China launches denial of service attack on GitHub

Once again the Chinese authorities showed their disdain for the freedom the Internet represents.

The Wall Street Journal reported on a massive attack on GitHub, the U.S. coding website.  The attack came through Baidu in an apparent effort to shut down anti-censorship tools.

The attack on San Francisco-based GitHub Inc., a service used by programmers and major tech firms world-wide to develop software, appears to underscore how China’s Internet censors increasingly reach outside the country to clamp down on content they find objectionable.

The distributed denial-of-service attack directed a large amount of Internet traffic from overseas users of the Chinese search giant Baidu. The attack paralyzed GitHub’s website.

The attack appears ot have targeted the pages of Greatfire.org and The New York Times Chinese edition.

Greatwall.org keeps track of censored websites in China. As expected, Google searches and Google sites are high on the list of blocked addresses.

Remember that if you search “Tiananmen Square” in China, you get beautiful pictures of flowers and tourists in the square. A similar search in the rest of the world shows the “Goddess of Democracy” and “Tank Man.”

One of the fun things found on Greawall.org was a link to National Network Information Office choir singing the praises of controling the Internet. (But not in so few words.)

Pakistan blocking WordPress

TechCrunch reports the Pakistan government is blocking WordPress sites.

According to multiple local outlets, WordPress blogs are currently not accessible in Pakistan and pointing the blockage at the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). TechCrunch has not been able to confirm that yet. As it stands right now, WordPress.com and blogs hosted by WordPress cannot be reached. Self-hosted WordPress blogs still work.

it is not surprising that Pakistan would block these sites. The government has a track record of blocking Twitter, Facebook and other Internest social sites.

Now Reuters is being blocked in China

Reuters now joins the ranks of The New York Times, BBC, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. Its websites are being blocked by the Great Firewall of China. (Reuters websites become inaccessible in China)

Reuters says they do not know why their website is being blocked. Inquiries to the Cyberspace Administration of China have gone unanswered.

Perhaps one reason for being blocked is included in Reuters’ comment about the action:

“Reuters is committed to practicing fair and accurate journalism worldwide. We recognise the great importance of news about China to all our customers, and we hope that our sites will be restored in China soon,” a Reuters spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

That whole “fair and accurate journalism” is a real problem for the Chinese leadership.

FOI: It’s not just a US thing

When Lyndon Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act in 1966, he told his press secretary, Bill Moyers, that he had just signed into law the most dangerous piece of legislation ever.

And for politicians and regulators who never like having people looking over their shoulders, freedom of information laws are indeed very dangerous.

As more countries threw off the weight of dictatorships — left and right — the citizens wanted better oversight of their government.  In 1990 there were only a handful of countries with FOI laws. By 2004 there were nearly 100. (The National Democratic Institute did a survey of FOI laws in 2004.)

A whole industry with a lot of good guys and gals has sprung up to help journalists and civic society groups understand their FOI laws and how to use them. The latest comes from the International Center For Journalists: Key Tips for Understanding Freedom of Information Laws in Your Country

There is even an International Right To Know Day designed to promote FOI legislation.

American journalists have a long history with fighting bureaucrats to get the information we need. We have worked hard during the past nearly 50 years to improve and expand FOI laws from federal to state to local levels. There is a lot we can do to help other countries just starting out on this same road. And there is a lot we can learn from the experiences of our fellow scribes around the world. Maybe it is time to step up our game and start reaching out more.

Latest failure by Beijing to shut up critic

The ruling elite in Beijing really seem to think they can just snap their fingers and the rest of the world will kow-tow.

The latest episode came when the Chinese ambassador to Canada sent a letter to the House of Commons and Foreign Ministry telling the House to withdraw an invitation to Martin Lee and to butt out of Chinese internal affairs.

Lee, one of the major pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong, was invited to give testimony before the foreign affairs committee about the status of democracy in Hong Kong. (Hong Kong’s Martin Lee testifies in Parliament despite warning)

Every time a critic of Beijing with a Chinese face shows up anywhere in the world, Beijing flips out. The ruling elite keep forgetting that the status of democracy in Hong Kong is based on an international treaty. Plus, by signing on to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations’ charter, China opened itself up for people to look closely at how well they live up to those documents.

At least with Lee’s visit, they did not claim that his visit to Canada “hurts the feelings of all Chinese in the world.” I think that complaint is saved for criticisms of non-Chinese.

Beijing keeps trying to force its view of control around the world because at times it works.

Late last year Mark Kitto wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times that discussed how China exercises its influence on free speech. (Caving to China’s Power.)

We are used to seeing this in Hong Kong where self-censorship by journalists and straight out orders from publishers have kept the pro-Beijing drums beating. Beijing just wants to extend that authority around the world.

Even everyday folks outside China are being manipulated by China. (People Around the World Are Voluntarily Submitting to China’s Great Firewall. Why?)

It all comes down to controlling the message. If Beijing can’t do it one way — intimidate dissidents or journalists — then do it another way by threatening the economic well-being of companies and countries around the world.

In the schoolyard, that kind of behavior is attributed to bullies. Not people you really want to hang out with.