
BBC websites blocked in China after security change - paralelogram
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45098190
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phyzome
Haha, this sentence:

« It has altered all of its addresses from beginning "HTTP" to "HTTPS", which
is widely considered to be a more secure connection »

Widely considered, I love it.

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justicezyx
> Widely considered, I love it.

Didn't get this. Any technical issues/anecdote to make this more interesting?

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phyzome
Well, HTTP has zero security, and HTTPS has this big complicated security
mechanism (TLS) that tries to ensure no one can snoop on your connection,
alter the content, or pretend to be a server they aren't.

There's no subjectivity at stake, here: One is designed without security, the
other is designed with security.

It's like saying the Atacama Desert is widely considered to be drier than a
thunderstorm.

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justicezyx
I am not sure if you considered the intended audience of the article at all.

But if you think about that, the statement is about as good as it can be.

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taejo
No: HTTPS is more secure than HTTP. This is true regardless of the intended
audience.

Explaining _why_ may be beyond a particular audience, but that doesn't justify
weakening the truth with weasel words.

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golem14
Why is that so surprising ? Moving to [https://](https://) makes it harder for
the GFW to identify people who read specific articles. I can see how China
feels news platforms that are [https://](https://) only need to be blocked.

Out of curiosity: how do other news outlets fare ?

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jacob019
Psiphon looks interesting, but if it's a network of thousands of proxy
servers, then it will be trivial for the GFW to block those servers, no?

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dstick
Every time I read “The Great Firewall” it puts a smile on my face - such a
great name on multiple levels :-)

Does the Chinese government refer to it like that as well?

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cmplxconjugate
Yep, the characters used are 防火长城. This is literally "Fireproof Greatwall".

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Arubis
Interestingly, the screencap that's the hero image for TFA includes a
comparison between a picture of Xi and Obama and a picture of Winnie the Pooh
and Tigger.

The Xi => Pooh comparison is (to my understanding) a common one in China, and
one the Party tries to suppress.

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A2017U1
The latest Winnie The Pooh movie (containing nothing offensive, suitable for
children) has of course been banned in China.

I find it amazing how very powerful people can end up with such delicate egos.
Here in the West we mock leaders all the time and it rarely undermines their
authority.

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vfulco2
This + inifinity

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chw9e
AFAIK there’s not problem with https in China - today most companies use https
for their websites and app servers, see Baidu, Taobao, JD, etc. Maybe BBC
didn’t register things correctly with the govt or the govt is just
specifically targeting them. But the article’s title is a little misleading by
implying that https leads to GFW blocking.

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yitosda
"We've seen cases outside the UK, with some of our World Service sites where
foreign governments have tried to [track which articles and videos you're
looking at or selectively suppress individual pieces of content]."

Is there any more information about such instances or is that insider
knowledge?

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basic1
You don't have to look outside the UK for that.

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timthorn
BBC News was my captive portal go-to site. Sad to lose the non-redirecting
http version.

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stephengillie
http;//n-gate.com

~~~
dgacmu
If you fix the semicolon I'll try to upvote this twice.

