After two weeks in Shanghai, here is what works and what does not:

Backblaze

Works. My online offsite backup solution.

Blogspot.com

Blocked.

Dropbox

Blocked. I was using Dropbox to exchange design documents with business partners, but there are other ways.

Drop.io

Works. I use drop.io to share pictures of Kai. Since it allows anonymous content uploads, it seems to be a candidate for blocking, though.

Facebook

Blocked. I am not on Facebook, but Cissy is.

Google App Engine

Mostly works. The apps themselves work, as do the administration tools. But the name server responsible for custom domain names (instead of x.appspot.com) is inaccessible.

Google Groups

Blocked. But works in SSL mode. HTTP packet inspection?

Google Mail

Works.

Google Search

Works. A bit unexpected after the recent developments. Is served out of Hong Kong.

Hotspotshield.com

Blocked. A commercial VPN service to protect your connections when using public WiFi networks (and to watch Hulu outside of the US).

iTunes Store

Works.

Mac Software Update

Works.

Podcasts

Partially blocked. I have not been able to get to the latest episodes of Filmspotting, and Chaos Radio Express. This is probably collateral damage due to hosting providers. Others (such as the TWiT network, NPR, or Tagesschau) work fine.

Skype

Works. Conference calls are essential for my freelance work. We knew it would work because Cissy has been making video calls to her parents from Tokyo and Singapore.

Steam

Works. I was able to install Steam, create an account, download and play Portal. Great game.

Tor

Severely blocked. As a tool to thwart Internet censorship and traffic tracking, this is obviously not wanted here. The project site is blocked (I could install off a mirror), as are most (all?) the publicly listed router nodes. It should be possible to still access the network using unlisted bridge nodes, but I could make that work just once (long enough to tweet).

Twitter

Blocked. Identi.ca as well.

Wenxue City

Blocked. A popular Chinese-language news and forum site (and Cissy's start page in Firefox).

Wikipedia

Works.

Youtube

Blocked.