Recently in Internet Category

In between the site being up and down in a kind of ongoing ping-pong game - I managed to grab a screen grab. And here it is.

It may seem an obscure point to 'attack' - but one thing is for sure, it's certainly drawing attention.

When I first arrived in China over two years ago, I was somewhat irked by the fact that I was unable to get my daily dose of news from the BBC. Now after using hundreds of Proxies, and investing in a VPN -- What happens? You guessed it. It's unblocked -- kind of. It seems as though the firewall is still in place for Chinese language services on the website and for any links in Chinese.

'People in China are able to access English language stories on the BBC News website in full, after years of strict control by Beijing.

The Communist authorities often block news sites such as the BBC in a policy dubbed the "great firewall of China".

But BBC staff working in China now say they are able to access news stories that would have been blocked before.'

Now, the cynic in me questions the reasoning behind this. And bear with me here. Could it be that this website has become unblocked as part of a 'knee jerk' reaction to the fact that Media coverage of recent events has, at best, been 'questionable due in part, to the fact that foreign journalists have been denied access to these troubled areas? And that the authorities are trying to give a 'balanced' viewpoint to those that can read English? Or, is it another way to inflame people by saying: 'Look, this is what they're saying...'

Or are we seeing the start of the 'Opening Up' policy in the final countdown to the Olympics? If so, why have the BBC been rejected by the Chinese government as part of the foreign media organisations trip to Tibet?

Full article available here.

Now imagine that you are a the epitome of the perfect Mother -- all that you want is to desperately find your daughter the perfect husband. After a quick Google search it appears as though your prayers have been answered, or have they? Read on...

A Chinese 'army major' who dated a string of girls and cheated them out of £16,000 (RMB 224,031) has allegedly been exposed as a con artist - and a woman.

Police say Li Xu, from Anxian town, Sichuan province, had been disguising herself as an army officer for two years.

She was arrested after Liu Lian, of Datong city, Shanxi province, reported she had been cheated out of £11,000 (RMB 154,021) by an army major named Li Zhanyu who she had met on the internet.

Li had described himself as a university-educated army major, reports Oriental Today.

Liu Lian said: "He said he wanted to date my daughter, but first needed money to break up with his current girlfriend. He also promised to find my daughter a good job."

But, after Liu wired the money, Li disappeared from her life.

Police caught up with him at an internet cafe in Kaifeng city. He reportedly told arresting officers: "You'll regret this. You'll pay for this. I'll call the leaders of the National Public Security Department."

Police thought he was a conman at this stage but their suspicions grew during questioning as they noticed his high-pitched voice and fair complexion.

A check-up by female police revealed Li to be a 25-year-old woman. She confessed she had cheated another two women with the same marriage con.

Li has been transferred to police in Shanxi province where she faces charges.

Hold on a minute...

'...their suspicions grew during questioning as they noticed his high-pitched voice and fair complexion.'

And...

'A check-up by female police revealed Li to be a 25-year-old woman.'

Now one look at the above photograph reveals to me that the person in it either has some kind of 'padding' of the chest, or -- shine a light -- is a woman. And before I get inundated with comments about how some men can be a little large in that area, spare me.

Now I'm all for meeting people online, and indeed meeting them socially for a drink or dinner, from what I've been told it can be relatively harmless. But if that picture would have ended up in my inbox -- believe me I would have been suspicious.

But really, I ask you -- How can it take three people to identify this person as a woman?

I guarantee that this 'Major' didn't take part in any of the winter training that Chris mentions below...

Full story available here.

When it comes to the Internet, the Chinese government is doing its utmost to ensure that we don't view any pornographic material, that we adhere to harmonious principles, and we are protected. Which doesn't explain why Wikipedia is blocked... but alas.

We all have our favorite proxies to view this dangerous material, and one of the most popular ones is Anonymouse. So it was great to see that it has finally come out with a full toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox:

The Anonymouse Toolbar enables privacy-aware users to use Anonymouse easily independently of the Anonymouse website and is also offering additional data-security-functions. The Toolbar is available for the browsers Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, it can be downloaded for free at http://Anonymouse.org/addons/toolbar/.

This makes it much easier to stop by Wikipedia and other blogs that are routinely blocked. A nice present to ring in 2008.

Ok, not to get overly sentimental here, but I feel I have to give a little something back to the guys who helped kindle my interest in putting my pedantic, and often times, pedestrian thoughts on the internet for all to read. Shortly after Zhongnanhai was launched by our faithful and studious leader Cam (you owe me a beer for this kind of language), an offer was made to become a contributor. Hesitant at first, mainly because I'm a lazy bastard, I eventually began offering up the occasional thought. But it wasn't until the good folks over at the China Law Blog took one of my entries and systematically picked it apart like a mid-40's migrant worker on an ear of corn that I finally began to realize that the blogging world has more than just a random collection of teenage angst and Trekkies. That being said, I'd like to take this opportunity to help those who have helped open my eyes. (place tearful sobbing sound here)

The guys over at China Law Blog have been chosen to be part of the American Bar Association's awards competition for law blogs. Click here to get the skinny about the contest from their blog.

Now, admittedly, when I hit a post on their site about tort and other such legal mumbo-jumbo, I tend to start contemplating the complexities of the Kirk-Spock relationship, and why Roddenberry didn't stick with the original Christopher Pike character as Captain. However, their site has provided me some great insight into the legal world here in China when it comes to business, and is written in such a way that a relative Cro-Magnon like me can understand (unless there are more than 2 syllables). So take a sec and give the guys over at Harris & Moure a shot at the title!

Well... traditional Chinese, anyway.

I'm taking daily Chinese classes now at Tsinghua University, and one of my classmates emailed me and asked if I was on Friendster. No, I'm not... although I've certainly heard of it and my email inbox fills up quite nicely with Friendster sign-up requests.

Perhaps Friendster is much more popular in China than Facebook, which I waste way too much time on, or MySpace, which recently launched its Chinese edition. And to build on its growth here, Friendster has launched its website with a Chinese-language interface.

This is a strategic move for Friendster, as numbers have shown that it's far from dead in the Asia-Pacific region, where 35 million of its 50 million users are based--in fact, ComScore numbers have indicated that with global growth taken into account, Friendster is growing more quickly than MySpace. Traditional Chinese, the company noted, is used by 16 percent of Internet users.

Unlike MySpace, which operates a number of international verticals in different languages, Friendster's Chinese version will exist atop the same domain as its English-language site. This way, English-speaking users will be able to network with Chinese-speaking users and vice versa.

According to a release from the company, "While other social networking sites create separate sites for different countries and make it difficult or impossible to have international friend networks, Friendster is the first global online social network to employ this approach to allow and encourage multi-cultural exchange and communications among users around the world who are interested in doing so."

I'd be nice if people in China gave Facebook a try... or if Facebook started a Chinese-language version to encourage Chinese involvement. Nearly all of my friends on Facebook are people from home or other foreigners in China. Considering the large number of Chinese people I've met since I moved here, hardly any use Facebook. It seems to be a laowai kind of thing.

Perhaps I'll have to give Friendster a try one of these days... although with blogging, MSN Messenger, Facebook, the Drudge Report, and Google Reader, I don't think I need any more reasons to waste time.