*1) This study from The Citizen Lab, Toronto, provides information on some Western technology used by public authority in various countries, such as Syria, Egypt, China, Malaysia and two dozen others, to curtail or smother civil liberties and human rights, and to carry out censorship on a variable scale, from occasional to massive:* * https://citizenlab.org/2013/01/planet-blue-coat-mapping-global-censorship-an... * * * *2) In the interest of the general Internet user, and more specifically for ICANN community members who may not have access to special technical arrangements during ICANN-Beijing (if such are made available to the Board and senior Staff), one might be well advised to install a VPN on one's computer even before arriving. One should be aware that solutions proposed by some vendors are not currently operational: for instance, one vendor in Hongkong recently recognized, in answer to a question from a puzzled client, that practically all their servers situated in Western Europe had been neutralized by the controllers of the Great Firewall. So it is worth following, on Internet discussion fora, the current efficiency of proposed solutions, before buying any. Unfortunately, freeware does not seem reliable now, although some brands ensured privacy, say 2 or 3 years ago.* * * *JJ.*