"The site was repeatedly inaccessible when tested by BBC News Online using a system developed by researchers at the Harvard Law School"

A testing system was developed? Here's an idea. Visit an Internet cafe in China and type "google.com" in their browser's address box.

"blocking several foreign news sites and frequently forcing domestic sites to remove controversial material."

The U.S. is not that far off. We have private corporations suing to force backbone providers to restrict access to sites and site operators getting sued to remove controversial material all the time (copyrights, trademarks, religious texts, abortion info, DeCSS, domain names, and basically any critical comments a corporation doesn't like.). The difference is that China's government is Big Brother, while in the U.S. it is corporations that are Big Brother (the government is the Little Brother who gets bullied by and/or looks up to its Big Brother).

"Beijing is determined to keep strict controls on the flow of information to its own citizens."

I'm surprised China hasn't developed its own Googlish engine. It would given the government a much better idea of what its people are searching for and allow a bigger crackdown. Uh oh. I bet the RIAA buys Google.

Posted by: Jack on September 5, 2002 06:56 AM

 

Of course Google....doesn't it have a cash of damn near everything? If the original is blocked, you could still get the information, maybe a little out of date.

For more dynamic pages, you can use a similar trick of using babelfish and translating a page in English from say, Chinese to English. It's an old trick to get around site blocking.

Posted by: Kirk on September 5, 2002 09:24 AM

 

I think China just doesn't want their people to find out about what the crytozoologoists have been telling us all along!.

Say John, do you have yet ANOTHER job you're not telling us about? ;)

Posted by: Ryan on September 6, 2002 09:44 AM