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.Faithful Google China users/employees made a funeral-like flower tribute on the company's entry sign in Beijing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuspark[Tsinghua Science Park] when the company was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora[kicked/hacked out of China in the 2010 Operation Aurora]. This was one example of the unfair <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,joint venture technique imposed on foreign companies>> by China. https://qz.com/1352137/why-internet-users-chose-baidu-over-google-when-it-was-in-china/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Google_funeral.webp[height=400]
[[jingjing-chacha]]
===== Jingjing and Chacha 警警察察
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingjing_and_Chacha
Friendly looking mascots of Internet Censorship in China created by the Shenzhen Government in 2006.
https://youtu.be/ZB8ODpw_om8?t=583 "Roger Dingledine - The Tor Censorship Arms Race The Next Chapter - DEF CON 27 Conference" mentions that choosing friendly looking mascots for internet censorship is a comon practice in several dictatorships, so to suggest that they are just <<evil-west,protecting citizens>>, These show the cute UAE censorship page for example:
* Iran https://business.financialpost.com/technology/canadian-software-used-to-filter-internet-in-middle-east
* Quatar https://rankingdigitalrights.org/2019/06/12/arab-regions-telecommunications-companies-fail-to-respect-users-digital-rights/
The images were https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jingjing_and_Chacha&oldid=917408711[removed from Wikipedia] presumably due to fair use concerns, so Ciro asked how to check that at: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/137977/how-to-check-why-a-fair-use-image-was-removed-from-wikipedia After understanding the case, Ciro https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jingjing_and_Chacha&oldid=936842199[reuploaded the images], hopefully for good.
.Jinjing (警警) is the male cop. https://web.archive.org/web/20070825092952/http://www.e-gov.org.cn/Article/news003/2006-01-02/15229.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jingjing.jpg[height=400]
.Chacha (警警) is the female cop. https://web.archive.org/web/20070825092952/http://www.e-gov.org.cn/Article/news003/2006-01-02/15229.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chacha.jpg[height=400]
.Jingjing and Chacha picture shown on the street, presumably in China. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnvy38/jingjing-and-chacha[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jingjing_Chacha_street.jpeg[height=400]
.Image with Jingjing and Chacha together and explanations (深圳网络警察,Shenzhen Network Police), good for copy pasting. TODO a bit small. https://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/84vbut/cute_official_mascot_design_of_chinese_internet/[Source]..
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jingjing_Chacha_Shenzhen_police.jpg[height=400]
.Beijing version of the Shenzhen-created Jingjing and Chacha. TODO what does it say on the images? On car "XX网络110" (XX Internet 110) so it must be the phone number of the Internet police department. At bottom right something like (联合新作, joint XX), so likely means it is a joint action between two departments. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/20477258/ns/technology_and_science-internet/t/beijing-police-launch-virtual-web-patrol/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jingjing_Chacha_Beijing.jpg[height=400]
.Angry Chinese cop cartoons extracted from https://web.archive.org/web/20191209021646/http://encyclopediadramatica.rs/China[Encyclopedia Dramatica] with the racist subtitles removed. It is hard to be sure what is the original image that they were Photoshopped from, but they are very similar to the Beijing Jingjing and Chacha although this is not a direct copy paste of the above since several details differ. The image was uploaded in 2011 to ED. https://web.archive.org/web/20170525180028/https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/File:Preasetoshowpapers.jpg[Source].
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Jingjing_Chacha_angry.jpg[height=400]
.The Qatar friendly censorship page likely from around 2011 sowing that China is not alone in this "cute censorship mascots" technique. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qatar_filtering_message._Qtel_network.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Qatar_web_censorship_page.jpg[height=600]
===== Western companies that sell censorship technology to dictatorships
To China:
* Cisco may have knowingly helped to build the Chinese internet censorship infrastructure in the 2000's
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_Systems#Censorship_in_China
** https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ciscos-latest-attempt-dodge-responsibility-facilitating-human-rights-abuses-export
*** https://www.eff.org/files/2016/01/12/113_second_amended_complaint_does_v._cisco_9.18.13.pdf they had a demo with a <<falun-gong>> module
** https://www.wired.com/2008/05/leaked-cisco-do/
*** Internal CISCO documents quote the Chinese Government saying: "The Golden Shield Project ... Combat Falun Gong evil religion and other hostiles"
To other dictatorships:
* 2019: IBM https://gizmodo.com/ibm-sells-face-recognition-surveillance-to-a-dictatorsh-1835101881
* 2017: Amesys France for facial recognition surveillance in Egypt: https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/egypt/sale-of-surveillance-equipment-to-egypt-by-french-company-amesys
* 2011: Netsweeper Inc. from Canada to UAE
** claim: https://business.financialpost.com/technology/canadian-software-used-to-filter-internet-in-middle-east
* 2009: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcepoint[Forcepoint], previously Websense
** claims on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcepoint#Censorship
In 2019, the European Union was considering making stricter laws about cyber surveillance exports, to include more technologies that can be used either for Censorship or other non-evil applications (dual-use), <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,kudos to them>>:
* https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_BRI%282016%29589832
* https://ec.europa.eu/trade/import-and-export-rules/export-from-eu/dual-use-controls/index_en.htm
* https://www.osborneclarke.com/insights/upcoming-changes-to-bring-cyber-surveillance-technology-within-eu-export-control-regime/
* https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/eu-plans-restrict-export-dual-spy-tech-171210061410639.html
Ciro Santilli
committed
See also: <<western-companies-that-comply-with-chinese-censorship-requests>>.
.Cartoon showing how Amesys systems are used to suppress citizens in Egypt. Do you want the logo of your company to figure there instead? https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/egypt/sale-of-surveillance-equipment-to-egypt-by-french-company-amesys[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Amesys.jpg[height=400]
===== Censorship monitoring
Projects that attempt to understand how the Great Firewall works and what it blocks:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China
** https://gking.harvard.edu/50c#
** https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-Censorship-China-Allows-Government-Criticism-Silences-Collective-Expression
** https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/randomized-experimental-study-censorship-china
* https://gfw.report/
* https://geneva.cs.umd.edu/ from the Geneva Project of the University of Maryland. Source: https://github.com/kkevsterrr/geneva
It is also worth noting that as mentioned at <<is-stack-overflow-blocked-in-china>> that websites can become non-functional if CDNs they rely on are taken down, instead of the website being taken down itself.
====== Censorship monitoring tools on GitHub
More interesting GitHub repositories: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>
* https://github.com/phoeagon/gfw-sim GFW emulation
* https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship data on Censorship
* https://github.com/mothran/mongol "A simple python tool to pinpoint the IP addresses of machines working for the Great Firewall of China."
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GreatFire
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/自由微博
A group that produces tools and websites against censorship in China, central website: https://greatfire.org/
The GreatFire Analyzer is their most important tool, it checks if websites are blocked or not in China:
* https://en.greatfire.org/analyzer
* https://zh.greatfire.org/analyzer
It also keeps a calendar of previous checks so you can see when a website started getting blocked.
One of the highlighted collections is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Internet[Alexa] Top 1000 domain block analysis: https://en.greatfire.org/search/alexa-top-1000-domains
Quite a few amazingly named porn ones, how could you live without them? <<porn>>
* https://chaturbate.com
* https://bongacams.com/
And some interesting random stuff that is hard to understand why its blocked, some of them appear to be pure protectionism:
* https://sourceforge.net/ interesting! The ex-<<github>> was blocked unlike GitHub as of 2020: https://www.quora.com/Is-SourceForge-still-relevant-to-open-source-projects/answer/Ciro-Santilli
* https://www.homedepot.com
* weirdly named <<google-mirrors,Google mirrors>>
* https://www.jw.org/en/ Jehovah's Witness
* https://www.yodobashi.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodobashi_Camera a Japanese Electronics retailer
* https://freeweibo.com a Weibo archive to overcome deleted posts
* https://en.greatfire.org/blog/2013/nov/google-can-bring-end-censorship-10-days-heres-how made some noise at the time
* https://twitter.com/GreatFireChina
Their repo https://github.com/greatfire/wiki has been added to <<gov-takedowns-china>>.
Who is behind them:
* https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/30/greatfire/ from 2015 says "Started in 2011 by three anonymous individuals", and "Charlie Smith" is the pseudonym of the CEO.
Their Wayback Machine tool archive snapshots of webpages and allows youto browse the history of all archives:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/网站时光机
By the Internet Archive organization:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/互联网档案馆
This Chrome extension helps to quickly archive pages: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wayback-machine/fpnmgdkabkmnadcjpehmlllkndpkmiak
But remember that if you archive too many in a very quick succession before the previous ones have been archived, even if manually through that plugin, your account/IP might get blocked, so just give a few seconds for the current archive to terminate before starting new ones.
This happened to Ciro in 2020-06-14, but then he emailed the admins as mentioned at: https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360016379432-Accounts-Tips-Troubleshooting- and they re-enabled it.
It is possible to request social media pages you own to be removed from the archive in some circumstances: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/143529/is-it-possible-to-request-to-remove-page-snapshots-from-a-personal-social-media
Some website specific techniques:
* Google Docs: visit the page while logged off (e.g. via browser private mode), click the print button, and then archive the resulting PDF URL
Ciro Santilli
committed
How to search by prefix/pattern: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/146661/how-to-search-the-internet-archives-wayback-machine-by-url-prefix-or-pattern
[[archive-today]]
====== archive.today
http://archive.is/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.is
Like <<wayback-machine>> by unknown shady individuals, so less trustworthy.
CrunchBase claims without source New York based: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/145817/on-which-country-are-the-creators-and-servers-of-archive-today-archive-is-base
Does not care about robots.txt, so it sometimes works where Wayback Machine fails, so its better than nothing when it does. E.g. it is a good option for <<quora>>.
And no, you can't Wayback Machine archive an archive.is, they blocked the domain.
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Has specific LinkedIn handling as it has a logged scrape account, e.g.: https://archive.vn/EPaEH[]. TODO find account URL.
Google photo matches exactly this "Masha Rabinovich" https://www.linkedin.com/in/masha-rabinovich-52aa3a197/[], or is just some image of a well known person? Account marked as "Bachelor of Engineering" at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
The same photo seems to be used for all fetches: https://archive.vn/IPEEd[].
Googling name leads to an YouTube account whose only video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1bp1VxMwP4 | https://archive.vn/9Xq6w "How to make an archive.is link with selection hashtag", so yes, the relation is almost certain.
https://www.northkoreatech.org/2016/09/21/north-koreas-dns-files-reveal-internet-websites/ has an archive.is related comment by an user of the same name Masha Rabinovich: September 22, 2016 at 17:55 "There are some more websites in .kp: http://archive.is/*.kp"
In 2008 they had some interest in compilers: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/tinycc-devel/2008-11/msg00015.html The obvious gmail email can be obtained from there. The only hit is in this creepy email list: https://api.intelx.io/file/read?type=1&systemid=989faa9e-46a1-440f-87fa-2a98b616c66d&k=7b256c65-6ebf-4bb8-a301-070bce8dec01
Removing the space leads to more matches:
* 2012-08: https://community.f-secure.com/en/discussion/14768/what-is-the-evidence-of-harmful-behaviour#M3733 a "masharabinovich" claims the website:
+
____
Your website http://browsingprotection.f-secure.com/swp/result?x=5Jg2kWKC8d86b4F-H5cdoS8dyu04vtzGtEXhQL6COLIX0k4wrv-N*w shows that someone in your company "found evidence of harmful behaviour" on my website http://archive.is/
____
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMasharabinovich shows 2012 attempts by Masha to automate wikipedia arching of dead links with archive.is. Later in 2016 archive** in 2016 archive.is is was blacklisted entirely: http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7578
** possibly in 2018, Wikipedia widely adopted automatic <<wayback-machine>> usage on all external links: http://blog.archive.org/2018/10/01/more-than-9-million-broken-links-on-wikipedia-are-now-rescued/
Wikipedia suggests that the name Masha Rabinovich is likely of Russian Ashkenazi Jewish origin:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masha
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabinovich
so if the LinkedIn information is real, maybe they just went to study in Germany, or their ancestors migrated there.
The name in Cyrillic would be "Маша рабинович", but we couldn't find any information of interest by searching for that.
[[google-cache]]
====== Google Cache
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1687222?hl=en
Google caches every indexed page that shows up on the search, you just have to click on the arrow and select "Cache" to see it.
The advantage over <<wayback-machine>> is that Google crawls many more pages than the Wayback Machine.
How to get the Google cache for a given URL: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/15633/how-to-modify-a-url-to-get-a-google-cached-version-of-page
It is not possible however to see old caches, therefore you have to archive the Google caches with <<wayback-machine>> if you find anything interesting in them to not lose it:
* https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/45306/how-do-you-view-all-the-cached-versions-of-a-web-page
* https://support.google.com/websearch/thread/18638126?hl=en
The Google cache also has a text-only mode which is great for more complex webpages like those on <<zhihu>>, which due to JavaScript madness keep showing and disappearing.
====== geoscreenshot
https://www.geoscreenshot.com
Takes screenshots of the websites much like <<wayback-machine>>, but you can select the location.
Once the screenshot is made, you can "view the HTML", and that gives an Amazon AWS link, and warns that JavaScript and CSS might/will be disabled. The screenshot does not state what the origin URL/data is, so it cannot be used as a proof. But we can <<wayback-machine>> archive it to make sure it remains visible. E.g.:
* 2020-09-30 https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship | http://web.archive.org/web/20200930075102/https://s3.amazonaws.com/geoscreenshot-static/d3fdb97d-2ac3-4f57-a737-6fab2997fb1a.html see also <<github-censored-subdomains>>
* 2020-09-30 https://github.com/programthink/zhao/issues/38 | https://archive.vn/QKCMi see alo <<programthink>>
* 2020-09-30 https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship/ | https://archive.vn/bIzkH see alo <<mirrors>>
The free trial is very limited, and you can't share the screenshots on a public URL. See also: <<censorship-monitoring>>.
===== Lists of material censored in China
For materials hosted on GitHub, see: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.
* <<falun-gong-media>> contains a few:
===== gfwlist
https://github.com/gfwlist/gfwlist
Chinese people widely use this website list with browser extensions, so as to only use more expensive and risky <<censorship-circumvention>> traffic when accessing certain webpages.
The result is a well maintained list of interesting websites. About half of which is porn.
Get the full list with:
....
base64 -d gfwlist.txt
....
See also:
* https://github.com/gfwlist/gfwlist/issues/3 "How to use this repo?"
* https://github.com/gfwlist/gfwlist/issues/1141 "Add categories tags to each entry"
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantern_(software)
** https://github.com/getlantern/lantern on <<github>>
* https://github.com/yinghuocho/firefly-proxy "A proxy software to help circumventing the Great Firewall."
It is interesting to note how <<falun-gong>> is a good source of censorship-circumvention material, see e.g.: <<github-gov-takedowns>>.
Projects:
* https://github.com/Loyalsoldier/v2ray-rules-dat | https://github.com/v2ray/v2ray-core
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICP_license
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/非经营性网站备案
Part of the <<internal-censorship,Internet censorship machine>>, although it predates the GFW proper.
It can be seen at the bottom of many many many websites, it is likely mandatory to display it.
If you see one of those, you already know hat it cannot be trusted for politics.
For example, https://archive.is/ePBM9[as of April 2020], the <<zhihu>> sidebar shows:
____
京 ICP 备 13052560 号 - 1
____
where "京" indicates that the certificate was issued by the Beijing Provincial level city.
In 2014, almost 15 years later, <<russia>> finally caught up, what a relief: <<russia-mandatory-registration-of-bloggers>>.
[[anonymous-accounts-ban]]
===== Anonymous accounts ban (2017)
* https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/ban-08282017112633.html
* https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/27/china-doubles-down-on-real-name-registration-laws-forbidding-anonymous-online-posts/
* https://advox.globalvoices.org/2017/08/27/china-to-ban-anonymous-online-comments-blacklist-users/
[[ensi]]
===== TLS 1.3 ENSI
* https://blog.cloudflare.com/encrypted-sni
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#Encrypted_Client_Hello
This amazing standardized feature encrypts the domain as well as the URL.
This means that censors are unable to block only certain websites!!!
In 2020-08, it was reported that the firewall was already blocking it: https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-blocking-all-encrypted-https-traffic-using-tls-1-3-and-esni/
Therefore, <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,all the West has to do>> is to force all of its websites to serve ENSI-only!
[[cac]]
===== Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC, 国家互联网信息办公室)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberspace_Administration_of_China
[[cac-report-website]]
====== CAC report website (中央网信办举报网站)
Summary:
* http://www.cac.gov.cn/hdzx/jbzx/A091102index_1.htm
* https://www.12321.cn/web
* http://12377.cn
Reports such as https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/china-exporting-ccp-speech-controls-to-australia-as-second-university-caught-in-row-20200805-p55irf.html highlighted that these websites has a "report harmful or garbage information" entry, which can notably be used by Chinese expats to report people who badmouth the CCP, and in particular other Chinese nationals.
Typing "国家互联网信息办公室" on Google autocompleted to "国家互联网信息办公室举报" (举报 == report), and finds http://www.cac.gov.cn/hdzx/jbzx/A091102index_1.htm[].
This is clearly an official government website due to the `gov.cn` URL, and it also has an <<icp-license>>.
One of the categories of report on that page is: "网络不良与垃圾信息举报受理中心" (center for reporting harmful or garbage information, https://web.archive.org/web/20200704135840/http://www.cac.gov.cn/hdzx/jbzx/A091102index_1.htm[archive]).
Notably, there is one separate entry for illegal activity as well (网络违法犯罪举报网站) and another one for <<porn,pornography (中国扫黄打非网)>>, so it is interesting to see that there is one specifically for "misinformation".
The harmful information page redirects to: https://www.12321.cn/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20200907150310/https://www.12321.cn/[archive]) which has further categories.
The "report website" (举报不良网站) category links to https://www.12321.cn/web (https://web.archive.org/web/20200807060758/https://www.12321.cn/web[archive]) and then has a "link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary[reactonary] and <<politically-sensitive,politically sensitive>>" (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/反动[反动]及<<politically-sensitive,政治敏感>>) checkbox.
After you submit, it leads you to: https://www.12321.cn/suc (https://web.archive.org/web/20200807063330/https://www.12321.cn/suc[archive]) in which you can optionally provide further contact details: https://www.12321.cn/reg[]. This appears to be no link with the previous page, so they might just do it via IP. Registration requires both a cell phone and an email.
From the website source code (very simple, hand written, we see that it uses <<baidu,Baidu Analytics>>. The CCP obviously trusts Baidu a lot :-)
On 2020-09-07, <<mirrors,cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship>>'s Google Analytics had a hit coming from http://jbcz.12377.cn/report/center/web.index[] ("This site can't be reached" on Chrome). This was soon after <<ciro-santilli>> mentioned <<cac-report-website>> at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/149#issuecomment-688084645[]. This is presumably the censor's web UI to review reports. "jb" from jbcz presumably means Ju Bao (举报), the CZ Ciro couldn't guess. 2020-10-14 had another hit from: http://jbcz.12377.cn/report/load/operate.index[].
The toplevel http://12377.cn (https://web.archive.org/web/20200907235842/https://www.12377.cn/[archive]) is entitled "中央网信办（国家互联网信息办公室）违法和不良信息举报中心" and is another report website. It is also linked to from http://www.cac.gov.cn/hdzx/jbzx/A091102index_1.htm under different categories, so it is also official.
The first category in that page is "政治类" (political category). From there we have some awesome information.
First it links to the report guidelines (举报指南) https://www.12377.cn/jbzn.html?tab=4 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200902094911/https://www.12377.cn/jbzn.html?tab=4[archive])
____
涉攻击党和国家制度及重大方针政策，攻击"<<two-safegards,two safeguards,两个维护>>"，危害国家安全、泄露国家秘密，破坏国家统一和领土完整，损害国家形象荣誉利益，破坏国家民族宗教政策、宣扬邪教，诋毁英雄烈士等内容的互联网违法和不良信息，请在此举报。
____
which states:
____
Involved in attacking the party and state system and major policies, attacking the "<<two-safegards,two safeguards>>", endangering national security, leaking state secrets, undermining national unity and territorial integrity, damaging national image, honor and interests, undermining national and religious policies, promoting cults, and vilifying heroes. Please report illegal and harmful information on the Internet of martyrs and other content.
____
so yes, attacking the party and major policies is illegal in China, big news, right? "Involved in attacking the party and state system and major policies" is then one of the categories in the report page.
Soon after the previous events in 2020-09-08, anaytics got a hit from http://openurls.com.cn/ to cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship. The only function of that website appears to be to open a newline separated list of websites into separate tabs. Maybe a censor bulk quickly having a look at several tasks. It is basically a clone of https://www.openallurls.com/[] but with an <<icp-license>> :-) The 2020-10-14 hit from http://jbcz.12377.cn was followed by another hit from http://openurls.com.cn/[], further reinforcing that this is part of their review procedure.
Other report websites:
* https://www.12339.gov.cn/ spy report website, see also: <<ministry-of-state-security>>
* <<hong-kong-national-security-department-hotline>>
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/网络评论员
They can be classified as a form of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_warfare[information warfare] (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/信息战[信息战]).
A wise person once said:
____
It is impossible to distinguish wumaos, idiots and <<not-chinese,brain washed>> people. So we just call all of them wumaos.
____
It has been pointed out however that there is a funny <<slang,slang>> name for brainwashed CCP supporters who are not necessarily paid professional wumaos: "link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/小粉紅[小粉紅]" (little pinks)
But of course, the <<ccp-cult,CCP is a cult>> (and <<democracy-is-a-religion,democracy, a religion>>), and therefore <<preconceived,any discussion is also pointless>> in general.
To a large extent, wumao's goals are to dilute useful conversation with shit, normally <<evil-west>> and <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.
This leads to endless idiotic conversions of type:
____
You: Chinese friend, your house is on fire, let's try to put the fire out!
Wumao: I don't care, your house is also on fire!
You: that's true, that fire is also very serious, and I'm trying to put it out!
Wumao: look everyone, his house is on fire! Mine isn't!
____
Therefore, it is crucial to have a working algorithmic policy to handle them: <<how-to-deal-with-wumaos>>.
Notable wumaos <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,should be investigated by intelligence agencies>>.
If it is determined that they are knowingly funded by China, they should be put into jail as foreign agents.
There is a tradeoff between privacy rights and snuffing out wumaos, and it is hard to decide where to set the line. But snuffing out wumaos is important, and must be done.
If we were to give up on privacy completely, one possible rule would be: block anyone that lives in China and whose revenue therefore cannot be investigated properly by your government to determine if they are funded by the CCP.
Here are some people completely against blocking wumaos. Those silly Democrats never prepare well enough for war:
* https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/opinion/how-to-counter-chinas-global-propaganda-offensive.html
** it mentions the "Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016" https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2692[], which is exactly what Western countries should do
Wumaos are particularly easy to spot on <<censorship-monitoring,Western websites banned in China>> and when written in English, since there is no way that strong pro-CCP opinions would get any support in such circumstances:
* <<quora>> is completely infested by wumaos as of 2020, see more information on that section
Other names:
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/网军 (online army), example: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Soft_Job/M.1478104872.A.916.html "Github也出現網軍了嗎?" (Is there an emerging wumao army on GitHub?) on <<ptt>>
* 2020-03-12 https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1238076579466674178 <<jennifer-zeng>>'s publishing of purported Wumao guidelines with translation. Translated title: "<<cac,CAC>> (link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberspace_Administration_of_China[Cyberspace Administration of China]) Internal Documentation for Internet Commentators (no spreading)"
Ciro Santilli
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* 2018-09-27 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCnnPf2OnHo "Chinese Internet Trolls Get Paid 50 Cents For Every Comment" by <<serpentza-laowhy86,laowhy86>>
* 2017-04-09 https://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf "How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument" by "Gary King, Jennifer Pan, Margaret E. Roberts"
* https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/files-05202015150018.html
* 2015-05-20 https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/files-05202015150018.html "Hackers Leak Files Showing Inner Workings of 'China's 50-Cent Army'", hacker group name "Unicorn Nocturne". TODO material, silly reporters that don't give links
* 2014 emails of some Wumaos were hacked/phished and leaked at https://xiaolan.me/50-cent-party-jxgzzg.html (down, no web archive, but https://archive.is/BNNQe[]) revealing operational details
Ciro Santilli
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** https://qz.com/311832/hacked-emails-reveal-chinas-elaborate-and-absurd-internet-propaganda-machine/
毛 (mao2) is a colloquial form of 角 (jiao3) both meaning "one-tenth". Coins actually use 角. See also:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renminbi#Coins The fourth and fifth series Wikipedia currently have a 50 cent picture:
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_series_of_the_renminbi
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_series_of_the_renminbi
* https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/8355/角-毛-10-cents-for-money-why
* https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26832834/六元四角-vs-六块四毛钱
.50-cent coin (五角) from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_series_of_the_renminbi[fourth series of renminbi] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/第四套人民币[第四套人民币], 1987-1997). This image is going to be very useful. Note the beautiful plum blossom drawings reminiscent of <<chinese-traditional-painting>> which <<ciro-santilli>> loves. Note how it uses 角 (jiao3) instead of 毛 (mao2). http://www.bjzxcp.com/article-41679.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Wujiao.png[height=400]
[[how-to-deal-with-wumaos]]
===== How to deal with wumaos 如何应对五毛
Above all, never reply intelligently to wumaos. Ignore all their notifications, and ignore their profile wherever possible. And if they start generating too many notifications, block them.
* https://github.com/ckhung[C.K. Hung]'s wumao reply strategy: https://ckhung0.blogspot.com/2017/07/50-cents-party.html
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____
為什麼我不刪五毛的回應反而要刪你的回應? 因為你只能跟人類講道理， 沒辦法跟原始物種講道理啊!
Why I delete your posts, but I don't delete wumao's posts? Because it is only possible to reason with humans, it is not possible to reason with primitive animals!
____
* https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2019/08/【麻辣总局】新型敏感词武器：赵弹磁铁/
[[ccp-apologists]]
If it is ever proven that those people are directly supported by the Chinese government, their nationalities should be revoked.
The problem however is that it is impossible to distinguish between:
* idiots who are saying what the CCP supporters want to hear from foreigners to get more views
* even bigger idiots who actually believe the CCP is good
* if any of those are directly supported by the CCP or not. Ciro feels that more likely not, because that would be too risky.
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As those channels grow however, the CCP is extremelly very likely to at least indirectly support the channel, e.g. with bots on YouTube or more direct means on Chinese Government Chinese Internet companies, as a way of indirectly paying those creators.
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For example, <<cgtn>> directly quoted a video from <<nathan-rich>>.
It is also interesting to note that many of them don't speak a word of Chinese. It is fine when you say "the CCP is great" as a foreigner, but if you say "the CCP is bad", then <<not-chinese>>.
Part of <<ciro-santilli>> feels like the nationalities of such YouTubbers should still be revoked, since they are making a living out of helping an Evil government.
But it is hard to stopping them without quenching freedom of expression in that case. Related discussion at: <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china>>.
* 伏拉夫 (fu2 la1 fu1): Russian, says I love China in ridiculously enthusiastic tone which is despised even by the Chinese, samples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMVRdeUrk-8[]
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Video by <<western-dissidents,Lele Farley>> making fun of him and <<nathan-rich>>: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSM2_HgXKsM
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It does not feel like he is paid by the Chinese government, but rather that he is just trying to get some views.
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https://www.zhihu.com/question/334923127 如何评价俄罗斯籍中国网红伏拉夫？ on <<zhihu>> with 17k likes as of 2020-06.
* Barrett Channel: ;https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1XG7bJnYqta_ezr12WZp7w
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Father and son British expats: Lee Barrett, the father, and Oli Barrett, the son.
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100k subs one year after. Don't speak a word of Chinese it seems, but all videos have full bilingual translation.
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Their tone is natural unlike others more exaggerated like <<nathan-rich>>, so maybe they believe in the shit they say? Either that, or they are a good fake by the CCP.
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Sample videos:
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* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq1mCL7EQrM "China Doesn't Have Free Speech!"
* Daniel Dumbrill
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Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Bl8MTbW9M9MQoPhxbarpw
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Clip featured in <<cgtn>>: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUjatX2p0dA (http://archive.is/gCeIk[archive]) "Daniel Dumbrill: Hong Kong is far freer since its return to China" supporting <<hong-kong-national-security-law>>
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Another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMUA3GeScUI "Daniel Dumbrill: I want my children to be proud of being Chinese"
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gygxrdNmzUQ "Speaking With a Uyghur Activist About Xinjiang Abuse" interviews https://twitter.com/arslan_hidayat[Arslan Hidayat], who was also interviewed by <<china-uncensored,China Unscripted>>: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUTUVxw7VXc and appears to be denouncing the oppression. Video description is filled to the brim with links about how the West is using Xinjiang for fake news. TODO how can he make a video with that guy and still live in China? This suggests strongly that his videos obtain direct CCP approval.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nNZbDF75dc "Daniel the Pro-China 'Shill'" replies to accusations of being pro-China
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Zeman Carrie Lam supporter
<<nazi>>-related people that come to mind:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Joyce William Joyce
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____
William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born British fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during World War II. He took German citizenship in 1940.
Joyce was convicted of one count of high treason in 1945 and sentenced to death, with the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords both upholding his conviction. He was hanged on 3 January 1946, making him the last person to be executed for treason in the United Kingdom.
____
On <<quora>>: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-there-seem-to-be-an-upsurge-in-CCP-apologists-and-apologism/answer/Ciro-Santilli
Bibliography:
* https://medium.com/swlh/how-china-is-influencing-youtubers-into-posting-state-propaganda-db72acf18dfa "EXCLUSIVE: How China is Influencing YouTubers into Posting State Propaganda" mentions https://youtu.be/2mQ8plzWl9g?t=520 "They tried to get me to post Chinese propaganda" by J.J. McCullough (2019) was approached to publish an anti-<<shen-yun>> video by what was likely a Chinese agent.
[[nathan-rich]]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Rich
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/内森·瑞克
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaSlyjhR4WC7QhYuaivxb6g/videos
As mentioned at: https://medium.com/swlh/how-china-is-influencing-youtubers-into-posting-state-propaganda-db72acf18dfa[]:
____
His vlogging career is inexplicably successful. He has 385,000 subscribers on his channel, a huge amount for someone with so little time and so few videos on the platform.".
____
https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/au8az3/exscientologist_nathan_rich_is_a_convicted_felon/ mentions another interesting very strong circumstantial evidence:
____
His videos feature perfect Chinese in the subtitles along with Chinese video titles, meaning that he is almost certainly having these videos produced by someone else/and or a group of people. I can guarantee that based on his pronunciation of the few Chinese words he says in the video, his Chinese ability should not be anywhere close to fluent.
____
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRqcA04FtmM he says <<serpentza-laowhy86,SerpentZA>> is a fraud "because he criticizes China".
Reception:
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/310502367 "如何评价 B 站 UP 主「NathanRich火锅大王」？" on <<zhihu>>. TODO what is "B站UP"?
* 2020-07-05 <<cgtn>> approves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRK1XDlZkng "Nathan Rich: 'Hotpot King' delivering truth about HK to the world"
2020-06-01 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3941420 "China propagandist Nathan Rich's criminal record revealed" contains an outline of Richs criminal records, with including mugshots. Most of this was already likely known, but it gives good detail. In particular, it comments on the fact that in 2013 Beijing started to more strictly do criminal background checks for VISA applicants: https://www.china-briefing.com/news/non-criminal-record-certificate-required-for-employment-license-application-in-beijing/[], and that Rich managed to get the VISA two years later nonetheless, notably including a drug trafficking charge.
白https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/youtubers_social_commentators_anybody_interested_i_remove_youtube_user_nathan_rich_from_google_services/ characterises him as "左五无毛". While this does not seems like a specific expression, and maybe is not even accurate, learning the meaning of "左五" is of interest:
* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/白左
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/52409116
* https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/40252469
* https://pincong.rocks/question/3559
Ciro Santilli
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[[real-username-law]]
==== Real username law (2015)
* 2015-03 China forces real usernames on the net, and provoking ones
** https://advox.globalvoices.org/2015/04/16/new-internet-rules-in-china-target-usernames-avatars-as-subversive-tools/ "New Internet Rules in China Target Usernames, Avatars as Subversive Tools"
** https://www.engadget.com/2015/02/28/china-username-policy-purge/ "Chinese internet giants purge 60,000 accounts for inappropriate usernames"
Ciro Santilli
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And guess which idiotic Western website requires real usernames and no privacy? <<quora>>, of course: https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/14/quora-to-oddly-named-users-papers-please/
==== Journalism
===== Western journalists in China
* 2020-09-21 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-21/matthew-carney-foreign-journalist-china-intimidation-birtles/12678610 "'You will be put into detention': Former ABC bureau chief tells story of fleeing China for first time"
* 2016 <<video-bbc-local-election-interview-block-2016>>
* 2015 Ursula Gauthier from <<liubukou>>
[[social-credit-system]]
=== Social Credit System 社会信用体系
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/社会信用体系
Coverage:
* 2019-06-04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cGB8dCDf3c "A Look Inside China's Social Credit System | NBC News Now" by "NBC News"
* 2018-12-12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkw15LkZ_Kw "China's "Social Credit System" Has Caused More Than Just Public Shaming (HBO)" by "VICE News". https://youtu.be/Dkw15LkZ_Kw?t=238[328s] shows how you can donate money to the party to increase your score. This is not a hidden practice, they were filmed and everyone is showing their faces. What a brilliant idea that could never ever lead to corruption! Ciro's jaw just dropped. How can the commies not hide this kind of shit from the West, but hide other stuff the West couldn't care less about?
Ciro Santilli
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video::Dkw15LkZ_Kw[youtube,height=400,width=600]
=== Chinese foreign interference campaigns
See also:
* <<chinese-interference-in-western-media>>
* <<chinese-interference-in-the-western-education-systems>>
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/一带一路
[[communist-youth-league]]
=== Communist Youth League of China 中国共产主义青年团
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Youth_League_of_China
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国少年先锋队
Had a membership of 109 million (by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China[17th National Congress]).
Such state sponsored youth organizations are a hallmark of <<dictatorship,dictatorships>>, and serve both as an indoctrination device, and as a selection tool for future politicians:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth[Hitler Youth] was the <<nazi,Nazi Germany>> youth organization
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsomol[Komsomol] was the Soviet youth organization
One may argue that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scout_Association[the scouts] are https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/creator-of-taggart-reveals-the-human-stories-behind-an-unlikely-and-unsettling-alliance-on-the-eve-of-wartherell-be-no-more-murders-tv-sleuth-writer-rules-out-comeback/[a similar organization in the West], but one notable difference is the scale of such dictatorship-led youth organizations.
Related news:
* 2020-02-19: https://supchina.com/2020/02/19/communist-youth-league-patriotic-idols/ "The Communist Youth League Thought It Was Creating Patriotic Idols. Instead, It Started A Conversation About Women's Rights". The anime-style mascots are named Jiangshanjiao 江山娇 and Hongqiman 红旗漫.
[[young-pioneers-of-china]]
==== Young Pioneers of China 中国少年先锋队
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneers_of_China
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国少年先锋队
<<brainwashed-by-usa,Brainwashing>> for kids younger than the <<communist-youth-league>>.
[[xi-salute-young-pioneers]]
.Xi Jinping basically <<nazi,Nazi saluting>> representatives attending the 7th National Congress of the Chinese Young Pioneers in Beijing, June 1, 2015. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[Source] (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[biased]).
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_scout_salute.jpg[height=500]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/一孩政策
http://ftp.iza.org/dp3214.pdf suggests that a 1% increase in the male/female sex ratio raised violent and property crime rates by some 3%, mentioned with percentage error at https://youtu.be/DytBlcScGNk?t=1304
[[rule-of-law]]
=== Rule of law 法治
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/法治
The commies keep saying over and over that rule of law is always observed.
Of course, some times shitty laws are passed, and we must fight those as well: <<follow-the-law>>. But many times, the commies don't even bother setting up a bad law, they just fuck a million people and that's it.
But in reality they punish anyone who poses a political threat, even if they did nothing wrong themselves, some cases that come to mind:
* <<xinjiang>>: millions were jailed/forced to live with a spy in their homes, even though they were not terrorists themselves
* <<falun-gong>>: what did they do wrong to other people that deserves putting them in jail? Is <<flg-medication>> enough to justify that? Are you sure that it is not a political motivation?
* <<the-709-crackdown>>: even lawyers who support anyone who went against the state are imprisoned. How can there be any justice when lawyers are put in jail due to their choice of clients?
* 2020-06 Hao Runze, son of <<hao-haidong>>, lost his job because his father spoke up against the CCP. Did the CCP speak up for him, like the speak up whenever a Chinese citizen gets hurt?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picking_quarrels_and_provoking_trouble
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/寻衅滋事罪
[[inciting-subversion]]
===== Inciting subversion of state power (煽动颠覆国家政权罪)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inciting_subversion_of_state_power
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/煽动颠覆国家政权罪
Also known in the West as <<richer,voting>>.
[[hurt-the-feelings-of-the-chinese-people]]
===== Hurt the feelings of the Chinese people (伤害中国人民的感情)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurt_the_feelings_of_the_Chinese_people
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/傷害中國人民的感情
[[politically-sensitive]]
===== Politically sensitive (政治敏感)
That's how the censors refer to stuff <<censorship,censored>> for political reasons, e.g.:
* <<ciro-santillis-zhihu-ban-2018-06-25>>
* 知乎的"政治敏感"，到底是谁的"政治敏感"呢？ (Zhihu's "politically sensitive" is "politically sensitive" to whom?)
* https://jikipedia.com/definition/145472014 "政治敏感"
* http://www.hainmc.edu.cn/news/info/1018/1870.htm "习近平三招教你培养政治敏感性、预见性" (Xi Jinping's three methods teach you to <<flg-cult,cultivate>> political sensitivity and predictability).
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This stuff could have come directly out of <<nineteen-eighty-four>>'s "thoughcrime" references.
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On the website of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Medical_University[Medical University], the CCP is infiltrated everywhere.
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Related: <<xi-jinping-thought>>.
Typing that on Google also suggested "People also searched for: 网络审查利弊" (What are the pros and cons of censorship?) Priceless. Bomb at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/150[]. <<dictatorship-variability>> comes to mind.
=== Support for non-scientific traditional practices
This is especially interesting given that one of the main propaganda reasons for banning <<falun-gong>> was <<flg-medication>>:
* <<xu-xiaodong>> reveals support for Tai Chi
* 2020-06-03 Beijing considering censoring anti Chinese traditional medicine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/beijing-draws-up-plans-to-outlaw-criticism-of-traditional-chinese-medicine
[[drink-tea]]
=== Police invite to drink tea (被请喝茶)
* <<zhihu>> https://www.zhihu.com/question/60504957 "被请喝茶是怎样的体验？"
* <<pincong>> https://pincong.rocks/question/7226 "请大家都来曝光下身边被请喝茶或者拘留的例子，让葱油们引以为戒，让更多的人看到土共的凶残"
[[central-party-school]]
=== Central Party School of the Communist Party of China (Central Party School, 中共中央党校, 中央党校))
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Party_School_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中共中央党校
University to train the next dictators
Website: http://www.ccps.gov.cn/ (Central Committee Party School).
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== Chinese censorship companies
[[dahua-technology]]
=== Dahua Technology (大华股份)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahua_Technology
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/大华股份
Facial recognition, used in <<xinjiang>>.
==== EM_NATION_TYPE_UYGUR (2020)
https://twitter.com/q3k/status/1322943395497680897 highlighted a snippet of code:
....
//民族
public static class EM_NATION_TYPE extends MyStructure
{
public static final int EM_NATION_TYPE_UNKNOWN = 0; // 未知
public static final int EM_NATION_TYPE_UYGUR = 1; // 维族(新疆)
public static final int EM_NATION_TYPE_OTHER = 2; // 其他
public static final int EM_NATION_TYPE_UNIDENTIFIED = 3; // 设备未识别
}
....
indicating that <<xinjiang,Uyghurs>> are particularly targeted for facial recognition by Dahua.
The code is present in official downloads from:
* https://dahuasecurity.s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/uploads/soft/20200421/General_NetSDK_ChnEng_JAVA_Linux64_IS_V3.052.0000001.0.R.200407.zip
* http://web.archive.org/save/https://dahuasecurity.s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/uploads/soft/20200421/General_NetSDK_ChnEng_JAVA_Linux64_IS_V3.052.0000001.0.R.200407.zip
* SHA256: f8052a5d19db090d155eae05ce5bf39177d4151ab46f7c454a1670b7b62a5d81
which was visible from: https://www.dahuasecurity.com/support/downloadCenter/softwares?child=3&page=2 under download name "General_NetSDK_ChnEng_JAVA_Linux64_IS_V3.052.0000001.0.R.200407" before being taken down after the reports:
* up 2020-11-03 https://web.archive.org/web/20201103025846/https://www.dahuasecurity.com/support/downloadCenter/softwares?child=3&page=2
* down 2020-11-04 https://web.archive.org/web/20201104220410/https://www.dahuasecurity.com/support/downloadCenter/softwares?child=3&page=2
The code was spotted mirrored on GitHub, likely unofficially, but it was soon taken down, archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20201102065525/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gaomingbo/dahua-netsdk/master/src/main/java/com/dahua/lib/NetSDKLib.java
<<ciro-santilli>> downloaded it from the official website and verified that the code in question was there.
Discussions:
* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/jmo42m/china_makes_use_of_video_software_tailored_for/
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24960749
On 2020-11-20, Dahua DMCAed https://github.com/cirosantilli/epps-service at https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-25-Dahua.md which had been forked https://github.com/gaomingbo/epps-service from https://web.archive.org/web/20201102170146/https://github.com/cirosantilli/epps-service but Ciro is not sure it contains anything of particular interest, he had just forked all repos from gaomingbo. That one appeared to be just a car plate recognition sytem.
.Slide from a presentation of the Knowlesys Hong Kong social media censorship/misinformation company with words "Social Media as Weapons", "Your Enemy", leaked by the CCP_Unmasked hacker group on 2020/08/20, possible <<telegram>> account: https://t.me/ccp_unmasked[]. The leaks also contained data on Yunrun Big Data Service, a company based in Guangzhou, and OneSight, based in Beijing. From this hack they apparently also managed obtained passwords used by those companies to manage CCP social media, and they posted some messages about their efforst through those accounts. Western countries have also used terrorism as an excuse way to reduce privacy/start wars, but of course, things are much worse in dictatorships where there is no freedom of speech, related <<evil-west>>. https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/dyzewz/hackers-leak-alleged-internal-files-of-chinese-social-media-monitoring-firmscv[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Social_Media_as_Weapons.webp[height=400]
[[zhenhua-data-leak]]
=== Zhenhua Data leak (深圳振华数据信息技术有限公司, 2020)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenhua_Data_leak
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/深圳振华数据信息技术有限公司
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/14/zhenhua-data-full-list-leak-database-personal-details-millions-china-tech-company
Or to Ciro's other online presences, due to China activity.
For Zhihu backlinks, see: <<zhihu-questions-related-to-ciro-santilli>>.
* 2020-09-09 https://www.xataka.com/servicios/github-inesperado-ultimo-reducto-libertad-expresion-gran-firewall-que-pone-jaque-intereses-china "Github, el inesperado último reducto de libertad de expresión ante el 'Gran Firewall' pone en jaque los intereses de China", Spanish for "Github, the unexpected last stronghold of freedom of expression before the 'Great Firewall' puts the interests of China in check" basically talking about <<cute-cat-theory-of-digital-activism>>. Links to https://github.com/cirosantilli/chenmei-caiwei-ziyou under link text "Terminus2049" which is a bit misleading, could be a link mistake, led to 15 unique clicks. Contacted author at: https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1307717620863467522
* 2020-05-23: traffic reached 3k views on that day, compared to a normal 150, but the number of individual users is the same as always. The accessed pages were only meta repo pages like "Issues", "Wiki", "Stargazers" so either of:
** someone attempted a baby DDoS with wget and a single IP
** someone is scraping repository metadata, e.g. Chinese secret service or some other commercial bot that landed here by chance for the first time
* 2020-05-09: http://lj.rossia.org/users/perfect_kiss/36513.html Google translated of about in that website: "LJ.Rossia.org (LJR) is a nonprofit project created to support freedom of speech, develop civil society and promote free exchange of views."
* 2020-04-21: 4 hits from https://raidforums.com/ but can't locate it, maybe coming from their very fast temporary chat wall
* 2019-10-31: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6595454363743981568/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20191101094814/https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6595454363743981568/[archive]) "Good rundown of all the major news from China you don't see. Notice how you don't see anything about the Hong Kong protests anymore?"
* 2019-10 https://github.com/kon9chunkit/GitHub-Chinese-Top-Charts/blob/7131e2c1158a806f41c8f55308977048b02d2959/README-Part2.md Automatically generated list of repos with Chinese characters in their descriptions with the most upvotes per programming language. TODO why is this repo on their README-Part2 only? Has more stars than some stuff on main README.
* 2019-10-12: https://hacpai.com/article/1570686552645 Login required, cowards. Post title: "更新 GitHub 官方 Repo 的人，竟然是个反华分子". Manual page dump after my replies with links to this FAQ: https://ia801505.us.archive.org/27/items/cirosantilli/hacpai_1570686552645.html OP then deleted my comments because they don't speak English "HacPai 是个文明的社区，不会发生辱骂的现象，你有你的观点，我们有我们的观点。但抱歉，我们的水平有限，没有阅读英文的能力，还请发送有效回复，否则只能折叠处理". It is some developper website: https://hacpai.com/article/1440573175609 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190811205230/https://hacpai.com/article/1440573175609[archive]) linked to https://github.com/b3log/solo[]. OP then made an useless post here: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/70 As of 2019-10-12, I can't login there anymore, either because the website is shitty, or I was blocked. GitHub login just fails silently, cannot reset password. If blocked, cowards. This led me to update: <<reply-policy>> with the canned reply.
* 2019-09: https://admin.github.com Someone from GitHub has been thinking about us. s2 to you.
* 2019-09-13 https://twitter.com/sang_what/status/1172692888766959619 (https://archive.is/taPpH[archive]) https://t.co/qag5ekL12F link:https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thoughts-github-going-china-kevin-xu/
* 2019-06: https://gking.harvard.edu/ interesting. OK, likely due to: https://gking.harvard.edu/category/research-interests/applications/information-control-by-authoritarian-governments but no direct links found though.
* 2019-05: someone used the FAQ to answer a question: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/bt1mth/if_i_disappear_chinese_students_make_farewell/eou5a5q/ | https://web.archive.org/web/20190527072431/https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/bt1mth/if_i_disappear_chinese_students_make_farewell/eou5a5q/ "'If I disappear': Chinese students make farewell messages amid crackdowns over labor activism"
* 2019-04-10: https://twitter.com/jnzst/status/1115824398961913857 gGTYgFulPg
** https://twitter.com/jnzst/status/1111395254408613888
* 2019-01-10: https://twitter.com/ninoseki/statuses/1083512317952704512 | https://archive.is/vCwep 1300 followers.
* 2018-08: https://www.reddit.com/r/CCJ2/comments/93klir/moron_tries_to_dismantle_chinese_government_by | https://archive.is/HtYng "moron tries to dismantle chinese government by putting a few moon runes on some websites" Peak of 100 unique visitors/day from the base rate of 5
** led to: https://lihkg.com/thread/762440/page/1 <<lihkg>> https://archive.is/7REOi "佢個個人home page好多5毛留言, 唔知會唔會搞到block堆stackoverflow"
* 2018-07: http://4-ch.net/general/kareha.pl/1531480621/l50 | https://web.archive.org/web/20180815081351/http://4-ch.net/general/kareha.pl/1531480621/l50 "No more Xi Jinping"
* 2018-06: https://medarc.org/pac.txt | https://web.archive.org/web/20180712094944/http://medarc.org/pac.txt puts cirosantilli.com in a blacklist containing the likes of asianpiss.com and clearwisdom.net. Awesome. Then I grepped the main one https://github.com/gfwlist/gfwlist with `while true; do git checkout HEAD~; if ! base64 -d gfwlist.txt | grep -q cirosan; then break; fi; done` and found that I was added in 24a6f6f29e24d1d7eb27946bf51d7a072ddb3e6d Tue Apr 24 2018. That is input data for https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/autoproxy/ which turns on a proxy only for certain websites. Therefore that is a definitive list of interesting stuff. I wonder how it is curated.
* 2018-05: a few hits from https://chinadigitaltimes.net but Google cannot find any links
* 2018-05-20:
** https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=425684 Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20190701085047/https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=425684
** https://web.archive.org/web/20180520210006/http://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=425684&pid=3954113&page=1&extra=
* 2018-04-13: traffic peak, but no linkbacks. Many new Chinese followers, but few new stars on this repo, maybe they are afraid to star. I also blocked a user from on GitHub due to impolite post. Also possibly linked to me posting a link to the FAQ more clearly on my home page recently: https://github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli.github.io/commit/f31d1651c0e7fef587e5910ff2dc1e2aba9a5763
+
Someone subscribed me to a hundred GovDelivery mailing lists. This bullshit is also mentioned at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:GovLoop[]. This is the URL you can use to subscribe someone to dozens and dozens of emails by clicking checkboxes: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USEERE/subscriber/new[] without email verification, those idiots. I have to say, this was a good attack. I just mark everything from them as spam nowadays, and only get a few every other month.
* 2018-03-11: got a large traffic peak (60 vs 10 average), but no linkbacks to match. Likely source: parcerier pinged me at: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267715/is-stack-overflow-accessible-in-china/267723#comment562812_288497 and I revamped the and FAQ replied with https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267715/is-stack-overflow-accessible-in-china/267723#comment562840_320914 Someone also made: https://archive.is/jcZCA which points to: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267715/is-stack-overflow-accessible-in-china/267723#comment562810_267723 . This issue was opened that day as well: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/12
* 2018-01: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1088&context=cs_etds this site appears on the reference of a PhD thesis paper haha, links to complete-gfw-rulebook-for-wikipedia-v3.0.pdf.
* 2017-05: https://t.co/AosRq06akz TODO where from. "Measuring Decentralization of Chinese Censorship in Three Industry Segments" by Jeffrey Knockel. Now at Citizenlab: https://www.cs.unm.edu/~jeffk/
* 2015-09-03: (deleted) http://www.weibo.com/2014703917/Cyc1gFt7A This is the user: http://www.weibo.com/2014703917 There have also been accesses from link:http://weibo.cn/sinaurl[], but I don't know what that means.
Ciro Santilli
committed
* 2015-08-03: 21 visitor Facebook peak, can't find the source
* 2015-06-20: (deleted) link:https://www.plurk.com/p/l1jjn4[] Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20150918110032/https://www.plurk.com/p/l1jjn4 "這阿豆阿的名字XDD" by https://www.plurk.com/m/u/cyuanXD
* 2015-05-30: <<zhou-fengsuo>> linked to <<ciro-santilli>>'s stack overflow account!!!
=== V2EX
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2EX
Website: https://v2ex.com/
Although this website appears to have some degree of freedom of speech, as of 2020, if you post something that is "unwelcome" an unclear definition or unwelcome, your IP gets immediately blocked and trying to even access the site redirects to a "403 Forbidden nginx" page.
It is therefore impossible to have any political talk on that website, and they should not be trusted.
This happened when Ciro tried to reply to https://v2ex.com/t/378274[] around 2020-07-23 with:
他放弃了https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408 | https://web.archive.org/web/20170602054631/https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408/%E8%AF%B7%E5%B0%81%E6%8E%89ciro-santilli-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%85%B1%E4%BA%A7%E5%85%9A%E4%B8%87%E5%B2%81
参看我的china repository fb6c69cfec0d4e9008730c0c1a9c42c2d851e678#stack-overflow-anti-dissident-users
and it doesn't seem like there's anything super sensitive in that comment.
They then tell you to contact them if you want to be restored:
请不要发布在V2EX不被欢迎的内容，如果你觉得这是规则误判请邮件联系hello@v2ex.com
____
but Ciro did that and there was no reply.
Later on Ciro noticed that his account was giving 400:
* https://v2ex.com/member/cirosantilli
* https://web.archive.org/web/20200511191411/https://v2ex.com/member/cirosantilli
The forum is largely programmer dominated.
It had an <<icp-license>> in 2016, but lost it in 2019 to move servers back to USA, which is extremelly shady. https://zh.greatfire.org/v2ex.com[Blocked in China as of 2020-06] according to <<greatfire>>.
* 2017-07-27 https://v2ex.com/t/378274 (http://web.archive.org/web/20200723082356/https://v2ex.com/t/378274[archive]) "stackoverflow 上的较量。。" http://web.archive.org/web/20200723082356/https://v2ex.com/t/378274 talks about https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408 which is mentioned at <<stack-overflow-anti-dissident-users>>
* 2015-12-23: https://v2ex.com/t/245507 (link:https://github.com/cirosantilli/media/blob/9f7b07e915c4638d45a1b4922ba95c61e2ef87dc/webpages/v2ex-2015-12.html[Chromium CTRL-S save]) "搜 StackOverflow，无意间发现了这个，重点在那个评论" by https://v2ex.com/member/happypy1
* http://v2ex.com/t/214015 TODO restricted without mobile phone confirmation, while most other threads still work. So they must have some kind of restricted posts.
* 2015-04-10: https://v2ex.com/t/182766 (cannot archive, login requires CAPTCHA, link:https://github.com/cirosantilli/media/blob/9f7b07e915c4638d45a1b4922ba95c61e2ef87dc/webpages/v2ex-2015-04.html[Chromium CTRL-S save]) "Stack Overflow 上看到一个丧心病狂的程序员" by https://v2ex.com/member/cloudhunter
When Ciro later checked the above threads on 2020-12-20, he noticed that all of them had been made restricted to logged in members only, while previously only one of them had been.
Ciro Santilli
committed
[[pincong]]
=== Pincong 品葱
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/品葱
Website: https://pincong.rocks/
Uses a virtual currency system (游戏币): https://pincong.rocks/currency/rule/ Posting articles costs 20 points, and doing stuff like replying gives you a few points.
* 2019-10-30: link:++https://www.pincong.rocks/question/id-10294__sort_key-agree_count__sort-ASC++[] (link:++https://web.archive.org/web/20191101091242/https://www.pincong.rocks/question/id-10294__sort_key-agree_count__sort-ASC++[archive]) "怎么让大陆把 Github 墙了？" How to get GitHub blocked by the Firewall? OP apparently really wants to block it? If yes, <<so-block-cost,LOL>>. Trigerred by some 2019-10 <<notepad>> activity.
* 2019-04-09: https://pincong.rocks/question/3383 | https://web.archive.org/web/20190413063930/https://pincong.rocks/question/3383 "【小众问题】为何 Stack Overflow 2019 开发者调查报告中，来自中国的开发者最为积极乐观？"
** 2019-05: https://community.riskiq.com/search/pincong.rocks Pingong people deciding if they should ban Ciro Santilli? :-) commented there once: https://pincong.rocks/question/3383 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190810213122/https://pincong.rocks/question/3383[archive]) This also suggests that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RiskIQ helps censorship in China
Ciro Santilli
committed
<<ciro-santilli>>'s account: https://pincong.rocks/people/cirosantilli
This website might not censor stuff, e.g.: people are using <<winnie-the-pooh>> avatars: https://www.pincong.rocks/people/bushiwumao (https://web.archive.org/web/20200418194038/https://www.pincong.rocks/people/bushiwumao[archive])
Ciro Santilli
committed
TODO is is blocked by <<gfw>> or not? <<greatfire>> just hangs forever on it, e.g.:
* https://zh.greatfire.org/test?url=https%3A//pincong.rocks
* https://zh.greatfire.org/test?url=https%3A//pincong.rocks/question/6601
<<github>> mirror of selected threads: https://github.com/Project-Gutenberg/Pincong
[[mohu]]
==== Mohu 膜乎
https://www.mohu.rocks
Website openly anti-CCP, e.g. the signup page has <<xi-jinping>> jokes. Very similar appearance to <<pincong>>, likely same engine. https://pincong.rocks/question/24489 asks what is their relationship "请问一下品葱和膜乎之间是什么关系？"
Backlinks to this page:
* 2020-06-03 https://www.mohu.rocks/article/2227 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200606065812/https://www.mohu.rocks/article/2227[archive]) "专门开一个帖子，以后会把从各处搜刮来的六四学潮的视频、历史、文章之类放在这" (I'm creating this post to collect all the videos, history, articles, etc. that can be found anywhere about the <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square protests>>)
** Then one of the replies by "习羊羊与灰战狼" was "link:https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[] "提供一个很全的链接，几乎可以算是反共手册。里面的4.7是谈六四的" (Here is one very complete link, it could almost be considered an anti-CCP manual. Section 4.7 of that page is about Tiananmen.) Ciro liked the sound of that very much :-)
== Other sections
TODO migrate all into this README.
. link:censorship.md[Censorship]
. link:media.md[Media]
. link:dissidents.md[Dissidents]
. link:movements.md[Movements against the Dictatorship]
. link:images/[Images]
. link:policies.md[Policies]
. link:stack-overflow.md[Stack Overflow]
. link:stack-overflow-profile.md[Stack Overflow profile]
. Personal
.. link:communities-that-censor-politics.md[Communities that censor politics]
[[anti-dictatorship-songs]]
== Anti-dictatorship songs 反对独裁的首歌
Not necessarily in Chinese or about China specifically.
Brazil had a <<military-dictatorship-in-brazil,dictatorship from 1964 to 1985>>, and some amazing songs were made in Portuguese in that era. <<ciro-santilli>>, who is Brazilian, just cannot stop thinking about some of them in relation to China, notably: <<apesar-de-voce,Apesar de você>>.
[[do-you-hear-the-people-sing]]
=== Do you hear the people sing (Les Miserables (musical), 1980)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Hear_the_People_Sing%3F | https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/À_la_volonté_du_peuple | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Hear_the_People_Sing%3F
Cantonese version used in <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests,Hong Kong>>: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/問誰未發聲
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojoC-Kbzpo8 English version taken from a scene of the link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Misérables_(2012_film)++[Les Misérables (2012)] film.
video::ojoC-Kbzpo8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAxDKhH1iU8 Original French version, overlayed on top of scenes from the miniseries https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo,_ennemi_d%27État["Victor Hugo, ennemi d'État 2018"].
video::dAxDKhH1iU8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It3Ny7IY7jA Thousands sing 問誰未發聲 in 26th June 2019 in Hong Kong as a protest song.
video::It3Ny7IY7jA[youtube,height=400,width=600]
== The best Chinese traditional instrumental music albums 中国传统器乐音乐
Much like <<restaurants,real Chinese food>>, your mind will be blown.
The best approach is to start with the largest multi-artist anthologies available to get a general overview of what is there.
Then, you can start Googling by instrument. The main four instruments are undoubtedly:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guqin[Guqin]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipa[Pipa]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guzheng[Guzheng]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhu[Erhu]
but there is also amazing content on others including: