Unblocked!

Well, there really is not a need for me to do this...

People in China knows that, if they really want to access websites such as youtube, facebook, blogger, etc.  All that you have to do is to set up a proxy so as to fool the big brother that the request actually was sent from out of the country.

Although I could have done it while in Shanghai, I did not want to bring forth any potential trouble... In addition, I was too busy coping with my bronchitis while fulfilling my duties as a tourist anyways...

Theoretically, in order to unblock the Korean drama 原来是美男 that I was able to access in China but not in Taiwan... all that I have to do is to re-engineer the above scenario.... In other words, I have to set up a proxy to fool the website that this request actually came from inside of China.

Yet, a theory is a theory... the process of implementation is the tough one... with the biggest obstacle... finding a proxy that works...

To cut the story short...

I spent the entire night looking for a proxy located inside of China...

Some proxies worked for a second or two and stopped working....

Other proxies never worked from the beginning...

At some point, after I tried out about 10-20 proxies, I had this smart idea...

"Why not try Hong Kong since Hong Kong is part of China now!"

The IP shown on the right is the proxy IP

Well, the proxy in Hong Kong did work...

Yet, when trying to retrieve the 14th episode of 原来是美男 at http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMzMTM5NDQw.html

I got the a message I have never seen before... Access denied with plausible reasons written in big red.... 8-O

So I thought... maybe... Hong Kong is too special a special area...

I continued with my trials for many more a time... until... finally... I resigned to my destiny...

"You know what... there isn't even a need for me to get to see this clip online especially when I don't even know what this episode is about..."

Yet, something told me to try for one more time... or maybe 2...

It was then...

Voila!

This proxy worked!

Thinking of my experience so far, instead of loading the page to the video immediate, I requested for the website of Chinese News Daily.... with this superstitious kinda thinking in my mind... Now the big brother might not suspect that what I really want to access is actually a video blocked from outside of China.... :-D

After the website of Chinese News Daily was loaded successfully, I sent out the request for the browser to get the page at the drama link... and... it seemed to be loading... contents populating...

And... to my greatest surprise... the video started loading like what it was supposed to do.... and.. sitting here in Taipei, I got to watch the 14th episode of 原来是美男... where my man said to that woman... "I like you..." for the first time...

The following pictures shows you the same page viewed with Firefox and Chrome browser.  The browser on the right side is the firefox browser.  When playing the clip embedded in the page using Firefox with a proxy in China, I was able to view the video as shown in the player on the right side. However, when accessing without a proxy in China using the Chrome browser, I got this same old error message "This clip has been blocked in your region."

And... exactly 2 seconds after this frame... the clip stopped.... though I was still able to access other sections of the China Daily...  8-O 8-X

It doesn't quite matter... anyways...

Unblocked and the strange mission I assigned to myself... accomplished!

So I went and took a shower. 8-O lol

(Please see my posting in Technologies in Ratology if you are interested in trying it out yourself: Set up a proxy with Firefox 3.6.9)