[Oculus]

My biggest fear is once dictatorships/governments become aware of the ability to sidestep their bans, they'll begin blocking websites such as torproject.org. Keep in mind this traffic spike is because people who don't normally use Tor, started using it (i.e. they downloaded it). At that point I think we'll begin to see an arms race between the public and government which might finally bring us to decentralization of the Internet - or complete censorship.

[logicchains]

The TOR website is blocked in mainland China, as is TOR itself, but it works via obfsproxy, all it requires is someone to send you the executable/source. Most people who bypass the great firewall use VPNs, however.

[hershel]

Is it common for chinese citizens to do this , or is it only done by some tech guys ?

[spiffytech]

I once spoke with a student from China who told me bypassing the Great Firewall with a VPN is quite common. Not practiced by anything close to a majority of the population, but common enough that it would probably be used by e.g., that guy you know who couldn't tell Ruby from Python, and has never touched Linux, but is quite capable of figuring out how to fix his Windows box when it breaks.

[arg01]

I don't know the answer to this and of course the following was easily dismissed with a tinfoil hat comment, but when China decided recently to unban porn there were people suggesting it was to make bypassing the great firewall less 'necessary' for the average user.

[higherpurpose]

Others could mirror Tor (more risky, yes, but better than nothing).

[hexa-]

There already exists a mirror list at https://www.torproject.org/getinvolved/mirrors.html.en. Of course this is hard to come by, when the whole torproject website is being censored.

[devcpp]

People can just look at the cached version of this page on Google over SSL, I doubt they will ban Google...

[fragmede]

> In February 2006, Google made a significant concession to the Great Firewall of China, in exchange for equipment installation on Chinese soil, by blocking websites which the Chinese government deemed illegal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Peo...

So I think they would ban Google Search over this if they had to, but it sounds like Google would just hide it on Google.cn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_Ch... is another interesting read, the first 6 URLs are Google products.

[r12e]

> the first 6 URLs are Google products

One of which is Google+, every cloud has a silver lining.

[josu]

Or just send the program via email or through P2P. They can't make it less available, but unless they unplug the internet, the people will still be able to get it. Specially if there is a need. Just remember the days before the internet, the programs, songs, movies used to spread via magazines, floppy disks, tapes...