With Australia data retention scheme come into effect, the online privacy of Australians ends from Tuesday, October 13. From that day, Australia's entire communications industry turned into a surveillance and the digital privacy ended. Since this Internet censorship first allowed in the law from April, Australian Internet users are under data surveillance.
The data retention dragnet will capture the data of innocent Australians and cost millions of dollars, while allowing those who don't want to be caught to remain hidden. The surveillance carries on by at least 21 agencies of executive government. Service providers are now required to retain the full data set as specified in the legislation - that is, they're required to create new data on their customers' activities that they otherwise would never have created. And they're required to store all this retained data securely.
It has been an unhappy week for Australian internet users as the government has recently required mass collection of meta data across the country from phones, text and internet communications. The electronically logged data of mobile, landline voice (including missed and failed) calls and text messages, all emails, download volumes and location information will be mandatorily retained by Australian telcos and ISPs. When you visit a porn site or infidelity site or 'jihadi' content sites, may in effect be discoverable without a warrant.
How to circumvent Australia data retention scheme?
- Use VPN for Australia to change your IP address and location. A destination IP address reveals which web servers a user has accessed and is a form of web browsing history, although it cannot always show specifically what website on that server you were accessing. Here are some VPN tools for those who really want to protect their privacy: Windows VPN or Mac VPN, iOS VPN, Android VPN.
- Use public Wi-Fi hotspots, which aren't covered by the data retention scheme. For example, use the Wi-Fi provided at a council hotspot, library, or university.
- Use a foreign-operated email service, such as Gmail or Hotmail.
- Use a foreign-operated messaging service, such as Google chat, Twitter direct messages, Facebook messenger or Whatsapp.
- Instead of sending a text message, use an encrypted messaging app.
Will Google return to China soon? According to The Information, talks between Google and Chinese government officials are underway with the hope of launching a Google Play Store in China this autumn.
Google is blocked in China
Back in 2010, Google cut operational ties with mainland China over concerns of cyberattacks and surveillance. Currently, Google’s products do not have much reach in China, as the services are not officially available. Great Firewall of China made all of Google’s services are barred or slowed. The most used method for Chinese users is using a VPN service to get access to the Google Play Store, Gmail, Google Maps and the main site.
Google VS Apple
Apple is already there with phones and an app store, after all, and China is expected to become its dominant market. While the Android operating system is hugely popular in China, very few devices have Google Play Store installed but, of course, if things go according to plan a censored Google Play Android app store would generate massive revenue for Google, providing them with a large slice of the billion dollar pie, which Apple already enjoys.
Google cooperates with Chinese copnanies
The Information reports that Google will lean heavily on partners, possibly such as Huawei, to include the Play Store with phones sold throughout China. Some devices available in China, such as those from Huawei Technologies and Samsung Electronics, officially use Google's software already. The Play Store version that would run in China will apparently only work on Android Marshmallow, according to the report.
Censored Google app store
However, if Google does re-enter the Chinese market it won't be Google Store as we know it. It will be a Chinese government-approved version – a censored Google app store. The Information reports that Google will have to agree to block apps that the Chinese government doesn't want within the country, meaning that Google will have to go back to censoring content for China.
How to change IP & avoid censorship
The China version of the Google Play store will reportedly be under different constraints than its U.S. Chinese users will continue to be affected by China's strict censorship laws, they need a VPN to change IP to avoid the censorship. The VPN not only protects online identity from snooping eyes, but to access your favourite sites and services which are often blocked by the Chinese government.
As a military parade will take place in Beijing this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war, a number of services used to get around Chinese internet restrictions have been taken down or disrupted. VPN users in China will have limited access in the first week of September.
It's never easy to guess why Chinese authorities choose a particular moment to crack down on internet accessibility. But for such a historical event, Chinese authorities are sure to inspect on the Internet. Some VPNs as well as other anti-censorship apps are down during this period. VPNs send all your datas through a encrypted tunnel, change your IP address to allow you bypass the Great Firewall (GFW). An individual in Beijing might connect to a VPN in England, so they can access content that is blocked within their own country without traveling abroad, or a Hulu user one side of the globe may surf as though they're somewhere else in order to watch programing that's only available in certain parts of the planet.
Some most common VPN protocols have become unstable ahead of the upcoming military parade. Protocols including Cisco IPSec, L2TP/IPSec and PPTP will be affected. One of the VPN provider Astrill warned users on last Wednesday that they may suffer service outages between now and the parade on September 3. "Due to upcoming Beijing's military parade next week, China is cracking down on IPSec VPNs using GFW auto-learning technique," Astrill said in a message to users.
Users may find VPNs got blank or servers show timeout for several minutes, or even get stuck when started and connect to any servers. I use FlyVPN and find it takes more time to open its app today, and its HongKong servers are not so stable as usual. It's very upsetting to find disconnected from the outside world, no Gmail and no Facebook, no information from the world. Fortunately, VPN service on routers, PCs and Android devices will hardly be effected as they use more resilient protocols.
