RSS access completely obliterated for you guys?

[Entropy_Rising]

I did a search and also noticed no current threads at the top of this forum, so I think I may be the first one breaching this topic.

I've seen a lot of coverage on the blogosphere about a whole slew of websites being blocked as a result of the turmoil in you-know-where, but I've seen less coverage on the havoc that has been unleashed on on internet technology that is much more relevant to my browsing habits: RSS feeds.

My question is: has anyone else been suffering utter chaos and lack of accessibility in their RSS news aggregators after the poop hit the fan in the West?

I use Google Reader and before a week ago, I would receive RSS updates extremely smoothly and on schedule. I guess I grew too dependent, but GReader evolved into my window into the internet, where I could check and see if and when my favorite sites were updated at one place.

However, after the rioting, Google Reader totally got clobbered. Several of my feeds refuse to update, some feeds don't register as "read" after I read them, a number of them are completely unaccessible when clicked, and yet others lock up Google Reader, forcing me to close the tab it is in - yes, the nanny is on such a hideous rampage that she's causing freaking websites to "lock up." When I click on certain feeds it clears up, says "Loading," then doesn't do anything.

The most heavily effected feeds are ones about China, but annoyingly other feeds are getting screwed up, too.

I was hoping this had to do with Greader being an online aggregator so I downloaded both FeedDemon and Omea to try my luck with a desktop RSS reader. Unfortunately, the desktop programs actually fared much worse. Perhaps 80% of all my feeds, Chinese related or not, are inaccessible from the desktop programs.

I'm positive this has to do with new censorship techniques unleashed in light of recent events, but I'm surprised there hasn't been as much buzz about it on the Chinese expat blogosphere. I've seen people comment on the lack of youtube, newspapers, news sites, etc., but I've only found so far one person who's encountered the exact same problem which verifies my suspicion that it's "not just me" despite the relative lack of attention that's been paid to the issue.

Is anyone else who is RSS dependent like myself encountering the same problem, and if so you how have you been handling it?

Thanks.

[roddy]

Interesting. I use bloglines to subscribe to a few of the BBC's Chinese language feeds, and I've had to start using my VPN there lately, but only because there are so many keywords in the articles at the moment that trigger filters. Nothing specifically RSS related.

With GReader, does it use AJAX to load stuff into a page without reloading the whole thing? If so you might be seeing keyword filtering on the content called by AJAX, hence causing the application to suffer problems. Also, that could trigger a temporary block for the site for your IP address, which might make it look like other non-sensitive feeds are also having / causing problems.

Does anyone know if desktop RSS readers work over http? I would assume they do and are therefore subject to keyword filtering and blocks. Certainly the url blocks apply - ie iTunes can't get to RFA's podcast RSS.

[gougou]

I'm using Google Reader, and I'm having no problems at all (aside from occasional blackouts, but these are just as a common as they were before the protests).

[imron]

and if so you how have you been handling it?

The same way I handle all internet problems in China - via proxy

[Entropy_Rising]

Bah I caved in and did what imron said to do. Well, sort of. I had always been using anonymouse and Tor but none of those are really effective solutions to my utterly wrecked RSS problem, so I figured if I'm going to take measures to fix Google Reader why don't I go whole hog and fix the WHOLE internet (for me, anyways). So I went to witopia and purchased a VPN tunnel with them.

I was right about the Greader problem, though. It's the nanny's fault. Because now that I have this witopia tunnel running smoothly greader has no issues whatsoever. And hell I can read BBC and PhD comics without turning doohickeys on, using anonymouse, or otherwise slowing my internet connection to a trickle!

[imron]

Although it can be a pain to have to turn it on/login, it really does just make things simpler.

[roddy]

Witopia's great, I use it a lot. Works for all applications and doesn't slow anything down to any noticeable extent. I had an issue a couple of days ago where mail (Thunderbird via SMTP) appeared to be going missing, but it all turned up about 12 hours later and even that's fixed now. Bargain at the price too.

[imron]

What does Witopia charge?

[roddy]

I think it's $40 a year for a VPN - yep, it's the personalVPN product I have $39.99 for a year, Paypal accepted. They're also currently giving you a PPTP VPN for free with that, which is apparently what you want for smartphones, the iPhone, etc, but I haven't been able to get that running on mine yet. It does work on my laptop, but that already has the VPN.

As far as I'm concerned it's great value for money. I get a little icon in my taskbar, double click it and it connects in about 10 seconds. It can then just be left on, doesn't get in the way and I don't notice it slowing anything down. Actually that's not entirely true, I guess I have noticed a slowing on Chinese sites.

Edit: Should also add that it slows P2P stuff right down, but to be honest I'm surprised they let it through at all . . .

[roddy]

Having thought about this a bit more I'm wondering if I've seen it happen and just not noticed. On itunes I have two podcasts - 德国之声 and the BBC's Chinareel which, while not url blocked, are quite likely to include keywords in their blurb / titles which might trigger filters. And more than once I've noticed iTunes failing to get to the feed and download the new podcast, including today. Previously I'd just put it down to a dodgy network, or problems at their end, but having now compared what happens with the VPN on and off, I've decided it's a keyword filtering issue.

I was aware of the problems iTunes had with url blocks - that's the reason I coughed up for the VPN - but it had never occurred to me that keyword filters would also be an issue.

[Entropy_Rising]

So I'll come clean about my location - I'm in Xinjiang - and that may have something to do with it. A friend of mine who's running a non-commercial VPN over here told me today that as of this morning he can't access any non-Chinese sites. It's getting really bad. I don't know how the censors cracked his VPN but I hope they don't get through to witopia. Or I'll want my money back .

[lilongyue]

Don't use RSS feeds, but the way I've been effected by the recent information "crunch" is that my primary email is unusable. I've been using it for 4 years or so, 3 here in China, but because the email is my name in a *ahem* certain language, and the picture in the email's profile is painting of a Buddha from "that" place, I'm totally cut off from it. I can get to the gmail login page, and then after I enter user name and password it starts to load then hangs before the inbox opens. If I then go the google, I can see that I'm logged in, but no matter which way I try to get access to the inbox the same thing happens. I was able to open it through a proxy, and enabled the POP forwarding service. I have no idea how long this is going to go on for, but I hope I'll be able to use it again some day.

My friend is putting together a video that he plans on having someone upload to youtube about this stuff. He's been taking screen shots of him trying to open certain pages, and is even running trace routes to show the route the internet information is taking, copying and pasting the IP address of the place the traffic is (prematurely) terminating into a database to show who is responsible for it.

By the way, just around the time youtube was blocked, some very propaganda-ish material appeared about this "troubled place." It's so obvious who did it, and the fact that there were tens of thousands of hit and comments, even within one day, and the heavy handed approach, proves that it's the product of a certain govenment.

[imron]

Do you login using the SSL version of gmail?

https://gmail.google.com

(note the s in https).

[lilongyue]

I don't think is makes any difference. I heard that there are no truly secure SSL connections here. On a related notes, here's an interesting article: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4177

[roddy]

It might not be any more secure, but it often works better . . .

[imron]

I don't think is makes any difference.

A couple of years ago, I was getting similar sorts of problems with gmail. Switching to the https version fixed everything.

[lilongyue]

One of my last attempts to login to the email account in question was a failure, and I double checked to see if it was the "secure" version of gmail, it was. It's pretty obvious what's going on here. It's part of the larger information "filtering" that's at work. The email name is a natebiT one, so it got caught up in the mechanisms of the censorship machinery. Oh well. Part and parcel of living in this country . . .

[imron]

and I double checked to see if it was the "secure" version of gmail, it was

One thing I should also add is that it's not enough to just check whether there is https in the title of the login page. The login pages all use https by default, however gmail then usually switches back to http for the main mail. You need to actually visit the login page: https://gmail.google.com and log in from there, and then the entire session will use SSL (and not just the login page). I just tested it out by creating the address tibetanindependence@gmail.com and didn't have any issues. If that still doesn't work, then a VPNs is probably a good investment

[gougou]

I just tested it out by creating the address tibetanindependence@gmail.com and didn't have any issues.

So did you have any issues without SSL?

[imron]

Didn't check. Does anyone want to send a bunch of emails containing sensitive terms/images to that email address and I'll check.