The man known as the father of China’s “Great Firewall” is defending his creation but admits he uses six virtual private networks to get over it and to bypass the censors.
(For chinese netizens keen to avail themselves to the same wall busting techology click here)
The China Digital Times says that in a rare English-language newspaper interview published Friday, Fang Binxing, president of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, told the state-owned Global Times that he owned six virtual private networks, or VPNs, to scale the firewall and determine what was and wasn’t accessible in China.
The use of proxy servers and portals is a key way to get past government censorship in countries like China and Iran.
One of the most popular is Freegate. But many Chinese netizens are cautious about using it because it was developed by the Falun Gong, the mass movement outlawed in China as an “evil cult.”
Some are wary of the organization for philosophical reasons, while others feel it will draw attention from the authorities.
Alternatives to the Falun Gong sites do exist, however. One worth looking at is SSL VPN (Virtual Private Networks).
For some first-hand experience, try “Dan’s Adventure” — a travel chronicle that details the writer’s use of VPN in China to send secure e-mail, access Web sites, and keep in touch online.
VPN has an advantage in that it doesn’t require the download of software onto the user’s computer.
Witopia is popular and fast though relatively expensive at U.S. $50 – $60 a year.
Hotspot Shield is also popular. And free.
Mar 232010
Other suggestions for getting round the Great Firewall and accessing sites such as Google.com – The US based web browser and other censored sites are:
Freegate is an anti-censorship software for secure and fast Internet access. It was developed and maintained by Dynamic Internet Technology Inc. (DIT), a pioneer in censorship-circumvention operation.
* users access web sites overseas as fast as their local ones;
* requires no installation or change in system setting;
* a single executable file on a Windows platform.
Freegate works by tapping into an anti-censorship backbone, DynaWeb, DIT’s P2P-like proxy network system.
Web developer Chris Maloney on his site Knol suggests using a virtual private network.
He says ” There are two recommended options for VPN: WiTopia and Hotspot Shield:
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