World Website Blocking

Since the middle of January, the battle between Chinese netizens and China's Great Firewall (GFW) has intensified: on January 18, the US-based code-sharing website GitHub, which Google China founding president Lee Kaifu called the preferable tool for Chinese programmers to learn and connect with the world, was partially and then fully blocked by the GFW. The site was then unblocked on January 23. While netizens continued to speculate on possible events that may have triggered the blocking, GitHub underwent another attack wherein those using the site in China were greeted with a warning message [zh] regarding the website's security certificate --- an indication that their connection to the site might not be secure.

GitHub is an HTTPS-only site, meaning that users can only access its content through an encrypted connection. By initiating what is commonly known as a man-in-the-middle attack, the attackers (who some surmise were GFW technicans or government actors) led users to believe that they were accessing GitHub through an encrypted connection, when in fact a third party (the man in the middle ) was manipulating and likely eavesdropping on their traffic. Chinese Internet censorship monitoring website Greatfire.org reported that the attack lasted for about an hour, noting that this signifies HTTPS might no longer be safe in China.

The blocking and the attack have infuriated the Chinese software developer community, but also has ignited debates over how the site should be used. While it is meant to host resources and discussions about technology, GitHub has also been used to share politically sensitive content, such as a recently posted list of Chinese academics involved with building and providing technical expertise in service of the GFW. Coincidentally, one of the developers of the GFW publicly defended his work at an online forum, arguing [zh] that those who make blacklists to block information should take the blame for GFW censorship, rather than the technicians who built the firewall.