There's something I don't get - why is the Great Firewall of China only blocking these terms in GET requests?
If it's only GET, then a user can use POST to search and bypass all this entirely - Google just has to change the request type, which IMHO is much easier than what they just did.
If it's both GET and POST, then I don't see how typing in the infringing character which is then POST'd via AJAX is any less prone to connection termination than a GET search request.
Try this: http://search.china.alibaba.com -> Search for "Falun Dafa", you'll be cutoff for about 5 minutes or so completely. That includes not just GET, POST, BUT ALL TCP/UDP connections will be rest.
I wonder if they load the whole list of "bad" terms on the client-side. Wouldn't that trigger the firewall? Unless they encrypt it, or use a bloom filter (which would save some bandwidth)...
You're assuming that the GET request is the one being blocked, but it looks more reasonable that it's actually the response (the html results page) that's causing the problems. Probably the "Great Firewall" detects a page that includes frequent use of some "bad" term and blocks the connection.
If it's only GET, then a user can use POST to search and bypass all this entirely - Google just has to change the request type, which IMHO is much easier than what they just did.
If it's both GET and POST, then I don't see how typing in the infringing character which is then POST'd via AJAX is any less prone to connection termination than a GET search request.
It doesn't add up.
EDIT: downvotes? Seriously?