Chinese Internet Censorship

1
Chinese Internet Censorship

• Made by T.J. Reilly

2
A Brief Background

• In mainland China, more than 60 Internet
  regulations have been made by the Peoples
  Republic of China government.
• China has the most extensive and advanced
  censorship system in the world.
• China not only blocks content, but also monitors
  who is using the Internet and what they are using
  it for.

3
???? The Golden Shield Project

• Starting in 1998, the Ministry of Public Security
  of the Peoples Republic of China started
  developing a computer information system for
  police to improve their efficiency in monitoring
  the Internet.
• Outside of mainland China, this project is known
  as the Great Firewall of China.
• It works by preventing certain IP addresses from
  being routed through and has standard firewalls
  and proxy severs at Internet gateways.

4
Legislation

• In September of 2000, the state Council Order
  Number 292 defined for Internet content providers
  the first content restrictions.
• This legislation stated, among other things, that
  Chinese Web sites cannot link to overseas news
  sites without approval.
• Another part of this legislation allows the
  Chinese government full access to any sensitive
  information they want.
• The most interesting Article in this legislation,
  however, goes as such, IIS providers shall not
  produce, reproduce, release, or disseminate
  information that endangers national security, is
  detrimental to the honor of the state, undermines
  social stability, the states policy towards
  religion, other information prohibited by the law
  or administrative regulations

5
The Internet Police

• In 2005, provincial and municipal governments
  started creating teams to be Internet
  commentators from people working in propaganda
  and police departments.
• They are offered classes in propaganda
  techniques, Marxism, and the Internet.
• Their job is to guide discussion on public
  bulletin boards away from politically sensitive
  topics by posting opinions anonymously or under
  false names.
• Chinese Internet police also erase anti-Communist
  comments and posts pro-government messages

6
Jingjing and Chacha

• These two cartoon character are a play on the
  Chinese word jingchá and are the mascots of the
  Internet Surveillance Division of the Public
  Security Bureau.

7
Methods of Blocking Used for Censorship

• IP Blocking Blocks access to a certain IP
  address.
• URL Filtering Checks the URL for keywords that
  are on a block list.
• Packet Filtering Terminates TCP packet
  transmissions when a certain number of keywords
  are detected.
• Web Feed Blocking Blocks URLs starting with the
  words rss, feed, or blog.

8
A Brief List of Blocked Keywords

• ?? (democracy)
• ?? / ?? (human rights)
• ?? / ?? (dictatorship)
• ?? / ?? (dictatorship)
• ?? (anti-communist)
• ???? / ???? (genocide)
• ?? / ?? (oppression)
• ?? / ?? (Blocking)
• ?? / ?? (Reeducation through labor)
• ???? / ???? (Red Terror)
• ?? / ?? (evil)

9
A Brief List of Blocked Web Sites

• United Nations News (www.unitednationsnews.com)
• Civil Human Rights Front (www.civilhrfront.org)
• World News (www.wn.com)
• AOL Chinese news (chinese.aol.com/news/)
• LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com)
• Newgrounds (www.newgrounds.com)
• Thepiratebay (www.thepiratebay.org)
• The iTunes Music Store

10
A Brief Note on YouTube

• While the site itself is technically not blocked,
  users cant navigate past the main page.
• However, if a user embeds a video on a separate
  website, the linked content is viewable.