Categories
interview

interview:Censorship in China

A Government Major at California State University ask me some questions about Censorship in China, below are my answers:

What kind of censorship do you face from the government?
as a blogger, if I use the BLOG service in China,content will censored when submit post, filter some keywords; after posted, may get remove article request from authority. if I use the blog and hosting in abroad, the GFW will censored keywords and key url on Internet, connection will be reset or block when people try to access it who live in Main land China.

What punishment do you face for violating censorship regulations?
there is no punishment in law, even Constitution said will protect our speech rights. If I using China service and violating censorship, my site or BSP(blog service provider) will take down by authority; if I using abroad webhosting, my site will block in China. actually my blog https://www.zuola.com/weblog/ still blocked in China.

How do you get around or avoid censorship/punishment?
no way to avoid censorship in fact, but in technical we have some way, for example, promote RSS subscribe, enable SSL over HTTP, but not win for long time, GFW will Poisoning on DNS system to block China user to access specific web domain . but blogger still have subscribers because Google Reader still work and Google reader , and social network also help content distribute, and a lot of reader have bypass GFW capability.

Since you’ve been actively blogging, have you seen a change in how the government censors media or news?
Yes. government have to monitor BLOG to censor news, and a lot of media get news source from blogs, lot of Publicity instruction related with blog news. in China,mainstream media under pressure but blog not, so government monitor a lot of blog and give pressure to BSP to censor content.

What are you hopes for the future of censorship in China?
I hope censorship in transparent ,let us discuss why need censor in each case.

Categories
interview

interview with Lisette van Engelen

Lisette van Engelen  was sent me email to ask some question, I also copy my answer below:

  1. In the movie you go to the murdered and raped girls and to the people whose houses are destroyed. How do you know what is going on? How do you know where you have to go to report the social problems?
    I read a lot of story and have sense to know which one is important and will be forbidden to report on mainstream media. I am behalf myself, I can report on my blog
  2. What happened to you after the Arab Spring? Did the government also talk to you such as to the other activitst in the movie?
    I am did nothing after the Arab Spring, I am not expect a revolution, did not involve Jasmine Revolution in China, because the economy still growth ,the unemployment rate not high in City, farmer also work in city, difficult make noise, and, revolution will bring a lot of violence , and have to rebuild culture after revolution even win. I hope civil society became strong and can handle society management after economy going down , I think society will be chaos after economy down before democracy come. I expect the democracy soft landing than hard landing.
  3. I heard you now live in Taiwan. Are you still going to China to make blogposts about the situation there?
    yes, I still blog issue on blog, January I were came back to home village and report  forced imposition lands issue, see http://www.fengmuqiao.com
  4. Do you think you are watched by the Chinese government when you are in Taiwan? And do you think they watch you while you are here in the Netherlands?
    I think I am watched by Chinese police. they follow my blog and twitter, but I don’t care, welcome be my audience, and I have chance to do some influence as possible as I can. of course, some activities won’t be blog if need:)
  5. Are you and your family still safe in China now this movie is in the theaters?
    of course my family is safe, no one threat my family because my activity.  and I am not the real dissident  like tradition activist. I am always encourage people involve social issue to make Citizen Participation real.
  6. What do you think about us, in Europe, making such a fuss about the situation in China, while we can’t do anything about it?
    Thank you pay attention to me, I won’t thank you pay attention to China because I can’t behalf China 🙂 I think we should remind people the Communism created a lot of suffering in history, Don’t make dictator be real, Don’t give up rights to make dictator appear.
  7. How are your parents?
    my father and mother getting older, live in countryside.
  8. How is life in Taiwan? Are there the same problems as in China?
    Taiwan is much better:)
  9. Did the Chinese government do anything to stop you making this movie?
    Chinese government did not try to stop making, but try to stop screening in Sheffield Doc/Fest
    http://realscreen.com/2012/06/13/exclusive-chinese-delegation-pulls-out-of-docfest/
Categories
interview

Interview:My experience and knowledge in circumvention tech

An organization name is OpenITP invite me to join a circumvention meeting on Twitter, and have to interview with me,they said interview on skype but change to in email without explain，I don’t know why, maybe they very busy. and finally they refuse travel grant. bellow are some questions from OpenITP and answer from me:

  1. Can you share your name and what you do?
    Zola: yes, My name is Zhou Shuguang (aka. Zola ) ，I am a Chinese blogger. below is my biography , another biography at http://blog.zuola.com/2013/02/who-is-zola.htm
    Zhou Shuguang, a.k.a. Zola, is a self-taught internet technologist and former network administrator who received his certification as a network engineer in 2004. Since May 2004, Zola has maintained a blog at http://www.zuola.com
    where he shares often useful and interesting information, occasionally focused on social issues. In 2007, Zola reported on what was being called “the most awesome nail house in history” in Chongqing, subsequently attracting the attention of traditional media. Since then, Zola has participated on the reports of various sensitive stories and breaking news events such as the “Resist P-Xylene Plant” Demonstration in Xiamen, the Yilishen scandal in Shenyang, the “Weng’an Uproar”, the CCTV headquarters fire, the stabbing of a prominent blogger in Qianliexian, and the news of Hangzhou resident Tan Zhuo who was killed by a speeding sports car. By reporting on these and other events, through various social networking platforms, Zola has since received widespread international attention. He is one of the many veterans fighting the censorship of news and Internet restrictions in China. Zola has received interviews by both domestic and international media, and is the subject of much academic discussion in the area of new media. Zola has been invited to Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing University, Tianjin Normal University to exchange with journalism students. Zola continues to host seminars on new media technology in Beijing, Guangzhou and throughout mainland China. At present, Zola has been providing independent blog services and other technical training services for netizens.
  2. What are the current problems facing Asia in regards to censorship and surveillance?
    Zola: I am Chinese, I only face censorship in China. I have experience on internet censorship. In China, people create content on Internet, will be filter key words before publish, or get punishment after publish sensitive content , for example , account get freeze few days,or delete account directly. If I am website owner in China, my web site have to register to authority , if authority found any sensitive content or any key words, I will get a message from authority to ask remove content.  If my website host on foreign country, the Great Firewall will block the site who frequently include sensitive content, my personal blog http://www.zuola.com was blocked in China. there are four level of censor by Great Firewall: key words filtration;  URL filtration; IP blocking; DNS Poisoning.  My website experienced all of method from Great Firewall, and I make a paper to introduce Internet Censor Solutions and Anti Solutions in 2009 March:  http://space.zuola.com/D2AC7D299F493A68_241.html
  3. What circumvention tools are used in Asia?
    Zola: VPN, Tor, OTR, Google two step verification,Goagent, Psiphon,Freegate, yourfreedom,Hotspot Shield, Suqid Proxy, and so on.
  4. What are the problems you most see with tools? (For example UX is bad)
    lot of free tools face problem are become invalid, because GFW detect unknown traffic then block it.
  5. What advice/comments do you want to share with circumvention tech community?
    Zola: Hope a browser plugin and VPN client can be customize， Configure some parameter then genera a package to allow people can distribute again.
  6. Any news/current event you think its important for people to know about?
    Zola: most sensitive content was deleted. this is too bad, we need archive it. this is my anti censorship Strategy,archive it, not only circumvent.
  7. What issues/topics do you think the 2013 Hong Kong Summit should focus on? 
    I need know how to protect personal communication by GPG or PGP, how to use it in Gmail?
  8. Anything else you want to add?
    May I introduce the Internet Censor Solutions and Anti Solutions ？ if so, I will submit a paper in English version.
Categories
technical

How to unescape cookie value in php which was escaped in javascript

I am a newbie study php recently, I want operate cookie by Javascript need escape and  unescape the value:

<script Language=Javascript>
function SetCookie(name,value)//两个参数，一个是cookie的名子，一个是值
{

var Days = 30; //此 cookie 将被保存 30 天

var exp = new Date(); //new Date(“December 31, 9998”);
exp.setTime(exp.getTime() + Days*24*60*60*10000);
document.cookie = name + “=”+ escape (value) + “;expires=” + exp.toGMTString();
}
function getCookie(name)//取cookies函数
{
var arr = document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(^| )”+name+”=([^;]*)(;|$)”));
if(arr != null) return unescape(arr[2]); return null;

}

</script>

Sometime we need operate cookie in PHP, How to unescape cookie value in php which was escaped in javascript? I were google the solution hardly, finally I get the solution below :

<?php

function unescape($s) {
$s= preg_replace(‘/%u(….)/’, ‘&#x$1;’, $s);
$s= preg_replace(‘/%(..)/’, ‘&#x$1;’, $s);
return $s;
}
?>

reference link from here

mark it and for your reference if you can google that 🙂

Categories
thinking

who is zola

<INTRO>
Activist blogger Zhou Shuguang (32) uses a light tone to draw attention to heavy issues plaguing Chinese society. Finding his role as a lone reporter on social topics to be risky, he now teaches others to become citizen reporters as well.

<STORY>
With a triumphant if not plain daring smile, Zhou Shuguang looks into the camera and boasts: ‘I did six pushups and no one jumped in the river!’
The year is 2008 and activist blogger Zhou, better known under his screen name Zola, is in Weng’an, a small town in southern China.   Li Shufen, a 16 year-old local girl had just drowned in the river. According to angry villagers, she was raped by a relative of a local official and then thrown into the river.
The town officials claimed Li jumped into the river herself, while the guy she was with was doing pushups. A rather far-fetched excuse to absolve the town leaders from any connection to Li’s death.
Online anger over the lack of a proper investigation reaches then 26-year old vegetable seller Zola in his rural hometown in Hunan province, over 750 kilometers east of Weng’an. He jumps on his motorcycle, donning yellow sunglasses, and heads over to find out what happened. His goal: to publish the true story of the death of Li Shufen on his blog.
,,Everything changed after that, but it went as I expected”, says Zola from his current home in New Taipei, Taiwan. His website jumped from two hundred visitors to two hundred thousand in a few days.

RISKY
,,I think many people in China feel as I do, but not many people speak like me. There are no platforms. My goal is to blog about these social issues, to be an independent journalist.”
At the start of the film ‘High Tech, Low Life’ Zola also states another one of his goals: to become famous. Armed only with his Samsung pocket camera, a laptop and a hand written card with his personal details up to his blood type, he has chosen a risky path to fame, by deciding to report on real issues instead of what China’s state television reports as news. That news is ‘crap’, Zola states confidently.

Chinese security authorities hardly back away from measures to silence citizens who publish stories and opinions that contradict what the Party likes to hear. Over the past few years, there has been an increase in house arrests and other sanctions, aimed to intimidate and silence this group.

,,I never think much about the risks”, says Zola. ,,I just do it. I am a special sample. There are not many people like me, who have both the technical skills to blog and the sense for a good story. Everyone can use the internet, but not every vegetable seller can become a blogger.”

Continue reading “who is zola”