Internet Filtering in China in 2004 2005 

keywords; the hackers posted the cracked list to a Chinese Bulletin Board System.

168

  The list includes 

terms in categories that includes national minorities' independence movements, the Tiananmen Square 

incident, Falun Gong, proper names of Chinese Communist Party leaders, and sensitive non proper nouns 

(such as generic words relating to uprisings or oppression).  ONI used this list of keywords to test the blog 

filtering mechanism for each of the three providers.  We found that Blogbus and BlogCN filtered only 18 

and 19 keywords, respectively, while Blogdriver filtered 350 of the terms.  We discovered that, when 

triggered, the filtering software for BlogCN and Blogdriver prevented the user from completing the post 

and issued a pop up alert.  Blogbus replaced sensitive keywords with  *  characters.  We also found that 

the controls were not fool proof, and were able to bypass them by inserting characters, such as dashes, to 

split up sensitive keywords. 

The censorship of Web logs demonstrates that China pursues a multi pronged campaign to 

regulate the Internet, not only by limiting access to established Web sites, but also by controlling what 

content Chinese authors can post online domestically.   

H. Google Cache Testing 

Google is one of the most popular search engines for users worldwide.  Google's cache function, 

though, allows users to access (at least intermittently) filtered content, because the request for that 

material goes to Google's servers, not to the blocked source's servers.

169

  Concerned by this circumvention 

method, China temporarily blocked access to Google in September 2002

170

; requests for Google's site were 

redirected to Chinese search engines.

171

  According to the company, Google negotiated with Chinese 

officials, and eventually access was restored.

172

However, we found that while Google's site is accessible to Chinese users,

173

 the Google cache

174

and certain keyword searches are blocked.  To test access to Google in China, we connected to 37 Google 

servers from 11 remote computers located on four different backbone networks in China, and also from a 

remote testing facility.  We found that the filtering mechanism blocking Google's cache is triggered by the 

text string  search?q=cache  in the HTTP GET request; this occurs whether the request is sent to a Google 

server or to a different site's server.  A user making such a keyword request   seeking to access a site's 

cache   experiences disrupted access to the site.

175

168

 This list is archived at http://www.opennetinitiative.net/bulletins/008/bbs.pdf. 

169

 See, e.g., Gutmann, Losing the New China at 164 65. 

170

 China Blocking Google, BBC News, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2231101.stm (Sept. 2, 2002). 

171

 Berkman Center for Intenet & Society, Replacement of Google with Alternative Search Systems in China: 

Documentation and Screen Shots, at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/google replacements/ (Sept. 24, 

2002). 

172

 See Jay Lyman, Google Responds to China Ban, NewsFactor Technology News, at 

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19279.html (Sept. 3, 2002); see also Tim Richardson, Google China Crisis 

Over, The Register, at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09/12/google_china_crisis_over/ (Sept. 12, 2002). 

173

 See the enumeration report documenting our test results at 

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/bulletins/006/googleservers.html. 

174

 See the enumeration report documenting our test results at 

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/bulletins/006/googlecacheservers.html. 

175

 See OpenNet Initiative, Probing Chinese Search Engine Filtering, at 

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/bulletins/005/index.html#filtering (Aug. 19, 2004). 

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