Some students check their Brown e-mail every day. Some do it every hour. But imagine not being able to access it for three months — that's what some international students from China were dealing with this past summer.
"It's not a new issue," said Stephanie Obodda, assistant manager of communications and computer education. Even before Google announced it would lift censorship of its services in China, "China was already blocking Google in some places," Obodda said. In addition, access to other sites such as Yahoo was inconsistent as well.
"It really comes down to where you are in China at any given time," said Christopher Grossi '92, assistant director of desktop support services. "You may be in China and be on the equivalent of Cox in one location and on the equivalent of Comcast in another. You can't tell which network you're on, but they're configured differently," Grossi explained.
Renee Qiaohan Li '13 was hit with an unpleasant surprise when she returned to Beijing for the summer: She could not access her Brown e-mail account. "I was really surprised that Brown e-mail didn't work," she said, adding that she expected the government to restrict web sites with controversial material, but not a resource from an educational institution.
Li finally managed to access her account by downloading FreeGate, a tunneling proxy server, to bypass restrictions. She said that it would have been helpful if the University had notified students regarding this issue. "I would see it as a problem for students who don't know about the software (FreeGate)," Li said.
Kening Tan '12, who traveled throughout different Chinese cities this past summer, did not have such issues with her Brown Gmail account. "All the University website features were functioning very well (for me)," she said. But some of her friends did have trouble with their e-mail accounts, she said, and so it is very popular to use software to unblock websites in China. "I don't think that censorship is being enforced really well in terms of this," she said.
Computing and Information Services has developed several ways of dealing with this problem.
Students can try accessing blocked websites through Brown's virtual private network, which funnels Internet traffic through the Brown network. Students have the option of either downloading the VPN through CIS's software web site, or going to Brown's WebVPN site and entering their user information.
"We've had a lot of success having people log in through that method," Obodda said of WebVPN, adding that it is also fast and simple to use.
Students also have the option of using tunneling proxy servers to access blocked websites. In addition, students can forward their e-mails to another e-mail account that is accessible, but this technique is not always reliable. "Yahoo and Hotmail are blocked just as often as Google," Obodda said.
If all else fails, students can always contact the CIS Help Desk, said its manager, Christine Brown.
Furthermore, CIS is working to ensure that the University community is aware of these resources. When the University first converted to using Gmail as its primary e-mail server, CIS worked with the Office of International Programs to advise students who planned on studying abroad on potential problems and solutions of using the Internet in other countries, Obodda said.
But CIS is limited in what it can do. "We can't really use the bulk mail system. It's almost impossible to get permission to send an e-mail directly to students," Obodda said.
"Anytime that we can proactively get information out to people so they have a better user experience, we'll do it," Brown said.
