The Dark Visitor

The well-known (to our regular readers) Chinese media site Danwei linked to a Shanghaiist article that the Anonymouse proxy servers have been blocked in the PRC (along with comedycentral.com apparently). From the article:

It’s finally happened: Anonymouse.org, the proxy service that many of us use to access blocked websites and surf the Internet anonymously, has been blocked by Net Nanny. Shanghaiist first noted it at 10:30PM last night Shanghai time, along with the block of ComedyCentral.com. While the decision to block Anonymouse is self-evident (okay, sort of), we’re not completely sure why ComedyCentral got the axe. In the mean time, Shanghaiist suggests using alternative proxy services ProxyChina or Hack520.

Commenters noted that the Hack520 program is the same as the well-known Ultrasurf/Ultrareach system and that although the client program works to anonymously proxy surfing, one needs to use another proxy to get to the download site to get the client to begin with.

One of the best client anonymizers out there is TOR, which also still works in the PRC. Interestingly enough, there are many TOR exit nodes inside the PRC, which leads me to wonder: Why would anyone who uses TOR (political dissidents, journalists, pr0n surfers) want to be proxied into a country that most people are trying to get proxied out of?

James Fallows was interviewed in a Network World article today about his articles on the Great Firewall of China.  We blogged about the GFW previously.  From the article:

When it comes to the Internet, this haziness about just what is and is not permissible has two implications. At a purely technical level, it makes it harder to reverse-engineer the firewall’s filters. One day, you can reach all pages at the BBC. The next day they’re blocked. If you’re trying to game out the system, you’re stymied. And at a social level, it makes it hard for people to be sure that they’re ever operating in a truly safe zone, since the rules of enforcement might shift tomorrow.

FYI:  www.thedarkvisitor.com has been GFW’d since January of this year.  We still get occasional hits from the mainland though.  Mostly from English language browsers - probably in hotels.

I first became interested in Internet censorship after hearing Roger Dingledine talk about TOR and Kenneth Geers’  talk “Greetz from Room 101 (PDF)” at DEFCON XV.

I saw this blog (Politically Motivated Computer Crime and Hacktivism) about Tibet supporters recieving email malware in my feed reader today and thought it might be interesting to TDV readers.  The original article is here.

“We are getting virus attacks that are just shameless… claiming to be desperate people inside Tibet. The emails are well-written and emotional, pleading for us to open the images,” she told AFP.

“At the moment we are having to use outside emails because our email accounts are not working, we have to direct everything through our outside emails,” he told AFP.

Hopefully more to follow (looking for malware samples)…

Sorry guys, will be off for the next couple of days.  The people who pay my bills are sending me out and about.  Normal postings will begin again on Sunday.  Jumper will keep you guys updated if anything happens within the world of Chinese hackers.

Posted under censorship. :)

The Atlantic has a great article on the Great Firewall of China (GFW).  It is full of technical details about the central component of Internet censorship in China.  The article discusses some of the censorship countermeasures such as proxy servers and VPN and suggests that the PRC government only has to make it difficult, not impossible.  The majority of users can’t be bothered to use a proxy so they stick with the sanitized official news sources.

One thing that I have found in my own research is that internal/domestic censorship is handled primarily by content providers themselves, not by the government.  There isn’t any official guidance on what should be censored on portals and boards (”bars”) so it is left up to the provider, who may be overly cautious in order to avoid trouble.  I have read that there are periodic meetings between propaganda representatives and the official content providers in order to inform them of what issues should be avoided and which stories should be prominently displayed.  This leaves those within the PRC who are not willing to use proxies with an unbalanced view of current events.

…and he makes fun of your crappy Western online game playing skills.

Chinese Internet censorship is little more than a joke to Li Shenwen, an unemployed computer game enthusiast who remained glued to his keyboard well past midnight in a dingy “Wangba” or “NetBar” on a recent Saturday night.

Official blocks on controversial or political Web sites pose no obstacle to any experienced user who wants to get past them, said Mr. Li, who picks up spending money by amassing points in computer games and selling them to a broker who in turn sells them online to avid but inept Western gamers.

Further…

Opening a new browser, he promptly brought up outlawed content in Chinese and English from YouTube, Voice of America, Falun Gong and, for added measure, Reporters Without Borders — all within less than three minutes.

Go read this…after you guys practice a little bit more on gaming! Quite frankly, I am just embarrassed for you…Chinese hackers evade Internet censorship.

Today I noticed that we haven’t had any visitors from China since January 17th.  I assumed the worst - that the blog is blocked by the infamous great firewall.  I checked out http://www.websitepulse.com/help/testtools.china-test.html and thedarkvisitor.com does indeed appear to be blocked by URL filters.  The DNS name resolves correctly but the web request is never answered.  Censorship in the PRC is decentralized but our site appears to be blocked in all of the cities that this test is available for.  I will be conducting some more testing using TOR later this evening.  I’m not sure I understand why the site would have been blocked since it is not the least bit critical of the CCP or the PRC government and we don’t have any posts about taboo subjects.  There are a couple of posts that make light of Taiwan independence but I wouldn’t guess that would be enough to cause someone to recommend the site be blocked at a national level.  I would be very interested in hearing any readers’ thoughts on this issue of censorship in China.   UPDATE - I used a number of open proxies in China and all returned a 404 when thedarkvisitor.com was requested while other US websites loaded fine.