China is famous for its tough internet censorship. In this country it is forbidden to access social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, to use Google services and to watch YouTube videos.  There are some ways to bypass these restrictions and visit your favorite sites without limitations. To get a VPN is the most widespread. But, do users really need it?

It is a difficult question to answer. Some people consider that such restrictions are in violation of their rights. You can find this type of users on forums, asking for advice about the best VPN. They probably use their selected VPN service regularly to access blocked sites. For them it is essential to communicate with their friends and relatives using Facebook and to exchange commercial correspondence with the help of Gmail. That’s why these users need VPN services, because they can unblock websites that have been censored by the government and provide with secure access to Internet.

On the other hand, there is the opinion that Chinese users can manage without restricted sites because China has its own counterparts. And this point of view insists that only foreigners staying in China cannot live without access to the blocked American-based websites. Native users can follow China-based websites of the same type instead of foreign ones. For example, to upload their videos, they can use Chinese websites like v.sina.com.cn, tudou.com and youku.com that are not as fast, but at least are not censored. Is it a a negative phenomenon – prohibiting foreign media because they promote ideas that are alien to the centuries-old culture, but having local replacements with the same ideology?

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The Chinese government is going to blacklist universities and corporations for using VPN connections to access restricted websites. The Guardian reported that the Chinese government cracked down on VPNs and closed a loophole that allowed users to bypass their Internet censorship.

The users are complaining that since May 6th it has become very difficult to access sites such as Google and MSN. Moreover,  Apple's app store has also been blocked. Internet connections from China Telecom and China Unicom have become unstable, which makes using VPN services difficult.

Universities and corporate connections are suffering, due to the new difficulties, more than broadband connections. The Public Security Bureau has already blacklisted the Chinese Academy of Sciences, that is now asking people to avoid using "circumvention tools to access illegal content".

Hilary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, doesn’t approve of the Great Firewall. She also claimed that the US would assign $19m to fight against Internet censorship in China and other authoritarian states. This funding will be part of the sum that  the US Congress has already allocated to combat against the Chinese Firewall.

Facebook is collaborating with Baidu, the Chinese search engine, to launch a new social networking site in China. To be allowed in the country, the site should have censor-friendly options. Facebook is said to  have accepted the requirements of the government’s censorship in order to launch the site in China, because this market is potentially profitable for the company.

All the users will have access to the new site, but their stored private data will be made available to the government. “When Facebook users outside China connect with users inside the country, sources say they will need to click through a warning message stating that any material visible to Chinese users may also be visible to the Chinese government,” – All Things Digital reports. Facebook also might be using input and display filters that will not allow Chinese users to see and post things that contradict the government’s policies.

The creation of the site seems like a weak compromise between the company and  the Chinese government. After  the demonstrations in Egypt and Libya, Facebook became a place for free speech and personal liberties. If the new site is censored, it will be a step toward the limitation of increased internet freedom.

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Recently, Freedom House has released its report Freedom on the Net 2011: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media. The report contains information about internet freedom in 37 countries. It says that the violation of users’ rights has increased and has become more varied during the last few years. Among the main threats to online freedom are the cyber attacks, politically-motivated censorship and government control over internet infrastructure.

Bans against access, restrictions on content and users’ rights violations were the major points of evaluation regarding internet freedom  in the countries studied. In accordance with the report, Estonia has the highest level of internet freedom. The United States are on second place and Iran is last. Eleven other countries are evaluated as "Not Free", among them Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. There are also plans to restrict the internet freedom during the next twelve months in countries  such as Jordan, Russia, Thailand, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

The situation is very difficult in the countries where internet is under the total control of the governments. Sanja Kelly, managing editor of the report, claimed that “the ability to communicate political views, organize, debate, and have access to critical information is as important online as it is in the offline world. A more urgent response is needed to protect bloggers and other internet users from the sorts of restrictions that repressive governments have already imposed on traditional media”.

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Online social networks may help people to organize, not virtual, but real protests in their countries. “Twitter Revolution” is becoming a new popular expression. Saying it, we immediately remember Moldova's civil unrest in 2009, Iranian election protests of 2009–2010, Tunisian revolution of 2010–2011, Egyptian Revolution of 2011… No wonder that, fearing mass riots, governments of many countries are banning popular social network services. There is web censorship in countries like China, Iran, Egypt and Libya. Many sites, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, are forbidden.

People who want to visit blocked websites try to find the way to bypass these restrictions. One of the most popular ways among the citizens of these countries is to use a VPN connection to access restricted sites. VPN connection gives people an opportunity to browse the web anonymously, assigning them fake IP addresses. VPN services are extremely widespread, not only amongst local users, but also amongst foreigners. Alex Rico, a Spaniard who lives in China, claims that he uses VPN several times a day to visit Facebook, YouTube and his favorite blogs.

As a result, VPN service providers use internet censorships for their benefit and make money  of it. David Gorodyansky,  founder of a VPN service provider company, explains that  virtual private networks have become a "daily part of people’s lives", because "after sleep, food and water, the next most important thing is information". According to his words, most people access sites like Facebook and Twitter using VPN services in the countries where they are blocked. He estimates the potential market of people who need security and would benefit from a VPN at one billion; an additional 600 million live in regions where web content is censored.

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Freedom House, the human rights organization, has recently released the report titled “Leaping Over the Firewall: A Review of Censorship Circumvention Tools.” This report describes in detail the most effective tools for bypassing online censorship in Azerbaijan, Burma, China and Iran. It also outlines the advantages and disadvantages of every tool.

As it is known, the governments of the countries mentioned above took control of all citizens' online activities. Freedom House, established by the United States, does not stay indifferent to the internet censorship at these overseas countries. Robert Guerra, Project Director of Freedom House’s Internet Freedom program, claims: “As repressive governments become increasingly savvy in their ability to filter and censor online content, these tools, which allow users to exercise their fundamental rights to free expression and privacy online, have become essential.”  The described censorship circumvention tools are recommended to unblock websites and bypass restrictions on the internet. Therefore, Freedom House thinks this report will help to protect free expression online.

But the report has not only got positive opinions about it. “I have concerns about this report’s methodologies and resulting conclusions. The report in its current form could be dangerous to the users it aims to help,” says Jacob Appelbaum in this article published on Global Voices Advocacy web site. 

The author attacks the report and concludes at the end: “From performance to security, the report presents mistake after mistake. The core of the review is non-technical in nature and yet the entire circumvention landscape is quite technical.” To make the tools review more objective, the author recommends to rate the tools based on:

•    availability,
•    whether the tool requires administrative privileges,
•    validated security claims,
•    web anonymity,
•    design and implementation details available for peer review,
•    centralization or de-centralization,
•    and other qualities.

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Google has claimed that Chinese authorities continue to block free access to Gmail service, concealing it as Gmail technical difficulties. Security experts say that China seems to use invisible intermediary servers, or "transparent proxies". They allow for the monitoring and blocking of network messages, disguising the interference as if Gmail was malfunctioning.  

This technique is widely used by companies to control employees’ access to the Web. But it is getting more often that governments use transparent proxies to censor and track protesters and dissidents. Such kind of interference is known as a “man in the middle” attack.

There are not many possible ways of defense against the attack, because almost all national Internet providers have a valid cryptographic certificate. HTTPS protocol can be effective as it encrypts information in transit. However, Microsoft has recently detected nine fake certificates for popular Web sites, including Google Mail, Microsoft's Live service, and Yahoo's services. The use of a VPN connection is one of the effective ways to unblock Websites restricted by authorities. This way, people would need to set up a VPN service to access their emails or blogs. 

Chinese Internet communication restrictions are treated as a response to political protests in the Middle East. Google says it has carefully checked technical issues on its end. So it looks like it is a governmental blockage made to look  as a Google problem. The examples from other countries reaffirm this assumption: Tunisian authorities performed the same attack to block Facebook logins because it had become the main way of communication available for protestors in many countries.   
 

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