By Eva Dou
China's government has unveiled a smarter and stricter Internet
filter, riling web users and widening the divide between China's
Internet and the World Wide Web.
A recent upgrade to China's web filters, commonly referred to as
the Great Firewall, has made it more difficult to use services
called virtual private networks to circumvent the country's blocks
to U.S. services like Google and Facebook.
Chinese officials confirmed a crackdown on VPNs this week,
saying that new measures were needed as the Internet evolved. In
the past week, major VPN providers such as Astrill have reported
disruptions to their services.
The move is further indication of China's desire to create a
parallel Internet environment that it can more easily control. The
web filters serve a dual purpose of screening out content critical
of the Chinese government and providing protection for China's own
growing web firms against stronger overseas rivals.
The upgraded firewall also comes as Beijing is calling for U.S.
technology companies to submit to intrusive security inspections,
according to U.S. business groups.
This time, China appears to have made the blocking of VPN
connections more automated and dynamic, said Liviu, who runs a VPN
service based in Romania and requested his surname to be withheld
to avoid reprisal. Whereas China's firewall previously blocked
connections known to be VPNs, since late last year it also appears
to automatically find and block connections that it thinks are
likely to be VPNs, he said.
"Now it seems they are doing it automatically," he said. "You
can apply some clever rules for the firewalls that will trigger
blocks."
The crackdown has complicated life for business people in China
who rely on global services such as Gmail and Twitter to
communicate with clients and collaborators.
Christopher Dobbing, director of Vogmask China, which sells
pollution masks, said the disruptions to VPNs have made it
difficult to connect to Gmail, Facebook and other services that he
uses to correspond with clients.
"I couldn't run my business without it (VPN)," he said. "I
understand the government needs to protect itself against risks,
but I'm just trying to do my work."
Kestrel Lee, a Shanghai-based marketing consultant who is active
on social media, says that he used to use Gmail as his primary
email, but has switched to Hotmail due to blocks and
disruptions.
"All of us who use Gmail have created new accounts by now," he
said. "It's no use trying to fight this."
The VPN disruptions, added to already slower connection speeds
for loading foreign websites in China, mean decreased productivity
for Chinese researchers, engineers and others whose work involves
keeping tabs on global developments.
But state media has been arguing that the benefits for China's
tech sector are larger. A Global Times column on Wednesday said the
success of China's Internet giants could be credited to the
firewall.
"The firewall blocks certain overseas websites in a targeted
fashion, rather than isolating China's Internet from the overseas
one," the column said.
Others disagree. Peking University professor Wu Bihu took to the
microblog platform Weibo to complain about recent crackdowns on the
Internet and other media.
"What do you want to do?" he wrote. "The Ministry of Industry
and Information Technology closes and cuts off the global Internet,
the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and
Television rudely censors TV dramas, the State Administration for
Industry and Commerce wanted to screw Alibaba without checking the
source of the fakes or good intention...China has reformed and
opened up for decades but now it's back to the impasse of
seclusion. Isn't it sad!"
While the blocks are unlikely to be reversed by China's
government, it could spur VPN providers to come up with new and
better ways to get around the firewall, analysts say. VPN providers
pointed to a similar crackdown in 2012 that resulted in stealthier
wall-hopping techniques.
-- Alyssa Abkowitz and Fanfan Wang
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