
China Cuts Mobile Service of Xinjiang Residents Evading Internet Filters - walterbell
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/business/international/china-cuts-mobile-service-of-xinjiang-residents-evading-internet-filters.html
======
Shank
This is the kind of censorship and control that becomes very difficult to
escape once activated. It seems imperative to me that anyone living in China
who isn't already well off aught to consider having a backup plan in the event
that communication with the outside world is completely disrupted.

This isn't the kind of move anyone should be taking lightly, more so for those
directly in the country being cut off.

~~~
methou
I have Satcom and HAM Radio as the backup, but I'm afraid they could be
useless when law enforcements involved. A visa and plane ticket may be more
realistic in the case.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
>Satcom and HAM Radio

What is the punishment for being found owning/using that sort of equipment in
China, if any?

~~~
df41
I suspect that no one would care unless you do something evil (but nowadays
people use the thing called internet). I found an active forum www.hellocq.net
via a quick google search and there are >100 posts today.

------
pjc50
The thing going on in Xinjiang that we're not supposed to know about is Tibet-
style "internal colonisation" and almost certainly some "ethnic cleansing".
However the censorship is good enough that it's hard to say accurately.

~~~
chvid
There has been two major attacks possibly related to Xinjiang lately. The 2014
Kunming attacks and the 2015 Bangkok bombings.

In Chinese perspective these are acts of international terrorism related to
islamist jihad (ISIS, Al Queda etc.). And talk about Xinjiang seperation from
China would be what we in the west call "hate speech" since it possibly would
entail cleansing of Han-chinese from the region.

However this perspective is not shared by the west which is probably why the
Chinese government cannot get the same services from Google and Facebook that
countries like USA or France can when comes to censoring hate speech or get
logs on suspected terrorist.

Hence they have to resort to more primitive ways.

~~~
ameen
Han Chinese were implanted in there to prevent Uyghur homogenity. So, why do
"Anti-Terror" efforts involve force feeding muslims during the Islamic month
of Ramadan? They have a Chinese flag affixed inside Masjids, and a lot more,
but I'm sure you get the drift that not many of us are ignorant about the
atrocities inflicted upon them.

~~~
HowardMei
"Force feeding muslims during the Islamic month of Ramadan" \--- Media
Garbage. Only officers, teachers and students were disciplined, and I see no
problems here. Religious practices are not allowed to paralyze public
services. It's not new but had been a norm until extremists changed it.

Apparently, you're pro-Muslim and anti-Han. You may find a lot of brothers and
sisters in Malaysia and Indonesia where the laws undisguisedly claim MALAY
FIRST.

It's interesting that President Obama says nothing about this kind of extreme
racist laws in his childhood residential country. Maybe he's pro-Muslim too?

You put a pair of quotes on "Anti-Terror" to show your anti-Han position given
the facts that Han suffered most from the tension between the Government and
Muslim Extremists. It's a clear sign that you're a media puppet.

China has a lot of "Affirmative Actions" against Han, including the birth
control policy and Han people are furious about the situation.

Maybe some day, there will be a HAN FIRST government for you to criticize Han
racists but not now.

~~~
ameen
I'm not anti-Han. I have family members who are Han. I'm only against
oppression, be it in China, India or Pakistan.

I'm one of those that believes an individual should have the freedom to
express themselves.

For what it matters, Han Chinese (urban) have historically been well-educated
and get access to better jobs. If the Uyghurs (mostly rural) get decent
education & opportunities, separatists' calls (and motivation) would die down.

------
wwwigham
There's a part of me that can't believe that I live in an era where the
authors of the article were directed to "the local cyberpolice" for questions.
Sounds almost dystopian when I read it aloud.

~~~
pki
[http://www.bj.cyberpolice.cn](http://www.bj.cyberpolice.cn) looks hilarious,
I don't know why. Maybe the potted plants.

~~~
btiede
Or the identical cartoon police men and women!

------
est
Xinjiang has been cut off from Internet for at least 11 months. It's seldom
reported outside. Ppl even used dialups in landlines but soon get cut off
again.

------
hellofunk
Another day, another story of an Asian nation that deeply feers the personal
expression and curiosity of its citizens. Thailand, Singapore, China... how
privileged so many of us are, taking for granted that we grew up in a culture
where that particular level of explicit distrust does not exist.

~~~
chillacy
Except it's even worse, because in this particular case they're targeting an
area full of ethnic minorities in a Han dominated china:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang)

The strong coercing the weak.

------
chaostheory
This is one area where China seems to be both the leader and trend setter. I
wouldn't be surprised if this isn't being discussed in Western governments
within the next 5 years unless trend changes drastically.

~~~
beedogs
Generally these sorts of draconian measures seem to filter down from China, to
the UK, then to Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and then the United States.
From end to end it takes about 10 years.

~~~
vonklaus
curious of an example. Do you have one?

~~~
Natsu
The list of blocked websites would be one such measure. It always starts with
terrorists or some such and eventually filters down to local politics and
whatnot.

~~~
morgante
Except there aren't blocklists in the US...

~~~
Natsu
If you look at the progression, the US was listed after the rest. UK,
Australia, etc. have all had big controversies over block lists and I think
they're still working on implementing them in Canada.

~~~
beedogs
Yep, the blocklist is just being implemented now in Australia.

------
daltonlp
This isn't a new tactic. When visiting Beijing several years ago, I discovered
that searches for sensitive terms would result in a dropped connection, with
progressively longer reconnect delays for each additional action.

I imagine the permanent cutoff is a few steps up the scale of punishment.

------
qiqing
> The action also shows that despite spending billions of dollars to create
> one of the world’s most sophisticated Internet censorship and surveillance
> systems, blind spots abound.

Does anyone here have a source that compares the reach of Chinese surveillance
with the NSA and GCHQ?

~~~
bcoates
Given how infamous US intelligence agencies are for being infiltrated by
foreign agents, it's almost certainly a strict superset.

~~~
venomsnake
Infiltration gives you the ability to get to any bit of information you want.
Not to all bits you need. Exfiltrating sizable amounts of data from US
agencies is not so easy task, I would guess.

------
codemac
What actions do I take as someone outside of China by a hemisphere or so?

Reading this just blows my mind. I've gotten my family and a few friends on
Signal[0], but these types of things only help if you have basic access to the
Internet.

What type of infrastructure future proofing can you do when it's such a
centralized technology? I've been thinking about renewing my ham radio license
again (no more Morse code!)

[0]: [https://whispersystems.org/](https://whispersystems.org/)

~~~
pjc50
_What actions do I take as someone outside of China by a hemisphere or so?_

Absolutely none. But bear it in mind for the future.

~~~
codemac
If there is no action, then why even "bear it in mind"? Seems like you do
think there is some preparatory action to take.

------
methou
The internet may be the least they worry about. Xinjiang is big hot dense mess
since a few years ago, terrorists and extremists are not rare in Xinjiang. The
current state is more likely in a war against terrorism.

~~~
ameen
Nice to term separatists as Terrorists. Uyghurs' have always wanted self-
determination and are culturally different from the Han Chinese, hence the
resettled Hans in Xinjiang to prevent ethnic homogenity in the region.

~~~
1stop
Aren't all "Terrorists" separatists. Like the terrorism is a means to an end
(separation). I don't think there are any terrorists who exist soley to cause
terror as their end goal.

Their are a fair few cultural differences in China (even just within the "han
race" let alone the other "races"[0].

But I often play the thought experiment in my head: How would the US govt
react to the Latinos or the African Americans wishing to create a seperate
state within the US?

I don't really see it playing out that differently to what China are doing.

Is this just a case of "China has a problem that we (the US) don't, and look
at them struggle with it!" kind of thing?

~~~
pjc50
The US has quite a lot of practical political freedom at the state and even
down to county level. Texas is politically different from California, Alabama
different from New York. So pretty much the only remaining domestic terrorism
is from white supremacists. The key question is "how would the US react to
_white people_ trying to create a separate state within the US?

The US period of herding minorities into sub-states called "reservations"
ended a long time ago.

