Getting around the Great Firewall of China
In China, thousands of people are employed to maintain a control strategy that limits access to certain types of information on the Internet. Dubbed the Great Firewall of China, the system also monitors the contents of e-mails and individual internet traffic unless you take steps to prevent it.
Below you find articles that tells what you need to know about the system, and advice and links to programs you may want to install on your computer before you go to China.
"The Connection Has Been Reset"
This article by James Fallow in the March 2008 Atlantic gives a good and lively introduction to the basics of Chinese Internet censorship and what the Chinese authorities to achieve by having it.
Learn
- how the Chinese monitors all Internet traffic in and out of the country
- how a Domain Name System (DNS) block works
- how transmissions are interrupted by a "Reset" command
- what a URL keyword block is
- how progressively longer time-outs are used to deter users from acessing web pages that are judged unsuitable
- how to bypass the Great Firewall with proxy servers and virtual private networks (VPNs)
- how to encrypt web-based mail systems by typing "https://" instead of "http://"
Read the full article here
Beijing Olympics Advice from ex-CNN journalist
Rebecca MacKinnon, former Beijing Bureau Chief of CNN now teaches digital journalism at Hong Kong University. In an interview with former journalist and current China entrepreneur Thomas Crampton she gives practical advice on
- how to get behind the Great Firewall
- how to keep communications private
- how to protect sources and fixers
- how to scramble your data
Read the story on Thomas Crampton's blog
Watch the interview on youtube below