This would hose 93% of the subversive stuff on the 'net.
I guess I've gotten turned around on this -- last week I was arguing your position. But: China's problem is internal, not external, and it's political, not sexual. Let's assume that they can build a successful firewall -- despite the fact that the people here on this list who design and install such firewalls for a living don't believe that the Chineese plan is feasible. Let's assume that they can prevent people from grabbing photos from playboy.com. So what? Who's in a position to formulate devastating criticisms of China's government? Americans? Or people who live under the system and understand it? And what's subversive, anyway? Breasts enhanced with silicon and airbrushing, or plain honest talk about liberty and government? Any net that lets the Chineese people publish and talk to one another is going to create problems for the government. On top of that, the firewall isn't even going to keep out foreign traffic. The firewall model doesn't work for internal security -- it assumes that the people on the inside are trustworthy, and it focuses on protecting the internal net from people on the outside. The Chineese have to deal with people on the inside trying to subvert the wall by building illicit links via telephone lines or satellite channels. Let's put it another way. Suppose a company has a strong firewall installed by a first rate security consultant. If an employee who has access to the internal net puts a modem on his machine and lets anyone who wants to dial in and connect to the internal net, what good does the firewall do? You can't come in over the Internet, but you can come in over a pots line. Either way, you've got your access. For what it's worth, I have a friend who just got a job with Apple's operation in China. According to him, Hong Kong is fully wired, but mainland China only has about 5,000 net accounts outside of government or acadamia. All 5,000 of those accounts seem to be served by a single 64kbs connection to the outside world, which suggests that they're email only.