What is China Firewall & Internet Censorship?

Internet filtering
- Process by which users accessing the Internet from a particular network are blocked from visiting certain Web sites
- Can be done at various levels: the household, local business, residential networks, Internet service providers (ISPs), regional network or national gateway level
- China’s filtering system is widely known as the “Great Firewall of China”
Chinese residents are without sites where content is predominantly user generated
- Chinese equivalent of these sites remain available
- One possible explanation to block major foreign sites and not their domestic equivalents is that the Chinese government might be more concerned about international criticism than internal tension.
- Foreign website is always slower than local competitors and sometimes stall out the user’s browser
Chinese government uses four mechanisms to prevent users from reaching blacklisted Web sites or content
- DNS blocking, Reset commands, URL keyword blocking and Content scanning
- Filtering is achieved by plugging “blacklisted” Web site addresses and keywords into the routers and software systems
- Controlling Internet traffic across Chinese domestic networks and at the gateway points between the domestic and the global Internet
If a user has downloaded forbidden content
- It breaks the connection and prohibits the user from establishing communications with the site
- These blackouts can last anywhere from two minutes to an hour or more
Government justifies its Internet monitoring efforts
- by saying it is keeping online information "wholesome" free of threats such as sexual predators
Physical access to the Internet is provided by
- nine state-licensed Internet Access Providers (IAP)
- each has at least one connection to a foreign Internet backbone
- it is through these connections that Chinese Internet users access Internet websites hosted outside of China
All companies running Web sites in China
- Are required to comply with government censorship demands in order to keep their business licenses.
Politically sensitive content is deleted
- from the Web by employees, or programs in response to official directives or in anticipation of trouble
Web sites hosted outside of China
- containing Chinese–language content targeted at a mainland Chinese audience, are asked to prevent the publication of certain politically sensitive content,
- Or face the possibility of being blocked
While some foreign companies have opted not to comply and SOME have complied to varying degrees
- Yahoo! and Microsoft offer censored versions of their search engines to the Chinese market in order to maintain good government relations and their business operations in China
Government regulatory bodies issue directives to companies
- about what kinds of content should be controlled, BUT the finer details of implementation are left to the companies
- Rewards and punishments are meted out based on the extent to which Internet companies successfully prevent politically inflammatory topics

What to do? Local or Global?

Recently I have been getting these "Diversity and Inclusion" mails from all over. Suddenly, Everybody is talking about 'WE', 'Go Green', 'Social responsibility and sustainability' and 'Global Citizenship'.As if all have got the same dream at the same time as ME about 'Learning for Life and Work'.

I know its been long since I've written, but you know its better late than never blog about such an intimidating topic!
I have been having this privilege multiple times for now to work with these groups of people, where we talk about the same thing everytime. Even though the discussions each time are very different, the way the discussions are framed and what issues are focused on are different, the issue has been the same - How to "Think Globally, Work Locally"?

BUT, I think, in midst of all these, we all seem to forget which matters the most "When?" and "What?" is Local or Global? We always seem to forget the fact "What You See Is What You Get". I've been recently involved in this one Localization project and also one global service deployment project, that work must be local, & focused on the global, solving the problem of "How to handle global and local content for global service? A question that has as many answers as intranets!"

Anyways, While i was busy in these Bonding globally, people failed to see if i was Building locally ;)
I have been made to beleive that because organizations are stronger at the local level and individuals are closer to the people who make the decisions, Unless the change is local, no global result is useful.

BUT on the other side I know that, Unless we have a global determination and global arrangements, we cannot have the desired achievement and results, which is vital for any interconnection between local and global.

Finally,  I'd say, THINK global, WORK local BUT most importantly "ACT both" !!!