When I clicked on the link this morning to my recent post on June 4, I was surprised when the page failed to load properly. It stopped loading after the first 15 comments or so. Then, when I tried to get back to my home page the connection died, with the usual “could not connect to server” message. Worse still, I could not get into the backend of my site, either, so I couldn’t post. This lasted for about 20 minutes. Then I could get back on the site, but when I tried to open the same post again, the exact same scenario ensued.
The odd thing is that this post is two weeks old, and it was fine until now. What makes the firewall suddenly snap into action, especially on a thread that’s basically dead?
I also noticed today that Anonymouse is blocked, and for the past couple of months my favorite proxy, Anchor Free, has also been non-functional. If anyone has a suggestion, please let me know. The Cybernanny has also seemed bi-polar lately in its blocking of blogspot and blogger.com.
1
By lensovet
have you tried using tor with vidalia? take a look at http://vidalia-project.net/; you’ll want to get one of the bundle downloads and follow the associated instructions.
June 16, 2008 @ 9:03 am | Comment
2 Posted at hwareblog.com
[…] Majed Athab: […]
June 16, 2008 @ 10:04 am | Pingback
3
By Wesley Tanaka
I’d guess that the automated filtering is done with some kind of machine learning (similar to spam filtering), so as humans mark different exemplars as “dangerous” vs “ok”, you’ll get different items being blocked.
tor has always worked for me as well.
June 16, 2008 @ 6:20 pm | Comment
4
By Richard
Thanks – I’ll try tor again. Last time it really slowed my PC down.
June 16, 2008 @ 6:45 pm | Comment
5
By Michael Turton
People in China read my blog with Google Reader.
June 16, 2008 @ 11:17 pm | Comment
6
By ecodelta
Where are the “signed” compromises of freedom of information when CH signed for organizing the Olympic games in 2001?
June 16, 2008 @ 11:32 pm | Comment
7
By Richard
Thanks for the tip about Google Reader – it’s great. Also, Anchor Free and Anonymouse appear to be available again. No rhyme or reason, ever.
June 17, 2008 @ 8:45 am | Comment
8
By Brent
Any ideas into what may happen during the Olympics in terms of foreigner use of the Internet? Clamping down on the Internet during that time may be desirable in order to try to control any embarrassing moments; on the other hand, it may create an embarrassing moment. It will be interesting to see how far the Net Nanny goes then.
June 17, 2008 @ 5:32 pm | Comment
9
By Richard
The popular belief is they will take the firewall down, just as they’ll make potable tap water available – temporarily.
June 17, 2008 @ 6:05 pm | Comment
10
By dish
Well the rumour going round here is the firewall will be down in foreigner-infested places like 5-star hotels. Not for the rest of us hoi polloi.
June 17, 2008 @ 9:08 pm | Comment
11
By Keir
Ultrasurf remains my proxy of choice; I can’t think of anything better. Freegate is another option, although it exhibits weird behaviour at times and keeps asking me to save files just to use an application like clicking on a link.
i would also suggest you have a look at GPass which could be used as a Firefox add-on that allows you to alternate between four different proxies with no fuss at all.
By the way, your site really looks great. I know how nostalgic you were for the old site, but this is a definite improvement.
June 18, 2008 @ 6:57 pm | Comment
12
By Richard
Thanks Keir. Are you still in Beijing?
Amazingly enough, the same thing just happened with this thread – page wouldn’t load, then it shut me out of the site. Half hour later I still can’t get in. Am using a proxy now.
June 18, 2008 @ 7:49 pm | Comment
13
By Keir
Yeah; that’s the problem with having a Chinese national as a partner- you can’t leave! Check out this link that provides five proxies which are easy to download and be used by Firefox:
http://globalinternetfreedom.org/Products-and-Services
June 19, 2008 @ 7:32 am | Comment
14
By Kiryu
Anyone know if its safe to access gmail and other login related stuff through a proxy?
June 23, 2008 @ 1:50 am | Comment