Citing the need to protect "cyberspace sovereignty" and to "maintain cyber security and steady operation," China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology changed firewall rules to block three increasingly popular commercial VPN services.
Excerpt of a 28 January 2015 CPJ Blog post by Tom Lowenthal, CPJ Staff Technologist.
In a move unlikely to surprise those who access the Internet from mainland China, the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently blocked several popular tools used to bypass the “Great Firewall” national Internet censorship system. Citing the need to protect “cyberspace sovereignty” and to “maintain cyber security and steady operation,” the Ministry changed firewall rules to block three increasingly popular commercial virtual private network (VPN) services.
China operates the world’s largest and most sophisticated Internet censorship infrastructure. Colloquially called the “Great Firewall,” this infrastructure blocks a huge amount of content deemed contrary to China’s interests as a nation. However, as with any such censorship infrastructure, people will try to access content despite the restrictions–creating a game of cat and mouse between censors, citizens, and online service providers.