bbqroast t1_iy3b6ae wrote on November 28, 2022 at 12:51 PM

Reply to comment by gubasx in ELI5: how are chinese protesters able to post videos with the great chinese firewall controlling internet? by TImetalker

Plenty of Chinese netizens know how.

These types of things aren't secrets that the government doesn't know about, rather it's simply the case that the government doesn't have the resources to shut all the various backdoors down without limiting the internet so much it causes other issues.

gubasx t1_iy3lfv6 wrote on November 28, 2022 at 2:23 PM

it's pretty easy for them to limit any server within china "intranet" (call it local internet if you prefer) to not be able to establish any type of communications with any computer or server working from outside of that intranet. when we're talking about china we are talking about a lot more than a simple firewall.

bbqroast t1_iy5rb2r wrote on November 28, 2022 at 11:16 PM

I mean, yes, the great firewall is sophisticated. That example though is probably the most basic feature of the most trivial firewall possible, your home modem could probably do it.

More interesting examples would be some of the clever packet analysis they do on encrypted connections.

But again, even this isn't enough to prevent all undesired traffic, especially given that there's legitimate uses for VPNs, overseas file sharing sites, etc.

For instance, if they blocked external access to every server in China they'd be knee capping their entire economy, so they have to work out which ones. That's not easy or cheap to do accurately at scale.