My last post left more confusion than answers I guess, with Chinese WP7 users having all sorts of problem. Some can't gain access to the Marketplace no matter what, some regained access after rolling back to build 7392 or earlier, some rolled back all the way to build 7008 and still can't download anything.
There were doubts that it's Microsoft trying to block users who are not officially supported out of the game. However, as we've discussed before, it's not likely, because:
1) By IP address filtering, Microsoft will be barring out all US users who are temporarily staying in China.
2) If it's Microsoft doing it, users should have been barred out before the payment step, instead of paying and not being able to download.
Now we have got really solid proof that it's China's Great Firewall working in the dark. As mentioned in this post (Chinese content), by manually assigning a set of DNS servers on the router, a Chinese user could easily get back to the Marketplace and all those apps.
I tried it, and it simply works. That puts all the confusions to an end: China's Great Firewall is again doing DNS hijack, like previously to a million things, Android Market one of them.
However this quick solution can't get everything back on track. Marketplace still doesn't work on 3G, since the carriers are all with the government. They send all their data through the GFW, some even go as far as making certain GFW house rules. There doesn't seem to be a way of configuring DNS servers for 3G connection.
Anyway, beggars can't be pickers. We have lived on this side of the GFW for a long time, and we have learnt to be grateful.
Thanks 0mxfzy0 for working it out.
