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Unblock Google Cache in China
An anonymous reader writes "A new feature in CustomizeGoogle (Firefox extension) modifies the Google Cache urls so that they are no longer blocked by the Chinese firewall. This feature is only available in CustomizeGoogle zh-CN, found here.
This is how it works: All links to Google Cache, from the Google search result, are slightly modified. The Chinese Great Firewall doesn't recognize the new links as Google Cache links, and therefore they are accessible for everyone."
I give this a few weeks before China figures out what Google is doing and either finds a way to block it or threatens to remove Google entirely from the Chinese web. Is Google willing to risk losing those eyeballs?
Come play Moral Decay!
I wonder how big China will have to get before they realize that it's hopeless to control information. I guess the people in power figure that as long as they maintain tight control for enough generations, the lack of information will just feel commonplace to the Chinese people. I don't think human biology will allow for that apathy about the world though. Although I could be wrong [ie. growing US apathy about non-domestic issues].
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I think this is a solid move by Google. As others have pointed out though, it is now only a matter of time before the current implementation will also be blocked. What I think is possible and feasible would be to have the URL that is used to bypass the block mutate over certain intervals of time. Since it is embedded in the toolbar, it is entirely resaonable to assume that this could be done. I wonder what the feasibility would be of Google being able to offer cached pages as Torrents and putting some sort of torrent support in the toolbar?
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
Google should be careful. Even though they aren't responsible for this, it is going to appear that way. China is a HUGE market, and yahoo and msn have a strong start. Its not like it is here in the US, the playing field is far more level, and Google isn't the media darling it is in western media.
If Google isn't careful, China will block them all together. That would be a huge problem for them. This firefox plugin seems pretty cool on the surface, but at the end of the day, it will only hurt firefox and google in the Chinese market. Not because of the people, but because its a communist nation that will squash what it doesn't approve of. This is something that it won't approve of. Don't be surprised if firefox.com gets blocked from their network all together.
...is exactly what this seems like. This is not a long-term solution - in fact I suspect its life will be measured in days if not hours before these links are recognized as belonging to Googleborg and blocked accordingly.
These quick-fix workarounds are nifty and amusing, but are no substitute for a permanent end to the Great Firewall. I understand that is a bigger problem to solve. Ultimtely I hope the Chinese realize that they cannot block a thousand floods, and realize that as an (emerging?) first-world country, with global trade alliances, seat on the UN Security Council and so on, that worldviews and perspectives and ideas flow across the border as readily as cash and products.
Until then, keep whacking.
Regards, John Hancock.
Why are you people praising Google? Google is not bastion of free speech. Google is assisting the Chinese government in censoring it's content. Some third party found a simple "hack" workaround (which will soon be patched), Google will quickly patch it up. Google itself is not at all interested in bringing uncensored content to the Chinese people.
Because I don't like encouraging people to break the law.
The great wall of China will probably be around for a long time. While trying to filter all that content, the government is ensuring innovation in filtering and firewalling techologies. They won't ever succeed at stopping everything, but watching them try is fascinating. Regardless of your political views, the challenge faced by the engineers implementing the system is an inviting one. I mean, wouldn't it be kinda fun to filter all references to Al Gore and replace them with, for example, the Rocky Horror Picture Show?
Well Google could always modify the cache to return results that have some auto generated URL that would differ with every hit, thus their firewall would end having to block an impossible number of every changing URL's...
Well, until they just decide to block everything from the google domain...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I run a small webserver with a few peoples pages on it. I really don't care if the chinese block access, Actually I'd have no problem with that as most of my serious port scans tend to come from china.
So... If I put up a Pro-Falun-Gong website, or some other material the chinese government finds offensive, will they ban my IP from their community?
1. Read /. to notice way around Great Firewall
2. Redo firewall to detect everyone using workaround.
3. Arrest and fine a few high-profile violators and send most of the rest nasty letters hand-delivered by the police saying "don't ever try this again." Make it clear that to conserve resources they didn't try to identify ALL the violators but they will next time. Those who didn't get a letter get the message.
4. Next exploit appears and only real dissidents use it.
5. PROFIT! Er, I mean arrest the dissidents.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Proxies work for most blocked sites (Geocities, Tripod, etc), but there are some sites that are 'toxic' and going to them will get a RST sent down the line for all your active connections, and won't allow any new connections to your proxy for 5 minutes or so. BBC News and Google Cache being two of these.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Good comment. One thing stands out in your post - "If working towards freedom, prepare for war".
This is the very reason why I support George Bush. Freedom for the Iraqis from tyrannical dictators ( need I mention his worthless sons and what their exploits were ) is so valuable. This very statement is the lifeblood of the Iraq war.
Its not only freedom for the iraqis, but freedom from fear itself ( of terrorists and other fanatics )
Bullets are cheap, and the CCP knows it. Their mantra is that life is expendable for the "greater good" of the party and it's power needed to control China. They might even nuke their own city if need be to keep democrocy from taking root.
You have been reading on on the latest bolsters by the CCP lately, right?
Life is not for the lazy.
wow.. having born and lived in China i know what this means for google.. profit.. you have to understand that it's not impossible for people to get books or other literature restricted by the goverment. before the internet, the CCP would put restriction on a book (a banned book in other words) and the next day there will be millions of people wanting to read that book, regardless of if it's good or not. when CCP put restrictions on the internet, there was no way around that for a normal person. another thing i have to mention is that the Chinese search engine is http://baidu.com/ everyone in China uses it like us using google. google is not popular there compared to BaiDu. so with this uncensor, there will be millions of chinese flowing to google in order to read uncensored information on the internet. and since google is not a Chinese businese (unlike BaiDu) the CCP can't do anything about it. so google's influence in China will finaly increase... all i can do is applaud google's business tactics... wow... /offtopic/rant
as far as the "evil communists" goes, it's not all evil. the person over threw the Qing Dynasty, and made China democracy country, Sun yat-sen, was the leader of china when he wanted to have 2 kinds of goverment parties. one is democracy and one is communism. he believed that people should have freedom but not complete freedom because that would cause alot of problems. thats how the communist party came into power, before that they were a tiny little political party that had no power.
when Sun yat-sun died he gave the position of president to Shiang Kai-shek (as you can see China wasn't completly democracy back then, probably because a voting would have caused too much trouble in a already poor country and some people doesn't even know who was their leader and stuff) and Shiang kai-shek hated the Communitst. he ordered secret assasination of communist party members which furthur worsen the relationship of the 2 parties. so the communist party members basicly said "why are we waiting to be assasinated? why dont we just rebel?" so thats how they started the war and then the japanese started attacking china and the rest is history. so as you can see, the communist struggle to power was hard and when they were finaly in power, there were still lots of pro-democracy people around and letting the democracy party people having a taste of their own medicine, they started torturing the democracy party people and murdered lots of innocent people, because they came to power because the KMT gave them power, they learned the lesson of the KMT and never gave any other part in China significant power, just to establish themselves as the official goverment in the people's eyes. Shiang Kai-shek escaped to Taiwan and established his own democracy goverment there (and i should metion that he purged all of his old KMT party members form mainland) , and later died and the presidency to his son (not as democracy as he say he is :P ).
if Shiang Kai-shek didn't decide to assasinate the communist party members we might actualy see an example of a democracy goverment AND a communist goverment co-exist and govern on country together. where the people have freedom, but not too much that it endangers the country's existance. /end rant
I didn't know wikipedia before it was blocked! How good it is! Thank CCP! Proxying...