{"id":12474,"date":"2020-04-16T18:07:29","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T17:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestdroidplayer.com\/?p=12474"},"modified":"2020-04-16T18:07:29","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T17:07:29","slug":"chinese-looking-for-vpn-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestdroidplayer.com\/cyber-security\/chinese-looking-for-vpn-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"What is happening in China? Why are they looking for VPN?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is no surprise that VPNs are very popular in China. The Chinese government practices high levels of censorship, with the Great Firewall of China (GFW) blocking access to the outside world almost entirely<\/strong>. This blocking makes it hard for users for people in the country to access services such as Google<\/strong> (and most of its products), Facebook, Twitter, news outlets, etc.<\/p>\n

To circumvent these tough measures, citizens and other residents turn to VPNs, which provide a way of circumventing the GFW<\/strong>. Unfortunately, the GFW is usually equipped to block VPN traffic through deep packet inspection (dpi), making it hard for people to find a way around. Only a few VPNs which use advanced obfuscation features and are updated frequently are able to go past the firewall<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, according to Google Trends, VPN searches in China have shot up following the Covid-19 pandemic started in January.<\/p>\n

Crackdown on VPN use in China following Covid-19 pandemic<\/h2>\n

Despite the measures that already in place, the Chinese government has recently cranked up their embargo on VPNs following the Covid-19 pandemic<\/strong>. This time around, the purpose of the exercise seems to be stopping users and expatriates from sharing information about coronavirus. From restricting users to access VPNs in the country, the government can easily regulate news going across the borders.<\/p>\n

While the crackdown might enable the country to stop the spread of misinformation about the disease online, it also makes it difficult for people to interact with the world<\/strong>. People living in China are therefore not able to know what is really going on in the rest of the world, and neither can they get information that is not tailored.<\/p>\n

Misinformation about Covid-19 in China<\/h2>\n

Leaked data<\/a> revealed that the Chinese government might have understated the spread of the coronavirus in the country by up to 520% in a day<\/strong>! Knowing how the Communist government operates, the rest of the world can only assume this to be true.<\/p>\n

The huge problem is Chinese citizens and residents have no way of confirming this. This is because the Great Firewall restricts access and shuts down any dissident posts or even messages in social media, with very many arrests being made.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting fact that there are over 60k people who work for the Chinese government; this is just to filter keywords and censor websites. Rumor has it that there are several other paid social media influencers to post over 500 million pro-government comments every year. How can we know that the influencers are not spreading fabricated information about coronavirus?<\/p>\n

Doctor Li Wenliang death exposed big issues and caused anger<\/h2>\n

On 30th<\/sup> December, Dr. Li gave a warning to his fellow doctors about the strange coronavirus. Authorities summoned him for questioning in the middle of the night. He was then accused of \u201cmaking false comments\u201d that had “severely disturbed the social order.” After that, he was forced to sign a document denouncing the warning.<\/p>\n

Later in the month, the doctor died after having contracted the very disease he warned could grow out of control. However, in the following weeks, the doctor became a hero. The Chinese people were angry that the viral disease had gone full-brown, and the doctor that had sent a warning earlier was punished.<\/p>\n

This anger was expressed through Chinese social media site Weibo, with the top two trending hashtags being “Wuhan government owes Dr. Li Wenliang and apology” and “We want freedom of speech.” But as you would expect, both hashtags were quickly censored.<\/p>\n

In the following weeks, the authorities aggravated the censorship following a blast of online criticism. This was to suppress the criticism that they misconducted their initial response, and also to hide the extent of the pandemic in the country.<\/p>\n

Current State of VPNs in China<\/h2>\n

China has, for the most part, always enforced a ban against VPN services providers. However, the authorities have a proven pattern of enhancing the blocking of VPNs during periods of prospective political strains.<\/p>\n

According to Charlie Smith, creator of GreatFire (a website that tracks the performance of VPNs in China), VPN users have increasingly had a hard time<\/a> using the services since the coronavirus pandemic began. Most VPNs in the country have seen<\/strong><\/span> a performance decline, with the government throttling VPN usage to take control of the information accessible to people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The only VPNs that have not been affected are the ones that have been approved by the Chinese government. These VPNs are usually business VPNs that are mainly used by international and local ventures that need international access for daily operations. For instance, several Chinese businesses have a significant social media presence despite platforms like Twitter and Facebook being censored in the country. They use the government registered VPN services to access them.<\/p>\n

However, for a VPN to be approved for use in China, it needs to provide a loophole that can be used to track its use in the country. This makes all approved VPNs in the country lose one of the core purposes of a VPN \u2013 privacy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Best VPNs to use in China<\/h2>\n

Since the GFW blocks VPN traffic, most of the VPNs used outside China are not effective in the country. For a VPN to work in China, it needs to have tough obfuscation features that disguise OpenVPN as regular Https traffic. Apart from that, it also needs to be updated regularly to overcome new restrictions.<\/p>\n

At the moment, there are only two VPN services that can give users absolute internet freedom in mainland China.<\/strong><\/p>\n