Internet Censorship, the Great Firewall of China

With the arrival of the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing, it seems that this would be one appropriate time to converge on The Great Firewall of China, or the Golden Shield Project (as it is officially understood). The Golden Shield is a censorship and surveillance procedure flee by China's Ministry of Public Service. While the Chinese administration has been using the Great Firewall to censor and stop websites in China since 2003, many of us do not have a full understanding of the Golden Shield Project and its intricacies. This article is not averaged to start a revolution against the Chinese administration to bring down the Great Firewall, but a method to gain a better understanding of someone that many Americans and Europeans have little wisdom about--Internet censorship using the GSP.

While most Americans and Europeans do have the right to choose what sites they visit and surf the Internet freely (again the keyword is "most"), other countries' citizens are stifled by government censorship of the Internet. In China any site that expresses antagonistic views or states a negate opinion of the government is banned. Not only will the site be banned, but the authors may face nefarious charges and a lengthy prison sentence. While many sites have recently been unblocked by the Chinese government because of the Beijing Olympics, many other sites including, pro-democracy advocates, Taiwanese government and media, and blog sites are still banned. The idea of having privacy rights or anyone type of Internet seclusion is a concept that many Chinese citizens have little understanding of.

The conception of the Great Firewall started in 1998 and began operating in 2003. The need for the GSP stemmed from Communist regimes panicking that the Chinese Democracy Party would amplify an extensive and powerful network that couldn't be controlled. The GSP acts as a firewall (hence the moniker) and blocks content based on IP addresses and a large database of banned websites. The IPs are banned and prevented from gaining access to blocked content basically by using a proxy server the opposite way we would use it (think: reverse proxy). Any IP address that comes from a Chinese server is instantly denied access. The GSP too combines IP filtering with DNS poisoning to retain control over the Internet in China.

Along with IP blocking, URL-, DNS-, and Packet-filtering, the GSP has a unique characteristic: it doesn't equitable ban sites based on these methods, but also bans websites based on the content. PrivacyView Software’s Internet Privacy and Safety blog would be banned instantly because it shows methods for gaining access to "tabooed sites." Also, any content that is considered subversive by the government would be subject to banishment, including any pro-democracy, pro-Tibet, and pro-anything another the Chinese government is against. The advanced technology of the GSP also blocks web feeds, specifically ones with rss, fared, and blog in URL address. Even with the sophisticated technology, 28% of sites that should be banned do slip through the cracks, this system of Internet censorship has been working well for China. With the number of China’s Internet police approaching 30,000, the lasting lifting of banned websites in China does not seem to be a intend for the near hereafter.

Now self-censorship is practiced at numerous Chinese. While sites namely ought be banned do slide via the cracks, these Chinese inhabitants bring an end to ... practicing self-censorship and not visiting these sites anyway. It makes faultless sense: Just for the site hasn't been banned but, namely it still okay apt see at? Why take that become and bring an end to ... in jail favor many Chinese bloggers do? The thought that you are creature saw along the Golden Shield Project, even if the site is granted above the network, is a potent coerce...folk tend to act differently when their bosses, alternatively the authorities, are disbursing care.

Even whereas China’s Golden Shield Project has recently allowed an unprecedented value of network vehicle to pass through China’s waiters, it is merely a material of time before the website bans are behind in location and the Chinese government is back to policing the Internet. Before China re-bans the Internet and China's Internet censorship program takes full achieve another, it is important to learn the manifold methods for bypassing and circumventing the restrictions. Chinese officials lifted their ban on certain websites later journalists were upset that many of the sites they needed to access were unavailable because of the GSP, but once the terminal honor is gifted and the closing ceremonies end it maximum probable won't take many time before China is back to banning as many content as likely, so it is important to know ways to bypass the Great Firewall and maintain Internet privacy.

The following methods may appear familiar, as they are used for anonymous surfing, but they do in truth go preferably well for circumventing the GSP and gaining access to banned sites.

Anonymous Proxy servers: Anonymous agent servers based outdoor of China can be secondhand to access blocked content. The sites are blocked only to Chinese citizens and therefore whether you surf using a U.S. - or European-based agent server then you can gain access to restricted sites. The website ambition peruse the IP address and give you approval to outlook the site. At the same time, the server ambition hide your IP so that anyone snooping the connection will watch a person from Tulsa, OKAY surfing the Internet. As an added dividend a agreeable proxy server will also encrypt the data being transmitted so that anyone spying can not view the message being sent over the connection.

Foreign companies can apply for a local website hosted in China. While this method does not apply to an individual user attempting to access a banned site, it is a method to ignore the Great Firewall since the company's content does not have to bring ... to an end the Great Firewall. The enterprise does have to apply for a local ICP license, which is not guaranteed. The ICP copyright is basically a allow that allows a Chinese hosted website to operate. Without an ICP license sites face the risk of being blocked by the ISP as per arrays from the government.

Using secure tunnels such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN). GSP can't percolate secure traffic that is being communicated and therefore secure tunnels cater a direction as users to access content and create sites that would otherwise be banned. A VPN is a means because connecting a calculator to a network server without physical wires. Instead the computer and the host are interlocked through the Internet through a safe tunnel which only allows access by the connected parties.

Onion routing networks, such as Tor, can be used since it requires a network of computers to encrypt and disguise your information. This method is, in essence, quite similar to an anonymous proxy server, with the only real difference being that consumers allow their PCs and connections to be used as nodes. A human (in this circumstance a Chinese citizen attempting to view a blog) will join through a network of hosted nodes which will encrypt the data being transmitted and hide the IP address. The major disadvantage of Tor is that you do not know who set up the unknown linkage you are passing through. You truly have no mind who set up the connection and therefore anybody can intrude your privacy through this believed network.

While the short-lived lifting of certain banned websites did amuse the International Olympic Committee, and prevented China from being viewed as a restrictive government regime, the keyword is of lesson “temporary.” With the minutes of emancipation counting down it is momentous to kas long asultimately these methods of bypassing the Great Firewall allow netizens to choose if or not they want to visit blog sites and other restricted URLs.