{"id":5686,"date":"2017-07-20T05:28:10","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T12:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=5686"},"modified":"2021-08-02T06:47:58","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T13:47:58","slug":"putting-together-pieces-chinese-vpn-jigsaw-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/putting-together-pieces-chinese-vpn-jigsaw-puzzle\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting together the pieces of the Chinese VPN jigsaw puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"

VPNs are indispensable tools for today\u2019s Internet users, and nowhere more so than in China. The famous \u201cGreat Firewall of China\u201d \u2013 the name given to the set of technologies used to enforce censorship of foreign sites \u2013 can be circumvented by VPNs, but not in a consistent way. Sometimes VPNs are blocked, sometimes they work fine. Two recent posts on this blog reflect a broader uncertainty. According to the first story, the Chinese government had ordered ISPs to block personal VPN<\/a> use by February 1st next year. According to the second, published a few days later, there were no such plans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just this week, another piece of the Chinese VPN jigsaw puzzle has been placed on the table by the authorities, as reported by Associated Press. It concerns the use of VPNs by foreign companies with subsidiaries in China:<\/p>\n

\u201cthe biggest Chinese internet service provider says virtual private networks, which create encrypted links between computers and can be used to see sites blocked by Beijing\u2019s web filters, will be permitted only to connect to a company\u2019s headquarters abroad. The letter from state-owned China Telecom Ltd. says VPN users are barred from linking to other sites outside China, a change that might block access to news, social media or business services that are obscured by its \u201cGreat Firewall\u201d.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One possible explanation for all those conflicting signals is that the Chinese authorities actually want its citizens and companies to be unsure whether VPNs will be allowed or not. This unpredictability is a feature, not a bug<\/a>, as pointed out in an analysis on the Tech in Asia blog of China\u2019s Web censorship last year. Contradictory statements and actions mean that Internet users are not entirely sure where exactly the Chinese government draws the line for comments that will be censored or even punished. As a result, most people self-censor well inside where they think the limits might be, just to be on the safe side. That means the authorities get the benefits of strict censorship without needing to impose it directly.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the same is happening with VPNs. China\u2019s rulers are well aware that people use VPNs to circumvent censorship, and that is obviously a threat to their control. On the other hand, they also know that their businesses and academics need access to certain \u201cforbidden\u201d material in order to be competitive in global markets. One resolution is to allow people to use VPNs, but make them unsure how much they can rely on them. That in itself might limit their use to things that are really \u201cneed to know\u201d, rather than just \u201cnice to know\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another explanation of the mixed signals from Beijing is offered by a new post on the Macro Polo blog. It echoes a point made by Caleb Chen in his report<\/a> on the Chinese government denial that VPNs would be blocked. There\u2019s a key word in the short statement provided by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which reads as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cTrade or multinational enterprises, if they require leased lines or other methods to access the internet abroad, can turn to authorized telecommunications entities.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The key word there is \u201cauthorized\u201d. As the Macro Polo blog notes, there\u2019s an easy and subtle way that the Chinese government can nudge Internet users to move to authorized VPNs:<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine an extreme scenario in which there was one authorized VPN that, with a little help from the government, worked faster than all others, and was accessible almost 100% of the time. All other VPNs would operate at their current levels, hit or miss, with lots of misses during particularly sensitive periods. With the help of that very forceful \u201cnudge\u201d from the government, VPN users would flock to the Chinese Party-state\u2019s preferred and authorized provider.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By supporting a few better<\/i> VPNs that circumvent the Great Firewall more reliably, the Chinese authorities encourage Internet users to migrate to them. In doing so, the government gains something that is much more important than stopping people visiting a few \u201cillegal\u201d sites like Twitter: greater long-term control. If there were some major emergency that threatened the country\u2019s stability \u2013 or the government\u2019s power \u2013 Beijing could be sure that the authorized VPNs would shut down connections immediately. The unauthorized ones might resist, or find new ways around blocks, but by then they would be used by fewer people, and would therefore represent less of a problem.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a precedent for this nuanced approach, with all its apparent contradictions. Back in 2014, the Greatfire.org site reported that a Man-in-the-Middle attack was being used against Google. Google\u2019s sites were blocked for most Chinese Internet users, with the exception of those accessing them via CERNET, China\u2019s national education and research network. The reason is the one mentioned above: Chinese researchers need to be able to stay current with work done outside the country, and therefore require access to Google for that purpose.<\/p>\n

But in 2014 the authorities were faced with a problem. Google had just started to enforce HTTPS connections to its services. That meant that the Chinese government was unable to censor sensitive searches on Google, since the encrypted connection to the US service hid all details of what the user was looking for. The solution to that conundrum was to use a Man-in-the-Middle attack against Google. By injecting a fake SSL certificate, the authorities gave the impression that the connection to Google was secure, while still being able to inspect all the search terms before they were sent on to the search engine. That, in its turn, allowed politically-sensitive keywords to be blocked, but for academic users to continue to access non-controversial material needed for their research.<\/p>\n

A move towards authorized VPNs would achieve the same results. Most of the time, Internet users in China would be allowed to circumvent the Great Firewall, just as academic users can use Google for their searches. But for both situations, the authorities retain the option to spy on what exactly people are doing, and to block them in extreme cases.<\/p>\n

Amidst this confusion, it\u2019s hard to discern how exactly the Chinese government is planning to address the problem of VPNs that circumvent its censorship measures. The outcome matters, because governments all around the world are grappling with similar issues. For example, it is clearly trivial to circumvent the UK government\u2019s new compulsory age verification for porn sites<\/a> using VPNs with exits outside the UK. Similarly, plans by various Western governments to record every Internet site visited by Internet users are rendered pointless when people connect via VPNs.<\/p>\n

The fear has to be that other countries will start to move towards the idea of requiring VPN companies to be authorized by the government. Such suppliers are likely to be cooperative when the police or intelligence services start demanding metadata or help with surveillance, otherwise they will soon find themselves unauthorized<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Featured image by Dong Fang<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VPNs are indispensable tools for today\u2019s Internet users, and nowhere more so than in China. The famous \u201cGreat Firewall of China\u201d \u2013 the name given to the set of technologies used to enforce censorship of foreign sites \u2013 can be circumvented by VPNs, but not in a consistent way. Sometimes VPNs are blocked, sometimes they … Continue reading “Putting together the pieces of the Chinese VPN jigsaw puzzle”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":5689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":true,"_modified_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1945,12,1,130,1937],"tags":[185,225,74],"class_list":["post-5686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-censorship","category-security","category-news","category-governments","category-vpn","tag-censorship-2","tag-china","tag-google"],"yoast_head":"\nPutting together the pieces of the Chinese VPN jigsaw puzzle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"VPNs are indispensable tools for today's Internet users, and nowhere more so than in China. 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