FINDING · POLICY
Brussee develops a conceptual framework distinguishing two logics of government geo-blocking: (1) information control (blocking inbound foreign content from domestic users) and (2) data sovereignty / attack-surface reduction (blocking outbound access by foreign actors to domestic systems). Chinese government site blocking of external IPs is motivated primarily by the second logic, creating an asymmetric internet topology where CN citizens cannot reach the outside world, and outside actors cannot probe CN government infrastructure.
From 2026-brussee-reverse-great-firewall — Conceptualizing the reverse great firewall: cybersecurity and the logics of government geo-blocking in China · §2, §4 · 2026 · Journal of Cybersecurity
Implications
- Measurement methodology for GFW studies should account for asymmetric access: vantage points outside CN may be blocked from probing certain CN- hosted endpoints, leading to measurement blind spots distinct from GFW blocks of outbound traffic.
- Reverse-GFW blocking of foreign ASNs means circumvention proxy IPs should not be in well-known datacenter ASN blocks that CN-side firewalls block inbound — residential IPs or less-known ASNs are better hosting choices.
Tags
Extracted by claude-sonnet-4-6 — review before relying.