In line with my irrepressible contrarian streak, I've always viewed Internet censorship as a problem that is ultimately solvable and, thus, less important than other problems facing the Web. For example, we have no tools to fight the proliferation of spin or the growth of "enclave extremism" and homophily; both of these problems do not lend themselves to easy quantitative solutions and may turn out to be much more important in the long run.
Internet censorship, on the other hand, usually presents a rather boring set of challenges - e.g. "I can't get from A to B". As most such problems, it could be solved by clever tinkering with the system ("well, if you can't get from A to B, then go to C first and then use C to get to B" - this is the kind of anti-censorship solution that proxy-based technologies like TOR have eventually embraced).
As the GreenDam saga shows, the methods favored by censors evolve and get more sophisticated as well (today, Internet censors may not even let you think about etting to point B - you may never have the time to even consider the C option, as your browser will be shut down). There is, of course, nothing surprising about it: why wouldn't governments be doing this? After all, there are many smart techies working for the governments as well - and sometimes they even believe in and like what they are doing.
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