Recognizing that the authorities have been hesitant to crackdown on our method of circumvention, we have accelerated our expansion of the development of collateral freedom, in three key areas.
Our conclusion is that this was a real attack on Microsoft's email service. Additionally, the attack is very similar to previous nationwide Chinese attacks on SSL encrypted traffic, such as the attack on Google a few months ago.
On December 26, 2014, in an announcement posted on their website, a new chairperson for CNNIC was directly appointed by the Cyberspace Administration of China. The announcement of this appointment coincided with the complete blocking of Gmail.
Cyberspace Administration of China (中央网信办) is chaired by Lu Wei, “China’s web doorkeeper”. Lu Wei is also the vice chair of the Central Propaganda Department, according to his official resume.
This office is directly responsible for the blocking of Gmail and other websites including Facebook, Twitter and Google.
CNNIC is China’s certification authority and operates the country’s domain name registry.
What are certificates used for?
Certificates are used primarily to verify the identity of a person or device, authenticate a service, or encrypt files.