What Happened

It is well known that the government of the People's Republic of China practices Internet censorship. In general, there are three reasons why the Chinese government will block a website or domain:

1.) The site contains controversial political information, particularly when it contradicts the official positions of the government.

2.) It is a foreign web site offering services which put it in direct competition with similar sites based in China (i.e. trade protectionism).

3.) The material of the site is deemed damaging to morality.

The Blogger service was blocked in May of this year. My guess is that this was connected to the anniversary of the Tiananmen protests, which inspired widespread blocking (the Typepad blogging service was blocked shortly thereafter).

No firewall is perfect, and I had little trouble getting around the blocks by using proxies - websites which hide the origins of a site by accessing it through an intermediary. However, sending data back and forth across a proxy is a very bad idea. The proxy, by its very nature, bypasses security measures on the user's computer. Consequently, obtaining passwords and personal information sent across is very easy. Additionally, proxies go down all the time - I had at least six proxies either stop functioning or get blocked themselves. So maybe I had more than "little trouble" after all.

The nature of the firewall can be quite amusing at times. In early August, the Comics Curmudgeon - a completely non-political website focusing on bad newspaper comics - was blocked for about a day. Why? The author wrote about an Apartment 3-G storyline involving the Dalai Lama. Apparently, just mentioning his name was enough to get it shot down. This suggests that the PRC uses word filters similar to those employed in schools.

But that is for the experts to discuss. I have returned, and it is time for my next adventure. Farewell, all.