Reminds me of Imperial Russia's railroad gauge, which was different from the rest of Europe's, maybe the whole world's, on purpose, to prevent attacks. Common trick, lots of countries did it, though it impedes lots of progress at the border besides military progress toward your capital. You have to offload *all* the freight, both ways, and put it onto new trains, for instance. Way worse than going from diesel to electric, like they did at New Haven, for instance, where you used to just change engines. More of a symptom than a cause, of course. Anyone want to take bets on China, though? I think the "Great Firewall" will choke, or more be likely ignored, long before China will block all truth at its border, instead of mere efficient transit prices for foreign trade. But then I was a "Polly" during the Y2K thing, too. Oh. Wait... (Yeah, I know, I was *dead* wrong about Jim Bell getting a guilty verdict. Surest way to be wrong is to make a prediction, and all that...) Cheers, RAH Oddly enough, the Aussies had exactly this railroad gauge problem about half way across their southern coast. I think they've fixed it since, though I'm not sure. -------- <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/4056255.stm> The BBC Tuesday, 30 November, 2004, 16:39 GMT China 'blocks Google news site' China has been accused of blocking access to Google News by the media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders. The Paris-based pressure group said the English-language news site had been unavailable for the past 10 days. It said the aim was to force people to use a Chinese edition of the site which, according to the watchdog, does not include critical reports. Google told the BBC News website it was aware of the problems and was investigating the causes. Chinese firewall China is believed to extend greater censorship over the net than any other country in the world. " China is censuring Google News to force internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports " Reporters Without Borders A net police force monitors websites and e-mails, and controls on gateways connecting the country to the global internet are designed to prevent access to critical information. Popular Chinese portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com maintain a close eye on content and delete politically sensitive comments. And all 110,000 net cafes in the country have to use software to control access to websites considered harmful or subversive. Local versions "China is censuring Google News to force internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports," said the group in a statement. "By agreeing to launch a news service that excludes publications disliked by the government, Google has let itself be used by Beijing," it said. For its part, the search giant said it was looking into the issue. "It appears that many users in China are having difficulty accessing Google News sites in China and we are working to understand and resolve the issue," said a Google spokesperson. Google News gathers information from some 4,500 news sources. Headlines are selected for display entirely by a computer algorithm, with no human editorial intervention. It offers 15 editions of the service, including one tailored for China and one for Hong Kong. Google launched a version in simplified Chinese in September. The site does not filter news results to remove politically sensitive information. But Google does not link to news sources which are inaccessible from within China as this would result in broken links. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'