Architect of China's Great Firewall embarrassed into having to use a VPN during his own public talk
http://shanghaiist.com/2016/04/06/fan_binxing_uses_vpn_great_firewall.php Things got awkward really fast, however, when he attempted to access blocked web pages hosted in South Korea to demonstrate his point. From there his speech went from being a defense of the Firewall to a demonstration of its stupidity. Unable to access the websites he needed to continue his speech, Fang somewhat unexpectedly resorted to the same illicit tool which all expats in China are all familiar with: the beloved VPN. Those of us who have used VPNs in China know that it is at best a haphazard solution, with VPN users often plagued by spotty service and slow internet connections. This problem was also demonstrated by Fang, with his internet connection cutting out twice while trying to access Facebook and Google. The problem was so bad that he ended up resorting to using Baidu to find a screenshot of a Google homepage. The incident was so embarrassing that Fang ended up ducking out of a planned Q and A session that was supposed to take place after the speech, though not before exhorting his listeners to do he said and not as he did. - - - And the universe chuckled ... --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Founder: - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone. _______________________________________________ pfir mailing list http://lists.pfir.org/mailman/listinfo/pfir
