9 ms·

Chinese government blocks Google.com, Gmail, Google+, Maps, Docs and more

184 points by derpenxyne 14y ago

CWuestefeld 14y ago
Aargh. I'm leaving for a vacation in China in a week and a half. I guess I'm going to have to set up my own VPN tunnel to ensure that I can still access my email, etc. I'm assuming I can set something up through my dd-wrt router at home. Off to read the docs...
- pav3l 14y ago
  Yes, set up a private tunnel, don't rely on Tor, Google blocks a lot of their exit nodes, so it's just unusable most of the time.
- jcampbell1 14y ago
  When I was in China for a year, I just used a company dev server with a ssh socks proxy. It worked well, and it is one command in the terminal, and changing 1 setting in network preferences. This is much easier than trying to find VPN service that isn't blocked.
  - monkeypizza 14y ago
    if you have shell access to a hosting account... autossh -M 25841 -ND 127.0.0.1:8088 -i /home/.ssh/id_rsa user@host.com and then tell your browser (or foxyproxy) to use it. one-line vpn that probably won't get blocked by china, ever.
- zrgiu_ 14y ago
  I've been using StrongVPN.com for over a year without any problems. It's speed is decent too. I am not affiliated with them in any way.
- oohaba 14y ago
  I have OpenVPN set up on a linode server in the US. That was working fine until a week ago. Switched hosting to Tokyo instead and that worked fine for a few days. Now my colleagues and I have given up and are using a friend's account with Astrill.
- SystemOut 14y ago
  I used to use a socks proxy via ssh to a box in the US when I traveled to China. I have my own server for this but you can also use a micro EC2 instance as well I believe. After my last trip, though, I got tired of the speed over an ssh based proxy and installed open vpn on my server and just used a tunnel. Wayyy faster. It's fast enough to watch Hulu and Netflix if your hotel has enough bandwidth. The other option is to just purchase an openvpn based proxy subscription for a month and use that. Same thing and less fuss. I think running it myself is less likely to result in a blocked IP address since I won't garner as much attention but who knows how much they actually watch and actively block IPs for those services.
mtgx 14y ago
It seems they want to make an example out of Google: "If you disagree with our censorship, this is what will happen to you, too", and create chilling effects for any other company who's considering being "moral" in China. I wonder if Obama will do this to China, too: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/us-imposes-sanctions-on-iran-for-internet-censorship/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/us-imposes-sancti...
- Hermitian 14y ago
  The Chinese government is going through a transition period at the moment, so much is undecided. But it is unfortunate (especially being Chinese) that the central government is becoming more conservative overtime (politically conservative, fiscally liberal). I do hope that this is just a phase rather than something persistent. With regard to foreign policy, the US had been playing a very interesting game of hard-soft combination. Obama and the executive committee had been relatively soft on the Chinese government. At the same time, the US representatives to WTO and other trade organization had been pretty persistent. I don't know how things will turn out, but I am pretty certain that the US government will not impose sanction on China. That is a foolish move giving the trade and the status of China in the global market.
  - Undulate 14y ago
    "politically conservative, fiscally liberal" Fiscal politics are still politics so this doesn't make much sense, do you mean socially conservative?
    - twmb 14y ago
      It appears to me that They're opening up their economy more to western influences, but they're trying to maintain control of their own party and keep everybody in line, similar to what Putin has done in Russia. My theory is that as they open up more economically, the citizens will be "enlightened", so to speak, and there will be more protests. If China officials know this, they may be trying to stop this enlightenment before they're put out of power.
- 14y ago
bitcartel 14y ago
Android sales are strong in China but that might change as despite Android being open-source, over-the-air updates are a potential risk. Thus it's quite likely that home-grown solutions will be encouraged to grow market share, at the expense of Google. Just recently, Acer started selling a phone based on Aliyun, a fork of Android backed by Alibaba. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyun_OS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyun_OS
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > Despite Android being open-source, over-the-air updates are a potential risk. If Verizon can control OTA updates, then no doubt the Chinese government can. From the Chinese govt's POV, Android is preferable to iOS, where they have no control.
- revelation 14y ago
  They deny its a fork, but since its clearly based on Android both in software and functionality, you could say its a "ripoff".
Shank 14y ago
They even took down the country specific access points - including Google.com.HK. Have they ever done that in the past?
- karlsun 14y ago
  This is pretty par for the course, given the once / ten years party congress that is going on. Every year around June 4 (anniversary of Tiananmen "incident") and typically around Oct 1 (national day) Google gets blocked for a few days. China is much more adept at censoring the Internet than everyone thought 5-10 years ago.
lgleason 14y ago
If the Chinese want to block a US software company from doing business in China by blocking access to them, then the US should impose tarifs on any software outsourcing to China with stiff penalties for any companies trying to circumvent it.
- iwwr 14y ago
  It's not the generic 'Chinese' who are at fault, but their government. Economic sanctions, like always, will just hurt the people while strengthening the government's power base.
  - taf2 14y ago
    to a point... enough economic pressure will eventually trigger revolution... or can at least make it very unpleasant for the government to continue it's ridiculous position
    - smokeyj 14y ago
      > eventually trigger revolution. These are the Chinese we're talking about..
      - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        The government is corrupt enough that they might as well could trigger a revolution themselves someday. Interference from us would hardly matter.
        scarmig 14y ago
        If anything, interference in Chinese domestic matters would solidify the ruling oligarchy's dominance.
      - creativityland 14y ago
        Just a few to note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Revolution
dthrivepod 14y ago
Google China holdings?
mongol 14y ago
Google Docs were blocked earlier this year when I was in China. I had put part of my travel plan there so it was an inconvenience, but as I did not expect it I felt very offended by that.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  Google Docs is always blocked, along with YouTube. Google search engine is sometimes blocked, gmail is rarely blocked as that would cause too much disharmony, but something has changed...these congresses are a pain in the ass anyways, I'm glad I'm out of country this month.
dak1 14y ago
If I had to wager a guess, I'd say this is probably due to the 18th Party Congress going on in Beijing right now, and that the block will be lifted sometime in the next week, once the transfer of power is over. I think we may see some more moderates come to power, so I wouldn't expect this to continue. Whether or not Wang Yang gets a seat in the Standing Committee will be a good bellwether though.
- dageshi 14y ago
  Yeah, China tightens up things a lot around important dates and arguably this Party Congress is the most important for a decade due to the leadership change. My guess is that this is to prevent rumours/gossip from spreading quickly via channels they don't control.
- vibrunazo 14y ago
  Where can I read more?
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  Ya, its the party congress hopefully. We'll have to wait until next month for things to get back to normal, and see what the situation is at then. I'm not sure who the moderates are, and whether they even have any control in this; I've heard the dinosaurs that control censorship are fairly embedded and hidden from even the top brass.
- squid_ca 14y ago
  Moderate fascists are still fascists.
  - mlvljr 14y ago
    And always opposing the commies, yes :)
- wisty 14y ago
  To elaborate, there are 2270 delegates who will choose the next standing committee. But those delegates will have been told who to vote for. Premier Wen, former Chairman Jiang Zemin, and other powerful members will have strong opinions, and may be unhappy with the make-up of the next committee. A deal has presumably already been struck, but that doesn't mean they can't possibly have a change of heart. The current leadership is leaving, and the new ones aren't entrenched, so it's a delicate situation. Chairman Hu retains control of the military for the next 2 years, to discourage things from getting all Game of Thronesy, but they don't want to take any chances.
BryanB55 14y ago
Does anyone know what this means for US websites that use Google Analytics and are visited by people in China? Not that many of my website visitors are in China but I'm wondering if it will also stop the tracking code from working. I'm guessing it would since it won't be able to connect back to GA.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  The same thing that happens when we visit websites with Facebook embedded. It just fails.
  - andybak 14y ago
    'it' being the embedded component or the whole page? My guess is that it would depend on whether the old sychronous code or the newer async GA code was used. Not sure if the former is even still supported.
    - ams6110 14y ago
      The browser will get a 404 when it tries to load the GA script, or simply get a tcp connection refused. It won't affect the rest of your site unless you are depending on other assets served from google.com.
- Torgo 14y ago
  I maintain sites using both the older synchronous and newer asynchronous Google Analytics. I also personally as a matter of course block Google Analytics using a few adblock rules. As a user I have never experienced page breakage due to blocked analytics, and as a site maintainer I have witnessed that you simply don't get analytics information from those users. I've had clients freak because their Google ecommerce data doesn't add up, but in the end that information relies on trusting the client.
Intermediate 14y ago
I had problems accessing google services from China long before. I just started using proxy for all google websites, so I didn't even mentioned last changes
caycep 14y ago
Hope this shoots the CCP in the foot. The interwebs are awash w/ the latest US election results, and viral youtube videos of Obama thanking his young twentysomething campaign staffers. To give young Chinese such a glimpse of this and then brutally remind them that they don't have such luxuries of idealism and empowerment just highlights the failings of the CCP system even more...
- Volpe 14y ago
  A glimpse of what? That money buys power, and the "shining light" of democracy is just a plutocracy much like their own system... That IS brutal, but not in the way you think.
- aes256 14y ago
  > The interwebs are awash w/ the latest US election results, and viral youtube videos of Obama thanking his young twentysomething campaign staffers. Strangely enough, those kind of images remind me of a Chinese-style dictatorship. Legions of apparently adoring fans worshipping their benevolent leader, chanting slogans, etc. To the rest of the world, the presidential election is a reminder of everything that is wrong with America.
  - wololo 14y ago
    you're from the UK, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britishness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britishness In November 2007 The Times' Comment Central asked readers to define Britishness in five little words. The winning suggestion was "No motto please, we're British."
    - aes256 14y ago
      Not sure how this is relevant?
      - wololo 14y ago
        I'm sorry, what I meant was that (stereotype warning) the British are particularly cynical-reserved about putting your identity/politics on your sleeve, and the Americans are the opposite, so part of your disgust might be from cultural differences or to further quote, “The point I was making is, this idea of a statement of Britishness; I cannot think of anything less British than that,” said 25-year-old David Bishop, author of the winning motto.
beck5 14y ago
I was in China just last month and was surprised how openly everyone circumvents the blocks. I stayed in a very large 25+ floor 4* hotel where the entire free wifi went through a VPN. My Chinese friend said the government turn a blind eye because they know business needs it and they want the business.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  Sounds like the paper bag system reference on The Wire. EDIT: Brown paper bags cover open containers so people can drink on the street without police intervention so that police can focus on real work, but people still show police some respect.
- camus 14y ago
  you mean, as long as one is not saying something the government dislike anything goes... just like in any dictatorship.
  - Volpe 14y ago
    If that is your qualification for a dictatorship, then the U.S falls in that category as well. See WikiLeaks, and Assange.
    - gurkendoktor 14y ago
      Downvoted, because "X happens in every dictatorship" does not mean "every place where X happens is a dictatorship", and also because I think there is a noticeable difference between Gmail and Wikileaks (even though I supported the latter).
      - Volpe 14y ago
        Government doesn't want X to be said about it, and thus pressures/censors company Y to stop it. (X = "Anti-Communist sentiment" or "War crimes") (Y = "Google" or "Visa, Mastercard, Amazon, Wikileaks... etc") Not a huge noticeable difference. The point I was trying to make, is everyone is quick to taint a discussion on china with words like "Dictatorship", when in fact, china isn't (You know they can vote!?), and all the 'evidence' of them being one are scenarios played out in all countries.
jamesbrennan 14y ago
I wonder how much revenue Google is losing from this.
jdelsman 14y ago
What else is new?
olalonde 14y ago
I'm located in Shenzhen, China and all those domains work as usual except for Google+ and Google Docs which have been banned for a while. Google DNS also works as usual. Even Google.cn redirects to Google.com.hk as usual. Guess I'm either lucky or this was a very short lived ban in the middle of the night. edit: Reading the article again, it seems Google didn't actually confirm the block. They simply stated there was nothing wrong on their end. I also strongly doubt they got in touch with a Google China representative in the middle of a friday night. I smell link bait...
- mbreese 14y ago
  Is it possible that this is a more targeted block, meant to block access in and around Beijing? The original source for the story (greatfire.org) doesn't disclose enough information about how they test to see how broad their testing is. https://en.greatfire.org/faq/where-does-our-data-comes https://en.greatfire.org/faq/where-does-our-data-comes
- barry-cotter 14y ago
  On my Chinese Android phone gmail will load enough for me to see it's gmail but I get “no offline messages”. In Shanghai. Google.com is blocked too. Neither google.com nor gmail were blocked yesterday. Youtube has always been blocked and Docs has worked once since I got here.
  - barry-cotter 14y ago
    And it's back.
- salimane 14y ago
  I'm in Beijing and I'm experiencing this as of now. This is real
- monkeypizza 14y ago
  from my testing, google.com and gmail have been blocked in Beijing for a few days now. Of course, this is the same government that forced taxi drivers to remove the handles from their taxis so passengers can't roll down their windows, because they were afraid someone would drive by Tiananmen square and drop a bunch of ping pong balls with political messages on them.
deviloflaplace 14y ago
In 15-20 years, a new generation that is aware that nothing can really ever be "blocked" on the internet will come to power. Until then, long live dns servers & vpn.
listronica 14y ago
I wonder if this is to do th google new offering and its possible attempts to bypass whatever firewall systems China have around its internet http://www.google.com.ph/intl/en/mobile/landing/freezone/index.html http://www.google.com.ph/intl/en/mobile/landing/freezone/ind...
mmahemoff 14y ago
"Using a DNS server outside of China doesn’t help. A lookup of www.google.com to 8.8.8.8 is also distorted, by the Great Firewall." Probably better to try that on a DNS server not owned by Google!
anchoring 14y ago
Chinese people are not just Americans without good internet access... The Chinese propaganda/education/censorship system is set up to accommodate all levels of disbelief of propaganda - that's built in to the propaganda, too. So there is the official line, then there's the unofficial official line - which is generated by being pessimistic relative to the official line. If the official line is that 7 people died in a disaster, rumors will float around that it was really 70, and people hearing that will feel content, cause hey, 70 people is not a lot to pay for 20 years of good economic development. Since they're anchored by the official line, suspicions never jump to 7000 people died, 20k people had their lives destroyed, which may be the reality. It's the same with corruption - if an official gets busted for embezzling, skeptics guess that his wife is still overseas with millions, he had a couple cars, mistresses - but now he got his due and will never get out of jail. But they never guess that he was the equivalent of a mob boss in his city, had peasants disappeared, isn't even actually serving jail time, etc. (because that story would never, ever be mentioned again.) So, rumors slightly inflating the official line are allowed, even encouraged, since they strengthen that line. But rumors showing that the official line is totally fake are destroyed - any reporter who brings one up can look forward to a life in a small town working in a factory, no education for their child, and nobody would ever hear a word about it, anyway.
- pebb 14y ago
  Sounds just like the mass media in the United States... (Go ahead downvote it)
- Volpe 14y ago
  Great little rant, but provide some citation please. Which reporters are currently in re-education camps, and It's unheard of that an entire family is sent for re-education (unless the entire family committed a crime together), which makes me doubt most of what you've said. Also which event are your referring to with the 70 (actually 7000) deaths? It's funny you are railing against propaganda by writing propaganda, please inform your points with actual data.
  - anchoring 14y ago
jiggy2011 14y ago
So , if you run a business or are a student or whatever and use gmail/google apps for email and have your important documents in google docs it's just FU I guess?
known 14y ago
http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com
antihero 14y ago
Why do people not use SSH tunnels/OpenVPN?
- b6 14y ago
  People who know how do. But most people just work with whatever software comes on their device, and maybe more importantly, they've never seen the "real" Internet, so they don't feel the need to try to get back to it.
turingbook 14y ago
There should be nothing new. Google services are blocked for several years. But not every service is blocked in the same way. Google+ and Docs is wholly blocked a long time ago. Google.com is blocked intermittently. Gmail and Maps are usually OK, but not very fluent these several days. GFW is a mysterious monolithic and complex system. No outsider knows the rules and mechanisms.
- b6 14y ago
  I agree. I just want to add that I think they have a "degrade" mode designed more to be annoying than to block access. I know people here in Shanghai who hate Google products because they're so "slow", "unreliable", etc. Of course, they're perfect through a VPN.
  - turingbook 14y ago
    Actually I have switched to Bing as my default search engine for a while. For English, Bing is good enough but very bad for Chinese.
    - lispython 14y ago
      I use DDG, as when the Chinese results far from your desire, you can easily add some key words like g! to invoke google's engine for help.

184 points by derpenxyne 14y ago

Aargh. I'm leaving for a vacation in China in a week and a half. I guess I'm going to have to set up my own VPN tunnel to ensure that I can still access my email, etc. I'm assuming I can set something up through my dd-wrt router at home. Off to read the docs...

pav3l 14y ago
Yes, set up a private tunnel, don't rely on Tor, Google blocks a lot of their exit nodes, so it's just unusable most of the time.
jcampbell1 14y ago
When I was in China for a year, I just used a company dev server with a ssh socks proxy. It worked well, and it is one command in the terminal, and changing 1 setting in network preferences. This is much easier than trying to find VPN service that isn't blocked.
- monkeypizza 14y ago
  if you have shell access to a hosting account... autossh -M 25841 -ND 127.0.0.1:8088 -i /home/.ssh/id_rsa user@host.com and then tell your browser (or foxyproxy) to use it. one-line vpn that probably won't get blocked by china, ever.
zrgiu_ 14y ago
I've been using StrongVPN.com for over a year without any problems. It's speed is decent too. I am not affiliated with them in any way.
oohaba 14y ago
I have OpenVPN set up on a linode server in the US. That was working fine until a week ago. Switched hosting to Tokyo instead and that worked fine for a few days. Now my colleagues and I have given up and are using a friend's account with Astrill.
SystemOut 14y ago
I used to use a socks proxy via ssh to a box in the US when I traveled to China. I have my own server for this but you can also use a micro EC2 instance as well I believe. After my last trip, though, I got tired of the speed over an ssh based proxy and installed open vpn on my server and just used a tunnel. Wayyy faster. It's fast enough to watch Hulu and Netflix if your hotel has enough bandwidth. The other option is to just purchase an openvpn based proxy subscription for a month and use that. Same thing and less fuss. I think running it myself is less likely to result in a blocked IP address since I won't garner as much attention but who knows how much they actually watch and actively block IPs for those services.

mtgx 14y ago

It seems they want to make an example out of Google: "If you disagree with our censorship, this is what will happen to you, too", and create chilling effects for any other company who's considering being "moral" in China. I wonder if Obama will do this to China, too: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/us-imposes-sanctions-on-iran-for-internet-censorship/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/us-imposes-sancti...

Hermitian 14y ago
The Chinese government is going through a transition period at the moment, so much is undecided. But it is unfortunate (especially being Chinese) that the central government is becoming more conservative overtime (politically conservative, fiscally liberal). I do hope that this is just a phase rather than something persistent. With regard to foreign policy, the US had been playing a very interesting game of hard-soft combination. Obama and the executive committee had been relatively soft on the Chinese government. At the same time, the US representatives to WTO and other trade organization had been pretty persistent. I don't know how things will turn out, but I am pretty certain that the US government will not impose sanction on China. That is a foolish move giving the trade and the status of China in the global market.
- Undulate 14y ago
  "politically conservative, fiscally liberal" Fiscal politics are still politics so this doesn't make much sense, do you mean socially conservative?
  - twmb 14y ago
    It appears to me that They're opening up their economy more to western influences, but they're trying to maintain control of their own party and keep everybody in line, similar to what Putin has done in Russia. My theory is that as they open up more economically, the citizens will be "enlightened", so to speak, and there will be more protests. If China officials know this, they may be trying to stop this enlightenment before they're put out of power.
14y ago

bitcartel 14y ago

Android sales are strong in China but that might change as despite Android being open-source, over-the-air updates are a potential risk. Thus it's quite likely that home-grown solutions will be encouraged to grow market share, at the expense of Google. Just recently, Acer started selling a phone based on Aliyun, a fork of Android backed by Alibaba. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyun_OS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyun_OS

w1ntermute 14y ago
> Despite Android being open-source, over-the-air updates are a potential risk. If Verizon can control OTA updates, then no doubt the Chinese government can. From the Chinese govt's POV, Android is preferable to iOS, where they have no control.
revelation 14y ago
They deny its a fork, but since its clearly based on Android both in software and functionality, you could say its a "ripoff".

Shank 14y ago

They even took down the country specific access points - including Google.com.HK. Have they ever done that in the past?

karlsun 14y ago
This is pretty par for the course, given the once / ten years party congress that is going on. Every year around June 4 (anniversary of Tiananmen "incident") and typically around Oct 1 (national day) Google gets blocked for a few days. China is much more adept at censoring the Internet than everyone thought 5-10 years ago.

lgleason 14y ago

If the Chinese want to block a US software company from doing business in China by blocking access to them, then the US should impose tarifs on any software outsourcing to China with stiff penalties for any companies trying to circumvent it.

iwwr 14y ago
It's not the generic 'Chinese' who are at fault, but their government. Economic sanctions, like always, will just hurt the people while strengthening the government's power base.
- taf2 14y ago
  to a point... enough economic pressure will eventually trigger revolution... or can at least make it very unpleasant for the government to continue it's ridiculous position
  - smokeyj 14y ago
    > eventually trigger revolution. These are the Chinese we're talking about..
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      The government is corrupt enough that they might as well could trigger a revolution themselves someday. Interference from us would hardly matter.
      - scarmig 14y ago
        If anything, interference in Chinese domestic matters would solidify the ruling oligarchy's dominance.
    - creativityland 14y ago
      Just a few to note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Revolution

dthrivepod 14y ago

Google China holdings?

mongol 14y ago

Google Docs were blocked earlier this year when I was in China. I had put part of my travel plan there so it was an inconvenience, but as I did not expect it I felt very offended by that.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Google Docs is always blocked, along with YouTube. Google search engine is sometimes blocked, gmail is rarely blocked as that would cause too much disharmony, but something has changed...these congresses are a pain in the ass anyways, I'm glad I'm out of country this month.

dak1 14y ago

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say this is probably due to the 18th Party Congress going on in Beijing right now, and that the block will be lifted sometime in the next week, once the transfer of power is over. I think we may see some more moderates come to power, so I wouldn't expect this to continue. Whether or not Wang Yang gets a seat in the Standing Committee will be a good bellwether though.

dageshi 14y ago
Yeah, China tightens up things a lot around important dates and arguably this Party Congress is the most important for a decade due to the leadership change. My guess is that this is to prevent rumours/gossip from spreading quickly via channels they don't control.
vibrunazo 14y ago
Where can I read more?
seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Ya, its the party congress hopefully. We'll have to wait until next month for things to get back to normal, and see what the situation is at then. I'm not sure who the moderates are, and whether they even have any control in this; I've heard the dinosaurs that control censorship are fairly embedded and hidden from even the top brass.
squid_ca 14y ago
Moderate fascists are still fascists.
- mlvljr 14y ago
  And always opposing the commies, yes :)
wisty 14y ago
To elaborate, there are 2270 delegates who will choose the next standing committee. But those delegates will have been told who to vote for. Premier Wen, former Chairman Jiang Zemin, and other powerful members will have strong opinions, and may be unhappy with the make-up of the next committee. A deal has presumably already been struck, but that doesn't mean they can't possibly have a change of heart. The current leadership is leaving, and the new ones aren't entrenched, so it's a delicate situation. Chairman Hu retains control of the military for the next 2 years, to discourage things from getting all Game of Thronesy, but they don't want to take any chances.

BryanB55 14y ago

Does anyone know what this means for US websites that use Google Analytics and are visited by people in China? Not that many of my website visitors are in China but I'm wondering if it will also stop the tracking code from working. I'm guessing it would since it won't be able to connect back to GA.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
The same thing that happens when we visit websites with Facebook embedded. It just fails.
- andybak 14y ago
  'it' being the embedded component or the whole page? My guess is that it would depend on whether the old sychronous code or the newer async GA code was used. Not sure if the former is even still supported.
  - ams6110 14y ago
    The browser will get a 404 when it tries to load the GA script, or simply get a tcp connection refused. It won't affect the rest of your site unless you are depending on other assets served from google.com.
Torgo 14y ago
I maintain sites using both the older synchronous and newer asynchronous Google Analytics. I also personally as a matter of course block Google Analytics using a few adblock rules. As a user I have never experienced page breakage due to blocked analytics, and as a site maintainer I have witnessed that you simply don't get analytics information from those users. I've had clients freak because their Google ecommerce data doesn't add up, but in the end that information relies on trusting the client.

Intermediate 14y ago

I had problems accessing google services from China long before. I just started using proxy for all google websites, so I didn't even mentioned last changes

caycep 14y ago

Hope this shoots the CCP in the foot. The interwebs are awash w/ the latest US election results, and viral youtube videos of Obama thanking his young twentysomething campaign staffers. To give young Chinese such a glimpse of this and then brutally remind them that they don't have such luxuries of idealism and empowerment just highlights the failings of the CCP system even more...

Volpe 14y ago
A glimpse of what? That money buys power, and the "shining light" of democracy is just a plutocracy much like their own system... That IS brutal, but not in the way you think.
aes256 14y ago
> The interwebs are awash w/ the latest US election results, and viral youtube videos of Obama thanking his young twentysomething campaign staffers. Strangely enough, those kind of images remind me of a Chinese-style dictatorship. Legions of apparently adoring fans worshipping their benevolent leader, chanting slogans, etc. To the rest of the world, the presidential election is a reminder of everything that is wrong with America.
- wololo 14y ago
  you're from the UK, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britishness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britishness In November 2007 The Times' Comment Central asked readers to define Britishness in five little words. The winning suggestion was "No motto please, we're British."
  - aes256 14y ago
    Not sure how this is relevant?
    - wololo 14y ago
      I'm sorry, what I meant was that (stereotype warning) the British are particularly cynical-reserved about putting your identity/politics on your sleeve, and the Americans are the opposite, so part of your disgust might be from cultural differences or to further quote, “The point I was making is, this idea of a statement of Britishness; I cannot think of anything less British than that,” said 25-year-old David Bishop, author of the winning motto.

beck5 14y ago

I was in China just last month and was surprised how openly everyone circumvents the blocks. I stayed in a very large 25+ floor 4* hotel where the entire free wifi went through a VPN. My Chinese friend said the government turn a blind eye because they know business needs it and they want the business.

wtvanhest 14y ago
Sounds like the paper bag system reference on The Wire. EDIT: Brown paper bags cover open containers so people can drink on the street without police intervention so that police can focus on real work, but people still show police some respect.
camus 14y ago
you mean, as long as one is not saying something the government dislike anything goes... just like in any dictatorship.
- Volpe 14y ago
  If that is your qualification for a dictatorship, then the U.S falls in that category as well. See WikiLeaks, and Assange.
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    Downvoted, because "X happens in every dictatorship" does not mean "every place where X happens is a dictatorship", and also because I think there is a noticeable difference between Gmail and Wikileaks (even though I supported the latter).
    - Volpe 14y ago
      Government doesn't want X to be said about it, and thus pressures/censors company Y to stop it. (X = "Anti-Communist sentiment" or "War crimes") (Y = "Google" or "Visa, Mastercard, Amazon, Wikileaks... etc") Not a huge noticeable difference. The point I was trying to make, is everyone is quick to taint a discussion on china with words like "Dictatorship", when in fact, china isn't (You know they can vote!?), and all the 'evidence' of them being one are scenarios played out in all countries.

jamesbrennan 14y ago

I wonder how much revenue Google is losing from this.

jdelsman 14y ago

What else is new?

olalonde 14y ago

I'm located in Shenzhen, China and all those domains work as usual except for Google+ and Google Docs which have been banned for a while. Google DNS also works as usual. Even Google.cn redirects to Google.com.hk as usual. Guess I'm either lucky or this was a very short lived ban in the middle of the night. edit: Reading the article again, it seems Google didn't actually confirm the block. They simply stated there was nothing wrong on their end. I also strongly doubt they got in touch with a Google China representative in the middle of a friday night. I smell link bait...

mbreese 14y ago
Is it possible that this is a more targeted block, meant to block access in and around Beijing? The original source for the story (greatfire.org) doesn't disclose enough information about how they test to see how broad their testing is. https://en.greatfire.org/faq/where-does-our-data-comes https://en.greatfire.org/faq/where-does-our-data-comes
barry-cotter 14y ago
On my Chinese Android phone gmail will load enough for me to see it's gmail but I get “no offline messages”. In Shanghai. Google.com is blocked too. Neither google.com nor gmail were blocked yesterday. Youtube has always been blocked and Docs has worked once since I got here.
- barry-cotter 14y ago
  And it's back.
salimane 14y ago
I'm in Beijing and I'm experiencing this as of now. This is real
monkeypizza 14y ago
from my testing, google.com and gmail have been blocked in Beijing for a few days now. Of course, this is the same government that forced taxi drivers to remove the handles from their taxis so passengers can't roll down their windows, because they were afraid someone would drive by Tiananmen square and drop a bunch of ping pong balls with political messages on them.

deviloflaplace 14y ago

In 15-20 years, a new generation that is aware that nothing can really ever be "blocked" on the internet will come to power. Until then, long live dns servers & vpn.

listronica 14y ago

I wonder if this is to do th google new offering and its possible attempts to bypass whatever firewall systems China have around its internet http://www.google.com.ph/intl/en/mobile/landing/freezone/index.html http://www.google.com.ph/intl/en/mobile/landing/freezone/ind...

mmahemoff 14y ago

"Using a DNS server outside of China doesn’t help. A lookup of www.google.com to 8.8.8.8 is also distorted, by the Great Firewall." Probably better to try that on a DNS server not owned by Google!

anchoring 14y ago

Chinese people are not just Americans without good internet access... The Chinese propaganda/education/censorship system is set up to accommodate all levels of disbelief of propaganda - that's built in to the propaganda, too. So there is the official line, then there's the unofficial official line - which is generated by being pessimistic relative to the official line. If the official line is that 7 people died in a disaster, rumors will float around that it was really 70, and people hearing that will feel content, cause hey, 70 people is not a lot to pay for 20 years of good economic development. Since they're anchored by the official line, suspicions never jump to 7000 people died, 20k people had their lives destroyed, which may be the reality. It's the same with corruption - if an official gets busted for embezzling, skeptics guess that his wife is still overseas with millions, he had a couple cars, mistresses - but now he got his due and will never get out of jail. But they never guess that he was the equivalent of a mob boss in his city, had peasants disappeared, isn't even actually serving jail time, etc. (because that story would never, ever be mentioned again.) So, rumors slightly inflating the official line are allowed, even encouraged, since they strengthen that line. But rumors showing that the official line is totally fake are destroyed - any reporter who brings one up can look forward to a life in a small town working in a factory, no education for their child, and nobody would ever hear a word about it, anyway.

pebb 14y ago
Sounds just like the mass media in the United States... (Go ahead downvote it)
Volpe 14y ago
Great little rant, but provide some citation please. Which reporters are currently in re-education camps, and It's unheard of that an entire family is sent for re-education (unless the entire family committed a crime together), which makes me doubt most of what you've said. Also which event are your referring to with the 70 (actually 7000) deaths? It's funny you are railing against propaganda by writing propaganda, please inform your points with actual data.
- anchoring 14y ago

jiggy2011 14y ago

So , if you run a business or are a student or whatever and use gmail/google apps for email and have your important documents in google docs it's just FU I guess?

known 14y ago

http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=gmail.com

antihero 14y ago

Why do people not use SSH tunnels/OpenVPN?

b6 14y ago
People who know how do. But most people just work with whatever software comes on their device, and maybe more importantly, they've never seen the "real" Internet, so they don't feel the need to try to get back to it.

turingbook 14y ago

There should be nothing new. Google services are blocked for several years. But not every service is blocked in the same way. Google+ and Docs is wholly blocked a long time ago. Google.com is blocked intermittently. Gmail and Maps are usually OK, but not very fluent these several days. GFW is a mysterious monolithic and complex system. No outsider knows the rules and mechanisms.

b6 14y ago
I agree. I just want to add that I think they have a "degrade" mode designed more to be annoying than to block access. I know people here in Shanghai who hate Google products because they're so "slow", "unreliable", etc. Of course, they're perfect through a VPN.
- turingbook 14y ago
  Actually I have switched to Bing as my default search engine for a while. For English, Bing is good enough but very bad for Chinese.
  - lispython 14y ago
    I use DDG, as when the Chinese results far from your desire, you can easily add some key words like g! to invoke google's engine for help.