Great Firewall of China - Coursework Example

Great Firewall of China Great Firewall of China is a term commonly used with reference to the surveillance and censorship project that was brought to life by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. The project was proposed in the year 1998 but was brought to full operation in the year 2003. Since the arrival of the internet in China in the year 1994 the use of internet in the country was seen to be growing very fast. By the year 1997 the country’s economy was studied to have high dependence to the internet. At this point there were rising concerns about the security of internet usage. This paper aims at discussing the Great Firewall of China through analyzing the motivation behind the project, the mechanisms used for the filtration and controlling of information flow on the internet, and the ways in which the Great Firewall of China has been effective or failed to be effective. There are a number of considerations that have motivated the Chinese government to create the Great Firewall of China. The internet has gradually grown to become one of the most used forms of communication in China. However, the Chinese government was concerned that there are a number of threats that were brought as a result of the use of the internet in the country. For instance, they were afraid that the use of the internet may be used in causing national security threats. They could also be used in the unauthorized access of state secrets. Improper use of the internet was also believed to possibly lead to injuries to the interest of the society and state1. When the internet is used in manners that are not in the best interest of peace and safe coexistence it becomes a concern of the government. After all national security and peace is one of the primary responsibilities of the government. However, there have been conflicting opinions on the exact motivators of the creation of the Great Firewall of China. Some have the argument that the creation of this project would have been politically motivated. Prior to the introduction of the Great Firewall of China it was believed that the China Democratic Party was in the process of developing a unique type of network that the Communist Party of China would not be able to have control2. As a result of such involvements the China Democratic Party was banned and some of its leaders were arrested and detained. It did not take long after the banning of the China Democratic Party for the government to introduce the Great Firewall of China. This experience is believed to have brought the government to the attention of the possibility of the internet being used to disturb political stability in the country. In order to have a complete understanding of the Great Firewall of China, it will be important to know mechanisms that are employed by the Chinese government to filter and control information flows over the internet. China manages to control this by controlling the gateways that enable China connection to the rest of the internet. This is aimed at enabling the government to analyze and control the internet traffic. They are able to do this by using a combination of proxy servers and firewalls3. One of the techniques through which the Chinese government manages this is known as DNS Poisoning. When a person tries to connect to a website the connection is usually made possible when the computer that they are using contacts the website’s DNS servers. It is from the DNS server that the computer is able to get the IP address to the website that the individual wishes to access4. China manages to restrict access to some websites by poising its DNS caches with inappropriate IP addresses for websites that they wish to restrict from being access thus making them inaccessible. They also do the same by blocking access IPs. The Great Firewall of China has the ability of blocking some IP addresses from being accessed. This technique can lead to the blocking of all the other sites that share the same hosting with the website that the government aims at blocking. The government also manages filtration of information through the way they analyze and filter URLs. The Great Firewall of China has the ability of scanning and blocking some URLs if in case they happen to contain keywords that are sensitive. This makes some URLs inaccessible within the Chinese territory. The Great Firewall of China also inspects and filters packets, especially for the packets that are unencrypted. This is usually done with the aim of checking for sensitive content. They also block connection between two computers for a given period of time giving them the misleading information that their connection has been reset, thus meaning that they are unable to communicate for a given duration. The final way through which Great Firewall of China is able to filter and control information flows over the internet is through blocking VPNs. However, blocking of VPNs came later, after the government came to the realization of the fact that people were using VPNs to get through the Great Firewall of China. They did this by equipping the Great Firewall of China with the ability of identifying VPNs traffics then killing their connections. This prevents further avoidance of the Great Firewall by using VPNs. There are a number of ways in which the Great Firewall of China has been effective. It can be said that the Great Firewall of China has been effective because of the way it has been able to block sites without any confrontation. This is because of the fact that they do not let the users know that the sites are blocked, but make it look like it is a technical or connectivity problem. Another thing is that the Great Firewall of China has been able to effectively strike a balance between undue restrictive of commerce and restriction of speech. The Great Firewall of China can easily be bypassed by virtual private networks which make it easy for business organizations with the intention of securely communicating with the outside world to do so without having to be afraid of censorship or being spied on. Moreover, the Great Firewall of China cannot stop anyone with determination from accessing any site that they intend on visiting5. The problem is the access of illegal material has been made so hard that most people will prefer letting it go instead of going through all the hassles involved in the process of accessing banned materials. However, there are some things that can be counted as indicators of the ineffectiveness of the Great Firewall of China. One of the most prevailing is the fact that the Great Firewall of China has been unable to block the delivery of offensive content, nuisance messages,and politically inappropriate material. This is something that would have made the use of the Great Firewall of China more meaningful. The Great Firewall of China has also been unable to suppress malicious actions. It is clearly evident that the Great Firewall of China has had allot of influence to the lives of people in China. The projects can be said to have been successful to some extent with the majority of the people in China not being aware of the surveillance and control of their usage of the internet. It is easier for a person from the outside world to realize that there is control and filtering of information in China than people who are within China. It will be proper to conclude that the Great Firewall of China has been successful despite a few shortcomings. Bibliography Alford, Lacey. 2008. The great firewall of China. Thesis (M.A.)--Concordia University, Irvine, 2008. ONeill, Joseph R. 2009. The Great Wall of China. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=394999. Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. 2013. China in the 21st century: what everyone needs to know. Whiting, Michael D. 2008.The great firewall of China: a critical analysis. Zhu, Zhiqun. 2011. The Peoples Republic of China today: internal and external challenges. Singapore: World Scientific. Read More