SubscribeWhat Actually Happened in Last Thursday on Foreign Search Engines?
Last Thursday night(Beijing Time), three main foreign search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo and MSN Live.com) all encountered problems of being redirected to Baidu. There were tons of the reports on this issue already, either from highly-influential blogs as Techcrunch and Search Engine Land, or from main stream media as AFP.
The speculation to its reasons were diversified, some suggested it was a response to Bush’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, some thought the DNS hijacking was done by the ISPs, or it was the results of GFW upgrading and tweaking, someone even believed that it was motivated by economic benefits.
What actually happened that night? I agree with Rebecca MacKinnon that “The truth, it appears, lies in a murky grey area - as is often the case with China stories.” However, I tend to agree that it was an accident caused by tweaking, or probably upgrading, Great FireWall.
When we paid almost all our attentions on these search engines, in fact, someone also reported that Myspace encountered the same problem. Actually, I’m also a victim of the redirection, but not for search service. When I tried to access ResearchandMarkets at that night, I was redirected to a Baidu error page. If a site like ResearchandMarkets had similar problem, I think the redirection is not a “cyberwar” against search engines.
Some thought that the hijacking was done by ISPs such as China Netcom, and suggest to use OpenDNS service. But when I encountered redirection problem, I was using OpenDNS service. I’m not a tech expert, I don’t know whether I can conclude that the redirection was not caused by DNS hijack by ISPs, but higher level firewall, based on the fact that OpenDNS service also failed to send me to right website.
Based on these two observations above, I personally guess the problem was caused by tweaking GFW. What is the real truth behind it? None of us can answer it. But all of us hope it will not happen again.
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[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt […]
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptLast Thursday night(Beijing Time), three main foreign search engines (ie Google, Yahoo and MSN Live.com) all encountered problems of being redirected to Baidu. There were tons of the reports on this issue already, … […]
[…] from Michael J. Miller […]
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt"I personally guess the problem was cased by tweaking GFW. What is the real truth behind it? None of us can answer it. But all of us hope it will not happen again." […]
[…] full story here […]
Au contraire, Tangos.
It’s very plausible that the website you tried, “ResearchandMarkets” would also be blocked. If you had the chance that night, you would have found that any website containing the word “search” in the hostname was blocked. For another example, this site was unaccessible: “www.societyforterrorismresearch.org”. Does it make sense why? Perhaps you thought incorrectly: it is indeed a ‘”cyberwar” against search engines’, as you put it.
This whole, “tweaking, or probably upgrading,” notion sounds like an ill-informed explanation about a rather complicated problem. As it is known in academic circles, the GFW is not simply changed one-by-one, by hand. It in many senses is dynamic, and what about it do you speculate was “upgraded”? If it were not dynamic, how could they possibly keep up to the changes of the internet? Sure, you see people working manual labor jobs just to fill them, but this is not one of those instances.
Taken from the OpenDNS website, “…no matter where you are in the world your DNS requests are answered by our closest datacenter.” It’s probable these DNS servers were in China, adding to the likelihood of potential DNS poisoning, causing you and the other expats in China so many problems.
So, wrong guess?
Hi, Scot Frank,
First, I should make things more clear, I cannot access researchandmarkets at that night, but it works well later. But societyforterrorismresearch.org is obviously being blocked by GFW intendedly or accidentally. That’s different, I don’t think that’s because it has a “search” in its URL.
If you are right, then all website with “search” in URL will be blocked, obviously it is not the case. And how can you explain why Myspace was redirected too.
For OpenDNS, yes, the requests will be answered by OpenDNS’s closet datacenter, but from OpenDNS’s website, you will know there is no OpenDNS’s server in China.
Regarding GFW, it is too complicated, I think most of us, if not all of us, are just guessing how it works. We all know Youtube was blocked at that night, so I think it may suggest they were adjusting the filters. Yes, that’s just my guess. But I still insist in my guess so far.
Imagine, in a time of war, or opening salvo, that a goverment could stop all searches and be the sole source of information. Can you say ‘Dry Run’?!!