Great Chinese Golden Shield

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    Our customer service representatives constantly get the same question: “Why is my site / server not accessible from China?”.
    The answer is simple: it is blocked by the Chinese Great Firewall.
    In this series of posts, we will shed light on the issues that surround one very painful and controversial topic - The Great Firewall of China (in particular) and censorship (in general). Of course, all your questions and entries in the topic can be made at any time.
    For starters, a bit of history.


    What is the Golden Shield Project?


    In 1998, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security launched a project called the Golden Shield Project. In the media, it is better known as The Great Firewall of China (a pun, in the meaning of both a network firewall and the ancient Great Wall of China). Its main goal is to censor and control all online activity both in China and abroad.

    The main step was the creation of the National Crime Information Center (1994), which later became part of the Golden Shield Project monitoring project. In 1998, the government announced that in order to gain access to the Internet of the whole nation, certain changes must be implemented. Later that year, the Minister of Public Security introduced a document stating that the Chinese Communist Party should be able to control the information that the population receives. After in-depth research and a series of meetings with public security bodies, the Minister of Public Security decided to implement a project aimed at ensuring the public safety of information technologies. The project was given the name “Golden Shield Project”.

    In subsequent years, the project was carefully prepared and in 2001 was approved by the State Council. It was presented as part of the “construction projects” planned by the country, the purpose of which was to create a communication network and computer information system for police structures, in order to expand their capabilities and increase work efficiency. After the national assembly in Beijing in September 2003, the project began its work. Having received the approval of national inspections, the project was institutionalized in November 2006.

    According to the official legislation for this project, websites based in China cannot link to or publish news taken from foreign news sites or the media without special approval. There is a list of media sites “licensed print publishers” that have permission to publish news on the Internet. All other websites may only provide information that has been made public by authorized media. They must also be approved by the State Council news agency and are responsible for the legality of the broadcast. Each Internet service provider “must keep copies of the records for 60 days” and be prepared to provide this information to public authorities upon request. Providers are also required to limit the information which they publish. Failure to comply with any of the above requirements will block the website. How this blocking is implemented, we will discuss in the next article.

    How to check?


    You can always go to Verification through Test Tools and test access to the site from 3 locations or from browser add-ons that you can find here .

    Second part

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