SCMP: Probe into blocked Net sites Harvard Law School researchers testing China's firewall expect to list 1,000 locations

South China Morning Post
09/04/2002

Harvard Law School researchers have launched a Web page to test China's Internet firewall, allowing visitors to suggest sites to be tested.

Ben Adelman, a co-author of the project, said it aimed to make clear which sites were being blocked.[..]

The researchers hope to publish their findings in the next few months, and expect to list more than 1,000 blocked sites, of more than 60,000 tested.

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"Our goal then is to impose the transparency of the ordinary world, of the real world of customs inspectors and police. By letting the world know what is filtered and what is not filtered."
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As well, private testing over the past several months has shown certain sites were being blocked by the Chinese government.

Several Hong Kong newspapers are inaccessible, including Ming Pao and Apple Daily. [..]

Mr Adelman said the main site for Columbia University in New York was blocked because some pages contained information about [..] Falun Gong.

A search at Columbia.edu brings up 270 items on Falun Gong.

California Institute of Technology and University of Arizona are two other universities subject to blocking.

So far the study has shown that China's filters have been unable to block specific pages within a site, Mr Adelman said.

"As best I can tell when the Chinese network seeks to block access to a body of content, their technology requires them to block access to an entire Web server," he said.[..]

Geocities, which allows individual users to build their own sites and put them up for public viewing, is blocked.[..]

China is estimated to have more than 40 million Web users.
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