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How easily can Lemmy be censored? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Owell1984@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Being an old grandpa not that adept at tech, I don't know how Lemmy works. I mean, I know it's decentralized and it's supposed to be better than reddit, but still, how vulnerable is this platform from censors looking to block anything in here?

Are we invincible like those thepiratebay.org instances which jump up the more you try to censor them or are we basically like reddit. In other words, can I reliably access lemmy in China?

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[–] stevehobbes@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Unless China blocks all activitypub traffic, that’s a losing game of whack-a-mole. Or I guess they could scrape the federations of the instances they want to block and add them in real time.

But yeah, you’re right it isn’t designed to evade state level censorship.

[–] DrJenkem@lemmy.blugatch.tube 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unless China blocks all activitypub traffic, that’s a losing game of whack-a-mole.

I would say the same about the entire china firewall.

[–] baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Unfortunately, China's firewall is a extremely robust technology. It is much more than just a DNS sink hole.

For example, it can block IP addresses (probably dynamically), like digital ocean or AWS. It can even block internet protocols, like TLS1.3 https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-blocking-all-encrypted-https-traffic-using-tls-1-3-and-esni/ . It can even block tor, a inernet protocol designed for anonymity and prevent censorship https://www.technologyreview.com/2012/04/04/186902/how-china-blocks-the-tor-anonymity-network/

It is truely disheartenng to see talented engineers working on this piece of oppressive technology. I imagine if they want to, it would be rather trivial to block most activitypub instance.

[–] DrJenkem@lemmy.blugatch.tube 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah I mean, deep packet inspection at that scale is certainly an impressive feat. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a game of whack-a-mole. Tor entry relays get detected? Tor devs change the handshake or use purified to reach the entry nodes: https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/

A friend of mine was able to bypass the firewall there a few years ago using unlisted VPN endpoints he got from his VPN provider.

They can block most things for most uninformed users. But they'll never be able to make it impenetrable without cutting off access to the larger internet completely.