[imron]

Agree with this. Anyone who thinks blocking GitHub is not really a viable option has never been on the other side of the GFW.

The Chinese government will happily block any site they want to and they have little/no regard for the popularity or usefulness of the site in question, and often they will block popular foreign sites to help copycat local versions thrive.

Off the top of my head they block Facebook, Twitter and Youtube entirely and Wikipedia selectively (used to be permanently also). I can tell you they don't care about blocking GitHub.

The also have the ability to dynamically block sites based on page content rather than just entire domains, so it would be perfectly feasible for them to block just the project pages and not the entirety of GitHub.

[mckoss]

You can't selectively block content on an SSL connection w/o having a back door to the encryption keys used to secure the connection. A man in the middle attack would be detectable unless the root certificates were compromised.

[flyinghamster]

That's where CNNIC comes in. All they need to do is issue their own fake certificate for (insert blocked site here).

[imron]

Isn't it wonderful to have your own certificate authority.

[est]

> Agree with this. Anyone who thinks blocking GitHub is not really a viable option has never been on the other side of the GFW.

Before long time ago, people hosting tons of anti Chinese government stuff on Google, especially Common Storage Service, yes people say China wouldn't dare block Google.

LOL