Saturday, June 21, 2008

The Return of the Kafka Boys

I learned last night that Blogspot is once again blocked in China.

I had thought that opening up of the main English-language blog sites was part of a package of token "liberalizations" of the media here intended to satisfy the IOC and the world's press that the PRC is finally taking some significant steps towards introducing a free flow of information - at least for this Olympic summer. Some hope.

Of course, I hadn't noticed this latest imposition of the block. Since, through the FoxyProxy gizmo, I now have the choice of using either the application's own 'default' proxy routing or the Tor network (both are usually too SLOW to be very attractive options; but they usually work eventually, if you don't have too many windows open at once..... if there's no other way). So, I've become rather used to cycling between these two options whenever I find I have a problem getting to a particular website.

However, lately I've been finding that I can access Blogspot fine using Firefox alone. This, I'm told, should not be possible. Curious. It would appear that I am once again viewing the site via the alternate IP address I programmed into my browser settings last year. I had thought that that workaround might have been superseded when I added on all the FoxyProxy bits-and-bobs. And this routing had been blocked a few months ago - which was why I got involved with FoxyProxy in the first place.

Yes, it would appear that the government's censorship goons, in attempting to reimpose their block on Blogspot, have inadvertently removed one of the key elements of the block they had imposed earlier. The oppression in this country is charmingly INEPT sometimes.

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