BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Breaking down the Great Firewall

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Breaking down the Great Firewall

Breaking down the Great Firewall
By Kevin Anderson
BBC News

The complex system that the Chinese government uses to control the flow of information - known as the Great Firewall - has holes.

And these holes became more evident during the recent anti-Japan protests as a complex system of text messages, blogs, online instant messages, e-mail and bulletin board systems spread word about the marches.

The Chinese government and the Chinese people constantly play a cat and mouse game over the flow of information.

For every new restriction and technical door that the government slams shut, the Chinese people find a hack, a workaround or an entirely new way of communicating.