On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 09:57:26AM -0400, Richard Wiggins wrote:
> To: Oscar Castaneda <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
> Yes, absolutely, China has blocked access to MSU content. When I worked at
> MSU and was involved with MSU Web content, my superiors didn't want us to
> talk about it, but China does block MSU Web content from time to time,
> really in a random, crude way based on what their censors observe.
It tends to be based on finding certain words in the content.
Some of those words are Tibet, Taiwan, Certain things about Japan,
that religious group Falun Gong and the Uyghur ethnic people.
Also Tienanmen and even the Taiping "revolution" can even elicit
blocks although they seem mostly to have left those behind now.
In addition, anything that might appear to criticize the PRC
government or their recent actions. Now days it is getting so
you can say what you want about Mao without much problem though
that used to get you censored quickly.
Talking about other news events about such things as natural disasters
such as earthquakes or manmade ones such as train wrecks or big fires
can get a site or domain blocked for a while. Discussing policy
actions such as the Twin Gorges dam can also attract their attention.
> Their
> blocking is crude, so they may block all of msu.edu, or a huge subdomain.
> The only answer I heard years ago was to wait for them to remove the
> blockages. So far as I know, eventually, they did. As I recall, MSU had a
> new program for online studies from China to EL, as I recall in Nursing, and
> we didn't want to upset China by complaining that they were blocking access
> to www.msu.edu. Not MSU's shining moment for free speech.
>
> MSU has thousands of Chinese students on campus, and some number of online
> students from China. MSU also has students and scholars in mainland China.
> So MSU has to dance carefully as to answering your question.
Many people in China, especially students, learn to use out-of-country
proxies to see blocked sites. Some of them run out-of-country proxy
sites. I have never used one, so I don't have any addresses.
////jerry
>
> I'll look for what we found several years ago about China blocking MSU Web
> content.
>
> /rich
>
> On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 9:27 AM, Oscar Castaneda <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I have a web application that is mash up of a few components coming from
> > three web servers, all of them here in my shop in Manly Miles. Two of those
> > web servers are running Windows 2003 and IIS. The third one runs Windows
> > 2008 and IIS. The apps had been running for a while, I wasn't aware of any
> > issues.
> >
> > Recently I had some people from our group going to China. They wanted to
> > demo the application. It turns out that everything coming from the 2008
> > server does not show up in the browser in China.
> >
> > One of those days last week, I was seating in the phone with my colleague
> > (he in China, me at Manly Miles). I could see and browse the content that
> > comes from the 2008 server. He could not, at the same time.
> >
> > Seems to be a really bizarre behavior.
> >
> > Of course, as a first matter I will look into my applications and see if I
> > did something wrong. However other questions come to my mind and this is
> > where I most would appreciate comments:
> > 1. Any previous experience of content being blocked from China?
> > 2. Any experience on this type of differences in between 2003 and 2008?
> > 3. Are there any security settings on 2008 that might explain this
> > behavior?
> >
> >
> > --
> > Oscar Castañeda
> > Global Observatory for Ecosystem Services
> > Michigan State University
> >
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