Lantern, GreatFire or FreeBrowser are some of the tools created by foreign developers to help Chinese citizens fight against censorship. They know they have an advantage over those who live under the clutches of Beijing, but they are also aware that their work would be useless without the knowledge of the natives. The authorities have two options: Either they relax their policies or they will continue to suffocate their compatriots.
31/12/2015 (read the original article in the web)
US projects fight censorship in China
You have to be in China to understand the extent of censorship. This is how he tells it to HojaDeRouter.com Sammy Wang, who speaks behind a pseudonym but also from an objective position: He is not some kind of activist with possible biased opinions against the regime, but an ordinary citizen who was born and lives in Hong Kong.
Over there, dice, freedoms are broad. That is why he has permission to travel to the area controlled by Beijing and visit the darkest side of repression. His experience allows him to compare between the two areas, and affirms that the country has"buenos ingenieros y desarrolladores, but it is difficult for them to work", especially if they try to avoid internet bans.
The situation forces European and American developers to end up creating tools with which Chinese citizens try to circumvent the obstacles.. Your contribution also ensures that the tools are free from any government intervention.
She further , much of the internal knowledge ends up fleeing to the outside. Those who have economic possibilities send their children abroad so that they are educated and live away from the authoritarian system. Los que se quedan y deciden "luchar por la libertad" They know that the only thing they are going to achieve is complicate their lives.. They are few, therefore, those who risk the consequences, including indigenous engineers who, working from home, "podrían ser atrapados" whenever, Wang adds.. Although there are quite a few, they need help.
For that need, and while the Tor network is slow and unstable in the country, projects like Lantern, FreeBrowsero GreatFire, todos financiados por el Gobierno estadounidense y con la intención de "liberar" to the internet from the yoke of its communist adversary. Latest, besides, also receives funds from individual donors and the Netherlands.
Adam Fisk is the driving force behind Lantern. Entrepreneur and activist, advocate of decentralized technologies, understand well what Wang is referring to. He himself receives countless messages from Chinese, through social networks, who claim that their instrument has made a big difference in their lives.
Your tool, una "linterna" that lights the way in times of darkness, help from 2013 – although it has been under construction since 2010 – access censored websites and evade government attacks by protecting journalists, bloggers and other defenders of freedom of expression. Concretely, makes users from countries where the Internet is not controlled share part of your internet traffic with those of those who do live blocked. His idea was born to support the most rebellious China in its fight against the Great Digital Wall, "aunque también está ayudando en otras regiones, como Irán", Fisk points out..
The work of Charlie Smith, another westerner at the service of internet freedoms, started in 2011 with the launch of GreatFire, a tool that allows you to check whether a website is being blocked by the Government or not and see if the page has undergone any changes in recent weeks. Su desarrollador recuerda que pensó en este proyecto porque "sentía que no todo el mundo tenía una visión clara de cómo se prohíben las web extranjeras" in Chinese territory. It works, therefore, como un motor "de pruebas": proves that censorship is real.
With FreeWeibo, meanwhile, Allows anyone to seamlessly access Weibo, the largest social network in the country. It was born because its author considered that there were two sides of repression: not only that of blocking foreign sites, but also that of national pages.
However, its most powerful contribution comes from FreeBrowser, an application that works for Android as a browser similar to Chrome or Firefox. " Anyone within China or another country can use it to access sites that are being blocked", such as Facebook or Twitter.
It allows you to visit these sites totally free and without the need for great technical knowledge.. Many virtual private networks (VPN) or proxy servers require one thing or another, often both, "pero nosotros queremos que ese acceso a internet sea libre. Todo lo que hacemos es por y para ayudar a China", Explain.
This alternative already has 120.000 monthly unique users, although more than 20 millions of Chinese have accessed some of its projects since 2011. Lantern, meanwhile, reaches the 450.000 unique users monthly only from this country, what it means 80% of your audience.
Its use, in fact, has grown in recent times, especially since the indigenous tool Shadowsocks was forced to cease its activity due to political pressures. Your programmer, known as Clowwindy, it's just the last victim of censorship, puesto que en los últimos meses algunos de los 'hackers' most important in the country have been forced to remain silent.
The most surprising thing is that neither Fisk nor Smith know exactly how they got to them., since, in the case of Lantern, your website is blocked. "Creemos que ha sido el boca a oreja, los usuarios chinos en particular son muy diestros en la distribución de herramientas que funcionan de espaldas a los radares oficiales", says the author, which assures that it has not carried out any campaign to make itself known in the territory.
Smith adds that specific altercations, Meetings and demonstrations are very powerful when it comes to share technical knowledge and talk about possibilities like these. For example, when the August explosions in Tianjin, FreeBrowser saw a considerable increase in the number of users.
HELPING THE WORLD
These developers argue that everyone with the opportunity to do so should exploit their capabilities to alleviate the problems of Chinese citizens.. Smith recalls that, since the beginning of 2015, China's government repression has increased, especially with the launch of the call Grand Canyon, an official tool that aims to reinforce censorship by launching denial of service attacks (DDoS) to leave inoperative the pages that they consider threatening.
So, "muchos descubrieron FreeBrowser, que ha crecido hasta convertirse en una de las herramientas de evasión más utilizadas allí en un periodo relativamente corto de tiempo", afirma Smith.
These creators know that without the natives they would have nothing to do
That those responsible for Lantern are not Chinese is an undoubted advantage, and this is what Fisk recognizes: " We are less vulnerable to direct repression at the hands of the Government". Even so, They do not want to forget the large number of valuable ideas that have worked and are working thanks to developers on the field.. In that line, Smith claims they are the Chinese, from inside the country, "los que han creado las mejores herramientas" porque son los únicos que entienden en toda su dimensión cómo funciona la "censura más avanzada del mundo".
" There are still many active Chinese, hard working open source developers" but they cannot contribute as much as those who live in other places. Be that as it may, behind the scenes or publicly, the work continues.
Ahora que el país se encuentra cada vez más integrado en la "internet global", Both Fisk and Smith believe that the time has come to force the authorities to make a decision: or ally themselves with change and connect with the world, dropping all existing restrictions, o China will remain mired in perpetual isolation while its citizens flee or resist between codes.
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The images that illustrate this article are property of Wikimedia Commons,Lantern, GreatFire and clowwindy
