Ask HN: Could Google effectively go to a shadow "war" with China?

[robg]

This is something I've been wondering: Could Google run the Chinese traffic through enough proxies that they could effectively pull down the Great Firewall? Or would it be very difficult to scale that level of dynamic avoidance? Besides pissing off the Chinese authorities, would they be breaking any international laws? I'm pretty naive in this area so any thoughts (and links) you could provide would really help to satiate my curiosity. I'm fascinated that a company, with vast resources, could effectively change censorship as we know it and without clear repercussions (besides further attacks from the Chinese). But is it possible and doable? How would something like that play out?

[CWuestefeld]

would they be breaking any international laws?

This is a nebulous concept, since there's really no higher authority to act as judge for something like this.

There exist international treaties, but those are pacts between governments. They're not enforceable in the way this would require -- if you break them, the worst that's going to happen is "sanctions".

But more importantly, Google is a private entity. They don't have any treaty with the Chinese government. So what is it that would constrain them?

[tlack → CWuestefeld]

Just a thought: if Google is found to be intentionally disrupting the operations of the Chinese government, such as their equivalent of the justice department ("injustice department" perhaps), couldn't extradition be used to bring charges against Google for subverting an investigation?

[garply]

How would you prevent the Chinese authorities from learning of the proxy IP addresses and filtering them when you have to tell the general population your IP addresses in order for them to be able to access them.

I think you'd need some sort of software on the end users' computers to make use of distributed search (or at the very least, distributed proxy IP identification).

[bilbo0s]

Uhh...

Garply is making some pretty good points. Cyber war on that scale is not for good or even great computer hackers. It is for hackers no one has ever heard of. The people you would need don't work for Google, and are very hard to find.

Best to do all this on the up and up. Although I think it will turn out to be nothing more than Google pissing in the wind.

Actually, here in Ningbo I've noticed that the Chinese companies are not as anxious to work with American firms anymore. (I have a shop that makes Flash Games). Especially since it was reported a few weeks ago that Google's partners will probably be left in the lurch. No one wants to bet his money on an unreliable horse. I think if there are tech companies or entrepreneurs out there that are still looking to get into the Chinese market, you should find your partners quickly. I'm starting to suspect that there will be a lot of companies with no seats when the music stops. The climate is definitely cooling.