Comments | zhongwen: Google down, any ideas why?

the_reda in zhongwen

Google down, any ideas why?

Jun 25, 2009 09:49

SInce last night Gmail and Google are both down for me i.e. North Eastern China. I tried yahoo but I cannot find anything about it. Does anyone of you guys have more info? Is this another GreatFireWall idiocy or is something wrong with Google....

Comments 12

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the_reda June 25 2009, 02:15:50 UTC

Mmmh. Makes me wonder. They have been fiddling with the firewall. LJ was blocked till recently. Let's hope this is not a trade off. I am just afraid it is something like the deepsea cable that tore a couple of years ago and cut us off for several months.

poubelle June 25 2009, 02:17:05 UTC

It's a bit of both. Last week, the CIIIRC singled out Google in its anti-information attack (did google perhaps forget to make large donations?). See here: 强烈谴责谷歌传播淫秽色情和低俗信息 (Vehemently Condemning Google's Dissemination of Obscene, Sexual, and Vulgar Information).

Some have wondered whether this is more of an attempt to prevent the dissemination of information through items such as Google Documents, which one could use through secure access within China to see, e.g., Zhao Ziyang's memoirs or publish a technical review of the Green Dam.

That said, Gmail and Google are slowly being enabled in China, with netizens in various provinces reporting the outage reversing.

the_reda June 25 2009, 02:40:40 UTC

Argh. K, chalked up to another 'oh China, headdesk' then. Proxies are my friend.

poubelle June 25 2009, 04:23:10 UTC

Yeah, I can't pimp TOR enough. ; ) (TOR is safer than regular proxies because it has two jumps rather than one. However the jumps can slow things down, especially in China.)

If you have twitter, watching wenyunchao, issac (mao), or #FuckGFW can help for updates and tips. Wen Yunchao is also calling for people to use proxies and anon browsing software; you can sign up for the action here

the_reda June 25 2009, 05:00:28 UTC

I using Tor, but Google and Tor and not friends at the best of times. Gmail loads 50/50 and search gets a 'verify you are human' 7 out of 10 times. I tend to just use yahoo instead.

Thread 7

cougarfang June 25 2009, 02:38:00 UTC

Does Down For Everyone Or Just Me work there?

the_reda June 25 2009, 02:39:27 UTC

:D that one was down last night, too. Murphy ...

FYI, Financial Times' coverage poubelle June 25 2009, 04:32:37 UTC

China blocks Google websiteBy Kathrin Hille in Beijing and Richard Waters in San Francisco ( ... )

chinkerfly June 25 2009, 15:16:03 UTC

Most of my friends in China say Google is back up for them. Are you still having problems with it? Did using https:// for gmail help at all?