Thread: China Now Has The Ability to Track Internet Users Who 'Scale The Wall'

Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang recently detained and warned an internet user after they were detected using a circumvention tool to read information on Wikipedia, which lies outside China's complex network of blocks, filters, and human censorship known as the Great Firewall.


According to social media reports, internet user Zhang Tao received a visit from police soon after after using the open-source online encyclopedia, suggesting that the authorities' ability to monitor people's internet activity in real time has been stepped up recently.


In a now-deleted online announcement from the Zhejiang police, screenshots of which were still available on social media this week, Zhang was accused of using the circumvention tool Lantern, downloaded following a Baidu search, to "make repeated, illegal queries on the Wikipedia website."


Zhang was detained by police on Oct. 24 at a building in the Mingzhuyuan residential complex on Huannan Street in the Dinghai district of Zhoushan city, it said.


He was taken to the police station and accused of using mobile phone circumvention software to access international sites in order to get information.


His behavior met the criteria for "setting up and using illegal channels for international internet access without authorization," the notice said.


Zhang received an administrative penalty, a warning, and an order to cease and desist from connecting to websites outside China, it said.


Repeated attempts to contact the Zhoushan police department public relations department met with no response.


However, an online article on the official website of the Zhejiang provincial Cyberspace Administration said it is "illegal to scale the Great Firewall to browse anti-CCP and anti-social content."


An officer who answered the phone at a police station on Jiefang Road in Dinghai district referred inquiries to the Zhoushan municipal police department.


"We have reported this to our superiors," the officer said. "If you want to know more details about the case, you will need to inquire at a higher level."


However, repeated calls to the Zhoushan municipal police department rang unanswered during office hours on Thursday.


High-tech surveillance


France-based commentator Wang Longmeng said the development showed that police can now locate anyone in mainland China using circumvention software to "scale the Great Firewall."


"The most noteworthy point in this case is that the police are able to track down those who scale the wall with great accuracy," Wang told RFA. "The Chinese Communist Party's high-tech surveillance of its citizens is like an advanced version of that used in Orwell's 1984."


He said it shows that China's internet police are keeping tabs on Chinese users even when their activity is located outside the Great Firewall.


"We have seen an increasing number of Twitter users 'disappear,' believed silenced, or punished by the authorities," Wang said.


Wang said the powerful Central Internet Security and Informatization Leading Group, which overseas China's internet police, reports directly to CCP general secretary Xi Jinping.


"Once you criminalize scaling the Great Firewall, then China is once more an isolated country," Wang said. "The CCP leadership want to use high walls to block the free flow of information, so they can brainwash their own citizens, and turn all 1.4 billion of them into subjects devoid of independent thought and judgement."


"That way, their grip on power is much stronger," he said.


Controls unevenly applied


Beijing-based rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said the controls are unevenly applied, however, with employees of Chinese state media organizations like Xinhua, the Global Times, and foreign ministry spokespersons, all running accounts on overseas social media platforms that are blocked inside China.


"Look at Xinhua news agency, Hu Xijin of the Global Times, and the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs... they all have Twitter accounts, and a lot of pro-CCP accounts are able to scale the wall too," he said. "If they're allowed to do it, why isn't everybody else?"


"There shouldn't be one rule for them and another for ordinary citizens."


The multilingual version of Wikipedia was blocked in China in April 2019.


China ranked bottom of a list of 65 countries in the world assessed by the U.S.-based non-profit Freedom House in its Freedom on the Net 2020 report published earlier this month.


"The application of national sovereignty to cyberspace has given authorities free rein to crack down on human rights while ignoring objections from local civil society and the international community," the report said.


"China’s regime, a pioneer in this field and the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom for the sixth year in a row, has long blocked popular foreign services and centralized technical infrastructure to allow for the pervasive monitoring and filtering of all traffic coming into the country," it said, adding that Russia and Iran appeared to be taking leaves from Beijing's playbook.

China Now Has The Ability to Track Internet Users Who 'Scale The Wall'

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Lantern (software) - Wikipedia

Fucking chinky nazis.

Essential data security tips for your next trip to China

What a cnut of a regime.

When are Oh Oh, Klongdick and Skidmark moving there?

Twenty or so years ago, a multinational corporation I worked with had a knock on the door of their Paris office from government officers asking why encrypted emails were moving in and out of the building in contravention of French law. That bounced around with the legal folks for a while although I never learned how it was resolved, because I wasn't a French national and they couldn't tell me.
China's operation is bigger and blunter, by no means unique.

Originally Posted by hallelujah

When are Oh Oh, Klongdick and Skidmark moving there?

Hopefully soon, their nirvana awaits

Originally Posted by panama hat

Hopefully soon, their nirvana awaits

They like to talk the talk...

Originally Posted by panama hat

Hopefully soon, their nirvana awaits

Originally Posted by hallelujah

They like to talk the talk...

I'll let my Durian walk the walk.

Excellent prices from China which have helped many Thai farmers.

I use a VPN all the time as do most foreigners here.
I need a vpn to access Teakdoor.

Originally Posted by OhOh

I'll let my Durian walk the walk.

Yes, because you only talk the talk . . . QED

Originally Posted by panama hat

because you only talk the talk

Yes, growing durian fruit for market is a very simple job. Selling is very simple and my Thai family and I reap the benefits, now and in the future years.

Sustainable, long term income from a few Rai of Thai land.

Another legacy from my life's endeavors.

Originally Posted by hallelujah

What a cnut of a regime.

When are Oh Oh, Klongdick and Skidmark moving there?

You know and I know that the govt does this in our society too.

In the UK , US , aus and NZ, people get police visits and jail time for thought crimes they posted on twiiter and Facebook.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Essential data security tips for your next trip to China

U.S. May Outlaw Messaging Encryption Used By WhatsApp, iMessage And Others, Report

Same same. Worse in some respects

Originally Posted by Cujo

I use a VPN

is it with a commercial provider or have you set it up on a VPS yourself ?

Originally Posted by Backspin

In the UK , US , aus and NZ, people get police visits and jail time for thought crimes they posted on twiiter and Facebook.

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Thought crimes? If you post, for example, racist comments or threaten to kill someone on Twitter, you should expect a visit from the police. Those aren't thought crimes and are a whole world away from being detained for merely visiting Wikipedia.

Surely even you can see this?

Surely he cannot

Yeah, maybe I'm being a bit optimistic there.

Originally Posted by baldrick

is it with a commercial provider or have you set it up on a VPS yourself ?

A commercial provider out of Romania of all places.

I ask as I would have thought the authorities would have a list of IP addresses for commercial VPN connections and would block them

are commercial betting sites are blocked by the romanians ? I had a VPS in bulgaria and I found it amusing they blocked online gambling but nothing else

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Thought crimes? If you post, for example, racist comments or threaten to kill someone on Twitter, you should expect a visit from the police. Those aren't thought crimes and are a whole world away from being detained for merely visiting Wikipedia.

Surely even you can see this?

So racist comments and threatening someone's life are the same thing. Holy F'ing Christ

Yeah, I was a bit too optimistic.

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Thought crimes? If you post, for example, racist comments or threaten to kill someone on Twitter, you should expect a visit from the police. Those aren't thought crimes and are a whole world away from being detained for merely visiting Wikipedia.

Surely even you can see this?

China conducts its surveillance at a level no other country can even come close to. Back in 2013, CNN did a report about China's 2 million internet monitors. Imagine how many people are involved in the business now. The big question is whether extreme "social stability" is worth the price.

https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/07/world...ors/index.html

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Surely even you can see this?

Originally Posted by panama hat

Surely he cannot

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Yeah, maybe I'm being a bit optimistic there.

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Yeah, I was a bit too optimistic.

You shall learn one day, grasshopper . . . there is no limit in depth to Skidmark's stupidity