CAN'T KEEP A GOOD NEOCON DOWN: Interesting Weekly Standard article by Ethan Gutmann on the Chinese internet whose value as a channel for huddled masses yearning to breathe free has been choked off:

Before the crackdown one could escape and surf anonymously in a cybercaf or use a proxy server--another computer that acts as an intermediary between surfers and websites, helping to hide their web footprints and evade the filters. Not surprisingly, the most common search words in China were not "Britney" and "hooters," but "free" and "proxy." Fully 10 percent of Chinese users--about two million people--used proxies regularly in an attempt to circumvent government controls. In what Michael calls "the first sign of cleverness" by the government, a proxy pollution campaign began last spring when the Chinese authorities either developed or imported a system that sniffs the networks for signs of proxies. A user, frantically typing in proxy addresses until he finds one that isn't blocked, effectively provides the government with a tidy blacklist. After a few of these tedious sessions, many of my Chinese friends simply gave up climbing over the firewall. For a small fee, expat users could turn to a web-based proxy browser, such as Anonymizer. But credit cards are effectively blocked for Chinese citizens. Just for good measure, Anonymizer was finally blocked as well.

Good thing we have Peek-A-Booty now. Via kuro5hin.