Eye of Modok

Wow, something happened today and all of a sudden, my broadband is seeming like a broadband connection instead of something more reminiscent of a 1995 dialup connection. It’s still not perfect, but much better than its been since the Dec 24, 2006 quake. When you consider that the cable they are repairing was submerged 4,000 meters under the sea, and that they had to pull it all the way up to do the repairs, it puts things into perspective, so I can understand its taken a while.

What hasn’t been fixed is email, which lends credibility to the rumor that the Chinese government has rolled out a more sophisticated filtering system. The fact that Hong Kong has reportedly had good connection speeds two weeks ago, while we were still experiencing problems here in the mainland does lend credence to the theory. If they did choose this time to upgrade the “Great Firewall of China” system, it was very much affecting traffic for the world wide web, but now problems seem limited to SMTP or POP. The modok.us domain appears to be on an IP address that has been universally blocked by the the new email filtering system, as I have not been able to receive a single email at that domain in over a month, despite repeated attempts, deleting and recreating accounts and other little tweaks. I guess its time to invest in a dedicated IP address for Eye of Modok.

One thing that has become obvious is that China should not rely on a single connection to the outside world. Currently, all European traffic is routed through the US en route to China, which seems a bit circuitous, although understandable, as communication cables like the one that was severed do not come cheaply nor easily. I don’t really care what is done, so long as I don’t have to go a month without Internet again!