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Censorship China Privacy

DuckDuckGo Now Blocked In China 82

Posted by Soulskill from the fowl-play-suspected dept.
wabrandsma sends this news from Tech In Asia: Privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo is now blocked in China. On Sunday DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg confirmed to Tech in Asia that the team has noticed the blockage in China on Twitter. DuckDuckGo had been working fine in mainland China since its inception, aside from the occasional 'connection reset' experienced when accessing many overseas websites from within the country. But now the search engine is totally blocked in China. ... [T]he GreatFire index of blocked sites suggest that DuckDuckGo got whacked on September 4. DuckDuckGo joins Google in being censored and blocked in the nation. Google, after years of being throttled by China's Great Firewall since the web giant turned off its mainland China servers in 2010, was finally blocked totally in June this year.
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DuckDuckGo Now Blocked In China More

DuckDuckGo Now Blocked In China

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  • Well then... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Congrats?

  • my favorite search engine (Score:4, Informative)

    by Noah Haders ( 3621429 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @01:11AM (#47971419)
    duckduckgo is my favorite search engine. theirs is the only site that has a clearly written privacy policy. also, with ios8, ddg is now a default option in safari which I appreciate.

  • Turnabout is fair play (Score:3)

    by cstec ( 521534 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @01:20AM (#47971441)
    People searching from China without Google, Bing, Duckduckgo, etc should be banned from reaching their 'approved' results in the U.S.

    • Turnabout is fair play (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As a Chinese (well, Hong Konger, but frequently visiting the mainland) Bing is not blocked in China. But it redirect to bing.cn, which is filtered by the government.

  • Control of Information (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @01:25AM (#47971451)

    Censoring the internet is becoming so crucial for the political control of massive states that virtually all countries on the planet practice it in some manner.

  • Well now (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @01:37AM (#47971473)

    I thought the Chinese loved duck.

    • Re:Well now (Score:4, Funny)

      by pitchpipe ( 708843 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @01:40AM (#47971481)

      I thought the Chinese loved duck.

      They also love Go. The name should have been foolproof.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Bob_Who ( 926234 )

        I thought the Chinese loved duck.

        They also love Go. The name should have been foolproof.

        I thought it was the Japanese who loved go... or am I just being racist?

        They all look the same.

        Now There's the racist.. slant...

        (snare, tom-tom, snare, cymbal crash)

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Go is popular in both Japan and China. The name Go is Japanese but the game originated in China.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bob_Who ( 926234 )

            Go is popular in both Japan and China. The name Go is Japanese but the game originated in China.

            That makes perfect sense since people in Japan originated from the mainland, and apparently they brought their stuff. I travel such a long road to the obvious. Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so. Turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so.

    • That wasn't duck.

    • But, if they got whacked, they obviously did not duck enough.

  • How do new programmers and new sysadmins survive in china? I suppoose they have to rote learn all their reference books.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Dr.Saeuerlich ( 27313 )

      Sysadmins for big companies have access to VPNs. The Chinese government is okay with breaching the firewall for the sake of making money. Corporations usually have access to rather expensive and approved VPN connections (such as the place I work for). They allow you to access e.g. Facebook and the IP also shows up as China based. My personal VPN at home is illegal, much much cheaper and usually shows a US based IP.

      Most Sysadmins don't speak much English though, but there are many Chinese IT books available

      • My personal VPN at home is illegal, much much cheaper and usually shows a US based IP.

        good luck that the red army doesn't kick in your door and you get re-educated.

        • The philosophy is quite different.
          They don't care if you a few people circumvent the GFW. They care if people start spreading the truth, or what the CCP calls "rumors". I.e. if you try to get other Chinese to act against the government's interests. As long as you shut up, you're safe.

          With this in mind, the Chinese firewall was never designed to stop everyone. It just makes it difficult enough for the average Chinese to not bother circumventing it and getting "stupid" ideas. And even then, if you don't act o

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SumDog ( 466607 )

      I knew a Chineese student in graduate school. He told me in China he can pretty much get access to anything. Most people know how to get around the firewall with proxies and VPNs. There are too many people for the government to really do anything about it...unless you talk about it. If you start commenting on fourms or discussiong international verion of news eventus or start voicing any opinions about China or the Chineese Government, you can expect things to not go well for you.

      • I guess it is only a fake sense of security that the government gets by saying "hey i am banning this" when the rest of the nation will just be able to use proxies/vpns to get out. In a way, maybe China likes to give its population a crappy latency. :D They just wanted to be a dick.
        • It's probably more than that. Criminalize everybody, and you can prosecute whoever you like without having to admit why you're really going after them.

  • Wear it proudly like a badge of honor.... (Score:3)

    by Bob_Who ( 926234 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @01:51AM (#47971503) Journal
    ....and a dash of irony and a twist of silly symbolic gesturing. Its a pictogram like a Chinese character delivered from the government of Chinese characters. Its a quaint gesture of authority that is a very effective at getting our attention, but ultimately completely ineffective of meaningful results. They may delay, but they will not be successful at censoring reality from the appropriate or prescribed Chinese social conscious. I always liked the Peking Duck....sorry to see it duck duck Go.

  • A Big Compliment! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hooiberg ( 1789158 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @03:08AM (#47971687)
    When countries like China (and North Korea, Middle Eastern countries, etc) start blocking something, it is a clear indication the authors have been doing a very good job. Better than a hundred reviews. I will switch to duckduckgo today.

    • Re:A Big Compliment! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dr.Saeuerlich ( 27313 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @04:21AM (#47971827) Homepage

      In the case of China, if China cannot control it then they will block it. China doesn't spend money on censoring. They ask e.g. Google to spend money on censoring. Each internet company in China must, according to Chinese law, employ their own censors. All the Chinese government has to do is auditing and then fining the companies as needed. Very efficient solution for them. Google didn't want to put up with this, so they left. And since China couldn't control them anymore they blocked Google.

      This doesn't necessarily mean DuckDuckGo is good or safe. It just means the Chinese government doesn't see itself able to control them. Hence the block.

      • It may be Chinese law, but at the same time, isn't it protectionism? Some Chinese search engines out there will certainly be profiting from the Google ban, where as Google is being blocked from doing business in China.

        Why isn't there a lawsuit against this practice? No complaint in the WTO (where China is member)? In the age of information technology, censorship and free market don't really work with each other.

        • It may be Chinese law, but at the same time, isn't it protectionism? Some Chinese search engines out there will certainly be profiting from the Google ban, where as Google is being blocked from doing business in China.

          That's just a bonus for them. In other words, it is a win win siutation for them (not for others). The control is the main reason if you look closely.

          Why isn't there a lawsuit against this practice? No complaint in the WTO (where China is member)? In the age of information technology, censorship and free market don't really work with each other.

          You are thinking as a westerner... The system of complainig works if both sides respect the system. Do you think China care about this when it comes to against their own point of view?

        • National security protects the Chinese from the WTO just as successfully as it protects the US.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by xgdgsc ( 2518508 )
        A link to the law: http://www.021beian.cn/Article... [021beian.cn] Administration of Internet Information Services Procedures (Promulgated by the State Council on, and effective as of, 25 September 2000.) See Article 15.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zlogic ( 892404 )

        Google was not blocked in China, but rather not allowed to do business there. Last time I've been to China, Google still worked, but instead of google.cn it opened google.hk. They have pretty extensive Google Maps for China, with local services like traffic, as well as other services.
        The only thing which doesn't work is Youtube.

        • You are right. Google left first.

          It didn't get blocked initially. However the Chinese tampered with the connection. Google services became very unreliable - lost of dropped connections. Google HK claimed there's no error on their side and that it's the Chinese government.
          In the end Google got fully blocked for the average Chinese home user. That's at least the case here in Shanghai, using China Telecom FTTH.

          Your situation in (expensive) international hotels may vary. They may have one of the expensive gover

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by zlogic ( 892404 )

            Well, I did in fact visit Shanghai and stayed in a (probably) expensive hotel. While google.hk worked OK, other services like Youtube and Twitter were still blocked
            And the same situation was in the office I was visiting - US company, but almost no visitors (even the receptionist didn't speak English).

  • looks useful, but could do with being expanded to cover other countries as well that are forcing their ISPs to block websites... e.g. UK...

  • Is Google blocked in China? (Score:3)

    by umafuckit ( 2980809 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @04:45AM (#47971885)
    Last time I was in mainland China (about 2 years ago) I was able to use google.hk -- it wasn't blocked outright. However, it did appear to be throttled in some way. So searches took ages and it was a pain in the ass. One my Chinese friends said the she always used google.hk, even though it was slow, because she preferred the search results. So at least at the time, it was usable in practice. Also, I heard that the more tech savvy people in China know how to bypass the firewall. I don't know the details so can't verify, but apparently it's quite common knowledge.
    • It was a time that google.hk could be visited in mainland, but now it totally results connection timeout. However the mail hosts of google are not blocked, otherwise not a single mail could be sent to gmail from China. It's painful, (even technical) sites are blocked or half blocked(very slow connections). That's why there is a big market of VPN for China nowadays.
    • So 2 years out of date and irrelevant to the discussion. All of google is now blocked, even Chinese companies trying to advertise overseas with Google are having trouble. Everyone can still use a VPN to get around it though, but it's just one more hoop to jump through.

    • Credit card + VPN

      Problem is that most reliable VPNs are commercial. Starting from 5 USD. You need a CC which is approved for international online payments. Most Chinese - meaning the people who do not live in 1st or 2nd tier cities - do not have a CC. Further, the bank must allow online payments on the card. Lastly, you must care about politics (many Chinese do not - their educational brainwashing did a good job!) and possibly speak some English (many do not).

      Meaning - the hurdle is fairly high for the aver

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