The Chinese government has launched a new effort to take down and command censorship-thwarting applications including virtual private networks (VPNs) which could be utilized to break the nation’s surveillance and blocking lists.

The UK’s Snooper’s Charter, the United States National Security Agency (NSA)’s mass surveillance tasks as well as states round the world — Turkey, China, and Iran, to mention a few — have tried to track and control our digital communication, which occasionally contains blocking Internet access.

While the UK is debating which pornographic actions ought to be considered “non-traditional” and thus ought to be censored, other nations like China have taken a more direct way of commanding the internet through national blockades and automatic Internet Supplier (ISP) walls which prevent citizens from getting particular sites and services.

China is well known for the “Great Firewall,” which tracks Internet traffic flows between China and other nations. If requests for content that was restricted are received, the request is terminated.

This didn’t appear to be enough, yet, as a brand new tool developed by the nation, the “Great Cannon,” subsequently tried to propagate this censorship pattern across state boundaries by launching DDoS attacks against domain names which included stuff criticising the Chinese regime.

Now, based on a notice released by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, a 14-month effort was started to crack down on “unauthorized” internet programs and services that the government doesn’t authorize.

“Nevertheless, indications of disorderly development reveal the pressing requirement for regulation standards.”

and encourage healthy and orderly development,” the software will compel ISPs, VPN providers, data centers and content delivery networks (CDNs) to obtain a permit and acceptance from Chinese officials to run. It will likewise become illegal for practically any company to run beyond their particular permit restrictions.

In particular, VPNs are described as “prohibited cross border company problems” which must be commanded.

This, consequently, can prevent citizens from using VPNs cover their on-line tracks to hide their IP addresses or reroute their traffic through another state as a way to access services prohibited inside their home area.

It remains to be seen whether this latest effort at control will just spawn new approaches to circumvent it, or whether the latest setback to Internet liberties in the state will eradicate VPN use.