WIRED Staff
Security

Let the Winds of a Civilized Internet Blow

While its rather convenient to think of Chinese censorship of the internet as a technological FireWall of China that sits on the borders of China blocking traffic to infidel web sites, the reality is much more interesting. Take, for instance, Hu Yingying at Shanghai Normal University (normal means a teacher’s college) who polices the university’s […]

While its rather convenient to think of Chinese censorship of the internet as a technological FireWall of China that sits on the borders of China blocking traffic to infidel web sites, the reality is much more interesting.

Take, for instance, Hu Yingying at Shanghai Normal University (normal means a teacher's college) who polices the university's message boards as an undisclosed volunteer for the government's "Let the Winds of a Civilized Internet Blow" campaign, according to the New York Times's Howard W. French.

Once online, following suggestions from professors or older students, she introduces politically correct or innocuous themes for discussion. Recently, she says, she started a discussion of what celebrities make the best role models, a topic suggested by a professor as appropriate.

Politics, even school politics, is banned on university bulletin boards like these. Hu says she and her fellow moderators try to steer what they consider negative conversations in a positive direction with well-placed comments of their own. Anything they deem offensive, she says, they report to the school's Web master for deletion.

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Chinese censorship isn't monolithic, with provinces, cities, universities and even internet cafes all getting in on the IP blocking actions, according to Anonymizer.com's Lance Cottrell.

"But often they move slowly.† Our most recent project with Voice of America, launched on March 30, is not yet blocked," Cottrell told attendees at last week's Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference.

Anonymizer uses very popular DNS servers to thwart censorship since the company has found that even Chinese censors fear user revolt.

"There's a very real reticence to block very popular sites," Cottrell said.

Chinese censorship has also been helped by free trade, according to Cottrell.

"Looking at how they do it, they are almost entirely using U.S. technology and providers," Cottrell said.† "There's plenty of moral ambiguity to go around."

(Note: Required disclaimer: this post has been 'initially' cleared by my ISP's volunteer forces, though they strongly urged me to tell you that they do monitor the comment boards too.)

Tags: china, anonymizer, cfp, moral ambiguity, great firewall