DailyTech - Great Google Firewall of China Relaxed for Six Hours

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Internet Great Google Firewall of China Relaxed for Six Hours
Kristopher Kubicki (Blog) - February 2, 2006 9:36 AM

16 comment(s) - last by theubergeek.. on Feb 3 at 12:06 AM

Courtesy Simon Phipps of www.webmink.net

Chinese citizens had their first look outside of the gilded cage for six hours this past Monday

As either an act of subtle courage or an act of gross incompetence, Google "forgot" to filter searches in capital letters on the widely controversial Google.cn Chinese portal. PC Magazine reports that the Crypticide forums reported the glitch with the footnote "Enjoy the liberation whilst you can, citizens!"

Google found itself in the spotlight several times over the last few weeks with regard to its censorship program in China, but the company has constantly defended itself under the premise that giving filtered search capabilities to a fifth of the world's population is better than not giving any search capabilities at all.

More details about the incident here.

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That can't possibly be a mistake...

By Connoisseur on 2/2/2006 10:52:45 AM , Rating: 4

I can't imagine they could do that by accident. Not filtering for capitalized words? Ha ha sounds like Google's sticking it to the MAN

RE: That can't possibly be a mistake...

By Bonrock on 2/2/2006 1:02:57 PM , Rating: 5

You know what's funny? If this same thing had happened on Microsoft's MSN Search engine, I bet everyone would have assumed it was incompetence.

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Let's wait and see

By Griswold on 2/2/2006 12:54:35 PM , Rating: 2

From Anonymizer.com

Anonymizer® Inc., the leader in online identity protection technology and software solutions, today announced that the company is developing a new anti-censorship solution that will enable Chinese citizens to safely access the entire Internet filter-free, and also free from oppression and fear of persecution or retribution. This new program expands upon Anonymizer's history of human rights efforts which provide a censor-free Internet experience for those in oppressed nations.

Now thats brilliant PR timing. We'll see if it works out.

RE: Let's wait and see

By alcalde on 2/2/2006 1:21:41 PM , Rating: 2

This is EXACTLY what Google should have done; the idea occured to me last night while reading people state that something was better than nothing. I thought that Google could have been true to its claimed ideals by announcing that instead of censoring itself, it was going to partner with one of the privacy-centric Internet companies to develop a way to make sure the Chinese could access a full, uncensored Google. The option was there, so there really is no defense for Google.

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RE: Let's wait and see

By Griswold on 2/2/2006 3:52:11 PM , Rating: 2

Like Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco, Google is only interested in making big business over there. Dont expect them to do anything by themselves. They have to be forced by law or a storm of bad PR coming from this. It will be companies like Anonymizer that will bring "relief" in this situation - and make money with it.

Money makes the world go round.

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RE: Let's wait and see

By Snuffalufagus on 2/2/2006 4:43:23 PM , Rating: 2

No shyte. It's a business, they have stock holders, they have employees (who get paid very well and have stock options out the wazu). Of course they're in it for the money, does anyone really think they're there, or ever were there, to be benevolent?

They're all in it for the money, if they have a stock ticker, they're there for money, RedHat, Sun, Google, Microsoft. The only real goal here is to do it better than all the others. That's also the point that keeps us working for the one we do work for.

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China's democracy

By johnsaw on 2/2/2006 5:37:09 PM , Rating: 2

google.com.cn or google.cn doesn't seem to work outside China, what' a shame.
yahoo.com.cn does and in the first result there is a following passage:
-- China's democracy is a people's democracy under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

-- China's democracy is a democracy in which the overwhelming majority of the people act as masters of State affairs.

-- China's democracy is a democracy guaranteed by the people's democratic dictatorship.

-- China's democracy is a democracy with democratic centralism as the basic organizational principle and mode of operation.

Quite an interesting reading, I might add :)

RE: China's democracy

By johnsaw on 2/2/2006 5:41:19 PM , Rating: 2

EDIT: the search term was 'democracy'

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RE: China's democracy

By theubergeek on 2/3/2006 12:06:43 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
google.com.cn or google.cn doesn't seem to work outside China

Funny... I'm in Iowa and did a search from google.cn

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cencorship

By Alphafox78 on 2/2/2006 12:10:20 PM , Rating: 2

Im sure the people who want to search for things will find a way. Whats stopping someone from using some kind of proxy in another contry and just use the notmal google? this only affects the normal person who doenst know how to get around it im sure.

RE: cencorship

By T1 on 2/2/2006 5:10:47 PM , Rating: 2

Nothing is stopping the Chinese from directing their browsers to a proxy. Unless, the Chinese gov decides to ban all websites, that offer anonimty programs or proxy adresses.

Chinese people, act NOW while Google is still not censored and download privoxy.

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um....

By Kilim on 2/2/2006 4:26:58 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Google found itself in the spotlight several times over the last few weeks with regard to its censorship program in China, but the company has constantly defended itself under the premise that giving filtered search capabilities to a fifth of the world's population is better than not giving any search capabilities at all

Wait a minute, there are NO other search engines except for Google in China? Yeah, sure they are the best, but there are other excellent search engines in China, right? With filtering?

Seems like they are just trying to justify what they did and implying that the Chinese people would have had NOTHING else to use without them.

Normal Corporate thinking....just like a normal corporate company like Google.

Or am I wrong?

RE: um....

By on 2/2/2006 4:53:38 PM , Rating: 2

The point Google was trying to make is that Google.cn results show just about everything, but the "offending" bits are clearly marked (as in, "[There is something here, but this sh*t has been censored]"). Other companies don't even show the censored links, as if they never existed.

Its sort of Google's way to compete in China, but by clearly marking things as [censored] they can subtly subvert the local regulations.

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Firewall not working

By T1 on 2/2/2006 5:13:43 PM , Rating: 2

The Great Firewall of China didn't seem to be working 2 days ago. I went to Google.cn and searched for "falun gong", "falun dafa", "democracy", "China peace", and Falun Gong websites turned up in the top 5. Infact compared to google.com, there didn't seem to be any filtering on the Chinese Google.

RE: Firewall not working

By T1 on 2/2/2006 5:16:25 PM , Rating: 2

By now it does seem to work. I searched for "Falun Gong", and it turned up a bunch of Falun Gong trashing web-sites. Well at least, the Chinese could enjoy their freedom on Google for 6 hours. Way to go Google!

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