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WHAT does a pet grooming service in Florida have to do with Chinese internet censorship? Every day, China鈥檚 government subtly redirects swathes of its citizens to the offering beauty treatments for dogs and cats 鈥� though it is a mystery why.

Citizens attempting to access banned sites and being dispatched to strange corners of the global internet is just one of the findings to emerge from a study of China鈥檚 murky regime of internet censorship. There is also evidence that China has a centrally coordinated plan 鈥� unevenly applied across the country 鈥� to 鈥減oison鈥� internet servers with false information. This comes at a time when information control will be on the minds of the Chinese authorities, in light of the in November and a major leadership transition in government.

China鈥檚 鈥済olden shield鈥� 鈥� aka the great firewall 鈥� is arguably the most sophisticated and pervasive online censorship operation in the world. A number of international groups have been trying to bring some transparency. For example, the Herdict project at the Berkman Center For Internet and Society at Harvard University has turned to crowdsourcing to keep track of blocked sites in China and elsewhere. Anybody who lives in a censored region can report inaccessible sites on . As of late November, the sites most often reported as blocked in China included Twitter and Facebook, news sites like the BBC and political sites like .

Intrigued by the efforts of Herdict, Joss Wright at the Oxford Internet Institute based at the University of Oxford wanted to find out more about Chinese censorship. The censors employ various techniques, ranging from blunt blocking to more subtle ploys like giving the .

Wright monitored the responses of 187 鈥淒omain Name System鈥� servers throughout China. These servers are the internet鈥檚 phone books. Before you access a website, your browser must visit a DNS server to discover the IP address of the site. This string of numbers tells your computer where to connect to.

Wright asked the servers for their responses for 80 of the sites most often reported as blocked on Herdict. For many sites 鈥� , for instance 鈥� DNS servers replied with 鈥渄oes not exist鈥�. Others gave unexpected misdirections to other IP addresses. This is called DNS poisoning. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like having the wrong number in the phone book,鈥� says Wright.

That鈥檚 where The Pet Club in Miami comes in. Wright found that when people in China try to access 鈥� a tool that prevents online tracking 鈥� they instead often get the IP address of . Other Chinese DNS servers are sending people to blank pages or single computers in Azerbaijan, Ireland, the US, Italy and New Zealand. In November, China temporarily blocked Google and many of its services using DNS poisoning, redirecting people to an IP address in South Korea.

The tactic makes sense for a censor who wants to control information without fomenting activism, as a redirection could seem like a glitch. Also, by monitoring traffic to an obscure site outside China that a Chinese user would be unlikely to visit by chance, the censors might find it easier to keep track of online behaviour, speculates Wright.

鈥淩edirection makes sense for a censor who wants to control information without fomenting activism鈥�

Wright鈥檚 findings also led him to deduce how censorship is applied within China. His monitoring revealed some regions are stricter than others: Beijing was more censored than Shanghai, for example. Still, he also found fingerprints of a central coordinator. Curiously, The Pet Club poisoning and a number of others are applied by different DNS servers, operated by different firms, all across China. Somebody central must have handed a list of redirections to all the regional censors, including the one for thepetclubfl.net. Wright has submitted his research to the journal .

The idea that censorship is applied to varying degrees within China rings true to Ryan Budish, Herdict鈥檚 director. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not correct to think of Chinese filtering as a monolithic thing,鈥� he says. Still, the regime is undeniably effective. 鈥淭he one thing to know about Chinese filtering is that it鈥檚 incredibly persistent, and has been for years.鈥�

So, with new leaders in place, where next for Chinese net censorship? Budish believes the censors鈥� biggest challenge will be monitoring microblogging sites, particularly weibo.com, China鈥檚 version of Twitter. 鈥淭he speed at which content is generated is immense,鈥� he says. 鈥淧olicing that is going to be difficult.鈥�

No one knows why the censors picked The Pet Club鈥檚 website. Until now, Dennis Bost of Universal Merchant Solutions in Hollywood, Florida, who set up the website for the salon owners, had been puzzled by the web traffic he鈥檇 been seeing. 鈥淚鈥檓 amazed at the number of hits they get from China,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e a grooming salon. No one is popping over from Beijing to have their Shar Pei groomed.鈥�

The Pet Club owners haven鈥檛 asked about their website traffic, so would have no idea, says Bost. 鈥淚t seems to come and go, and when I see it, I do scratch my head. I think 鈥榳hat the hell is this?鈥� 鈥�