CNNIC censors news about their own statement

On April 1, 2015 Google announced that they will no longer recognize the CNNIC Root and EV (extensive validation) certificate authorities (CAs).

On April 2, 2015 Mozilla concluded that CNNIC’s behaviour in issuing an unconstrained intermediate certificate to another company was ‘egregious practice’ and that Mozilla products would no longer trust any certificate issued by CNNIC’s roots. Mozilla also published a more detailed report about their actions.

After unauthorized digital certificates for several Google domains were exposed by Google and Mozilla on March 23, 2015, CNNIC censored any mention of these posts. CNNIC is not only a certificate authority, they are also China’s online censorship apparatus. CNNIC was, is and will continue to practice internet censorship.

 

News about the April 1 and 2 annoucements has again been censored on social media and also on traditional media in China.

Below is a screenshot of Weibo posts about these announcements.

 

The first post in the screenshot is about Google revoking CNNIC. Notice that below the first post, there are three buttons while on the second post there are four buttons. The retweet function on the first post about CNNIC is missing. The Chinese authorities are getting more creative about how they prevent negative information from spreading! Later, however, the authorities resorted to ancient practices and the post was completely removed.

 

Even reports which appeared on traditional media websites, detailing how CNNIC were calling out Google for being “unintelligible”, have been censored.

NetEase’s report titled “Chrome and Mozilla revoke CNNIC CA” was deleted within two hours of publishing. NetEase is one of the largest Chinese internet service providers.

URL: http://tech.163.com/15/0403/08/AM8VPOLJ000915BF.html

 

Engadget Chinese's report titled "Google revokes CNNIC CA" is blocked by GFW 

URL: https://en.greatfire.org/cn.engadget.com/2015/04/02/google-cinic-certifi...

 

Sina’s report titled “Google’s decision is unintelligible and unacceptable says CNNIC” was deleted. Sina is the largest Chinese-language web portal.

URL: http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2015-04-02/doc-ichmifpy5387951.shtml

 

Sohu’s report titled “CNNIC condemn Google ” was deleted. Sohu sits 44th overall in Alexa's internet rankings.

URL: http://mt.sohu.com/20150402/n410717100.shtml

 

Open Source China’s report titled “Google revokes CNNIC and EV root CAs” was deleted. Open Source China is the largest open source community in China.

URL: http://www.oschina.net/news/61141/maintaining-digital-certificate-security

 

Caijing’s report titled “Google revokes CNNIC CA; CNNIC says the decision unintelligible” was deleted. Caijing is an independent magazine that covers social, political, and economic issues.

URL: http://tech.caijing.com.cn/20150402/3854320.shtml

caijing.png

 

In fact, almost all reports about CNNIC’s loss of face have been censored in China. This is in addition of to the wide scale censorship of Google and Mozilla’s posts about CNNIC CA last week.

 

CNNIC said in a statement that ‘the decision that Google has made is unacceptable and unintelligible to CNNIC, and meanwhile CNNIC sincerely urge that Google would take users’ rights and interests into full consideration.”

We argue that CNNIC and the Cyberspace Administration of China’s (CAC) decision to completely block Google (and Facebook and Twitter and many more sites) is unacceptable and unintelligible to Chinese internet users. We do agree that Google should take users’ rights and interests into full consideration - revoking CNNIC is a great step forward for user privacy and security worldwide.

CNNIC has implemented (and tried to mask) internet censorship, produced malware and has very bad security practices. The Cyberspace Administration of China, which manages CNNIC, has maliciously been launching dangerous attacks that compromise sensitive information and hijack users to perform DDoS attacks. Tech-savvy users in China have been protesting the inclusion of CNNIC as a trusted certificate authority for years.

We applaud Google and Mozilla’s decisions to revoke the CNNIC certificate authority worldwide. We urge Apple and Microsoft to follow Google and Mozilla’s lead and revoke CNNIC immediately to protect their users.

 

FAQ

 

Do you think Microsoft and Apple will follow suit?

We do not expect Apple to do anything in this situation. Apple has always capitulated to the demands of the Chinese authorities and we expect nothing less from them in this instance. Microsoft have taken important steps to fight back against dangerous behaviour by the Chinese authorities and we hope that they will continue to do so in this instance.

 

If Microsoft and Apple do not do the same, would you recommend that people just use Chrome and Firefox when browsing?

Yes.

 

What does this mean for CNNIC? Will they continue to issue certificates?

Probably. Internet Explorer and Safari as well as all Chinese browsers still trust the CNNIC CA.

 

Will any new certificates be recognized by Google and Mozilla?

No.

 

If Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple all revoke CNNIC certs then does that mean China won’t be able to stage any more MITM attacks?

All previous large scale MITM attacks have been staged with self-signed certificates. GFW can continue to use MITM to attack websites with self-signed CAs.

 

How long will it take for CNNIC to get back into the good books of these companies?

Google and Mozilla have asked that CNNIC implement certificate transparency before reapplying. If CNNIC implements this, anyone will be able to audit certificates issued by CNNIC in real time. So even though we may not trust CNNIC, we will not object to CNNIC being reinstated if they implement certificate transparency.

 

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Thu, Aug 10, 2023

1.4 million people used FreeBrowser to circumvent the Great Firewall of Turkmenistan

Since 2021, the authorities in Turkmenistan have taken exceptional measures to crack down on the use of circumvention tools. Citizens have been forced to swear on the Koran that they will not use a VPN. Circumvention tool websites have been systematically blocked. Arbitrary searches of mobile devices have also taken place and have even targeted school children and teachers.

The government has also blocked servers hosting VPNs which led to “near complete” internet shutdowns on several occasions in 2022. Current reports indicate that 66 hosting providers, 19 social networks and messaging platforms, and 10 leading content delivery networks (CDNs), are blocked in the country. The government presumably is unconcerned about the negative economic impact that such shutdowns can cause.

Fri, Mar 18, 2022

Well-intentioned decisions have just made it easier for Putin to control the Russian Internet

This article is in large part inspired by a recent article from Meduza (in Russian).

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russian users have had problems accessing government websites and online banking clients. Browsers began to mark these sites as unsafe and drop the connection. The reason is the revocation of digital security certificates by foreign certificate authorities (either as a direct consequence of sanctions or as an independent, good will move); without them, browsers do not trust sites and “protect” their users from them.

However, these actions, caused - or at least triggered by - a desire to punish Russia for their gruesome actions in Ukraine, will have long-lasting consequences for Russian netizens.

Digital certificates are needed to confirm that the site the user wants to visit is not fraudulent. The certificates contain encryption keys to establish a secure connection between the site and the user. It is very easy to understand whether a page on the Internet is protected by a certificate. One need just look at the address bar of the browser. If the address begins with the https:// prefix, and there is a lock symbol next to the address, the page is protected. By clicking on this lock, you can see the status of the connection, the name of the Certification Authority (CA) that issued the certificate, and its validity period.

There are several dozen commercial and non-commercial organizations in the world that have digital root certificates, but 3/4 of all certificates are issued by only five of the largest companies. Four of them are registered in the USA and one is registered in Belgium.

Mon, Aug 03, 2020

Announcing the Release of GreatFire AppMaker

GreatFire (https://en.greatfire.org/), a China-focused censorship monitoring organization, is proud to announce that we have developed and released a new anti-censorship tool that will enable any blocked media outlet, blogger, human rights group, or civil society organization to evade censors and get their content onto the phones of millions of readers and supporters in China and other countries that censor the Internet.

GreatFire has built an Android mobile app creator, called “GreatFire AppMaker”, that can be used by organizations to unblock their content for users in China and other countries. Organizations can visit a website (https://appmaker.greatfire.org/) which will compile an app that is branded with the organization’s own logo and will feature their own, formerly blocked content. The app will also contain a special, censorship-circumventing web browser so that users can access the uncensored World Wide Web. The apps will use multiple strategies, including machine learning, to evade advanced censorship tactics employed by the Chinese authorities.  This project will work equally well in other countries that have China-like censorship restrictions. For both organizations and end users, the apps will be free, fast, and extremely easy to use.

This project was inspired by China-based GreatFire’s first-hand experience with our own FreeBrowser app (https://freebrowser.org/en) and desire to help small NGOs who may not have the in-house expertise to circumvent Chinese censorship. GreatFire’s anti-censorship tools have worked in China when others do not. FreeBrowser directs Chinese internet users to normally censored stories from the app’s start page (http://manyvoices.news/).

Fri, Jul 24, 2020

Apple, anticompetition, and censorship

On July 20, 2020, GreatFire wrote to all 13 members of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, requesting a thorough examination into Apple’s practice of censorship of its App Store, and an investigation into how the company collaborates with the Chinese authorities to maintain its unique position as one of the few foreign tech companies operating profitably in the Chinese digital market.  

This letter was sent a week before Apple CEO TIm Cook will be called for questioning in front of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. The CEOs of Amazon, Google and Facebook will also be questioned on July 27, as part of the Committee’s ongoing investigation into competition in the digital marketplace.

This hearing offers an opportunity to detail to the Subcommittee how Apple uses its closed operating ecosystem to not only abuse its market position but also to deprive certain users, most notably those in China, of their right to download and use apps related to privacy, secure communication, and censorship circumvention.

We hope that U.S. House representatives agree with our view that Apple should not be allowed to do elsewhere what would be considered as unacceptable in the U.S. Chinese citizens are not second class citizens. Private companies such as Apple compromise themselves and their self-proclaimed values of freedom and privacy when they collaborate with the Chinese government and its censors.

Mon, Jun 10, 2019

Apple Censoring Tibetan Information in China

Apple has a long history of censorship when it comes to information about Tibet. In 2009, it was revealed that several apps related to the Dalai Lama were not available in the China App Store. The developers of these apps were not notified that their apps were removed. When confronted with these instances of censorship, an Apple spokesperson simply said that the company “continues to comply with local laws”.

In December, 2017, at a conference in China, when asked about working with the Chinese authorities to censor the Apple App Store, Tim Cook proclaimed:

"Your choice is: do you participate, or do you stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be. And my own view very strongly is you show up and you participate, you get in the arena because nothing ever changes from the sideline."

In the ten years since Apple was first criticized for working with the Chinese authorities to silence already marginalized voices, what has changed? Apple continues to strictly follow the censorship orders of the Chinese authorities. When does Tim Cook expect that his company will help to bring about positive change in China?

Based on data generated from https://applecensorship.com, Apple has now censored 29 popular Tibetan mobile applications in the China App Store. Tibetan-themed apps dealing with news, religious study, tourism, and even games are being censored by Apple. A full list of the censored apps appear below.

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