Cyber-Attacks Are New Low for China Internet Censorship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:  Mary McGuire in Washington, +1-202-747-7035 

Washington – January 13, 2010 –

Freedom House commends Google’s decision to contest internet censorship by the Chinese authorities, despite the distinct possibility that this action will result in the closure of its operations in China.

Google is taking this action in the face of what the company described as a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on [its] corporate infrastructure originating from China.” It is believed this attack was aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

“The cyber attacks on Google’s operations fit a clear pattern of internet censorship and interference,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director at Freedom House. “They are part of a vast, multilayered system the Chinese Government uses to control the internet.”  

Freedom on the Net, Freedom House’s analysis of global internet freedom, finds that China’s internet environment “remains one of the most controlled in the world.” Chinese Government controls include sophisticated surveillance of dissidents’ online activities. The most recent cyber attacks confirm a long-suspected belief that NGOs and human rights activists in China are being directly targeted.

“Google’s decision to end its filtering activities was the right thing to do and we hope that other companies follow suit and refrain from being complicit in the repressive activities of the Chinese government,” said Daniel Calingaert, deputy director of programs at Freedom House. “And we look to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her upcoming speech on internet freedom, to outline a strategy to address the entire system of internet control in China and the global threat to free expression online.”

Read more about China:

Freedom on the Net: China

Freedom in the World 2009: China

Freedom of the Press 2009: China

Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world, has been monitoring political rights and civil liberties in China since 1972.

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China Internet Researcher's conference

Am attending this year's China Internet Researcher's conference. Live stream is here -

Reflections on #cnbloggercon (1)

LIU XIAOYUAN HAS A SERIES OF BLOG POSTS WHICH ARE EXTREMELY HARMFUL TO CHINA!

刘晓原博客系列文章对中国的危害非常巨大！ 我仔细查看了此人的几乎所有博客和文章的跟贴，发现这里已经成为反政府人士发泄不满的平台。

Liu Xiaoyuan has a series of blog posts which are extremely harmful to China! I read through almost all of this person's posts and the comments on them, and I can see that this blog has become a platform for anti-government types to spew their discontent!

这些言论极其无耻、卑鄙，对给中国人民带来巨大福祉的人民政府肆意诽谤。

必须对这些危险分子和言论进行严惩！

These dangerous elements and their speech must be strictly curbed!

在正义国民的强力呼吁下，搜狐网锁定隐藏了刘晓原博客十月十五日以来所写的二十篇谈杨佳案的博文（不包括十五日前隐藏的文章），新浪网也在下午删除了刘晓原博客四篇博文。这还不够，应该将此人以及所有发表过反政府言论的过激分子加入黑名单，强行关闭他们的所有博客，由国家安全局等部门对其进行调查！

Following the powerful calls from Our Just People, Sohu.com has screened all 20 Yang Jia blog posts that Liu Xiaoyuan has written since October 15 (not including the ones written prior to Oct. 15), and Sina.com has also deleted four posts from Liu Xiaoyuan's blog. This is not enough; all the extremists who have left anti-government comments ought to be put on the blacklist, and all of Liu Xiaoyuan's blogs ought to be forcefully closed and the National Security Bureau and other departments should begin investigating him!

对于那些曾经发表过反政府言论的人士，不能让他们进入政府部门和大型国企工作，网站有义务将其IP地址整理后提交公安机关和检察机关，其不良行为要记入个人档案。

As for those who have posting anti-government comments, we must not let them find work in government offices or large scale SOEs; websites have the obligation to collect their IP addresses and turn them over to the Public Security Bureau and prosecution agencies so their illicit behavior can go on record.

当今世界，有关部门要牢记那些西方反华势力时刻对我们虎视眈眈，绝不能让前苏联、东欧等和平演变的悲剧在中国重演。现在的公检法实在软弱，刘晓原博客及其一些网民的呼应，是对我国法制尊严和社会主义制度赤裸裸的挑衅，必须坚决打击！

In today's world, the relevant departments must remember that at this very moment there are those Western anti-China forces eyeing us like tigers; we must not allow for a re-enactment of the peaceful transitions that took place in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to happen here in China. Today's public security organs truly are weak, and the calls from Liu Xiaoyuan and other netizens are a bald-faced provocation to the sanctity of Our Country's laws and Socialist System which must be resolutely struck down!

我认为：当前，恐怖主义、无政府主义、资产阶级自由化思潮，是我们国家面临的三大威胁。要在全国开展弘扬社会主义和爱国主义的教育，多宣传先进人物，多宣传奉献精神。

I feel that at present, terrorism, anarchy and the flood of bourgeois liberal thought are the three biggest threats our nation faces. Socialist and Patriotic education needs to be launched and carried out nationwide, as well as more emphasis on advanced persons and more emphasis on a spirit of dedication.

在宣传好的方面和打击坏人方面，两手都要硬。

Both hands must remain hard in the emphasizing of Good and the striking down of Bad People.

我中华民族历经磨难，好不容易达到现在的初步繁荣，21世纪中叶超过美帝，任重道远。绝不能自毁长城，自乱针脚！对于那些诋毁国家和政府的一切言论和行为，要坚决打击，毫不手软！只有这样，才能最大限度的保护老百姓的利益和国家利益。

Given the trials and tribulations the Chinese Nation has endured, it has not been easy to reach the current early stages of prosperity, and in order to surpass Imperialist America by the middle of the 21st Century, we must all shoulder heavy burdens. We must not see the Great Wall destroyed by our hands by letting ourselves come undone! As for all speech and behavior that denigrates our Nation and Government, we must strike hard and show no mercy! Only thus will we protect the interests of The Common People the Nation to the utmost.

2008 China blogger's conference

The fourth annual Chinese Blogger Conference was held in the Southern Chinese city of Guangzhou earlier this month. Speakers ranged from well-known Chinese journalist Michael Anti to American EFF lawyer and blogger Wendy Seltzer and included special guests such as Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.

Topics discussed included: tips on accessing the internet without restriction, Wikipedia, Creative Commons in art and business, the internet and Chinese civil society, and blueprints for the future of education. Even Egyptian activist blogger Wael Abbas was mentioned at one point. It is a good sign that such an event can be held in China today, and encouraging to see that a similar event is already being planned for next year

Chinese citizen reporter and blogger Zhou “Zuola” Shuguang arrested

Well-known Chinese citizen reporter and blogger Zhou “Zuola” Shuguang was refused exit out of the China today when he tried to go to Hong Kong yesterday morning. He has a passport and his tickets were paid for, so he's probably on a blacklist. He was going to go to Germany to be a judge for this year's Best of the Blogs competition. Translations at @freezuola since his encounters with police seem to be an ongoing occurrence

EU Lauded for Prize to Chinese Dissident, New Internet Initiative

Budapest – October 23, 2008 – Freedom House applauds the European Parliament for awarding its top human rights prize to Chinese dissident Hu Jia, who was jailed this year as China cracked down on human rights campaigners ahead of the Olympics. The international community should respond by increasing pressure on China's authoritarian leaders to ensure that Hu is freed—along with all other prisoners of conscience—and allowed to accept the Sakharov Award in France December 17.

"Hu winning the Sakharov Award communicates a powerful message of hope to millions of Chinese who dream of living in a country where they can speak, worship and associate freely," said Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House executive director. "The legitimacy accorded to the Chinese government by democratic heads of state who chose to attend the Olympic Games sent the wrong message to China’s beleaguered activists. We hope this award provides the encouragement that Chinese activists like Hu need to keep pressing for their basic human rights."

China's government sentenced Hu to three and a half years in jail this spring on subversion charges after he gave interviews to media and published an open letter to the Chinese government calling for an end to human rights abuses in the country.

Today, the European Parliament also approved funding for a new global initiative to help human rights bloggers like Hu circumvent China's formidable Internet blocking system. The €11 million ($14 million) budgetary proposal will fund a study to develop anti-censorship tools and services.

Freedom House praises the EU for supporting these useful tools and urges parliamentarians to expand this effort by earmarking funds to develop a service to archive web content. This would allow users, especially those in China, to access content deleted by government authorities. The European Parliament should also pass the Global Online Freedom Act which would be a historic step toward strengthening Internet freedom worldwide.

"Freedom House believes GOFA is an essential step toward combating Internet censorship in authoritarian states like China," said Vladimir Shkolnikov, Freedom House Europe director.

China is ranked Not Free in the 2008 edition of Freedom in the World, Freedom House's survey of political rights and civil liberties, and in the 2008 version ofFreedom of the Press.

For more information on China, visit:

Freedom in the World 2008: China
Freedom of the Press 2008: China

Mass Media Control in Contemporary China

China and the Olympics

Freedom House, an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world, has been monitoring political rights and civil liberties in China since 1972.

Blogging activism on the ground

Despite the benefits that, blocked or not , foreign web services offer to Chinese netizens, it is still the hundreds if not thousands of domestic commercial blog, microblog, social network and video- and photo-sharing services and BBSes and message boards that define the internet as the majority of Chinese netizens experience it. For comparison, you might ask yourself when was the last time you visited a website that was not just blocked nationwide, but in a different language?

So, for better or for worse, it is understandable that things like banned keywords and rampant content deletion tend to be more of a concern for your average Chinese internet user than being equipped with the latest, fastest, circumvention tools, helpful as they are. Over time, if you look at internet censorship as a pervasive infection, the internet's culture of curiosity has been somewhat of a natural immunity, and an antidote as well.

Blog host rejecting your post? Try breaking up keywords with a couple slash marks

Or turn a post into an image, something with no detectable text

There are numerous such methods people have gradually adopted to deal with domestic "deletion-style" censorship, according to their needs: cross-posting, text modification, self-censorship. One particularly innovative blogger in this regard had been Zhou "Zuola" Shuguang. Zhou has consistently maintained that his sole goal is to achieve fame—

"I always knew this day would come, and it could have come earlier. Having my blog blocked just means I've finally become famous. At least I've got the GFW's attention. This is my honor. There were also many newspapers and foreign media outlets which interviewed me. I've actually become “famous overnight”! I'm one lucky pig this Year of the Pig, everything I'd wanted is happening."

—and as such his citizen journalism live-blogging activities have always revolved around several high-profile incidents, from being one of the first at the scene of the Chongqing Nailhouse to being on the streets of Xiamen for the largest publicly-organized protest in China since 1989, to traveling to the far north and interviewing victims of one of the largest ponzi schemes in Chinese history (leading to his first arrest) and, most recently, to Beijing to help other bloggers investigate claims of a "black" extrajudicial prison in downtown Beijing with high school students and petitioners being held inside.

In each of these cases, preserving the information has been a key issue that Zuola has not just raised, but resolved; from Nailhouse photos stored on Picasa to photos of the anti-PX environmental protest resulting in Flickr being blocked, one service in particular that Zuola has made heavy use of is the Google Doc, such as with his Tibet coverage, compiled in its entirety from home (that also being the condition under which Hu Jia worked for nearly two years):

For his coverage of the "black" prison in Beijing, Zuola has for the first time tried using Google Knol, opting for a more community-based blogging style:

For comparison, here is what Zuola's 'information activism' looked like during the Xiamen and Yilishen incidents:

Prominent Tibetan Dissident Blogger Hacked, Impersonated on Skype

Source: BoingBoing, students for a free tibet

Tsering Woeser, the prominent Tibetan poet and blogger, has been under attack from the Chinese nationalist hacker team Honker Union. Her Skype account has been broken into, and now other dissidents are being contacted by people pretending to be Woeser.

Please stop any communication with “Degewa” on Skype, delete or lock out this user’s name from your Skype account, warn anyone you know who might try to contact me through Skype, tell them to cease contact with “Degewa.” From now on, if you receive any Skype message from “me” in any other users’ name, please speak first (Tibetan friends, please speak in Tibetan) to verify “my identity.” If the other side of the contact refuses to talk, it means you are not in touch with me.

Many dissidents across the world use Skype for communications because of its (closed and unaudited) encryption; it's worth remembering that even if the channel is protected, the person on the other end may not be who you think it is.