Spreadsheets are invaluable tools in creating budgets, producing graphs and charts and for storing and sorting data. They can vary in complexity and can be used for various reasons. May it be business data storage, accounting and calculation, budgeting and spending, assisting with data exports, and data sifting and cleanup, and accomplishing business administrative task.

Best examples of spreadsheet software are Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. These two allow complex mathematical calculations and data analysis, has auto-save feature, and is also compatible with Android, iOS, Windows and Mac OS X.

Although many businesses rely on Microsoft Excel as their go-to application for spreadsheets, Google Sheets innovatively gives companies the option to figure out budgets, client contacts, and more.

Tl; dr;

Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel are two of the most popular spreadsheet platforms used by many small business owners and freelance enthusiasts anytime, anywhere.

They both have similar functionality, such as advanced conditional formatting, tracking dependencies, as well as existing robust graphs and picture creation options.

Let’s take the time to discuss their core differences.

Key Differences: Google Spreadsheet vs Microsoft Excel

Source: Lifehack

Years back, Microsoft Excel has been a constant partner for businesses but as software migrates to cloud, Google’s innovative spreadsheet software emerged as a worthy opponent.

For now, care to think about these questions.

What are the main differences between the two? What key areas do each of these software has greater edge? What’s best to use?

Popularity.

Although more and more users are trying out Google Sheets as a spreadsheet tool, Microsoft Excel has an entrenched user base that’s comfortable with Excel. Thus, it still takes a considerable amount of time for user to eventually switch over to a new app and be familiar with it.

Collaboration.

Google Sheets makes work easier, integrating you into any workflow. It also gives you the ability to share with just about anyone while limiting their access and/or control.

On the other hand, Microsoft Excel allows sharing and collaboration but limited to what Google Sheet does. You’re restricted to sharing files via email, haven’t been getting the same level of collaboration that Sheets does.

But if you are using Office 365, you can get access to a similar tracked edit page and similar options for seeing activity from other users. But for now, Google Sheets prevails.

Functions and formulas.

Excel has far larger functions and formulas whilst, some Sheets’ formulas are still missing.

Offline access.

Microsoft Excel can still work perfectly offline and can automatically set up your files sync via OneDrive as soon as you regain internet access.

However, even if Google Sheets has offline access available, you’d still have the difficulty accessing files you previously created whilst online, pushing you to install an offline extension to be able to work on files extensively offline but extensions can misbehave at all times.

Handling larger budget files.

In terms of handling transaction records, tabs, and fancy calculations and graphs, Microsoft Excel can handle up to 17,179,869,184 cells.

Although Google Sheets might be fine and dandy for your budget, it can only handle up to 5,000,000 cells.

Personalization.

When using a lot of functions, Microsoft Excel has a handy Quick Access toolbar where you can pin buttons for relatively quick and easy workflow. Whereas, Google Sheets have no such feature.

Cloud and Syncing.

Google Sheets was built from the ground up to be a cloud based alternative to Microsoft Excel, making everything accessible from your Google account, and also see and access all your files from Google Drive.

With Excel on Office 2019 or earlier requires a bit of setting up, so there’s a need for you to use Office 365 to get the same level of instant synchronization between devices.

Cost.

Microsoft Excel requires one-time payment of Microsoft Office or a subscription to Office 365, while Google Sheets is completely free to use: no annual fee, no monthly fee, and no user free. Plus, if you have a Google account, you can already access to it directly.

Summary

Though Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel has pros and cons, both are still catching with each other in terms of technology, accessibility and compatibility making the gap between them getting smaller and smaller, slowly turning the two platforms to be quite similar.

By Tuan Nguyen

Optical data storage as what Britannica would define it is an “electronic storage medium that uses low-power laser beams to record and retrieve digital (binary) data.”

With optical storage technology, it uses lasers to write to, and read from, small discs that contain a light-sensitive layer upon which data can be stored.

Source: 123SEMINARSONLY

Optical storage systems usually consist of a drive unit and a storage medium in a rotating disc form. The discs, in general, are pre-formatted using grooves and lands (tracks), enabling the positioning of an optical pick-up and recording head to access the information on the disc.

Compare to other storage formats, optical data storage discs are small, portable, and do not easily wear out with continual use, making them particularly useful for storing data.

The first method for storing data using light on a hard medium was invented by James T. Russell in the late 1960s, after realizing that the wear and tear on the vinyl records caused by continuous contact from the stylus to the record, can be avoided by using a light to read a music without physically touching the disc. Then on, it had grown to a lot of developments.

Today’s conventional optical storage is currently in 2-dimensional medium,i.e. CD-ROM, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. While these devices have steadily improved in storage capacity, they are still considered limited knowing the fact that data can be written in layers on the disc.

Now, researchers are trying to develop a new generation storage medium to potentially provide petabyte-level mass storage on DVD-sized discs known as the advent of 3D optical data storage.

Tl; dr;

3D optical data storage is an experimental storage technology predicted to offer exponentially more storage capacity than today’s data storage technologies.

This storage system may use a disc that looks nearly same like a transparent DVD, containing 100 layers of information to be stored on a single disc– each at a different depth in media and each consisting of a DVD-like spiral track.

The average thickness of this upcoming version of disc is predicted to be 5 millimeters. So expect to have thicker discs than today’s ordinary CDs and DVDs.

What is 3D optical data storage?

A cross-section of a 3D optical disc (yellow) along a data track (orange marks).

Source: TheBendster (talk) (Uploads)

As Wikipedia would point it, “3D optical data storage is any form of optical data storage in which information can be recorded or read with three-dimensional resolution (as opposed to the two-dimensional resolution afforded, for example, by CD).”

The origins of this storage system dates back to the 1950’s, when Yehuda Hirshberg developed the photochromicspiropyrans and suggested their use in data storage.

In the 1970s, Valeri Barachevskii demonstrated that this photochromism could be produced by two-photon excitation and eventually in the late 1980s, Peter T. Rentzepis showed that this could lead to three-dimensional data storage.

3D optical data storage has the potential to provide petabyte-level (1024 TB) mass storage on DVD-sized discs, using a technology that allows more than 100 layers to be written on a disc that looks like a traditional DVD. Thus, creating an exponentially larger data.

Estimates suggest that 3D optical data storage discs can be able to store 5 terabytes of data or more.

Types of 3D storage

There are two (2) major types of 3D storage:

• The simple storage of data throughout he volume of the disc; and
• Holographic storage.

Localized-bit. An extension of standard disc storage, localized-bit allows data to be available not just on the surface of the disc but also, throughout its volume. The laser then reads the data through the medium, rather than across the lands and pits of a traditional CD-ROM or DVD.

Holographic Data Storage. Though the above method is viable, holographic data storage has a much greater storage and retrieval potential – much possible and has better opportunities for implementation.

It is a three-dimensional image created as light beams (e.g., from a laser) merge together. Usually, a laser beam is split into two paths: data and reference beams are directed into the storage medium such as a crystal.

Advantages and disadvantages of 3D optical data storage

Optical storage varies from other data storage techniques that make use of other technologies such as magnetism or semiconductors.

Upon using 3D optical data storage:

• Optical media can last a long time depending on what kind of optical media you choose but only with proper care.
• It is great for archiving. Meaning, when data is written to them, they cannot be reused – the data is permanently preserved having no possibility of being overwritten.
• It is widely used on other platforms (PCs or any other system).
• Optical media has the capability in pinpointing a particular piece of data stored on it, independent of the other data on the volume or the other in which that data was stored on the volume.

The downsides can be:

• Due to system’s write-once-read-many (WORM) characteristic, it prevents you from being able to use that media again.
• The server employs software compression to write compressed data to your optical media taking considerable processing unit sources. Thus, increasing the time needed in writing and restoring that data.

Summary

Although several companies are actively developing the technology and claiming that it may become available soon, still no commercial product based on 3D optical data storage has yet arrived due to design issues that need to be addressed.

By Tuan Nguyen

Now that nanotechnology is well-established, well-applied, and well-funded.In the near future, there will come a time that we will come across femtotechnology.

As what Wikipedia would state: Femtotechnology is a “hypothetical term used in reference to structuring of matter on the scale of a femtometer, which is 10^−15m. This is a smaller scale in comparison to nanotechnology and picotechnology which refer to 10^−9m and 10^−12m respectively.”

Tl; dr;

Femtotechnology is still in the theoretical zone, with no realistic application in the present.

Imagine a future wherein the soles of your shoes will be made up with femto-enhanced rubber making it more resilient to elements. Femto-sized probes and chemicals may one day course through your blood to protect your immune system against deadly viruses and diseases, or enable your smartphone to be as thin and flexible or even integrate it into your body.

These things will be some of the most notable innovations and inventions that the forthcoming femtotechnology could provide for the whole humanity, thanks to the power of femto computing.

Femto computing: Measuring in a subatomic scale

Source:  Ecstadelic

An Australian AI researcher named Hugo de Garis, wrote a few years ago in Humanity Plus Magazine on the great power that the future technology could bring: “If ever a femtotech comes into being, it will be a trillion trillion times more “performant” than nanotech, for the following obvious reason. In terms of component density, a femtoteched block of nucleons or quarks would be a million cubed times denser than a nanoteched block. Since the femtoteched components are a million times closer to each other than the nanoteched components, signals between them, traveling at the speed of light, would arrive a million times faster. The total performance per second of a unit volume of femtoteched matter would thus be a million times a million times a million = a trillion trillion = 10²⁴.”

Through femtotechnology comes femto computing. It is measuring on the scale of subatomic particles which is three orders magnitude smaller than picotechnology and six orders of magnitude smaller than nanotechnology.

Femto is derived from the Danish word femten meaning “fifteen”, as in, a femtometeror a “fermi” being 10^-15 the size of a regular meter.

Ben Goertzel, one of the world’s leading AI researchers, highlighted in his companion article in Humanity Plus Magazine: “What a wonderful example we have here of the potential for an only slightly superhuman AI to blast way past humanity in science and engineering. The human race seems on the verge of understanding particle physics well enough to analyze possible routes to femtotech. If a slightly superhuman AI, with a talent for physics, were to make a few small breakthroughs in computational physics, then it might (for instance) figure out how to make stable femto structures at Earth gravity… resulting in femto computing – and the slightly superhuman AI would then have a computational infrastructure capable of supporting massively superhuman AI. Can you say “singularity”? Of course, femtotech may be totally unnecessary in order for a Vingean singularity to occur (in fact I strongly suspect so). But be that as it may, it’s interesting to think about just how much practical technological innovation might ensue from a relatively minor improvement in our understanding of fundamental physics.”

Being a computer science professor back then and having been able to map computer science concepts to QCD (quantum chromodynamics) phenomena, Hugo de Garis writes, when computing at the femto level, the essential ingredients of (digital) computing are bits and logic gates.

“A bit is a two-state system (e.g., voltage or no voltage, a closed or open switch, etc.) that can be switched from one state to another. It is usual to represent one of these states as “1” and the other as “0,” i.e., as binary digits. A logic gate is a device that can take bits as input and use their states (their 0 or 1 values) to calculate its output.

The three most famous gates, are the NOT gate, the OR gate, and the AND gate. The NOT gate switches a 1 to a 0, and a 0 to a 1. An OR gate outputs a 1 if one or more of its two inputs is a 1, else outputs a 0. An AND gate outputs a 1 only if the first AND second inputs are both 1, else outputs a 0.

There is a famous theorem in theoretical computer science, that says that the set of 3 logic gates {NOT, OR, AND} are “computationally universal,” i.e., using them, you can build any Boolean logic gate to detect any Boolean expression (e.g. (~X & Y) OR (W & Z)).”

So if he can find one to one mapping between these 3 logic gates and phenomena in QCD, he can compute anything in QCD. He would have femtometer-scale computation.

You can read the essay in full here.

Summary

In general, the practical applications of femtotechnology are currently considered to be unlikely. It would take a long way for us to realize its usage in real life.

But there are already sources denoting about the possibilities of femto science in the areas of biology through using ultrashort pulse laser technology. With it, biologists can peer into known biological reactions at the shortest time than ever.

For more new and exciting ideas about it, check out Femtochemistry and Femtobiology: Ultrafast Events in Molecular Science by Monique M. Martin and James T. Hynes.

By Tuan Nguyen

Over the years, the wonders of quantum computers have stirred the curiosity and imagination of the gifted minds in the tech community.

Since then, countless prototypes of these supercomputers have surfaced in the tech market with the hopes of a brighter, progressive, and fast-engaging future.

Last week, a draft research paper revealed that Google have built a quantum computer solving a problem that would take supercomputers 10,000 years.

The leaked paper was erroneously uploaded on the website of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California before it was pulled down.

According to the Financial Times, where the story first broke out, some of the researchers there are paper authors.Readers have downloaded the manuscript before it vanished, and has already been circulating online including on reddit.

John Martinis, the physicist who leads Google’s quantum computing effort in Santa Barbara, California, remained tight lipped over the said leakage. Others in the field think it is legitimate.

You can read the paper in full right on this link.

Tl; dr;

While our classic computers like laptops, smartphones, and even modern supercomputers claimed to be extraordinarily powerful, the capabilities of these devices will soon to be in question due to an internet leakage.

Google, one of the giant tech companies investing in the quantum computing expedition, is said to have just achieved Quantum Supremacy. It is a milestone where a quantum computer is able to perform a calculation that classical computers can’t practically do.

The paper points only one author – John Martinis.

He is a physicist who leads Google’s quantum computing effort in Santa Barbara, California.

Will Google’s Quantum Supremacy milestone strike a significant implication?

Source: Popular Science

While IBM, Microsoft, Intel and as well as numerous others are eyeing at how to advance the quantum computing technology, a new story shrouded with intrigue has surfaced earlier this month

The search giant, Google is said to have achieved Quantum Supremacy through an internet leakage.

As stated on the paper, physicists at Google were said to have used a quantum computer to perform a calculation that would overwhelm the world’s best conventional supercomputer – Summit.

It contains details of a quantum processor called Sycamore that contains 54 superconducting quantum bits, or qubits claiming to have achieved quantum supremacy.

“This dramatic speedup relative to all known classical algorithms provides an experimental realization of quantum supremacy on a computational task and heralds the advent of a much-anticipated computing paradigm,” the paper says.

The paper calculates the task would have taken Summit, the world’s best supercomputer, 10,000 years – but Sycamore did it in just 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

“It’s a great scientific achievement,” says physicist Chad Rigetti, the founder and CEO of Rigetti Computing in Berkeley and Fremont, California, which is also developing its own quantum computers.

While, Greg Kuperberg, a mathematician at the University of California, Davis, calls the advancement, “a big step toward kicking away any plausible argument that making a quantum computer is impossible.”

Google’s quantum computer a task called a random circuit sampling problem. With such problem, after a series of calculations each qubit outputs a 1 or 0. The aim is to calculate the probability of each possible outcome occurring.

Based on the tech giant’s findings, Sycamore was able to find the answer in just a few minutes – a task estimatedto take 10,000 years on the most powerful supercomputer, Summit.

Google’s quantum computer, called Sycamore, consisted of only 54 qubits – one of which didn’t work. For quantum computers to really come into their own, they will probably need thousands.

Though that is impressive, there is no practical use for it.

“We shouldn’t get too carried away with this,” says Ciarán Gilligan-Lee at University College London. This is an important step in the era of quantum computing, but there’s still a long way to go, he says.

Summary

This feat isn’t particularly useful beyond producing truly random numbers – it was a proof of concept. It isn’t free of errors within the processor.

We still expect to see bigger and better processors to be built and used to do more useful calculations.

In a statement, Jim Clarke at Intel Labs said:

“Google’s recent update on the achievement of quantum supremacy is a notable mile marker as we continue to advance the potential of quantum computing,”

As with the leakage story, Google appears to have partnered with NASA to help test its quantum computer. In 2018, the two organizations made an agreement to do this, so the news isn’t entirely unexpected.

By Tuan Nguyen

Imagine a brain machine that will be interfaced with the human brain, making anyone —– SUPERHUMAN.

Now, it will all be possible.

Thanks to the company Neuralink, which has been making headlines lately about its controversial brain-chip interface, finally revealing their top secret project via YouTube live stream last July 17, 2019.

The neuro-technology company aims to develop an implant device that will enable humans to control compatible technology with their thoughts. It will initially treat serious brain diseases and brain damage caused by stroke in the short-term.

With the said technology it had been working on, Neuralink also aims a long-term development for human enhancement, linking artificial intelligence (AI) with the power of the human mind.

Neuralink or the Neuralink Corp. is a tech startup founded by the futurist entrepreneur Elon Musk (also the CEO and founder of Tesla and Space X) in July 2016 to create “ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers.” In 2017, the company said its initial goal was to devise brain interfaces to alleviate the symptoms of chronic medical conditions.

Tl; dr;

Neuralink is a neuro-technology company that aims to build implants that connect human brains with computer interfaces via artificial intelligence, making its initial use with paraplegics to perform simple tasks using phones or computers having no physical movement.

To be clear, the tech startup have not yet performed any human trials (hopefully by the end of 2020) but so far, it already started testing its prototypes on rodents and even “a monkey has been able to control the computer with his brain,” as told by its main founder Musk.

The company has been super secretive about the nature of its work since its founding in 2016.

Merging humans with AI by Neuralink implant

An artist’s visualization of how a Neuralink’s brain/computer interface would look.

Source: NYT

Philosophers, sci-fi enthusiasts, and daydreamers have long been dreaming of turbocharging their brainpower or read someone else’s mind.

But… that’s way too far to be realized for now.

Neuralink, a company led by multi-entrepreneur Elon Musk have just been unravelling the first few sheets of the so-called ambitious sci-fi inspired implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). The neuro-technology company’s device prototype name was derived from a science-fiction concept called Neural Lace that is part of the fictional universe in Scottish author Iain M. Banks‘ series of novels The Culture.

As reported by The Verge, the neuro-technology company’s first public project aims to implant some sort of device in people who have been paralyzed that will allow them to control their phones and computers in a way that resembles telepathy. It involves flexible “threads” (between 4 to 6μm) thinner than human hair and are less likely to cause neurological damage than the brain-machine implants currently on the market.

These very small threads are injected deep within a person’s brain to detect and record the activity of neurons. The information gathered by these tiny threads or wires, would then be passed to an external unit that could transmit to a computer, where the data can be used, forming a brain-machine interface.

The system can include “as many as 3,072 electrodes per array distributed across 96 threads,” according to a white paper credited to “Elon Musk & Neuralink.” The company is also developing a neurosurgical robot capable of inserting six threads into the human brain per minute.

Source: slashgear.com

Procedure

Each thread, as smaller than one tenth of the size of a human hair, contains 192 electrodes.

Each electrode group is encased inside a small implantable device that contains custom wireless chips, measuring four by four millimetres.

These threads would be precisely inserted into the brain by a tiny needle at the end of the robot (measures around 24 microns in diameter), targeting only specific areas of the brain and avoiding damaging any blood vessels.

Summary

In the future, Neuralink will aim to conduct operations that are safe and painless as having laser eye surgery.

As Neuralink president Max Hodak told The New York Times, currently the operation would require drilling holes into the patient’s skull to implant the threads.

But in the future, they hope to use a laser beam to pierce the skull with a series of tiny holes, which would not be felt by the patient.

By Tuan Nguyen

The next-generation wireless technology faster than 802.11ac (now known as Wi-Fi 5), Wi-Fi 6 or “802.11ax” or “AX WiFi”will be the newest version of the 802.11 standard for wireless network transmissions that we commonly call Wi-Fi.

It was developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) which is known to be the world’s largest association of technical professionals. The IEEE is basically the keeper of Wi-Fi, incorporated with committees responsible for developing it and establishing industry standards.

Wi-Fi 6 is originally built in response to the growing number of internet-connected devices, providing faster wireless speed, with increase deficiency, and reduced congestion in heavy bandwidth usage scenarios.

Wi-Fi 6 isn’t a new means of internet connectivity but rather an upgraded standard that compatible devices, particularly routers.

Meanwhile, some tech vendors are now introducing their Wi-Fi 6 compliant devices in the market. The Samsung’s Galaxy S10 was the first phone to support Wi-Fi 6, and the new iPhone 11 series from Apple. So expect to have labels identified with a WiFi signal indicator coupled with numeric representation of the connection in this case the number 6 on the packaging of some of the upcoming devices soon.

Note: The Wi-Fi Alliance has switched to version numbers away from the confusing and less memorable IEEE 802.11 standards.They won’t start offering Wi-Fi 6 certification for devices until the third quarter of 2019.

Source: DIGNITED

Tl; dr;

Wi-Fi 6 is the next generation standard in Wi-Fi technology. It was previously known as 802.11ax until the Wi-Fi Alliance decided to rename it more succinctly. This latest Wi-Fi standard offers faster data transfer speeds having 40% higher compared to Wi-Fi 5, through more efficient data encoding. Thus, resulting in higher throughput.

Wi-Fi 6: The 6^th Generation of Wi-Fi

The Wi-Fi 6 router will connect more devices simultaneously

Source: TP-Link Technologies Co., Ltd.

Having today’s Wi-Fi 5 wireless standard, the new Wi-Fi 6 major upgrade is not just a change of routers but also a change of device and Wi-Fi connectivity in general.

Let’s see how this wonderful Wi-Fi standard upgrade could change our daily lives.

Faster Wi-Fi. 4 to 10 times faster than Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6 operates in dual-band frequency mode meaning, it handles a lot more bandwidth, thus, supporting faster data transfer speeds than its predecessor.

OFDMA. For increased efficiency, the Wi-Fi 6 standard supports OFDMA or the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access. It is a way of dividing a wireless channel into a large number of sub channels. Through these smaller channels, multiple devices can connect to the access point or router all at the same time without waiting for one device to finish first.

With OFDMA, each channel is chopped up into hundreds of smaller sub-channels, each with a different frequency. The signals are then turned orthogonally (at right angles) so they can be stacked on top of each other and de-multiplexed. With the bank analogy, imagine a teller being able to handle multiple customers when they are free. So customer one hands the teller a check and while that person is signing the check, the teller deals with the next customer, etc. The use of OFDMA means up to 30 clients can share each channel instead of having to take turns broadcasting and listening on each. ~ Network world

MU-MIMO. Also supporting the improved version of MU-MIMO, WiFi 6 antenna can transmit and receive from multiple other WiFi 6 devices concurrently. This allows a larger amount of data to be transferred at once and enables access points (APs) to handle larger numbers of devices simultaneously.

Backward compatible. Wi-Fi 6 is carefully designed to be maximally forward and backward compatible with 802.11a/g/n/ac. Meaning, if you use a Wi-Fi 6 router now, it can still support 802.11a/g/n/ac devices but of course you won’t get the full benefits of WiFi 6.

Target Wake Time (TWT). The access points of Wi-Fi 6 will be much smarter about scheduling whenever devices wake up and request information. This greatly helps devices to avoid interfering with each other, which, in turn, allowing them to spend more time in their battery-saving sleep modes.

Longer Battery Life. With TWT, your smartphones, laptops, and other Wi-Fi-enabled devices should have longer battery life, as well.

When the access point is talking to your smartphone, it can tell the device exactly when to put its Wi-Fi radio to sleep and exactly when to wake it up to receive the next transmission. This will be a great benefit for low-power “Internet of Things” devices that connect via Wi-Fi.

Summary

Whether you are at the crowded stadium, airport, hotel, office, apartment, or in the comforts of your home with everyone connected to Wi-Fi, the new Wi-Fi 6 technology (as addressed byIntel), will improve each user’s average speed by “at least 4 times” in congested areas with a lot of connected devices.

So no chances of getting slow Wi-Fi.

By Tuan Nguyen

When we say “firewall,” we are not talking about something that can be seen in our homes and computers, the Great Firewall is all about China’s great barrier of strict censorship over the Internet – even offline as well.

Known as the world’s most sophisticated censorship and surveillance system, the Great Firewall of China stops its people from connecting to websites or services: blocking website names, misdirects traffic and can even shut down encrypted communications by figuring out what service does the user is trying to connect.

Imagine accessing an internet with no Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the New York Times or any foreign website.

Local sources, whistle blowers or just simple emails are increasingly becoming inaccessible for foreign journalists to cover news updates from inside China. According to them, their sources were routinely intimidated, leaving them empty handed of information because only few are willing to speak to them.

Yaqiu Wang, Northeast Asia correspondent with the Committee to Protect Journalists said, “A quarter of foreign journalists surveyed reported that their sources were harassed, detained, questioned or punished at least once for speaking to them.”

In an article, Tibetan entrepreneur and education advocate Tashi Wangchuk who spoke to a New York Times journalist, has been thrown in jail under charge of inciting separatism.

Large-scale internet shutdowns by authorities are more becoming localized, tracing and monitoring content and individual phones.

As Hong Kong-based journalist James Griffiths describes in his book, The Great Firewall of China, “The key danger of the Great Firewall is that, by its very existence, it acts as a daily proof of concept for authoritarians and dictators the world over: proof that the internet can be regulated and brought to heel.”

Tl; dr;

Most countries like usually impose cyber censorship like banning websites that promote hate. China for its part takes monitoring and censoring to the extreme: a blocked account and a visit from the police. It has caught the attention of the International media, gaining negative uproar.

Having more than its 1.4 billion people online, the country’s Great Firewall argues that the restrictions are mostly about maintaining social order and safeguarding national security.

The Communist Party has largely succeeded in creating its version of the internet – digital propaganda, at its finest.

Great Firewall: The China’s War Over Internet

Source: InternetFreedom.org

A colloquial term for mainland China’s internet censorship system, the “Great Firewall” is part of the Golden Shield Project (also known as the National Public Security Work Informational Project). This censorship system has both legislative actions and enforcement technologies regulate the country’s internet.

The cyber wall blocks foreign websites, apps, social media, VPNs, emails, instant messages and other online resources that are deemed inappropriate or offensive by authorities. It ranges from pornography, violence, and more emphasis with politically-sensitive data (promoting democracy or any points that could put the Communist Party in a bad light).

In a survey, China outranked Iran for the world’s worst country when it comes to online freedom.

Source: bloomberg.com

Greg Walton, a D.Phil candidate at Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security at the University of Oxford, who has monitored Chinese tactics for some time said, “Clearly, China can put in tens of thousands of times more resources into [monitoring and surveillance] than civil society actors can for internet freedom, even those supported by the U.S. government.”

A 2016 Harvard study estimated that the Chinese government fabricates and posts approximately 448m comments on social media annually by conducting manual deletion of posts, with an estimated 100,000 people employed by both the government and private companies to do just this.

China has been one of the several countries who did a complete ban of Wikipedia.

As reported from the Open Observatory of Network Interference on May 4 this year, the country is using DNS injections to prevent its citizens from accessing the online encyclopedia.

“In late April, the Wikimedia Foundation determined that Wikipedia was no longer accessible in China,” Samantha Lien, communications manager for the Wikipedia Foundation, said in an email Wednesday. “After closely analyzing our internal traffic reports, we can confirm that Wikipedia is currently blocked across all language versions.”

How does the Great Firewall work?

Source: ThousandEyes

To ensure effective censorship and monitoring, the Chinese government has full control over every Internet Service Provider in the country, setting up different blocking methods that will stop users from accessing forbidden content.

If users enter an URL and the DNS server responds with a blocked IP address, the firewall will corrupt the connection details (known as DNS poisoning) to stop the page from loading properly. If the user tries to connect directly via the IP, the Great Firewall detects and blocks this. The firewall also scans URLs to ensure the page doesn’t contain sensitive keywords and blocks it if it does.

The firewall corrupts website URLs by disrupting the connection details to stop the page from loading properly. When a user tries to connect directly via the IP, the Great Firewall detects and blocks this. The Great Firewall also scans URLs to ensure the page doesn’t contain sensitive keywords and blocks it immediately if it does.

The Hidden “Cracks”

Have you observed that there are still Chinese users over Facebook or Twitter when you knew that the Great Firewall blocks those site?

They are using a VPN service to serve as a “hidden tunnel” that allows users from China to access sites that are other otherwise blocked by their government.

Performing this action is prohibited by law in China, because the Great Firewall is actively blocking the IP addresses of popular VPN services too.

Summary

China’s success of implementing restrictions on their citizens and global online companies has encouraged like-minded countries like Russia and India, clamping down the once-vibrant internet and increasing online regulation.

By Tuan Nguyen