A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Subjective History of Chinese Internet censorship and its countermeasures | Chengyuan Ma's Blog

The title was inspired by the priceless A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages. "翻墙，" or "going over the wall," has been an open secret for Chinese Internet users for quite some time. Accessing Google in China takes much more than typing google.com in one's browser bar -- in fact, so much that it becomes somewhat a shared experience that few outsiders could understand. The walls are becoming higher and higher while the ladders are also becoming better and better. It's a constant struggle that's been going on for at least two decades. Personally, my struggle with censorship is almost as long as the total time I've been using the Internet. In retrospect, both the technological complexity and the evolution of both parties in the struggle have been truly fascinating, if not epic. But so far, there seems to be no complete recorded history on this subject -- what a pity! I suppose I can make an attempt here. I will tell the story mainly in chronological order.

The title was inspired by the priceless A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages. "翻墙，" or "going over the wall," has been an open secret for Chinese Internet users for quite some time. Accessing Google in China takes much more than typing google.com in one's browser bar -- in fact, so much that it becomes somewhat a shared experience that few outsiders could understand. The walls are becoming higher and higher while the ladders are also becoming better and better. It's a constant struggle that's been going on for at least two decades. Personally, my struggle with