Finding a Way to Get Around China’s Censorship…For Now
October 31st, 2005 by atari
that a new feature in the Firefox Plugin enables users in China to circumvent the block on Google’s Cache. (Funny I was just looking at Customize Google last night.) Essentially what this means is that when China censors what their users can view, they normally manage to block Google’s own archived version as well. With this plugin, the links to Google Cache are modified and China’s firewall does not recognize them as Google links. Thus, Chinese users can essentially view an archived version of any content that has been blocked. This feature, appropriately enough, is only available in the of the plugin.
Now while it is undoubtedly reasonable that the plugin developers have found a way, albeit temporarily, to circumvent , I caution the widespread publicity of the workaround. Of course by blogging it myself, I am only adding to the problem. As soon as the Chinese authorities are aware of such a way to get around the Great Firewall, they will surely work around the clock until they prevail. More people may very well find out about the plugin and be able to use it for now, but I wonder if it will even work tomorrow… It is then a tough question of whether to keep something quiet potentially for the benefit of those who are aware of it, or publicize it and run the risk of it eroding very quickly. This time we have opted for the latter, but perhaps we might act differently next time?
November 1st, 2005 at 10:05 am
Of course, if nobody publicizes it, nobody will know about it, and nobody will benefit from it.
November 1st, 2005 at 12:17 pm
right. what i was referring to was leaving it to more underground channels of communication (maybe mainly in chinese?) versus getting slashdotted… i think as soon as the western media is aware of such a workaround, china will have an even greater incentive to patch it up asap.
November 1st, 2005 at 10:06 pm
um, we acted differently last time. which is why some might think this is the first way around the firewall. it’s not.
(not to be brash, but i don’t think you can win this fight. which might be why this belongs in the unreasonable column…)
November 1st, 2005 at 10:46 pm
i didn’t mean to imply that this was the first way to get around the great firewall. (i in fact have been told of other methods by a programmer of certain well known privacy-providing software). which one are you referring to?
if the fight you are talking about is the great wall itself, then yes agreed that it is a tough one, perhaps insurmountable. but i still do stand by my assertion that developing ways to circumvent it (even temporarily) is indeed reasonable.
November 3rd, 2005 at 10:45 pm
As an English/Cultural studies teacher living and working in China – I manage to get around “the great firewall of China” – HA!!!! A firefox plugin that enables me to view all blocked ‘sites – is called Anonymouser – URL – In fact my own site is unable to be viewed within China without it….
December 5th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
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