Comments | zhongwen: Google down, any ideas why?

the_reda in zhongwen

Google down, any ideas why?

Jun 25, 2009 09:49

SInce last night Gmail and Google are both down for me i.e. North Eastern China. I tried yahoo but I cannot find anything about it. Does anyone of you guys have more info? Is this another GreatFireWall idiocy or is something wrong with Google....

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poubelle June 25 2009, 02:17:05 UTC

It's a bit of both. Last week, the CIIIRC singled out Google in its anti-information attack (did google perhaps forget to make large donations?). See here: 强烈谴责谷歌传播淫秽色情和低俗信息 (Vehemently Condemning Google's Dissemination of Obscene, Sexual, and Vulgar Information).

Some have wondered whether this is more of an attempt to prevent the dissemination of information through items such as Google Documents, which one could use through secure access within China to see, e.g., Zhao Ziyang's memoirs or publish a technical review of the Green Dam.

That said, Gmail and Google are slowly being enabled in China, with netizens in various provinces reporting the outage reversing.

the_reda June 25 2009, 02:40:40 UTC

Argh. K, chalked up to another 'oh China, headdesk' then. Proxies are my friend.

poubelle June 25 2009, 04:23:10 UTC

Yeah, I can't pimp TOR enough. ; ) (TOR is safer than regular proxies because it has two jumps rather than one. However the jumps can slow things down, especially in China.)

If you have twitter, watching wenyunchao, issac (mao), or #FuckGFW can help for updates and tips. Wen Yunchao is also calling for people to use proxies and anon browsing software; you can sign up for the action here

the_reda June 25 2009, 05:00:28 UTC

I using Tor, but Google and Tor and not friends at the best of times. Gmail loads 50/50 and search gets a 'verify you are human' 7 out of 10 times. I tend to just use yahoo instead.

poubelle June 25 2009, 05:01:47 UTC

wow, really?!

This is good to know (I know the TOR developers and can pass this on). I'm going to test it and see if i get the same response here in HK....

the_reda June 25 2009, 05:07:29 UTC

I am not sure how much they can do, since it seems google seems to consider proxies=bots. Yahoo also does it sometimes but not nearly as often as google.

poubelle June 25 2009, 05:18:11 UTC

Yeah, I know that some of them -- or human rights activists who recommend that TOR and other such methods be used by activists and others in sensitive areas -- sit on similar projects as Google (e.g. Google is involved with Global Network Initiative), so maybe there can be pressure applied.... still, something that they should definitely bring up. :)

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