China announces the end of VPN for February 2018.
In China the use of a VPN to access the internet will soon be prohibited. Indeed, China said at the beginning of the year that Virtual Private Networks, or VPN, were illegal.
According to Bloomberg, Chinese officials announced to operators that they would have no choice but to block the use of VPN in the territory from 1 February 2018.
Companies will still be allowed to use a VPN for China, but will have to use leased lines from the authorities. For others ... it will be the end.
VPN is still the main solution for accessing the internet from China, whether you are an expatriate, a local, or just a tourist. The Firewall has for years blocked access to information via platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and even media like the New York Times. Virtual Private Networks were therefore very important to get fair information and free expression.
Nevertheless, there are still open proxy servers solutions to bypass the Great Firewall of China. But until when ?
China is a prosperous land for many digital companies, and it is also a highly coveted land. Unfortunately, we are far from the liberalism of the Internet. This seems to impact individuals most immediately.
but why?
Why censoring? because with internet you get access to knwoledge and knowledge = power :). It's easiest to control the people if they can't access information around the world, the government can say everything.
February 2018 has come and gone and VPNs are still working in China for now. The rumour now is that they will be blocked by the end of this month (March), but I highly doubt that will happen. That being said, a lot of VPNs do suffer connection issues in China. This article reviews some China VPN apps that are most used to circumvent the Great Firewall.