I won't claim to be the best tech in the world, the computer knowledge I have is somewhat incomplete and learned on the fly. One thing I have learned though, is how to surf to "
blocked websites". I do it everyday I surf. You might be surprised at some of the sites that I have seen blocked. The usual sites seem to be tech boards, public proxy sites, torrent sites and porn sites. I have even had access denied to me for Akiba-Online on more than one occasion. But the internet was not designed to inhibit access to websites, that goes against the very soul of its' existence. There are ways around these types of "filters" which prohibit access to certain websites.
A clear indicator you are being denied access to a website is a 403
forbidden error. Mostly this is from the ISP you are surfing from,(although some are honest enough to actually tell you they denying you access), and occasionally this is from the website itself,(they are running an IP filter or you are trying to access a part of the site without administrator rights or something along those lines).
Sometimes a 404 "
not found" message will come up for a blocked website. Then it is harder to discern whether the website is actually down or being blocked.
Tor is useful for staying anonymous and accessing blocked websites but it can be frustrating because the exitnodes are hard to control ,(if not impossible at times), as well as your request may be blocked by the exitnodes ISP. However Tor uses a variety or exitnodes and sooner or later you will usually gain access to the site you were trying to access.
While most countries, including China, that I have come across use different "filters" depending on the ISP you are accessing it can be hard to determine
who is blocking what without the trial and error approach. Proxies are very handy in this case and generally a proxy from the same country as the site you are trying to access well do the trick of bypassing any block your own ISP has set in place. For looking up domain names and such one handy site is:
http://www.all-nettools.com/toolbox/network-tools.htm
Public proxies are not illegal to use, although I don't claim to know the law in every country. For very restrictive and suppressive countries such as China I would suggest Tor as opposed to most proxies or proxy services. Tor encrypts your traffic which is something a regular proxy won't do, this greatly inhibits snooping of your traffic by your own ISP.
In general I am sad to hear about the "porn crackdown" in China. I despise censorship in principal and believe everyone should be their own judge as to what they should and should not see. People should not be treated as inorganic robots controlled by their own governments to do and think only how they are told. While I respect the law and the need for it, as well as rules and regulations in order to protect and serve societies in general, an individuals rights to free will should always be respected and honored. This is my opinion anyway.
erfectplan: