Fang Binxing, the creator of the Great Firewall censorship system, is interviewed by Global Times and reveals that he himself runs at least six VPNs to access the web beyond the GFW (though not to access “messy information”):
“I have six VPNs on my home computer,” says Fang Binxing, 50, president of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. “But I only try them to test which side wins: the GFW or the VPN.
“I’m not interested in reading messy information like some of that anti-government stuff.”
[…] Fang’s handiwork brought down on him an intense barrage of online criticism in December when he opened a microblog on Sina.com.
[…] “I regard the dirty abuse as a sacrifice for my country,” Fang says. “They can’t get what they want so they need to blame someone emotionally: like if you fail to get a US visa and you slag off the US visa official afterwards.”
This massive accumulation of sarcastic and ugly abuse of Fang all stemmed from his role in creating a technology that filters controversial keywords and blocks access to websites deemed sensitive.
Fang refuses to reveal how the Great Firewall works. Crossing hands over chest, he says, “It’s confidential.”
Read more about the Great Firewall and Fang Binxing via CDT.
