26 July 2004

The Great Internet Firewall of Singapore

Officially, Singapore had migrated to server-side automatic proxies (aka "transparent proxies") more than 2 years ago, and no one needs to set the manual proxies on their pc.

However, about 4 months ago, Singnet subscribers complained that they were redirected to some very odd webpage whenever they tried to access any blogspot page. Unless of course, they manually typed in their proxy settings to proxy.singnet.com.sg.

I guess Singapore's ISP must be experimenting with more advanced censorship and usage-snooping technologies, causing a few very visible hiccups.

Singnet users, this is yet another chance to experience censorship technology from the Lee dynasty's favourite ISP.

Try this:

1. Disable your browser's manual proxy settings and change them to automatic or none.

2. You should be able to surf most websites normally.

3. Now, direct your browser to google or gmail.

4. Observe: no loading.

5. Change your proxy settings to the singnet-approved one.

6. Reload your browser to google or gmail.

7. Switch and repeat if insufficiently convinced.

8. Take bets on how long the 'hiccups' will continue.

And maybe, just maybe... wonder how to beat this very weird system.

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