China attacks freedom of speech by attempting to censor American-hosted content

Having been to China a number of times, this does not shock me in the least and I suspect it gets far worse before it gets better. I feel bad for the decent people in China and the government and those fools that buy into their state ideology can hope karma is a myth.

 

Have the world do a DDos attack on the Chinese govt.

DD

 

Several companies I've worked for have had years of state run attacks from China (and other countries) on their networks to steal information. In the Digital Security world, it is just assumed China will make an attempt on your networks if you are a Fortune 500 company, have interesting or innovative data, or do business in AsiaPac.

 

The point is though is what can be done about it? The US has already accused the PRC of cyber warfare and it is pretty open secret that the two countries are engaged in cyber warfare. The PRC isn't really going to listen to a protests over this issue especially online protest.

While yes this is important I would put these issues well ahead of PRC cyber attacks on US servers:
1. Environment
2. Domestic Human rights
3. Democratic reforms
4. Rule of Law
5. Expansionist policies
6. Trade

 

This is different from an attack on an establishment on US soil with effects that are limited to the US. Not trying to defend Beijing, but things have to be looked in perspective.
So they are challenging the very idea of an open Internet by which everyone is connected because it is so antagonistic to Beijing's belief of how Internet should be controlled, how certain information should not be distributed to Chinese via Internet. There are couple of possible responses. First, many websites operating in China are in violation of US patent, copyright, or trademark law, but the US does not resort to brutal force of attacking those websites. Those violations are rather handled by US entities legally. China is required to do the same. Second, GitHub is perfectly legal under the US law, it is operating in the US. GitHub certainly does not have a server inside China and certainly is not spreading information deemed to be secret by the Chinese government or in violation of any Intellectual property laws of China. Beijing believes foreign servers engaging in activities breaching its "Internet Sovereignty", a rather elusive concept. However, there is no standard what Internet Sovereignty is. There is really no legal basis for Beijing's attack.

 

China can't keep 1.3 billion people under wraps forever.