China, in its political protectionism, has overshadowed many global sites that disagree with the guidelines dictated by the central government of Beijing. The technique to prevent Chinese citizens from surfing the web without limits is to use their internet filters to redirect unwanted sites. Technically it is called the Great Firewall, but the extent of the disturbances aimed at limiting the viewing of virtual pages in China, seems to have more far-reaching characteristics.
Berkeley technicians denounce the use of a new system that has been christened Great Cannon. The latter would allow the Chinese not only to intercept unpleasant web traffic, but also to control and vary its contents by injecting malware into it.
The Great Cannon was used to filter web pages on Baidu, the most important Chinese search engine, to limit the action of GreatFire.org, the site belonging to a non-profit organization that attempts to redirect pages obscured by the Chinese government .
The interdiction capacity of the Great Cannon, however, could be used to find out whoever attempts to disclose illegal content, so the new operating system would represent a significant escalation in the control of information at the state level. In fact, it is not just a tool for censorship, but for the management and control of internal security.
Western researchers were able to discover the new system because they detected unusual activities on the Great Firewall managed by a separate entity, which altered virtual traffic abnormally and on a gigantic scale, in what is technically referred to as "a man in the middle attack ”.
This new cybernetic weapon is similar to that developed by the NSA and the British GCHQ, at least according to the information leaked by Edward Snowden's statements. More simply, the Great Cannon, like its Western counterparts, is able to intercept web traffic without limits and redirect it to ad hoc sites. Basically, the difference is that the NSA adopts it for targeted surveillance, on the contrary the Chinese would use it for censorship and espionage.
In conclusion, if China were to implement the functions of the Great Cannon, this would no longer be just a vehicle for the unlawful acquisition of data, but a potential formidable vector of cyber attack.
Giovanni Caprara
Source: The New York Times
