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Great Firewall of China

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Main article: Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

The Golden Shield Project (Chinese: 金盾工程; pinyin: jīndùn gōngchéng), often referred to as the "Great Firewall of China", is a censorship and surveillance project operated by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) division of the government of China. The project started in 1998 and began operations in November 2003.

History

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.[1] The CDP was immediately banned followed by arrests and imprisonment.[2] 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”. At the exhibition, many western high-tech products including Internet security, video monitoring and human face recognition, were purchased. It is estimated that around 30,000 police are employed in this gigantic project.[3]

It has been nicknamed the Great Firewall of China in reference to its role as a network firewall and to the ancient Great Wall of China. A major part of the project includes the ability to block content by preventing IP addresses from being routed through and 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.[4] Because of its disconnection from the larger world of IP routing protocols, the network contained within the Great Firewall has been described as "the Chinese autonomous routing domain".[5]

During the 2008 Olympic Games, Chinese officials told Internet providers to prepare to unblock access from certain Internet cafés, access jacks in hotel rooms and conference centers where foreigners were expected to work or stay.[6]

Purpose

In September 2002, Li Runsen, the technology director at MPS and member of the Golden Shield leadership, further explained this broad definition to thousands of police nationwide at a meeting in Beijing called "Information Technology for China’s Public Security".

In October 2001, Greg Walton of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development published a report; he wrote:

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.[7]

In July 2007, authorities intensified the "monitoring and control" of The Great Firewall, causing email disruption, in anticipation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting scheduled for August 2007.[8]

Some commonly-used methods for censoring are:[9]

Method Description
IP blocking The 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.
DNS filtering and redirection Doesn'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 filtering Scan 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.[10]
Packet filtering Terminate 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 reset If 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.[11]

Censored content

Main article: List of websites blocked in the People's Republic of China

Mainland Chinese Internet censorship programs have censored Web sites that include (among other things):

Blocked Web sites are indexed to a lesser degree, if at all, by some Chinese search engines. This sometimes has considerable impact on search results.[13]

According to The New York Times, Google has 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.[14] However, once unblocked, the Web sites will be reindexed.

Bypassing

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Transwiki:Bypassing the Great Firewall of China

Unblocking

Certain sites have begun to be unblocked, including:

  • The English-language BBC website, (but not the Chinese-language website).[16]
  • YouTube,[17] although it has been subsequently re-blocked.[18]
  • This site (wikipedia.org), including the Chinese-language edition.[19]
  • Social websites and free web hosting websites. However these have also been re-blocked.
  • Some foreign news websites.

Cooperation

Reporters Without Borders suspects that regimes such as Cuba, Zimbabwe and Belarus have obtained surveillance technology from the People's Republic of China.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ Goldman, Merle Goldman. Gu, Edward X. [2004] (2004). Chinese Intellectuals between State and Market. Routledge publishing. ISBN 0415325978
  2. ^ Goldsmith, Jack L. (2006). Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of Borderless World. Oxford university press. p. 91. ISBN 01895152662. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ 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 Template:Zh icon
  4. ^ Watts, Jonathan (20 February 2006). "War of the words". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 3 May 2010.
  5. ^ "Costs and Benefits of Running a National ARD" (PDF).
  6. ^ "The Connection Has Been Reset". theatlantic.com.
  7. ^ China's Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People's Republic of China
  8. ^ "China censors blamed for email chaos". Reuters. 18 July 2007. Retrieved 19 August 2007.
  9. ^ Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China.
  10. ^ For an example, see Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall
  11. ^ zdnetasia.com
  12. ^ Marquand, Robert (4 February 2006). "China's media censorship rattling world image". Christian Science Monitor. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ "controlling information: you can't get there from here -- filtering searches". The tank man. Frontline (pbs.org).
  14. ^ Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem), p8
  15. ^ Ultrasurf is malware - Wilders Security Forums
  16. ^ BBC News Article on the Unblocking of iteself
  17. ^ China Citizens Comment on the Unblocking, one mentions YouTube is also Free to access
  18. ^ Miguel Helft (24 March 2009). "YouTube Blocked in China, Google Says". The New York Times.
  19. ^ A page on Chinese Wikipedia which is for visitors to report how/from where/via which ISP they can access Wikipedia Template:Zh icon
  20. ^ "Going online in Cuba: Internet under surveillance" (PDF). Reporters Without Borders. 2006.

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