internet - Filtering is not effective

(tomorrow at Poynter.org)

"State-of-the-art technology" and "its sophistication is greater than ever" writes Paul Mooney in yesterday's International Herald Tribune about the 18 months old filtering techniques China is using to control the internet. Traditionally it used so-called url-blocks that would block access to a certain IP-addresses, but they were easy to circumvent and so-called proxies belonged in the past to the standard tools of any seasoned internet user. Even if they were blocked now and then, they could easily be replaced and nowadays it is possible to use proxies for months without problem. Now RSS-readers also offer a good alternative.
The estimated 100-million US dollar worth filtering equipment proved to be a misinvestment in the month after it was introduced. That technology searched incoming data for key words and disconnected an internet connection for half an hour as a punishment. That crippled the internet traffic to such a degree that is started to hurt China's economic interests. One 'wrong' email could stop all other emails, creating a potentially dangerous tool for anybody that wanted to bring China's internet to a standstill.
After five or six weeks somebody decided enough was enough and since then I get again my emails about Falun Gong and all that information the filters were expect to stop. Every now and then somebody tinkers with the system, when the National People's Congress is in session or when Chen Shuibian gets shot, but otherwise only the traditional url-blocks are only up. Last month some weblog hosts got hit by this simple block, but as long as I can read the Chinese website of the pro-independence party DPP in Taiwan without proxy I do not take the control that serious.