Route of GFW on Twitpic

Quick facts about GFW:

1. the recent leaked info shows that the GFW and Golden Shield Project are two separate projects led by different research forces;

2. GFW department is only in charge of R&D and maintenance; there is no direct head in response why/how a website is blocked; In fact, any government ministry can order GFW to block a website;

3. GFW has advanced research forces and followed closely to recent advances in Internet security; For example, there are several reports about hijack Google's SSL certificate, and some reports about HTTP/HTTPS attack with GFW;

4. Some whitelisted-IP addresses are provided to high-ranked officials.

Two tips for traveling hackers: 1. International roaming of China Mobile/Unicom/Telecom users still don't escape GFW. Roaming data traffic will redirect back to China first. 2. For iPhone users, VPN proxy (L2TP over IPSec or less secure PPTP) is better solution than SSH or Tor. Google those freemium VPN proxy providers.

That picture is somewhat misleading. Tor (and other VPNs) doesn't bypass the Great Firewall, it makes it irrelevant via encryption and offshore proxies.

If the US broadcast free Wifi across China somehow (a la Radio Free Europe), that would bypass the Great Firewall.