Bitcoin Forum

Starting from 20th September, most Chinese couldn't get access to bitcointalk.org.
8btc was the first to report (http://8btc.com/thread-7430-1-1.html) the situation and weibo (http://weibo.com/3769195301/BnQoKhpLQ?mod=weibotime). Initial guess was that the GFW found a new target.
http://8btc.com/data/attachment/forum/201409/20/104511stoj7gn37osx626i.png

http://8btc.com/data/attachment/forum/201409/20/104510whr6tl0haa07hazh.png

Later other website claimed (http://p2pbucks.com/?p=12190) that bitcointalk purposely block Chinese IP because



Somehow this has become the topic of the day among Chinese btcers. People blame this to the Chinese exchange that provides margin trade and futures like 796.com. Another new exchange announce yesterday that they will provide 50X margin.

A thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789447.0) propose to change the Hosts file to visit bitcointalk, another thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789690.0) here got response that Shanghai visit normal but many people are blocked and the Chinese subforum has become very quiet.

Thoughts?

50X margin trade sounds nice,

if they cant reach here they can use bitcointa.lk

Its a mirror site with different people running the show

I guess maybe there is something wrong with the internet.

I don't think it is good decision. There are many people in China, who are really crazy about the bitcoin technology. It is not fair for them. Bitcoin belongs to the whole world and cant be decided by any single institution. Never mind. They will find a way to get in touch with it.

They will use proxy if they really need access it, although limiting this is against what bitcoin is supposed to be for.

Bitcointalk blocked IP's or China blocked Bitcointalk? How to know that?

I've already tried access BTCTalk with chinese proxies, and I got the site is blocked.

Does anyone find it weird that bitcointalk is resolving to different IPs? Seems like the ISPs and by extension, the government is behind it.

The IP in your first screenshot shows an IP in Azerbaijan yet BitcoinTalk is actually hosted in the Netherlands and your second screenshot shows different servers all resolving different IP's for BitcoinTalk.

This doesn't look good at all. Perhaps BitcoinTalk has been targeted by the great firewall of china. I sincerely hope this is not the case but this doesn't look good at all.

Can someone in China try connecting directly to the actual IP:
https://109.201.133.195 (ignore SSL warning)

Your DNS is broken. That's not the forum's IP address. Adding the correct IP (109.201.133.195) to your hosts file is a good idea. Tor will also work.

I don't completely block huge IP ranges like that.


He knows that he's behind the world's largest censorship system, but yet he immediately assumes that two unrelated sites going down at the same time is a conspiracy by their operators to block Chinese users?? That's really stupid.

Are people in China still able to connect to the Bitcoin network using Bitcoin Core, MultiBit, etc.?

Rumor travels fast. Now it has become the headline (http://www.btc38.com/btc/altgeneral/4008.html) of btc38, which is the major altcoin exchange.
http://8btc.com/data/attachment/forum/201409/21/160706iqyyqc15rqzftdf3.png

Chinese gov are like the worse ever i swear.  We need bitcoin to succeed to put them in their place. Feel bad for the people and confused why this nation actually functions.

Bitcoin Core works fine with me.

nah its because if they accuse the goverment theyll get sent to labor camps for life  :D

How can they stop Bitcoin Core from connecting to Bitcoin network ? If they could do, wont it defeat the whole concept of P2P ? I think, by barring a certain IP range, a P2P cant be broken...

Bitcoin Core is pretty easy to block. I think that just blocking port 8333 would cause serious problems for Chinese users. (There are some nodes on the network that don't use port 8333, but they're rare.) Bitcoin isn't designed to be difficult to block -- that's what Tor is for. It's been possible to run Bitcoin through Tor since version 0.1 AFAIK.

Clarification (http://weibo.com/3552119670/Bo9cMtry8?mod=weibotime) and solution (http://8btc.com/forum.php?mod=redirect&goto=findpost&ptid=7430&pid=25337) posted. Now people blames the GFW.

China! the day you blocked bitcointalk is also the day where the richest person in china just opened his IPO and raised billions in New York..

and he said he was influenced by the ideals of silicon valley and Forrest gump an American movie... these are the foundations for his success..

 www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGqXkW2vMZs&feature=player_detailpage#t=260 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGqXkW2vMZs&feature=player_detailpage#t=260)

blindly blocking innovation is no good for anybody.. bitcoin is the next generation of internet.. instead of being like a bully, look at silicon valley and learn.

That alone will save your ghost Towns and your people who live in 10 sq.foot apartments..

I had no idea that china blocked bitcoin talk... When did this happen?

The Great Firewall Wall is absurd.

http://altcoinpress.com/2014/09/bitcointalk-org-now-blocked-in-china/

They export so much mining equipment..

china and russia sure don't like bitcoin any bit.. i guess they don't want people cashing out, instead of holding their currencies.

Most governments in the world don't know bitcoin. :)
For the second part, if they don't want their people to buy bitcoin, shouldn't they put some stricter regulations on their local exchanges rather than blocking bitcointalk?

First of all, extremely sorry for my limited knowledge. By TOR, I understand a browser that connects to an anonymous network which helps to hide the IP of the TOR user by multiple proxies. So, how does one run Bitcoin Core through a browser ? I must be missing something... Can U please point me to any directive/manual that shows How to run Bitcoin Core using TOR ?

p.s. I checked blokchcain.info is working fine inside China => http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/index.php?siteurl=blockchain.info

It's Tor, not TOR.

Tor is most commonly used for anonymous Web browsing, but it can anonymize any TCP traffic. In Bitcoin-Qt, the default proxy settings (127.0.0.1:9050, version 5) in the network options are usually appropriate for Tor. Just run Tor and tell Bitcoin-Qt to use the proxy.

I just checked almost all bitcoin sites I know (news sites, exchanges, gambling sites, cloudmining sites, mining pools, block explorers) and none of them is blocked except for bitcointalk.

So I guess bitcointalk is blocked not because it is bitcoin-related, but rather some posts here get on the officials' nerves.

1) Most governments have already noticed bitcoin and have set or is setting regulations regarding that.
2) it is hard to block Bitcoin buying and selling even with strict regulations. They may have blocked bitcointalk because people can trade currencies here without the government knowing.

That's my guess as well. Possibly these posts:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=638589.msg7147202

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=636986.0

Thanx for correcting. As an abbreviation I thought it should be all caps like TCP.

Can u plz tell me what do u mean by Just run Tor ? Run the Tor Browser or a Tor Node ?

The acronym is now a name thus Tor instead of TOR. Anyway, the Tor browser is just a special version of FF. If you dl the browser bundle you actuall start the proxy which in turn launches the browser. So just dl that and point qt to the proxy.