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Sunday, April 12, 2015

China Develops New Internet Censorship Tool

Seeing as this week in class we're beginning our discussions on international affairs and perspectives, this article from the New York Times seemed especially relevant.

The article explains how China has recently developed a new tool, which researchers have named the "Great Cannon". This tool builds off of the "Great Firewall" and "allows China to intercept foreign web traffic as it flows to Chinese websites, inject malicious code and repurpose the traffic as Beijing sees fit."

The program could be enhanced later on to spy on anyone that accesses a Chinese website, or even a website that hosts a Chinese advertisement. 

The Times, however, points out, that this program is similar to the one used by the NSA and Britain's GCHQ, which can intercept and redirect web traffic. This may have consequences for US-China relations regarding censorship- Citizenlab researchers at the University of Toronto published a report that stated, “this precedent will make it difficult for Western governments to credibly complain about others utilizing similar techniques." 

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