Ambiera censored

Posted on:August 20 2007

Somebody told me that the website of my company, ambiera.com, seems to be blocked by the china government censor system. If this is true, can anybody confirm this?
If so, I wonder why they did this. It's just a harmless website of a company, with game development and Irrlicht related software. Strange.





Comments:


My guess would be that games allow creativity and some freedom, and someone given tools like yours and without government supervision could potentially make a game allowing others to see that the aforementioned freedom and creativity are possible.

Of course it could also be due to a "block first and ask questions never" policy.
Kemp
Quote
2007-08-20 18:40:00


http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/test/ says yes, it's blocked.
matt
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2007-08-20 19:07:00


Perhaps they have whitelist and not a blacklist. Like "What we can't control we won't let in"...
Tobias3
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2007-08-20 19:14:00


thanks for the link matt, didn't know this. but the reason still is uncertain.
@kemp: I don't know, sounds a bit unrealistic.
niko
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2007-08-20 20:07:00


Not so unrealistic, they do have a habit of blocking sites suggesting that other countries have more freedom, and games are often prevented from release. The "block first and ask questions never" is the more likely though.
Kemp
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2007-08-20 20:49:00


@Matt: You sure that site is trust worthy? It looks like a fake. I've not found a single permitted website yet xD
DooFi
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2007-08-20 22:32:00


It must be a fake. Otherwise it wouldn't be blocking http://english.gov.cn i guess. Can anyone find something that isn't blocked?

Maybe it's just trying to raise awareness to a real problem like censorship, but i don't think this would be the best way to do it. I've just quickly browsed through and seen no admission that its a fake, although it may be there. But if such admission is not there, then it is like deceiving to raise awareness, just as bad as any kind of propaganda. Just my 5cents.
Aliendreams
Quote
2007-08-21 03:34:00


LoL very funny. Even http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org itself is blocked? I think it's fake. Non of the URL that I inserted were permitted.
Virion
Quote
2007-08-21 04:19:00


It's a fake. I run a website which has a tracker and gets a few hits from China. However greatfirewallofchina.org says it's blocked, which can not be true. Also, a quick google search for "fake greatfirewallofchina.org" gets some blog discussions where several people claim they have contacts in China who can access sites said to be blocked by greatfirewallofchina.org.
Pure propaganda...
Quantum Leap
Quote
2007-08-21 04:33:00


I dont think that this "being blocked thing" is that big deal.
the most people in china who could be interested in irrlicht and friends will use software like "tor" anyway. so this is no problem for them.

the reason why the site is blocked could be the whitelist or the fact, that you could make a game which criticises the regime :S
jens
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2007-08-21 06:01:00


Don't worry about it! Every url I tested it said "your URL is blocked"
What the #@#$#!
TheMiss
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2007-08-21 12:19:00


yep, but someone who tested it from china told me it is really blocked there :)
niko
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2007-08-21 18:03:00


Hello people.
It is actually me who said Niko the Ambierra website is blocked from China, which is actually the truth.
What I forgot, with my deepest apologizes, to mention is that this censor is, i think, not targeted to Ambierra nominatively.
I think websites through internet are more or less randomly checked by government and then authorized, or not, to be accessed. My opinion is simply that Ambierra has not been checked yet and is therefore not authorized. Some websites, including some of mine, do not work either althought they have no controversial content, this is why I assume it works that way.
Also note that some huge websites such as "lemonde.fr" (biggest french newspaper) with community and boards that may contain political and controversial discutions are authorized. Though, visiting the Google "cache" links is systematically refused to avoid access to invalid content.
Windows Live Search works with no problem.
Just to emphasize how pointless this government restriction thing is absurd.

To finish, I'd say that anyway, Chinese people have the same feeling about it as we have toward P2P illegal downloading : it's forbidden, but who cares.
Neirda
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2007-08-22 03:28:00


I'm in ShenZhen (China ^_^), and the Ambiera website works perfectly fine...
Pierre
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2007-08-22 10:24:00


I was in Beijing last month, now in Chengdu, it didnt work in both places. Can I send you by mail a bunch of my other unworking websites for a check ? Im curious.
Neirda
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2007-08-22 14:48:00


thegreatfirewallofchina.org's FAQ says that it will report false positives if the site cannot be reached for technical reasons. The reason nothing gets through is probably because the proxy they're using inside China has been blocked.
It's interesting that websites are be blocked depending on the region, perhaps it depends on county and isp.
Gaz
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2007-08-23 01:34:00


i'm in China, and your website works well here.
ks
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2007-08-24 13:26:00


http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/test.. is not working. http://baidu.com is also shown blocked by the testing page. It couldn't be. baidu.com is the most popular search engine in China.
Nighthawk
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2007-08-26 10:46:00


it works well in Beijing.
from-china
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2007-09-03 09:10:00


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