China orders ISPs to block personal VPN use by February 1st

[bill]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/china-is-said-to-order-carriers-to-bar-personal-vpns-by-february [bloomberg.com]

China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February

China’s government has told telecommunications carriers to block individuals’ access to virtual private networks by Feb. 1, people familiar with the matter said, thereby shutting a major window to the global internet.

It's unclear yet how this will impact multi-nationals operating in China, but this doesn't sound good...

[keyplyr]

VPNs have been used to circumvent the Great Wall of China and access the open internet for years. Looks like that may be a thing of the past. Unlike the rest of the world, ISPs operating inside China *must* obey the Gov't.

I have an US edu site that many Universities in China use for class projects & research. I wonder if this will affect that traffic. There still are a few other tactics for accessing the open web.

[TorontoBoy]

This is very concerning. China does have the technical chops to do this. Tor in China was shut down long ago. How effective this VPN ban will be for foreigners visiting China remains to be seen.

There are sites that can test if your site is accessible from China. You select a Chinese city and they see if they can ping your site. [greatfirewallofchina.org...] and [websitepulse.com...]

[keyplyr]

Nice... thanks for posting those links TorontoBoy

[lucy24]

How effective this VPN ban will be for foreigners visiting China remains to be seen.

Depends on the foreigner's budget, probably. This sounds like another of those things where exceptions are made for 5-star hotels in major cities.

[tyxwebmw]

I am in China, with VPN access, haha

[iamlost]

@tyxwebmw: there have been increasing VPN interruptions/interceptions and the 'ban' is still several months off. I expect ISPs will be very careful until they have a feel for the scope and severity of enforcement following that date.

A few years back I set up managed servers within China to speed up delivery as the Great Firewall adds about half a second each way to outside connections (Hong Kong is outside).

China's recent Cybersecurity law mandates personal data on Chinese residents be held only on hardware within China. This affected my direct affiliate relationships as I have to confirm that data collected on site presell pages is not being transmitted outside the country. Some accounts added servers within most did not so I have dropped pre-population for those and seen associated conversion/revenue drops. International eCommerce sites must be having a painful time.

[TorontoBoy]

China Jails VPN seller, 9 month sentence. [scmp.com...]