Services of VPN providers suffer further disruptions in China

Beijing

INTERNET services that allow people to freely access blocked websites and apps from within China saw more severe disruptions last week, said three providers, moves that Chinese state media said were justified.

The services affected include those of popular virtual private network (VPN) providers Astrill, StrongVPN and Golden Frog, which are engaged in a technological arms race to one-up China's highly sophisticated Great Firewall Internet censorship system. "The attack on VPNs that affected us and other VPN providers is more sophisticated than what we've seen in the past," said Sunday Yokubaitis, president of Golden Frog.