China Now Has The Ability to Track Internet Users Who 'Scale The Wall'

Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang recently detained and warned an internet user after they were detected using a circumvention tool to read information on Wikipedia, which lies outside China's complex network of blocks, filters, and human censorship known as the Great Firewall.

According to social media reports, internet user Zhang Tao received a visit from police soon after after using the open-source online encyclopedia, suggesting that the authorities' ability to monitor people's internet activity in real time has been stepped up recently. In a now-deleted online announcement from the Zhejiang police, screenshots of which were still available on social media this week, Zhang was accused of using the circumvention tool Lantern, downloaded following a Baidu search, to "make repeated, illegal queries on the Wikipedia website."

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