China Temporarily Cuts Itself Off from the Global Internet

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China Temporarily Cuts Itself Off from the Global Internet

By CircleID Reporter
August 25, 2025, 8:48 am PDT Views: 13,005 Add Comment

China briefly disconnected from much of the global internet for over an hour on Wednesday, following a disruption traced to the country’s “Great Firewall.”

According to activist group Great Firewall Report, the outage began at 12:34 a.m. Beijing time and lasted until 1:48 a.m. on August 20. The group said the disruption was caused by the injection of forged TCP reset packets that blocked all traffic on TCP port 443—the standard port for HTTPS connections.

The blackout prevented Chinese users from accessing most foreign websites and services. While inconvenient for browsing, the incident also interrupted critical functions that rely on offshore servers, such as Apple’s and Tesla’s core service communications.

Possible cause: China often tightens internet restrictions during politically sensitive events, but no such trigger was identified this time. Great Firewall Report noted that the equipment behind the block did not match existing fingerprints of known censorship devices, suggesting either the deployment of new technology, a novel configuration, or a possible misconfiguration.

While the “Great Firewall” has long controlled access to global information, it has also experienced technical glitches in the past, exposing vulnerabilities in Beijing’s efforts to maintain a tightly controlled internet environment.

Observers suggest the disruption may have been a test of Beijing’s ability to isolate its domestic internet from the rest of the world—raising concerns of a future “digital iron curtain” separating Chinese users from global connectivity.

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By CircleID Reporter — CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.
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