BBC seemed to be surprised yesterday when China cut off access to its website. All it did was convert to HTTPS which makes a somewhat secure connection to the site from a user's computer. The Chinese do not like any connection they can't monitor, or redirect, so they cut them off. You have to think about this for a bit to let the implications sink in.
The more secure a site - or a business- becomes, the less the Chinese like it. They have banned VPNs for business networks, exposing any communications to monitoring. that includes proprietary business plans, pricing, intellectual property, and a lot of other things businesses don't want their competitors or government to know. In this case, the Chinese government is a competitor.
By blocking BBC and a number of others doing the same thing, they indicate their willingness to monitor who gets access to outside news. But, what the Great Cannon, the companion to the Great Firewall, does is provide the capability to intercept and tag anyone who goes to that site. It can modify content of the communication, corrupt it, or manipulate it to do things other than provide news. Ask the New York Times how that works, since they were the first detected victims. It isn't good enough to control their own news outlets; they want to try to influence all the others too.
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