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The "very important meeting" is going to be held soon. To prepare a "good environment" for the meeting, massive websites in China were shutdown. This time, much different from the previous actions, it is the whole data center instead of websites or servers that were shutdown.
Let me take few famous IDCs (Internet Data Center) as examples. Zitian, an IDC in Luoyang was shutdown completely, and all the 500 servers were unplugged from Internet, and tens of thousands of websites hosted there were inaccessible on Aug 24. Among them is the largest traffic tracking site 51.la, and this infected a very big portion of Internet websites in China.
Soon, on Aug 28, Lanmang, the other IDC in Shantou faced the same situation. Again, tens of thousands of websites were complete inaccessible. An unconfirmed news said the data center closed in Shantou has 3000 servers, and they are all closed. Lanmang has to hire lots of trunks to put all these servers and distribute the servers into many other data centers across China. I doubt this can work, since the fate of other data centers may not be better after few days. However, what else can they do? I understand how painful people feel when a site is shutdown.
After that, news about whole IDC was shutdown came one after one, and each time, at least hundreds of servers were complete unplugged from Internet. Since these IDC host about 100 to 200 websites per server, I cannot imagine how many sites were shutdown. If this continues, I guess the total number of shutdown sites may quickly be one million. In Shanghai, many data centers were very simply completely unplugged, and each time, hundreds of servers or tens of thousands of websites were disconnected from Internet. The Waigaoqiao Data Center, the largest and one of the most advanced data centers in Shanghai were completely closed these days.
That is just the beginning. The recent order from the "top guy" requires all Internet Data Center to mandatory close all "interactive sites". These sites include any kind of blogging, any kinds of BBS, or online forum, any kinds of comment features available on blog or content site. They really mean it this time. Many of my friends have closed the comment feature of their personal blog - many not be themselves, but by the hosting company.
It seems the pressure from top really makes people take it seriously. These days, all kinds of people are busy.
If you ask me how I feel, as a blogger in China, I would say I am very very very frustrated about it.
Posted by Jian Shuo Wang at September 4, 2007 10:14 PM
Copyright: You are free to redistribute this work, as long as you keep this disclaimer
and this link: http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20070904_yes_i_am_very_frustrated.htm
I'm very disappointed about the G*O*V.
Very very disappointed.
I'm now using 72pines blogging service instead of my host.
I think the next step is to close host abroad.
Please do backup everyday.
Posted by: iworm (external link) on September 4, 2007 11:39 PMOh, that sounds really bad.
If anyone needs any discount codes etc. from DreamHost, please let me know. I guess that is the only thing I am able to do to help.
Posted by: Miikka (external link) on September 4, 2007 11:54 PMI was wondering why i couldn't open many foreign blogs last night.
Now i think i know the answer.
I haven't known such things before i read this article.
I still cannot create a account in weblog.com.
Who can help me?
Let's try to view it as a good thing. These could be what happens:
More blogs are moved to abroad.
The writters will be more open about what they write
They will attract more readers
The blogs will be blocked
People will try to use proxies, some of them like tor is unblockable in theory
And finally, with the G F W is rendered useless.
This is awful! I hope your blog won't be shutdown.
Posted by: Helen W (external link) on September 5, 2007 11:11 AMWe have a community organisation in Shanghai, with website hosted abroad, and own domain name. Yes, it has comment features, discussions, etc. It too, is blocked.
This is only delaying the inevitable; information is like a river, and it knows no boundaries.
This is sad. The top decision makers are still living in the past. This is the 21st century, they fear flow of information, but don't understand it that it cannot possibly be blocked.
Posted by: ali on September 5, 2007 1:17 PMMaybe several years later, they begin to realize that they do not have the ability to block information unless to shutdown the entire Internet in China.
Posted by: iWorm (external link) on September 5, 2007 2:24 PMI have just arrived in Shanghai last week. As soon as I tried starting my blog from here I encountered some problems. blogspot.com only works with tor/vidalia and some of my friends who stay in other cities in China can't even use tor/vidalia to write/read their blogs. As a European I am very disapointed of such ignorant methods to prevent freedom of speech. Hopefully Chinese people will try everything to regain freedom and to express their own opinions.
Posted by: huangdi on September 5, 2007 2:29 PMMaybe this article will soon be removed/censored like:
http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20070825_censorship_in_china_a_complete_guidebook.htm
Sad Sad
Posted by: jiayou on September 5, 2007 4:06 PMI finally see why i couldn't blog at sina.com:-)
how long will it last???
what the "very important meeting" is??
Posted by: fd on September 5, 2007 9:46 PMWe're waiting on the checks in the main data centre in Wu Sheng lu.
Supposed to be happening in 2 days time.
So far, I've been backing up data to other servers, and setting up additional servers in case of issues. If they close the data centre down its a different story though.
Aggghhhhh... stress stress stress.
Lawrence / www.shanghaiguide.com / www.computersolutions.cn
Posted by: Lawrence (external link) on September 5, 2007 11:17 PMYes. The recent pressure on the cyber space is really the most obvious one in the last few years.
Posted by: Jian Shuo Wang (external link) on September 6, 2007 12:01 AMThe website & hosting business in China is always problematic. I understand your frustrations. I've actually turned down one of my best friends for hosting, simply because I know for a fact what kind of content he planned on having, and knew for a fact that it would eventually get his site, and possibly my servers blocked. In that sense, why host in mainland China when you can host in Hong Kong China? My servers come from there, simply to avoid China's scrutiny (so far... I know this can change at any given time.) That, and during the internet crash of last december, HK servers were unaffected. Need some hosting? Give us a shot!
Eric
Posted by: Eric D (external link) on September 6, 2007 9:20 AMThey are making a very obvious mistake.
Posted by: Richard Hong (external link) on September 6, 2007 10:52 PMUnfortunately our site is one of servers which got unplugged in Waigaoqiao Data Center.
The most ridiculous thing is that they only found very few servers have questionable information, and they closed the whole center down.
Thousands of servers have been unplugged for 3 days, and still no certain answer were given by the authorities. I wonder how Internet business can grow in such a fragile environment.
For all the bloggers in the world and in China, this a retrograde step in the culture and not only affects China but the whole world, it is true that if you blog, you should have something worthy to say but why to deny this access to the whole population? Why do they do this....??? Only one terrible but undeniable answer!!!
FEARRRRRRR!!
They fear the people, their ideas, their complaints.
When will the govnt from the world (and obviously china!) realize that if they really work well their people will be truly happy and there wont be any need of being afraid!!!!
If the fear is that they know the are not doing things right!
Good luck Jianshuo! Pls dont disappear, you are my inspiration!!!
The best!!! And let's keep fighting!!!
Posted by: Claudia Frias (external link) on September 7, 2007 1:04 PMYou are turning to a sensitive subject as the 'very important meeting' is coming soon.
Posted by: YangYuChun (external link) on September 7, 2007 3:16 PMI sadly was quite right, when I was afraid that this article is also deleted.... in fact, this article can not be found anymore on your blog, only if you have the direct URL.
Jia You!
Do you know why our G*o*v hate "Junk Mail" ?
Anything can be use as media they all hate...
Posted by: bsbsbs on September 12, 2007 1:19 PM