
Hong Kong ISP Association’s Statement on Selective Blocking of Internet Services - hardmaru
https://www.hkispa.org.hk/139-urgent-statement-of-hkispa-on-selective-blocking-of-internet-services.html
======
steventhedev
We have servers in HK. Not to reach mainland China, but to service all SE
Asia. We chose HK because it has the best balance of latency between all
destinations. If PRC decides to move HK behind the great firewall, we'd move
our servers, and so would most other companies. Last I checked, Great Firewall
DPI takes around 100ms. I don't have exact timing, it's possible it's
different for ingress/egress, or that it's only on tcp connect, but 100ms
means it's reasonable for us to consider pretty much any other city in SE
Asia, and a few outside. For reference, Taipei is around 20ms away from HK,
and Manila is around 40ms. Singapore is problematic because they have a tiny
number of external cables, and they had an incident a few years back where all
but one cable was out of service for months.

Point is if HK moves behind the GFW, I'll have some servers for sale.

EDIT: I'll let my stupidity stand, but for correctness: Singapore has around
15 submarine cables as of 2018, but only 3 landing sites.

~~~
idlewords
Note that this is not the PRC expanding the Great Firewall, but the Hong Kong
government mulling its own restrictions under emergency powers. My
understanding is that the infrastructure is not in place to just move the city
behind the Great Firewall even if that were a goal.

~~~
rrix2
The letter's point is that if they make movement today on attempting to block
access through their current means, it can only end in a GFW-like situation
because it can't meet PRC standards otherwise. Even if it takes years, it
ruins the economic prospects of the city as a technological leader.

------
partiallypro
I think that the US should openly say it will accept Hong Kong asylum seekers
with open arms. There is so much talent there that likely doesn't want to be
there when the CPC truly uses its long arm.

~~~
tthhuuiff
This is what Britain should have done back in 97. Instead, they spent the time
trying to stop Portugal from offering citizenship to the people of Macau so
that Hongkongers wouldn’t try to ask for it.

~~~
skissane
What Britain should have done, long before '97:

(1) Made recognition of PRC conditional on PRC agreeing to an indefinite
extension of lease on New Territories, such that no handover of HK was
required

(2) Threaten that, if PRC didn't agree, UK would return New Territories to ROC
instead, with British troops deployed to defend it

(3) Make clear to PRC that any military action against UK-controlled (or ROC-
controlled) HK would result in a war between two nuclear weapon states (UK vs
PRC)

(4) Give HK real democracy back in the 50s/60s/70s/80s, rather than waiting
until 5 years before handover

(5) Build nuclear-powered desalination plants to remove HK dependency on
mainland water

~~~
schuke
The UK did try to democratize HK governance in the 60s but China immediately
threatened military invasion.

~~~
dragonsh
> The UK did try to democratize HK governance in the 60s but China immediately
> threatened military invasion.

Not really due to fear of military invasion, but due to fear of economic
fallout on UK and giving up some luxury for its own citizens for a right
cause. Lavish lifestyle funded by colony's money is more important for UK than
fight for the rights of the people of its colonies.

They have milked every one of their colonies resources until the very last
minute they left. Also before leaving they always sow seeds of division and
failure. That's what they did for Hong Kong too.

So saying they wanted to give democracy to HK is outlandish.

~~~
javagram
in reality consider other western countries which attempted to stop
decolonization and protect their citizens in those lands. French Algeria,
Portuguese Goa - they lost the military fights and had to give up.

The PRC fought the combined UN forces to a standstill in the Korean war in the
1950s, and the British empire had already fallen apart and was in no shape to
fight China then in the context of the cold war.

~~~
dragonsh
UK didn't fall apart for 150 years, still they couldn't offer any democracy to
Hong Kong. Also China had a lost decade in cultural revolution after 1962. So
again if you look at the facts and history, it's laughable to even suggest
that British wanted democracy for Hong Kong.

It's the same old story of old British empire in every colony, where they will
promise but never keep it. They were just hypocrite, the main intention was
always that colony should not prosper or challenge British empire in future,
after they leave.

~~~
javagram
When Britain decolonized their other colonies in the 1940s-60s they did take
efforts to leave them with democratic governments (many of these did fall
apart and become dictatorships or have other political issues as the countries
were not developed enough for democracy to be viable.)

Your dislike of the UK seems to be blinding you to historical facts? Or do you
have sources that prove these statements incorrect?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Ho...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Hong_Kong)

“Records declassified in 2014 show discussions about self-government between
British and Hong Kong governments resumed in 1958, prompted by the British
expulsion from India and growing anti-colonial sentiment in the remaining
Crown Colonies. Zhou Enlai, representing the Communist Party of China at the
time, warned, however, that this "conspiracy" of self-governance would be a
"very unfriendly act" and that the Communist Party wished the present colonial
status of Hong Kong to continue. China was facing increasing isolation in a
Cold War world and the party needed Hong Kong for contacts and trade with the
outside world.[19][20][21]

1960s Edit China's leaders explicitly wanted to "preserve the colonial status
of Hong Kong".[21] Liao Chengzhi, a senior Chinese official in charge of Hong
Kong affairs, said in 1960 that China "shall not hesitate to take positive
action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and New Territories liberated" should the
status quo (i.e. colonial administration) be changed. The warning killed any
democratic development for the next three decades.[22]“

------
iandanforth
I'm always baffled when these pieces include a line that says "we follow the
law." That's carte blanche to any regime. The first rule of law is that you
break them when necessary. If you're not willing to defy something you think
is evil or wrong why bother with a puff statement? CYA I guess.

~~~
tasogare
So you think corporations should be able to cherry pick the regulations they
follow? Seems a great idea for consumer rights, environmental protection, etc.

~~~
wbl
Obeying the law worked so well for IG Farben.

~~~
Aperocky
TBF, it sucked for them mostly because Nazis lost the war. I'm sure whoever
profited from constructing internment camp of Japanese during the same era
went through it just fine.

~~~
briantakita
IG Farben was broken up into Bayer, Monsanto, BASF, etc.

Also many in the NSDAP were brought over to America via Operation Paperclip.
Many went to the Soviet Union, Argentina, & remained in West & East Germany.

------
walrus01
The important part about implementing something like the great firewall, or
how Iran runs the Internet (All ISPs need to be downstream of the government-
run ASN), is that you need cooperation from the people with network
engineering talent.

If all of them refuse to help implement your new internet censorship regime,
it's a problem for any authoritarian government, just as much as if your
police force stops following orders. You can start firing people and hiring
replacements who will toe the line, but at a certain point you're going to end
up with second and third rate talent, and correspondingly shoddy ISPs.

Talented network engineers such as those who have the equivalent of 'enable'
on the twenty largest ISPs in HK can choose to go elsewhere and work in free
countries. There's sufficient demand for their skills that refusing en masse
to cooperate is not an incredible risk for them.

I work in the field and try to teach junior NOC people that there is such a
thing as ethics in network engineering. Just as there is in any other
professional field where people rely upon critical systems. This means, among
other things, don't try to MITM your customers' traffic (Kazakhstan, recent
incident comes to mind), don't get into intrusive DPI, don't fuck with
neutrality of content, and absolutely never cooperate with anything that
slightly resembles the great firewall. The combination of modern
technology/human tracking systems plus full autocratic state control of ISPs
could result in something that would be the wet dream of east germany's Stasi.

~~~
just_steve_h
I'm grateful for walrus's comment. And yet I feel they are in the minority.

We are long past time for real professional ethics in our professions.

If we are so bold as to claim the title "engineer," where are our obligatory
professional standards? Our licensure? Our - gasp - liability?

If a structural engineer designs a bridge in a way that ignores established
best practices, and the bridge fails and causes injuries, the engineer is held
responsible.

Why are our professions different?

~~~
Aeolun
If a professional Engineer designs a wall. Lets say, a huge land wall across
the border of a country.

Do we say that engineer is unethical, and that he should never have
participated?

~~~
walrus01
as a more concrete example of what is being implemented now, which the
residents of HK would like to avoid:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8a8yG0uEaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8a8yG0uEaw)

------
hank_z
Tbh, hk’s destiny was written when it’s handed back to cpc. Cpc is less
tolerant of ‘anti-noise’ now. Just hope no more blood from the ordinary.

~~~
whatshisface
If the standard of living of the ordinary in HK drops to the ordinary standard
of living in the mainland, ordinary HKers will have a reason to fight.

~~~
iamnotacrook
China is undergoing an economic miracle which is transforming the lives of
millions. Hong Kong is going to get consumed by the mainland no matter which
Linux distro or whatever is used. There's no domestic desire to keep HK
special. It's just not going to happen.

~~~
lettergram
I’d need to find the Frontline episode I saw on this (which gave numbers). But
only around 300 million people are benefiting by moving to the middle class,
the 700 million migrant workers and farmers are essentially slaves. That’s how
China produces cheaper goods.

So sure, “miracle for millions” is kind of true, but also omitting the
majority.

~~~
barry-cotter
This is garbage. Essentially slaves? Health, education, access to consumer
goods, percentage urban, all of these have been rising pretty much non stop
since the 80's. I live in Shanghai and have for seven years. There are plenty
of people here living in less than ideal conditions, like in the apartment on
the first floor of my block where people are sleeping six to a room but it
beats being a peasant easily. Subsistence farming sucks. Urbanisation is a
decent measure of increases in the standard of living here because even the
worst city has many more opportunities than the countryside.

One of the big convenience store chains here, FamilyMart, the workers have 7
day a week, 15 hour day shifts. I've seen some employees in the same
FamilyMart for years. They stay because it's better than what they'd be able
to get at home. They work vastly more hours than the middle class do, mostly,
but they're earning about the same per week as kindergarten teachers here do,
with their degree and much better job, about 8,000 yuan a month. You know what
the annual income is in the countryside? 10,000 to 20,000 in Anhui, maybe four
hours travel from Shanghai. People work these terrible jobs because they're
used to working harder, for less money. Subsistence farming is an awful way to
earn a living and people get the hell out as soon as they can, in China now
and for the past thirty years just like in the UK during the industrial
revolution. People left the countryside to work in the dark satanic mills
because the countryside was worse. People choose to work in FamilyMart when
there are other convenience store chains with shorter shifts and days off so
they can save money so they can do things like buy a house, same as offshore
oil rig workers or sailors spend months away from their family.

People make choices, in circumstances you or I would never wish on anyone but
they're free to make those choices. They're not slaves.

~~~
throwaway1997
You live in a Tier 1 city. Anhui, your example of the sticks, is mostly Tier
2. You have barely experienced most of China and have lived as an expat and
think you can speak for the Chinese people?

------
tony
If it turns out PRC messes with HK's traffic, PRC is going to lose a load of
trust over this.

Businesses relying on VPN'ing home to function, those believe its a human
right to choose their leadership.

Why shouldn't the fragrant harbor enjoy same autonomy the rest of these
received?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_ga...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_that_have_gained_independence_from_the_United_Kingdom)

What's there to fear? Do Hong Kongers not share the same kindred blood,
language (as far as Cantonese, at least in Guangdong), culture.

Why not let Hong Konger's vote for independence? Scotland had a chance in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Scottish_independence_ref...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Scottish_independence_referendum).
What keeps it together? I don't know. Trust? Respect?

Is there trust and respect between HK <-> China? I've been between GZ/HK many
times. They're different places. If PRC wants to be an example to others of
their own philosophy and system, they should do it by building trust over
time, not by using a hammer.

~~~
tthhuuiff
> Why not let Hong Konger’s vote for independence?

Probably the same reason Spain doesn’t let Catalonia vote for independence.

~~~
tony
I'm not an expert on Catolonia and Spain, but I don't see it that way.

I've likened Hong Kong to Singapore. It's leaning toward being fully
independent and the momentum seems unstoppable. The question I'm wondering is
why stop at HK? I want my access to KuGou back. That's what did it for me.

Spain and Catalonia both use the Euro. Catalonia has its own judicial system,
but I believe they both are set to the EU in terms of bigger picture things.

HK and PRC have separate currencies. HK uses traditional chinese characters
and speaks Cantonese. Not everyone in neighboring Guangdong speaks Cantonese,
and they use simplified chinese characters.

Hong Kong has its own famous movies. It has its own cellphone companies and
ISPs. Its own stock market. They drive on different sides of the road (left in
HK, right in China). HK has trams. HK has its own customs. The legal system is
in english and its a common law system and dramatically different than
China's.

~~~
ridaj
What momentum towards independence? Everything since the handover has been
going against independence. Maybe the difference with Singapore is this cold
reality:

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/21/hong-kongs-
inconvenient...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/21/hong-kongs-inconvenient-
truth/)

~~~
morningseagulls
The article notes:

>the city looks to the mainland for most of its resources.

So does Singapore, which looks to Peninsular Malaysia for most of its
resources (water and food).

That's the main problem with that opinion piece.

Here's the real difference:

\- Singapore was expelled from the federation of Malaysia by politicians keen
to keep their racialist affirmative action policy. AFAIK Malaysia has no
official irredentist policy when it comes to Singapore.

\- Hong Kong is in no danger of being expelled from the PRC because the PRC
has an officially proclaimed irredentist policy regarding Hong Kong.

~~~
ridaj
Sure, the dependency on resources exists in the case of Singapore as well, but
the ratio of military capability between Singapore and Malaysia is much more
balanced than that between HK and the PRC (since it's 0).

~~~
morningseagulls
The relative military capabilities of the two parties, like the resource
dependency, is a side issue.

Kuala Lumpur shows no sign of wanting Singapore back because Singapore would
significantly alter Malaysia's demographics and push for racial equality,
which is not what the ruling Malay political class wants.

Beijing, however, sees every reason to keep HK. Not just the irredentism: have
a look at the map and you will see that HK is on the NE entrance of the Pearl
River. HK may not be as economically important as before, but just like Macau
on the other side of the mouth of the Pearl River, it is of immense
geostrategic importance to the security of the river delta region.

------
Basic_Treat
Is there an easy to follow guide for how to setup a censorship resistant
internet toolkit for those of us in HK to prepare? Especially for mobile
phones/devices.

~~~
adamfisk
Full disclosure: I work on Lantern at
[https://www.getlantern.org](https://www.getlantern.org).

That said, you should just use Lantern. Recently international links out of
China are insanely unreliable, but we’re continuing to improve it. There are
hiccups, but it works.

~~~
tjpnz
Your mobile site is messing with my back button.

------
Retroity
A very interesting statement. The Hong Kong ISP Association makes a number of
very good points. Much of Hong Kong's economy relies on the open internet
(like most of the world) and censoring it would do it much harm.

------
buildanduse
I live in Hong Kong and work for two international IT organizations and
couldn't do it without full access to the Internet. The start of restrictions
on what we can access, and possibly on what we do, would trigger an immediate
"exit the territory" plan for myself and many others. If mainland China wishes
to do irreparable damage to Hong Kong as retribution for bucking the system,
this would do it.

While my personal experience in Hong Kong has just been mediocre (have lived
in APAC for 13 years - China, Taiwan, Hong Kong), the open access to news,
social media, etc... is part of the local culture. Hong Kongers seem to have a
similar cynical / critical view of all media - they want to validate the spin
by their experience and other data points - a characteristic that is often
seen as "western." This contributes to westerners feeling comfortable with
Hong Kongers. It would be sad to see HK lose this.

Of course, the wider Internet's concentration of critical network
infrastructure in organizations like Cloudflare, Google, and others mean that
even the "free" Internet is not fully free or truly egalitarian. The world
needs infrastructure-level solutions to the overall troubling trend of great
firewalls, malicious cert. authorities, bad actors, etc... that can be trusted
by all and maybe even be a ray of light for Hong Kong's future.

~~~
woutr_be
Same here, I've been looking to leave Hong Kong for a few years already, but
was always comfortable enough to stay. The protests didn't have me worried a
lot, but the response from the government has been disappointing to say the
least. They're not looking to improve the situation, and treat people like
they're babies. There's also a lot of personal reasons for me to leave, and a
lot of minor annoyances in daily life that add up over time.

With that said, if any restrictions come into place, I'll definitely fast
track my plan to leave, probably before the end of the year.

------
ilaksh
I think the reality is that the largest group on the planet is in China and
lives under this authoritarian paradigm or whatever it is exactly.

There is good reason to expect China's global influence to continue to
increase. HK is basically a front line.

If you look at countries like Australia you can see that this style of
government is already starting to spread in some ways.

The US population is only 23% the size of China's yet the US has much more
territorial and resource control globally.

My concern is that Chinese people will eventually not want to tolerate this
disparity in resource control anymore.

At the moment the Chinese military is not capable of doing anything about it
as far as I know.

However, if that changes, it is unlikely that the US will cede control
voluntarily. In that case there would be a war.

However, since war involves mass killing, and people do not do that without
some moral justification, people will need to find this ethical cause. What
scares me about the protests is that "freedom" is the type of cause that
people will commit mass murder for.

I think that the people who might push for a war do not really care about
freedom or anything other than money and they do not respect human life.

I think it may be necessary to find non-violent ways to integrate Eastern and
Western cultures and logistical controls in order to avoid a war. So I believe
that should be a national security priority.

~~~
rayiner
War is not murder, in the same way self defense or involuntary homicide is not
murder. Words have meaning. (Especially legal terms of art.)

~~~
ilaksh
I changed it to say mass killing.

------
mmaunder
Relevant from earlier today: US regulators have stepped in to potentially
block an undersea cable between the US and HK. It's a joint project between
Google, FB and Dr Peng which is the 4th largest telco in China.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/us-officials-may-undersea-
ca...](https://www.businessinsider.com/us-officials-may-undersea-cable-china-
google-facebook-backed-wsj-2019-8?op=1)

------
saagarjha
Unrelated: did Hacker News mess up their eTLD+1 code? I see the link as going
to "org.hk" :/

~~~
dear
HN only displays the top level domain, which is org.hk

~~~
saagarjha
Which looks like a bug, I take it, considering that this one shows up as going
to "bbc.co.uk":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20817583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20817583)?
(Also, I think the TLD is still just ".hk"; ".org.hk" is an eTLD AFAIK.)

~~~
jasonjei
I’m guessing they probably only put in a handful of common country-level
TLDs...

------
jjcm
Interesting that this is coming right after the DoJ suggested they might be
blocking the construction of the link between HK and the USA:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/trans-pacific-tensions-
threaten...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/trans-pacific-tensions-threaten-u-s-
data-link-to-china-11566991801)

------
xster
Are there primary sources?

It seems like a response to rumors but are there primary sources to the
speculations they're alluding to?

~~~
darawk
What do you mean? This is a primary source. This is the HK ISP association.

~~~
walrus01
I think he's asking if there's been any sort of demand from the HK government
to the various ISPs to start implementing such a thing, which I'm unaware of.
Looks like the HK ISP association is getting out in front of the entire idea
and issuing a clear statement.

Anyone that's been watching HK for the past 20 years would find it obvious
that the PRC government intends to slowly integrate it into mainland China,
and absorb it into the same legal framework, slowly but surely. Eventual end
state goal would be laws indistinguishable from across the "border" in
Shenzhen.

~~~
xster
I think it's also probably pretty obvious since 1898 :)

I don't think there was really any indication counter to what you're
describing since.

------
haydn3
People just don't know about China. This is how it is there. There is no
openness and freedom and everyone is monitored. People say it's not too bad.
Personally, I don't know how I'd feel about it. It would change things and
you'd only be able to go on state-approved websites, but life would go on...

------
tthhuuiff
So they are basically addressing rumors? It doesn’t seem like the HK
government actually did anything.

There has been so much incomplete news spreading that it’s hard to tell what
is real.

Just two weeks ago, there were videos of APCs “going into Hong Kong,” and
people were saying a takeover was imminent. Instead it turned out to be some
regular drill in Shenzhen.

Just a few days ago, there were posts of HK police shooting at a kneeling
bystander. Turns out if you watch the full video, the “bystander” was throwing
bricks at the cops and a huge mob was attacking the cops with spears.

Edit: To the people downvoting me, can you explain why? Am I mistaken about
the events that happened? If so, please let me know. I’m just trying to weed
out all the rumors get posted.

Edit 2: If it’s because of my green status, I usually use throwaways when
posting on sensitive topics. So I can understand if my interpretation of
events upsets some people. Just to be clear, I do support the people of Hong
Kong and hope they succeed. I just think it’s important to have a true
accounting of the facts.

~~~
chvid
The coverage of the Hong Kong protests is very partisan. So much that is hard
from an outsider to gauge exactly what is going. (Compare it to eg. India /
Kashmir or the protests in France.)

However what is obvious is that the HK government has a number of measures to
do before it resorts to complete censorship or invites the army to take over.
For example here in Denmark wearing masks in a public demonstration has been
against the law for the past 10 years. Meaning that the police can arrest you
immediately if you wear a mask and also (probably) dissolve the demonstration.

------
justinclift
Cutting off or heavily restricting internet access seems to be a favoured
tactic by governments prior to initiating internal violence.

Sounds like a bad sign.

------
techslave
i like how it reads like a telegram. i wonder if that’s a quirk of
translation.

_COMMENT_ENDS_

------
exabrial
I think the protesters need to figure out how to start making economic impacts
that affect the Chinese. Striking at their jobs is a great start. Sand on
runways, blocking ports, earth moving equipment to block highways, anything
needed.

~~~
vmlinuz
First general strike was on August 5th. It wasn't universally supported, but
much public transport was paralysed - my company is very neutral politically,
but they put out a general "work at home if you think it's necessary"
announcement. There's another one scheduled for next week...

Nobody has been anywhere near a runway, and it would be very hard to argue
that they shouldn't be shot if they tried, but Hong Kong Airport was shutdown
twice by the government because of protests there.

Ports, meh, it's just cargo, nobody cares. Port workers went on strike a few
years ago and companies just rerouted.

 _Many_ highways have been blocked for short periods in 2019, and in 2014
major roads on Hong Kong Island were occupied for months.

The economic impact so far has been modest, but noticeable. The overall state
of the regional and global economy is a much bigger factor in Hong Kong's
economic situation.

We don't want anyone to die, police or protester. There have been cases where
that has been a real possibility, recently, and that's mostly the red line
that nobody wants to cross.

------
Gaelan
@dang HN should probably show this article's domain as hkispa.org.hk, not just
org.hk (which appears to be a "TLD" in the same vein as co.uk)

~~~
dang
Ok, done. Thanks!

------
ridaj
When you start a draft comment on this story and your China-made device
chooses this time to reboot without warning O_O;

~~~
anticensor
Is there enough information interchange between CPU and baseband PU to do
that?

~~~
ridaj
Not just China manufactured. Chinese ROM. Anything goes.

------
olliepop
Ironic that this would appear below a banner with the slogan "Making Web
Content Available For All"*

*Screen cap: [https://i.imgur.com/tnTvaAJ.png](https://i.imgur.com/tnTvaAJ.png)

~~~
lemoncucumber
It sounds like you didn't actually read the text of the statement, which
concludes with: "Therefore, the HKISPA strongly opposes selective blocking of
Internet Services without consensus of the community."

