YouTube Blocked In China

The most popular online video website - YouTube, seem to be blocked in China. The Chinese users are unable to access YouTube now. YouTube which has been acquired by Google Inc since Oct, 2006, is the leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on the web.

The current blocking may be related to the Communist Party Congress, which began on 15 October in Beijing and ends on Sunday. Chinese authorities regularly blocks access to websites that it finds objectionable, including those dealing with politically sensitive subjects. YouTube could conceivably carry some information the Chinese authorities think it shouldn't. That's what we have been. Blocked. Great Fire Wall-ed. 

Now YouTube is inaccessible for most everyone in China, the current block is actually a bit more restrictive than the other block, since any mention of the string "www.youtube.com" in any URL seems to be blocked.

For example: http://www.google.com/search?q=www.youtube.com (if you are out of China, you should use http://www.google.cn/search?q=www.youtube.com) will not go through, and will get you a "Connection reset" error.

That mean the YouTube are not viewable via normal proxy. Chinese user must use secured transmission (SSL , HTTPS) to visit YouTube, that is not suitable because of the slow and instable connection.

The Chinese authorities also block some great website like FeedBurner, Flickr, WordPress, BlogSpot and Wikipedia.

FeedBurner Is Completely Blocked In China

At the end of August, when FeedBurner is blocked by China Telecom (most in south China), some of the China Netcom (most in north China) users may glad they still be able to visit feedburner. Today, FeedBurner is blocked by China Netcom too, so the China Netcom users must say goodbye to the FeedBurner.

So far, all Chinese users were unable to visit FeedBurner now.

This time is different from last year, in August 1,2006, FeedBurner is also blocked temporarily, one day later it’s came back. But this time, FeedBurner is blocked lot's of days, and it's still out there, which reminds us that this blockade may be permanent in the nature.

Even so, the Chinese users can still use Google Reader to visit FeedBurner, but if Google Reader becomes the next one, what should Chinese users do?

China Internet Censorship Goes Crazy

Are they going crazy? Before they would warn and order the webmasters to delete "harmful" information from their websites, sometimes they just blocked the website. But now thousand of websites would be blocked if they are so unlucky to be hosted by the same IDC company with a "harmful" website.

Yes, in the last month, most of the interactive website(including forum, guestbook, blog) in China were blocked by the Chinese authorities. Some believe this is because of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China opening, the Chinese authorities want a social stability. 

Chinese authorities often blocks an entire Web site, even if only parts of the site contain sensitive information. Just in the last month, more than thousand of dedicated server in HeNan TeleCom room and ShanTou TeleCom room were closed forcibly. thousand of sites were blocked included those on health, education, news, entertainment, religion. Also they use the Greate FireWall to blocks some great website like FeedBurner and Flickr.

This month, the Chinese authorities will finish their jobs, closing the rest of "illegal website". So when the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is opening, the Chinese cyberspace will become a very harmonious and stable.

Not a country renowned for freedom of speech, China has nevertheless outdone itself with more internet censorship that would make them proud.

FeedBurner Blocked By China

FeedBurner, the most popular and powerful worldwide RSS service provider, is blocked by Chinese authorities for the censorship tonight.

Now Chinese user unable to visit feeds.feedburner.com, when I try to ping feedburner from China, it will return "Request timed out".

When I issued traceroute requests to feedburner in China, I found the IP packets  are blocked by 202.97.33.110. This IP address is a main router of China Telecom.

It's confirm that the Greate FireWall's IP blocking works. The FeedBurner is blocked in China again.

This is not the first time that Chinese authorities blocks FeedBurner, in August 1,2006, FeedBurner is also blocked temporarily, one day later it's came back, but now it's blocked again.

Why Chinese authorities blocks FeedBurner? Because Feedburner provides content from countless websites. It could conceivably carry some information the Chinese authorities think it shouldn't. So they try to blocks it, Although this will let them be against lot's of Chinese bloggers.

Although the Chinese bloggers could visit FeedBurner via proxy server, only few people use proxy in fact, maybe because proxy is slow and instable.

I wish FeedBurner will come back tomorrow.

Wordpress Plugin: Chinese PinYin Slug

The Chinese PinYin Slug Wordpress plugin convert Chinese UTF-8 character into English PinYin character from a post slugs to improve  search engine optimization.
For example, when you publish a post with a title like this:
"Chinese PinYin"
Wordpress automatically assigns a long filename to your post, called a post slug:
/%e4%b8%ad%e6%96%87%e6%8b%bc%e9%9f%b3
PinYin Slug plugin convert Chinese character into PinYin character. With Chinese PinYin plugin activated, the slug for our example blog post would look like this:
/zhongwenpinyin
The slug is generated on saving a post (so you get a chance to look at it before publishing, and change it), or on publish. It won't overwrite an existing slug. You can force a new slug generation by deleting the existing one.

Installation

Download the PinYin Plugin and unzip to the '/wp-content/plugins/' directory.  Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress. Now, when editing a post, give it a title and press Save and Continue Editing. The PinYin Slug plugin will generate a slug. If you edit it, the plugin will honor your slug and won't change it.

If you find this plugin useful, please, link to this page: Chinese PinYin Slug Wordpress Plugin.

Google Launches Chinese Blog Search

Today, Google released a Chinese version of Google Blog Search, the URL is blogsearch.google.cn . The IP address of "Chinese Blog Search" is in Bei Jing. Now Chinese users can use Google blog search services in simplified Chinese language.

According to Google Chinese Blog, the Chinese version of Google Blog Search can track most of Chinese blog service providers,including Sina blog, Sohu blog, Tencent blog, 163.com blog, Baidu space, and other blog networks.

Meanwhile, Google blog search is also support most standalone blogs, such as WordPress, MovableType, Google Blogger blog.

The Chinese blog search is self-censoring, when I try to search "Tiananmen Square" in blogsearch.google.cn, I get no result. Google is not just translate BlogSearch's interface into Chinese language.

Google Answers Censorship In China

Today, Google and Tianya (a famous Chinese community website) launched a free Q&A service - "Tianya Answers". Some believe this is a strong competitors of "Baidu Zhidao" (the biggest Q&A site in China). In the bottom of "Tianya Answers" we can get "Google technology provide".

Social search has been Google's weaknesses, Google Answers is also defeat by Yahoo Answers. In China, Baidu Zhidao is the biggest Q&A service. Google launches Q&A service in China will enable Google to compete with Baidu. But in the "Tianya Answers", we found some of the very obvious Google-specific issues.

When we register a new account, we can get the following message : "Please note that according to Chinese laws, your IP information will be recorded for at least 60 days. And it will be will be provided to government agencies when we get the request."

That is mean, Google will complied with requests from the Chinese authorities to furnish information regarding an IP address of Google's users, and Google will only simply state that they just conform to the laws of the countries in which they operate.

Before in 2006, Google launches the Chinese version of its search engine to be censored (google.cn). Google use so-call SafeSearch filter used to keep people away from "bad" information, such as "subversive" material.

Google being in China helps itself more than China and simply does not fit into the "Don't Be Evil" mantra, but Google also known little about China's censorship. The "community website" is the "high-risk" project, they must face the work of looking out for and cleaning up "harmful information", if they do not get the "harmful information" out, they will be out. So they choice to collaborates with the Chinese regime.

Google "Don't Be Evil" ... Not in China.

Sources in Chinese .