and Internet Security, Protection, and Management Regulations approved by the State Council on 11 December 1997 states the following: No unit or individual may use the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following kinds of information: Inciting to resist or breaking the Constitution or laws or the implementation of administrative regulations; Inciting to overthrow the government or the socialist system; Inciting division of the country, harming national unification; Inciting hatred or discrimination among nationalities or harming the unity of the nationalities; Making falsehoods or distorting the truth, spreading rumors, destroying the order of society; Promoting feudal superstitions, sexually suggestive material, gambling, violence, murder; Terrorism or inciting others to criminal activity; openly insulting other people or distorting the truth to slander people; Injuring the reputation of state organizations; Other activities against the Constitution, laws or administrative regulations.Abbott, Jason P. The Political Economy of the Internet in Asia and the Pacific Digital Divides, Economic Competitiveness, and Security Challenges. New York: Praeger, 2004. In September 2000, the State Council Order No. 292 created the first content restrictions for Internet content providers. China-based Web sites cannot link to overseas news Web sites or distribute news from overseas media without separate approval. Only “licensed print publishers” have the authority to deliver news online. Non-licensed Web sites that wish to broadcast news may only publish information already released publicly by other news media. These sites must obtain approval from state information offices and from the State Council Information Agency. Article 11 of this order mentions that “content providers are responsible for ensuring the legality of any information disseminated through their services”. http://www.cecc.gov/pages/virtualAcad/exp/explaws.php CECC: Freedom of Expression – Laws and Regulations 2 August 2008 Article 14 gives Chinese officials full access to any kind of sensitive information they wish from providers of internet services. Enforcement In December 1997, Public Security minister Zhu Entao released new regulations to be enforced by the ministry that inflict fines for 'defaming government agencies,' 'splitting the nation,' and leaking "state secrets." Violators could face a fine up to 15,000 Yuan ($1800).Harwit, Eric. "China's Telecommunications Revolution." New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Banning appears mostly coordinated and ad hoc, with some sites blocked, yet similar sites allowed or even blocked in one city and allowed in another. The blocks have often been lifted for special occasions. For example, The New York Times was unblocked when reporters in a private interview with Jiang Zemin specifically asked about the block and he replied that he would look into the matter. During the APEC summit in Shanghai during 2001, normally-blocked media sources such as CNN, NBC, and the Washington Post became accessible. Since 2001, the content controls have been further relaxed on a permanent basis, and all three of the sites previously mentioned are now accessible from mainland China. However, access to the New York Times was briefly re-blocked as of 20 December 2008,http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/world/asia/20china.html?ref=todayspaper The New York Times China Blocks Access to The Times's Web Site Keith Bradsher 20 December 2008 31 March 2010 although it has been accessible for the first months of 2009 as of 17 May. In the summer of 2005, the PRC purchased over 200 routers from an American company, Cisco Systems that allowed the PRC government a more advanced technological censoring ability. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1120959457574_23/?hub=TopStories China cracks down on web use, with Western help 2005-07-09 CTV In February 2006, Google made a significant concession to the Great Firewall of China, in exchange for equipment installation on Chinese soil, by blocking websites which the Chinese Government deemed illegal.See "Google Under the Gun," TIME, Feb 13, 2006. In May 2011 the State Council Information Office announced transfer of its offices which regulated the internet to a new subordinate agency, the State Internet Information Office which would be responsible for regulating the internet in the People's Republic of China. The relationship of the new agency to other agencies in the PRC which regulate the internet was unclear from the announcement.Wines Michael China Creates New Agency for Patrolling the Internet http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/world/asia/05china.html May 5, 2011 The New York Times May 4, 2011 Self-regulation Internet censorship in the PRC has been called "a panopticon that encourages self-censorship through the perception that users are being watched." The enforcement (or threat of enforcement) of censorship creates a chilling effect where individuals and businesses willingly censor their own communications to avoid legal and economic repercussions. ISPs and other service providers are legally liable for customers' conduct. The service providers have assumed an editorial role with regard to customer content, thus became publishers, and legally responsible for libel and other torts committed by customers. Some hotels in China advise internet users to obey local Chinese internet access rules by leaving a list of internet rules and guidelines near the computers. These rules, among other things, forbid linking to politically unacceptable messages, and inform internet users that if they do, they will have to face legal consequences. http://freemanchina.blogspot.com/2007/07/chinese-internet-browsing-rules.html Chinese Internet Browsing Rules & Guidelines 25 July 2007 17 June 2007 Freeman China On March 16, 2002, the Internet Society of China, a self-governing Chinese internet industry body,Tai Zixue The Internet in China: cyberspace and civil society 2006 Routledge New York 0-415-97655-3 101 http://books.google.com/books?id=I-95XzS7l8QC&pg=PT123&lpg=PT123&dq=public+pledge+on+self-discipline+for+chinese+internet+industry+google&source=bl&ots=oDQCnrZwEd&sig=0u3xWUo_tzTb33Er-RKe2lAGWpg&hl=en&ei=vx_lTsefC8WwiQKDyPXQBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFwQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=public%20pledge%20on%20self-discipline%20for%20chinese%20internet%20industry%20google&f=false launched the Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry, an agreement between the Chinese internet industry regulator and companies that operate sites in China. In signing the agreement, web companies pledge to identify and prevent the transmission of information that Chinese authorities deem objectionable, including information that “breaks laws or spreads superstition or obscenity,” or that “may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability.” Einhorn and Ben Elgin Bruce The Great Firewall Of China http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_04/b3968055.htm 11 December 2011 Business Week magazine 23 January 2006Kine Phelim China's Internet Crackdown http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/27/china-internet-web-censor-surveillance-technology-security-google-yahoo-green-dam.html 11 December 2011 Forbes 27 May 2010Alfred Hermida Behind China's internet Red Firewall http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2234154.stm 11 December 2011 BBC 3 September 2002 As of 2006, the pledge had been signed by more than 3,000 entities operating websites in China.Karatzogianni Athina The politics of cyberconflict 2006 Routledge Taylor & Francis London 0-415-39684-0 135 http://books.google.com/books?id=fiKPBQe3A8UC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=public+pledge+on+self-discipline+for+chinese+internet+industry&source=bl&ots=IoxfzrBzSA&sig=675lODlBT6kRaXKCD4o9d17TqlQ&hl=en&ei=fSvlTvfKIKWPigKj8bm6Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCMQ6AEwATg8#v=onepage&q=public%20pledge%20on%20self-discipline%20for%20chinese%20internet%20industry&f=false Use of service providers Although the government does not have the physical resources to monitor all Internet chat rooms and forums, the threat of being shut down has caused Internet content providers to employ internal staff, colloquially known as "big mamas", who stop and remove forum comments which may be politically sensitive. In Shenzhen, these duties are partly taken over by a pair of police-created cartoon characters, Jingjing and Chacha, who help extend the online 'police presence' of the Shenzhen authorities. These cartoons spread across the nation in 2007 reminding internet users that they are being watched and should avoid posting 'sensitive' or 'harmful' material on the internet. However, Internet content providers have adopted some counter-strategies. One is to post politically sensitive stories and remove them only when the government complains. In the hours or days in which the story is available online, people read it, and by the time the story is taken down, the information is already public. One notable case in which this occurred was in response to a school explosion in 2001, when local officials tried to suppress the fact the explosion resulted from children illegally producing fireworks. http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shehui/20010310/413811.html 万载爆炸事件：新闻大战功与过 from people.com.cn, 10 March 2001 Chinese On July 11, 2003, the PRC government started granting licenses to businesses to open Internet cafe chains. Business analysts and foreign Internet operators regard the licenses as intended to clamp down on information deemed harmful to the PRC government. In July 2007, the city of Xiamen announced it would ban anonymous online postings after text messages and online communications were used to rally protests against a proposed chemical plant in the city. Internet users will be required to provide proof of identity when posting messages on the more than 100,000 Web sites registered in Xiamen. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Business/2007/07/07/chinese_city_bans_anonymous_web_postings/4057/ Chinese city bans anonymous web postings 8 July 2007 7 July 2007 United Press International Arrests Yan Xiaoling – Fan Yanqiong case Fines and short arrests are becoming an optional punishment to whoever expresses false information through the different internet formats, as this is seen as a risk to social stability.Social Media To Curb 'Rumors' In China, by Jaime FlorCruz and Tian Shao, CNN, September 22, 2011 In 2001, Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese activists were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for using a Yahoo email account to post anonymous writing to an Internet mailing list.Cohn, William. "Yahoo's China Defense." New Presence: The Prague Journal of European Affairs September 2007: 10.2. On 23 July 2008, the family of Liu Shaokun was notified that he had been sentenced to one year re-education through labor for “inciting a disturbance”. As a teacher in Sichuan province, he had taken photographs of collapsed schools and posted these photos online.China Quake School Critic Receives One-Year Sentence-Group, Reuters, 30 July 2008 On 18 July 2008, Huang Qi was formally arrested on suspicion of illegally possessing state secrets. Huang had spoken with the foreign press and posted information on his website about the plight of parents who had lost children in collapsed schools.Case Update: Detained Rights Activist Huang Qi Formally Arrested, HRIC, 18 July 2008; Jake Hooker, Voice seeking answers for parents about school collapse in China is silenced, International Herald Tribune, 11 July 2008; HRIC Press Release: Rights Activist Huang Qi Detained on Suspicion of Holding State Secrets, 16 June 2008 Technical implementation Overview Some commonly-used technical methods for censoring are:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/appendix-tech.html Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China Cyber.law.harvard.edu 2011-06-13 MethodDescriptionIP blockingThe access to a certain IP address is denied. If the target Web site is hosted in a shared hosting server, all Web sites on the same server will be blocked. This affects all IP protocols (mostly TCP) such as HTTP, FTP or POP. A typical circumvention method is to find proxies that have access to the target Web sites, but proxies may be jammed or blocked. Some large Web sites allocated additional IP addresses to circumvent the block, but later the block was extended to cover the new addresses.October 2010 DNS filtering and redirectionDoesn't resolve domain names, or returns incorrect IP addresses. This affects all IP protocols such as HTTP, FTP or POP. A typical circumvention method is to find a domain name server that resolves domain names correctly, but domain name servers are subject to blockage as well, especially IP blocking. Another workaround is to bypass DNS if the IP address is obtainable from other sources and is not blocked. Examples are modifying the Hosts file or typing the IP address instead of the domain name in a Web browser. URL filteringScan the requested Uniform Resource Locator (URL) string for target keywords regardless of the domain name specified in the URL. This affects the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Typical circumvention methods are to use escaped characters in the URL, or to use encrypted protocols such as VPN and SSL.For an example, see Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall Packet filteringTerminate TCP packet transmissions when a certain number of controversial keywords are detected. This affects all TCP protocols such as HTTP, FTP or POP, but Search engine pages are more likely to be censored. Typical circumvention methods are to use encrypted protocols such as VPN and SSL, to escape the HTML content, or reducing the TCP/IP stack's MTU, thus reducing the amount of text contained in a given packet. Connection resetIf a previous TCP connection is blocked by the filter, future connection attempts from both sides will also be blocked for up to 30 minutes. Depending on the location of the block, other users or Web sites may be also blocked if the communications are routed to the location of the block. A circumvention method is to ignore the reset packet sent by the firewall.http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,39372326,00.htm zdnetasia.com zdnetasia.com 2011-06-13 Other reported methods have included: Method Description Network enumeration It has been reported that unknown entities within China, likely with deep packet inspection (DPI) capabilities, have initiated unsolicited TCP/IP connections to computers within the United States for the purported purpose of network enumeration of services, in particular TLS/SSL and Tor (anonymity network) services, with the aim of facilitating IP blocking. Knock Knock Knockin' on Bridges' Doors Tim Wilde 7 January 2012 Tor Project https://blog.torproject.org/blog/knock-knock-knockin-bridges-doors Golden Shield Project Golden Shield Project Old style censorship is being replaced with a massive, ubiquitous architecture of surveillance: the Golden Shield. Ultimately, the aim is to integrate a gigantic online database with an all-encompassing surveillance network – incorporating speech and face recognition, closed-circuit television, smart cards, credit records, and Internet surveillance technologies. http://www.dd-rd.ca/site/_PDF/publications/globalization/CGS_ENG.PDF China's Golden Shield PDF Greg Walton right 25% The Golden Shield Project is owned by the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China (MPS). It started in 1998, began processing in November 2003, and the first part of the project passed the national inspection on 16 November 2006 in Beijing. According to MPS, its purpose is to construct a communication network and computer information system for police to improve their capability and efficiency. According to China Central Television (CCTV), by 2002 the preliminary work of the Golden Shield Project had cost US$800 million (equivalent to RMB 6,400 million or €640 million).金盾工程前期耗8亿美元 建全国性监视系统 The Golden Shield Project is part of what is sometimes known outside of mainland China as the "Great Firewall of China", a reference to the Great Wall of China and a firewall . The system blocks content by preventing IP addresses from being routed through. It consists of standard firewalls and proxy servers at the Internet gateways. The system also selectively engages in DNS poisoning when particular sites are requested. The government does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically impractical.http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1713317,00.html War of the words The Guardian London Jonathan Watts 23 February 2006 31 March 2010 Researchers at the University of California, Davis and at the University of New Mexico said that the Great Firewall is not a true firewall since banned material is sometimes able to pass through several routers or through the entire system without being blocked. http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/chinas-eye-internet-fraud-14190.html China's 'Eye on the Internet' a Fraud 12 September 2007 ScienceBlog.com Green Dam Youth Escort Green Dam Youth Escort A noticehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/ministry-of-industry-and-information-technology/ China News: Ministry Of Industry And Information Technology China Digital Times 27 July 2010 issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on 19 May stated that, as of 1 July 2009, manufacturers must ship machines to be sold in mainland China with the Green Dam software.Chao Loretta http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124440211524192081.html China Squeezes PC Makers Wall Street Journal 8 June 2009 The official statement claimed its objective was "to build a green, healthy, and harmonious online environment, and to avoid the effects on and the poisoning of our youth's minds by harmful information on the internet".http://www.miit.gov.cn/n11293472/n11293832/n11293952/12398220.html zh-cn 关于计算机预装绿色上网过滤软件的通知 (Notification regarding requirements for pre-installing green filtering software on computers) MIIT of PRC 19 May 2009 14 June 2009 Chinese On 14 August 2009, Li Yizhong, minister of industry and information technology, announced that computer manufacturers and retailers were no longer obliged to ship the software with new computers for home or business use, but that schools, internet cafes and other public use computers would still be required to run the software. A senior official of the Internet Affairs Bureau of the State Council Information Office said the software's only purpose was "to filter pornography on the Internet". The general manager of Jinhui, which developed Green Dam, said: "Our software is simply not capable of spying on Internet users, it is only a filter."Cui Jia Wang Xing Porn filters 'are not spyware' http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/sci-edu/it/2009-06/435960.html Global Times 10 June 2009 15 June 2009 Human rights advocates in China have criticized the software for being "a thinly concealed attempt by the government to expand censorship".Andrew Jacobs Experts Say Chinese Filter Would Make PCs Vulnerable http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/world/asia/13china.html?ref=world The New York Times 13 June 2009 13 June 2009 Online polls conducted on Sina, Netease, Tencent, Sohu, and Southern Metropolis Daily revealed over 70% rejection of the software by netizens.http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/86243.htm zh-cn 四大门户调查显示：超八成网友"拒绝"绿坝 (Polls by four leading portals say over 80% of netizens "reject" Green Dam) Chinese cnBeta.com 11 June 2009 11 June 2009 September 2010 H3llBothttp://tech.163.com/09/0611/03/5BGEP73T000915BD.html zh-cn 八成网友拒装"绿坝"，金惠、大正受命封口 (80% of netizens refuse to install "Green Dam"; Jinhui, Dazheng ordered to remain silent) Gao Lingyun Southern Metropolis Daily 11 June 2009 11 June 2009 Chinese However, Xinhua commented that "support [for Green Dam] largely stems from end users, opposing opinions primarily come from a minority of media outlets and businesses".http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-06/12/content_11532769.htm zh-cn "过滤软件之争"争的是什么 (What is controversial about the filter software controversy?) Xinhua 12 June 2009 13 June 2009 Chinesehttp://www.danwei.org/state_media/everyone_loves_content_filters.php Everyone loves content filters, Xinhua says Joel Martinsen Danwei.org 12 June 2009 12 June 2009 Targeted platforms List of websites blocked in the People's Republic of China According to a Harvard study, at least 18,000 websites are blocked from within mainland China. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China 30 December 2006 Jonathan Zittrain, Benjamin Edelman Out of the Top 100 Global Websites, 12 are currently blocked in mainland China.Top Sites blocked in China According to the PRC-sponsored news agency, Xinhua, stated that censorship targets only "superstitious, pornographic, violence-related, gambling and other harmful information."China and the Internet. International Debates, 15420345, Apr2010, Vol. 8, Issue 4 On the other hand, websites centered on the following political topics are often censored: Falun Gong,http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in ChinaHow Multinational Internet Companies assist Government Censorship in China police brutality, Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech, democracy, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0224/p01s04-woap.html China's media censorship rattling world image Marquand Robert 4 February 2006 Christian Science Monitor Taiwan independence, Tibetan independence movement, and the Tuidang movement.Xia, Bill. "Google.cn's Self Censorship." Chinascope. May/June 2008. Foreign media websites such as BBC News, Yahoo! Hong Kong and the Voice of America are occasionally blocked. Search engines List of words censored by search engines in the People's Republic of China One part of the block is to filter the search results of certain terms on Chinese search engines. These Chinese search engines include both international ones (for example, yahoo.com.cn and Google China) as well as domestic ones (for example, Baidu). Attempting to search for censored keywords in these Chinese search engines will yield few or no results. Previously, google.cn displayed the following at the bottom of the page: "According to the local laws, regulations and policies, part of the searching result is not shown." As was the case when searching for information about the 2011 uprising in Egypt.Egypt not trending in China When Google did business in the country, it set up computer systems inside China that try to access Web sites outside the country. If a site is inaccessible, then it is added to Google China's blacklist. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23google.html?pagewanted=8&ei=5090&en=972002761056363f&ex=1303444800 Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem) Thompson Clive 23 April 2006 The New York Times 8 In addition, a connection containing intensive censored terms may also be closed by The Great Firewall, and cannot be reestablished for several minutes. This affects all network connections including HTTP and POP, but the reset is more likely to occur during searching. Before the search engines censored themselves, many search engines had been blocked, namely Google and AltaVista.See History of Google. Technorati, a search engine for blogs, has been blocked. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060428-105228 Technorati Blocked In China Schwartz Barry 28 April 2006 SearchEngineWatch Different search engines implement the mandated censorship in different ways. For example, the search engine Bing is reported to censor search results from searches conducted in simplified Chinese characters (used in the PRC), but not in traditional Chinese characters (used in Taiwan and elsewhere).Nicholas D. Kristof, Boycott Microsoft Bing, New York Times, 20 November 2009. Discussion forums thumb|"For reason which everyone knows, and to suppress our extremely unharmonious thoughts, this site is voluntarily closed for technical maintenance between 3 and 6 June 2009..." Dusanben.com (translation) Several Bulletin Board Systems in universities were closed down or restricted public access since 2004, including the SMTH BBS and the YTHT BBS. http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2005/03/students_protes.php Students protest restrictions on most influential BBS 20 March 2005 China Digital Times In September 2007, some data centers were shut down indiscriminately for providing interactive features such as blogs and forums. CBS reports an estimate that half the interactive sites hosted in China were blocked.Why Did China Shut Down 18,401 Web sites? Coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of the government suppression of the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, the government ordered internet portals, forums and discussion groups to shut down their servers for maintenance between 3 and 6 June.Hundreds of websites shut down as censors order 'server maintenance' 4 June 2009 A3 Staff Reporter and Peter So South China Morning Post The day before the mass shut-down, Chinese users of Twitter, Hotmail and Flickr, among others, reported a widespread inability to access these services.http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/06/03/closed-for-business-more-chinese-web-sites/ Wall Street Journal (WSJ Blogs) 3 June 2009 Closed for Business: More Chinese Web Sites Sky Canaves (WSJ China Journal) Social media websites Although the government and media often use microblogging service Sina Weibo to spread ideas and monitor corruption, it is also supervised and self censored by 700 Sina censors.Wired Up, written by Austin Ramzy, Time Magazine, February 17, 2011 After the 2011 Wenzhou train collision, the government started emphasizing the danger in spreading 'false rumors' (yaoyan), making the permissive usage of Weibo and social networks a public debate.Fighting rumors: A new way to supervise the Chinese internet sphere, Thinking Chinese, October 3, 2011 In the second half of 2009 the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter were blocked, presumably because of containing social or political commentary (similar to LiveJournal in the above list). An example is the commentary on the July 2009 Ürümqi riots.http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/07/chinas-facebook-status-blocked.html China's Facebook Status: Blockedhttp://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/china-blocks-access-to-twitter-facebook-after-riots China Blocks Access To Twitter, Facebook After Riots Another reason suggested for the block is that activists can utilize them to organize themselves.http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-06-02-china-twitter-tiananmen-protests_N.htm Social-networking sites Twitter, Flickr go dark in China USA Today Jon Swartz 3 June 2009 5 May 2010http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-technology/internet-activists-discuss-online-democracy-20091122-isc9.html Internet activists discuss online democracy The Sydney Morning Herald Ciaran Giles 22 November 2009 In 2010 Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo became a forbidden topic in Chinese media due to his winning the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. International influence Foreign content providers such as Yahoo!, AOL, and Skype must abide by PRC government wishes, including having internal content monitors, in order to be able to operate within mainland China. Also, in accordance with mainland Chinese laws, Microsoft began to censor the content of its blog service Windows Live Spaces, arguing that continuing to provide Internet services is more beneficial to the Chinese. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/krumholtz/02-15WrittenTestimony.mspx Congressional Testimony: "The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?" 30 August 2006 Microsoft.com Michael Anti, a Chinese journalist whose blog on Windows Live Spaces was removed by Microsoft, agreed that the Chinese are better off with Windows Live Spaces than without it. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/internet/ Roundtable: The Struggle to Control Freedom 11 April 2005 PBS.org The Chinese version of MySpace, launched in April 2007, has many censorship-related differences from other international versions of the service. Discussion forums on topics such as religion and politics are absent and a filtering system that prevents the posting of content about politically sensitive topics has been added. http://texyt.com/MySpace+China+censors+politics+religion+064 MySpace now available in China – minus politics and religion Lu Enjie 26 April 2007 Texyt.com Users are also given the ability to report the "misconduct" of other users for offenses including "endangering national security, leaking state secrets, subverting the government, undermining national unity, spreading rumors or disturbing the social order." http://wwwcn.myspace.cn/Modules/Common/Pages/TermsConditions.aspx MySpace.cn使用协议条款 28 April 2007 MySpace.cn Chinese Some media have suggested that China's internet censorship of foreign websites may also be a means of forcing mainland Chinese users to rely on China's own e-commerce industry, thus self-insulating their economy from the dominance of international corporations. http://tomcarter.newsvine.com/_news/2007/02/15/569719-the-chinese-internet-crash-of-2007-calamity-or-capitalism The Chinese Internet Crash of 2007 – Calamity or Capitalism? 5 September 2008 Carter, Tom October 2010 H3llBot On 7 November 2005 an alliance of investors and researchers representing 26 companies in the U.S., Europe and Australia with over US $21 billion in joint assets announced that they were urging businesses to protect freedom of expression and pledged to monitor technology companies that do business in countries violating human rights, such as China. On 21 December 2005 the UN, OSCE and OAS special mandates on freedom of expression called on Internet corporations to "work together ... to resist official attempts to control or restrict use of the Internet." Google finally responded when attacked by hackers rumoured to be hired by the Chinese government by threatening to pull out of China (Newsweek) Reporters Without Borders suspects that regimes such as Cuba, Zimbabwe and Belarus have obtained surveillance technology from the People's Republic of China.http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/rapport_gb_md_1.pdf Going online in Cuba: Internet under surveillance Reporters Without Borders 2006 Evasion Internet censorship circumvention Internet censorship in China is circumvented by determined parties by using proxy servers outside the firewall. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/3.htm Human Rights Watch VPN and SSH connections to outside mainland China are not blocked, so users may circumvent all of the censorship and monitoring of the Great Firewall if they have a secure connection method to a computer outside mainland China. However, disruptions of VPN services have been reported. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/13/china-cracks-down-on-vpn-use China Cracks Down on VPN Use, Guardian News London The Guardian Charles Arthur 13 May 2011 Since free hosting blog services like Blogger and Wordpress.com frequently face blockage, http://www.bloggingtips.com/2009/05/25/chinas-ban-on-blogger-blogs-and-possible-workarounds/ China’s Ban on Blogger Blogs, bloggingtips.com http://beijingnotebook.blogspot.com/2007/11/blogspot-blocked-in-china.html Blogspot blocked in China, beijingnotebook.blogspot.com https://greatfire.org/blog/2011/oct/all-wordpress-blogs-blocked-in-china All WordPress blogs blocked in China, greatfire.org http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/04/wordpress/ WordPress.com DDoS Attacks Primarily From China, Tech Crunch some China-focused services explicitly offer to change a blog's IP address within 30 minutes if it is blocked by the authorities.The Best Hosting Services to Sidestep China's Great Firewall In July 2006, researchers at Cambridge University claim to have defeated the firewall by ignoring the TCP reset packets. http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,39372326,00.htm Academics break the Great Firewall of China Espiner Tom 2006-07-04 ZD Net Asia The Tor website is blocked although the Tor network is not, making Tor (in conjunction with Privoxy) an effective tool for circumvention of the censorship controls if one can acquire it.March 2009 Tor maintains a public list of entry nodes, so the authorities could easily block it if they had the inclination. According to the sections 6.4 and 7.9, Tor is vulnerable to timing analysis by Chinese authorities, so it allows a breach of anonymity.Tor FAQ Thus for the moment, Tor allows uncensored downloads and uploads, although no guarantee can be made with regard to freedom from repercussions. Since 25 September 2009, about 80% of the public relays are blocked by IP address and TCP port combinationhttps://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-partially-blocked-china Tor partially blocked in China tor-projekt-blog 27 September 2007 but Tor users are still connecting to the network through non-public relays (bridges).https://www.torproject.org/bridges As an alternative to Tor, there are various HTTP/HTTPS Tunnel Services. It was common in the past to use Google's cache feature to view blocked websites. However, this feature of Google seems to be under some level of blocking, as access is now erratic and does not work for blocked websites. Currently the block is mostly circumvented by using proxy servers outside the firewall, and is not difficult to carry out for those determined to do so. Some well-known proxy servers have also been blocked. Some Chinese citizens used the Google mirror elgooG after China blocked Google.http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2768 Google mirror beats Great Firewall of China – 06 September 2002 New Scientist 27 July 2010 See also People's Republic of China Internet Censorship in the People's Republic of China Digital divide in the People's Republic of China Human rights in the People's Republic of China Media of the People's Republic of China Concerns and controversies over the 2008 Summer Olympics#Web and media censorship References 2 External links Bi-directional Censorship from the Great Firewall of China Cyberpolice.cn (网络违法犯罪举报网站) – Ministry of Public Security P.R. 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