I’ve recently completed a week long stint in China and have seen and experienced some very interesting moments relating to the Internet which made wonder how it affects Chinese businesses and startups in particular.
The web is a controversial issue here in China. Not only are numerous overseas websites unavailable here due to government blockages, but connectivity appears — from my short stay here at least — to be highly irregular.
A fellow TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing attendee came to my aid after seeing me struggle to get online at the show.
“You never know whether you’re on-or offline in China,” he joked before fixing me up with a hack that gave me access Google as though he were tying a shoelace.
Other perspectives and stories of the Internet that I came across during my stay were equally as intriguing.
One entrepreneur recounted how he was forced to send his entire staff home one day after the Internet came to a grinding halt in the office, can you imagine that?
But does, might China’s dodgey Internet have its advantages?
“All Chinese people are hackers,” one expat told me, before going on to explain that this was actually a compliment. “Every man, woman or child that regularly uses the Internet knows how to set up a VPN connection and has the skills to make it work.”
From my own experience it was the sheer irregularity of the Internet in China — not just at the show — that got at me time and time again.
- I was never able to get my VPN to work at the hotel I stayed
- Throughout the conference, connecting through a VPN, I could receive e-mails but was unable to send them
- I was able to check-in to Tienanmen Square through Foursquare (bad me) without a VPN yet the same connection wouldn’t load Twitter
- Finally, when I was working out of an office in Beijing my VPN work intermittently yet I was able to use Skype and Twitter the entire time, both with or without the VPN
Nobody seems to care that much about these pains, but if you’re like me and are used to a regular working connection — or at least being able to identify a problem when it arise — then you’re likely to find the Internet in China very frustrating!
It leads me to wonder what kind of influence this has on the tech scene in the country. Constantly being distracted by connections not working and sites and services being inaccessible can affect productivity, and take time from focusing on the stuff that really matters.
But, on the other hand, if it makes the Chinese good hackers, it might just be a good thing after all.
I've lived in China for almost 4 years. I attended the TC Disrupt Beijing. Internet was poor there, def. I honestly can't imagine what kind of "hack" was used to access Google except for a software proxy or VPN connection.
About VPNs, most Chinese people don't know what they are... even the ones that use the Internet. In fact, for most internet users what they find on the Chinese internet is more than enough for them, obviating the need to "jump the Wall."
@TessaS I'm sorry to say that you've been either a.) misinformed by people who want to impress you with their China Knowledge b.) cherry-picked information to support a poorly written blog post about China or c.) all of the above and, therefore, d.) should have avoided the mistakes many westerners make when visiting China i.e., believing BS artists who have been there a month and not doing much research.
However, your thesis is correct: Connecting to international sites can be a pain. The caveat being that most startups use reliable VPN connections when needed/don't need them.
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LikeI agree that the writer seems poorly informed, I worked in China for 3 months.
Yes, the internet has it's up and downs, but more up's then downs.
Only a small % knows how to connect to a VPN, and even then they just use an application with a monthly fee that does it for them, the whole world might just be a hacker then.
Why even mention Skype? Skype is not blocked in China.
They just have different sources to find stuff, different ways to communicate, the writer is probably used to different things.
So yes, the whole story seems a bit overrated, just because it's from the perspective if a "outsider".
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LikeDoes hacking means using a VPN to bypass firewall?Whole story seems hilarious.
Being a good hacker require considerable list of skills and is way much more than just bypassing some silly firewall.
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LikeVinit Kumar "mentality"
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LikeZee I still think the story is lame.I would suggest you to meet a real hacker and find out how his mentality is like.
what some people in china are doing is what any newbie script kiddy can do.You might even want to read this http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is
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LikeVery similar to the experience I had. However if I used my (UK) O2 sim card to access the internet nothing was blocked even though I was roaming via Chinese phone networks. Seems they detect a foreign sim cards and do not restrict your access.
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LikeI like TNW, but this seems a very shallow article. The writer seems very uninformed about China. She couldn't access Twitter without a VPN because it's blocked in China, whereas Skype is not. I can't say why it worked from the office, but perhaps it had its own VPN that she was unaware about. Sadly, I'd have to concur with Tong and disagree with the main thrust of the article - most users don't care about the censorship, as there are wildly popular homegrown alternatives to every blogging and social media platform.
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LikeOnly a tiny percentage of Chinese know how to use VPN to bypass the Firewall.
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LikeConversation from Twitter
MT i4harold Frustrations of getting and staying online in #China builds a hacker's mentality http://t.co/bRgOpUls #gfw via mark_shu
nlecointre china is worlds top 2 hacker....
RT @ESET: How the frustrations of Internet access in China builds a nationwide ‘hacker’ mentality http://t.co/8QIEER2l
Conversation from Facebook
Nationwide? I don't know it I can agree... Most of the population still have limited access to internet (even computer)... If all you ever hanged out at were big cities and/or hacker events, that hardly represents the entire nation... Of course someone at Disrupt Beijing should know now to get access, otherwise he wouldn't be at the event in the first place...
hmmm...quite the article i must admit...
90% of all the brute force attacks on my web server are from china.