News

WordPress.com, the famous blog tool, was blocked in China this week.

A quick look at different blogs hosted by WordPress (searching for wordpress in our new search above) shows the following:

Number of blogs blocked before this week: 7 our of 21 (33%).

Number of blogs blocked now: 21 out of 21 (100%).

The main wordpress.com website is also blocked. Interestingly, wordpress.org is still not blocked. So Chinese users can still access that website to download the WordPress software, but they have to host it somewhere else.

Today we've moved to a new domain: https://greatfire.org. Here are some notes on what this means:

We're not blocked in China

Though it may only be a question of time until this changes, for now our website is accessible in China without a VPN or proxy. Back in March, before we were blocked, we started getting traffic from Weibo (the biggest Chinese equivalent to Twitter) and we hope to be able to inform Chinese users on the extent of online censorship here.

We're on a secure server

Notice that our address starts with HTTPS. This means that all traffic between your browser and our server is encrypted. And the result of this encryption is that it is impossible for the Great Firewall to intercept the traffic, if you're viewing our website from China. HTTPS is a term to remember, it's the biggest reason why the authorities have semi-blocked access to GMail here.

.org as in non-profit

We are a non-profit organization which is now reflected in our name. Our mission is to bring transparency to online censorship in China. We do need your help to make our operations sustainable.

Feedback is very welcome, as always.

We have been detecting which websites are blocked in China since February this year. Using our tool and contributions from our visitors, we've created the most complete database anywhere of what's blocked by the so-called Great Firewall of China, including 2200+ blocked websites and 200+ blocked searches. But how accurate is our data?

When a website is tested, it's always done by comparing the results of trying to access it from A) a computer outside China and B) a computer inside China. This way, a website that is simply not working is not labelled as blocked. A website that works when accessed outside of China but fails when tested from inside China, on the other hand, will be labelled as blocked.

This makes our data more accurate, but not perfect. Another difficulty is that the Great Firewall often changes temporarily. A given website that was previously accessible may be blocked for, say, 20 minutes. The opposite is also true. Blocked websites are sometimes temporarily accessible. Examples include Facebook (March 28, April 25) and YouTube (July 31, Aug 15 etc).

To tackle this particular challenge, our scripts always re-run testing of a website once more, after it's status has changed. In most cases, temporary changes are quickly detected and the websites are labelled correctly again. In some cases, however, if the change lasts somewhat longer, it may take up to a week for our system to re-label the website correctly. So, for example, Paypal was tested to be blocked twice on Aug 22. It's now accessible again. But it will take several days before our system automatically tests it again. Meanwhile, it's labelled as blocked.

In recent days news has spread that China is cracking down on VPN use (Guardian, Global Voices). Chinese internet users, particularly those in universities, are finding it increasingly difficult to make use of VPNs to circumvent online censorship and access blocked websites. This seems to be a continuation of the increased censorship witnessed this year, including temporary blocks of GMail and LinkedIn.

While important, this development leaves an obvious question unanswered: Why do the authorities not block access to the main websites of the major VPN providers? Each serious provider offers access to a number of servers around the world and blocking actual usage of these is somewhat complicated. The main websites, however, could be blocked in an instant. After all, the Great Firewall has no problem constantly blocking other websites such as Youtube and Facebook.

There are three apparent possibilites. The first is incompetence. The authorities might simply not be aware of the VPN providers that are not blocked. This seems unlikely for two reasons. First, all it takes is a Google search of, say, "VPN China". Blocking the top 10 results would go a long way to making VPN access in China more difficult. Second, some providers, such as StrongVPN, are in fact temporarily blocked from time to time.

At the time of writing, we're monitoring 59 Google searches that are all blocked in China. This means that when in China, unless you're on a VPN or proxy and you try to search for any of these words in Google, you'll be presented with a blank page. However, there's currently a glitch in the firewall which can be used to get complete uncensored Google search in China on a standard internet connection.

It's done using Google SSL. Google SSL is hosted on an encrypted server meaning that anything that is sent or received is out of reach of the Great Firewall. This is a good reason for the Chinese authorities to block the service altogether. They have of course, but there's a loophole. Here's how to do it:

1. Go to www.google.com/ncr

If you're in China, when you Google you're redirected to www.google.com.hk by default. Typing in www.google.com/ncr makes sure that you get to the international website and not the Hong Kong version.

2. Type in google encrypted and click "I'm Feeling Lucky"

This should take you to https://encrypted.google.com. Alternatively, you can try typing in that URL manually: https://encrypted.google.com.

A picture is worth a thousand words. The origin of this popular phrase may in fact be the Chinese proverb 一畫勝千言. So what would be a better way to communicate our analysis of the current online censorship in China than just that, in pictures? The wonderful online tool Wordle helped us do just that. If you click on any of the images you will see a larger version.

Websites blocked in China

First out is a visualization of major websites blocked in China. This was made using this list and by using the popularity of the website to give it more or less weight.

Searches blocked in China

Next up is a visualization of blocked searches. These are words and phrases deemed sensitive, meaning that if you search for any of them in Google while in China your connection will be reset and you'll only see a blank page. If you think the list is incomplete, please help us by adding a new search for testing.

All together

Our final visualization is a combination of major websites as well as searches blocked in China. If you have any ideas for other types of visualizations please feel free to comment.

The world-famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested today. Here's a quick overview of what Chinese people can read about what happened, from behind the Great Firewall.

Basically, it comes down to language. English-speaking people can both search for his name and read the story on big news websites as well as check up on the background on Wikipedia.

In Chinese, it's much more sensitive. 艾未未, his name written in Chinese, is not (yet?) a blocked search, but researchers are prevented from accessing both his blog, the Wikipedia article in Chinese and news websites in the same language.

Increasing numbers of Chinese people use VPN's to get around the GFW. The majority of netizens in China who don't read in English and don't have a VPN are mostly limited to what the government wants to say about the story though. In this case, it seems to come down to complete silence.