As I reported in earlier blogs, we have been suffering from e-mail problems since May at least. I wrote a couple of strong-worded reports to the Beijing authorities, my usual frustrating task. Indeed, one should never expect a direct feedback from our Chinese officials. But they did take note as I learned in a meeting with them.
On the other hand, our not-so-enthusiastic (foreign) chambers of commerce here were running away and burying their heads in the sand. Pathetic really. I wrote to some people who were experiencing serious problems; some did not even bother to acknowledge receipt. Sometimes I wonder why I try to help people. As my wife says, I am too friendly.
As I have explained, I was convinced the problems were rather technical, not really a result of a tightening control on communications – just bad software.
Well, we certainly have to say thanks to our English “boffins” from Cambridge University, one Mr. Richard Clayton in particular. They made a serious study of the way CISCO routers look for keywords that the Chinese government wishes to censor. The routers allow data packets in and out, but send a burst of resets to shut connections if they spot particular keywords. And they found a couple of interesting hitches. In a surprise move they have reported their findings to the Chinese Government so that it can fix the problem. This is not the first time Cambridge boffins have assisted a Communist power with its security, according to an article from Nick Farrell. In this case it was a smart move and we are grateful.

Yes, “thank you Uncle Sam”. We all know how much you are concerned in “defending freedom”. Just put them together with all those other famous companies of the same kind – no need to name them, you know who they are. Except Wikipedia who refuses to “cooperate”.
At least CISCO and their friends started cleaning up their mess and we are now again back to normal, well, kind of. At least for our e-mail. I did not experience any more breakdowns in downloading e-mails from overseas servers (e.g. to Outlook, not my case coz I never touch this pest).
Even download speeds seem to have picked up. I also note the Internet routing has been reconfigured through different routers before diving into the submarine cable – where we still see a sizeable reduction in transmission speeds before emerging on the US West Coast.
All in all, reason to be more happy.
If now our Chinese “specialists” would take care a bit of the flood of spam that has increased lately. We all can see the bulk is generated in China – even foreign spammers are said to use Chinese servers. The spam is totally out of control, I was told there is lots of sex stuff as well as scams (I don’t read the Chinese spam). Despite some tepid announcements from certain officials, nobody really cares. I guess they want to respect our freedom of choice?