Firewalls

The firewall acts as a network security system or can be described as a giant filter for our computer. It comes as a hardware or software form and performs as a barrier of defense for our private network. It helps in controlling the data traffic that goes in and out of our network base on specific rules applied.

The firewall application needs to be bought and install on a computer or machine but it only protects that specific computer that has firewall. When you're going out somewhere or maybe overseas, it keeps your network filtered with unwanted data traffic like virus or unknown sites. The filter acts as a protection for your data from hacking or virus but gaining access to any outside networks could be a problem when you're overseas. The firewall itself stops you from accessing certain sites that is from outside the country which stops you from gathering any information you needed.

In China, they had a big shut down on the open web called the Great Firewall which censors the people of China in surfing the web that goes beyond their country. Programmers are pressured and threatened to close down any tools they had created that allows people to go over the Great Firewall. To comprehend any blocked famous sites for the people, China duplicated applications that are similar to those sites. Due to the fact that they have to comprehend the people with clone applications, their technology industry has greatly increase.

Great censorship and blocked websites are still heavily guarded despite how popular their cloned sites have become. There are also people that are curious about the web outside China and tried to go over the Great Firewall by using Virtual Private Network (VPN). VPN is like a server that allows them to surf unfiltered web by ignoring the filter in their network. Using VPN lowers their chances of getting caught in surfing the outside web.

Having such a big censorship of the country stops the people from getting outside information, yet it prevents their people from gossiping any sensitive topics. Does the Great Firewall a benefit? Or it's stopping their people from knowing much more about the 'outside world'. Not only that, it also stops people besides China to surf their web as well which makes others not knowing what's really happening inside China itself.


Reference:

Abouttech (2015) What Is a Firewall and How Does a Firewall Work? Available at: http://netsecurity.about.com/od/hackertools/a/aa072004.htm (Accessed 9 January 2016).

Bright Hub (2010) Firewall Basics Part III: The Pros and Cons of Firewall Methods. Available at: http://www.brighthub.com/computing/smb-security/articles/8293.aspx (Accessed 9 January 2016).

CNN (2015) Great Firewall rising: How China wages its war on the Internet. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/25/asia/china-war-internet-great-firewall/ (Accessed 10 January 2016).

TechTarget (2014) Firewall Definition. Available at: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/firewall (Accessed 8 January 2016).