Photographers Guide: Internet in China

Good Luck,

Mads Nissen, Shanghai/ China

1. SURFING THE WEB.
The ‘Great Wall of China’ censors any website it deems sensitive or unwholesome, that which includes major news sources, organizations and anything that promotes the spreading of free information. So in order to ensure a clear and thorough surfing experience without too much frustrating obstructions, many expats in China have chosen to employ the technologies of VPN (Virtual Private Network) and proxies. VPN allows you to connect to a remote network via a private channel which encrypts all the information that passes through it. Services are provided by various companies abroad and available for subscription over the internet. VPN providers such as Witopia (www.witopia.net) (recommended and works with Mac). Proxies on the other hand, are also a good alternative. Just do a search on the internet for proxy servers, and you will tons of servers you can connect to by just simply inputting the anonymous server ip and port number it gives you. The down side is that sometimes it makes many tries before you will find one that works. Another type of proxy is through proxy websites, where you’re literally surfing through the website’s server. These are usually quite good, such as www.anonymouse.org.

2. SENDING YOUR PICTURES.
For those of us who are accustomed to uploading and downloading via FTP, you will realize as soon as you get to China that FTP speeds are nowhere near where it once was. Instead, upload and download can still be done (more or less) painlessly via Gmail, as long as your file is reasonably sized. Try to stay below 10mb. per email.

3. AVOID SENSITIVE WORDS.
When searching through various search engines, it is best to leave out the sensitive topics, such as ‘f@|ung0ng’, ‘fr33 t!b3t’ and etc. Reason being most likely the search engine you are using already censors according to Chinese internet regulations, and when the internet sends out these search terms, it is detected by the ‘wall’ and what you will end up with is probably a time-out or ‘connection has be reset’ outcome. And if you host a web domain or blog site, it is best not to include these terms on your site unless you don’t plan on reaching any Chinese audiences; because the mention of sensitive topic in your blog or site will directly cause it to be blocked or banned. Also avoid using these sensitive words when writing captions in the IPTC-field, as your file may end up “corrupt” if your send it (on email or FTP).

4. CONNECTING TO THE INTERNET ON THE MOBILE NETWORK.
A way of getting internet access wherever you are is by purchasing a GPRS wireless modem. It accesses the internet via mobile signals, so you’re given a SIM card that’s inserted into your wireless modem which plugs into your UBS outlet. No need to worry about finding the nearest ‘net bar’ when you’re out in the middle of nowhere. The model “HUAWEI EG162”, is supposedly the only one that’s compatible with macs. It’s 1800RMB for the modem, SIM and 80hrs of access every month for a year.

by Mads Nissen at Sat May 31 16:32:09 UTC 2008 Shanghai, China | Bookmark this | Digg this |