The Reason People In Hong Kong Rushed To Download Software Beyond The Firewall

On the opening day of the May 21 meeting, the Chinese government issued the "Hong Kong National Security Law", since then, the number of searches and downloads of software that bypasses firewalls (VPN) in Hong Kong increased significantly.

"Hong Kong's National Security Act" has added to the city's anxiety about cybersecurity.

NordVPN, a VPN provider, revealed that on May 21, the number of VPN software downloads in Hong Kong increased 120 times compared to the previous day. A NordVPN spokesman said that in response to emergencies, they quickly installed new servers in Taiwan.

NordVPN said that the last number of VPN downloads in Hong Kong was in October 2019, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promoted "Extradition Law".

During the protest against the extradition law, Hong Kong police made 5,325 requests for technology companies to hand over user information, an increase of 1,000 times compared to the first half of last year. 

Facebook handed over the IP address and information of the protests posted on June 12 last year on the social network of democracy activist Chu Dinh (Zhou Ting).

Surfshark, another VPN provider, also said that after the CCP proposed National Security Law, its sales in Hong Kong suddenly skyrocketed, with an hourly sales equivalent to one week's sales of last year.

“We have witnessed an incredible increase in Hong Kong users. It is clear that Hong Kong people feel that their security is directly threatened.”

Said Naomi Hodges, an Internet security consultant.

According to Ray Walsh, an expert at ProPrivacy VPN, the CCP took advantage of the disease to enhance control of Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong residents are concerned that their links with the outside world will be affected, so they have sought services beyond the firewall.

The VPN service can redirect users to the site via a virtual server, allowing users to set the area to restrict site browsing and also hide the user's real IP location, encrypting road data transmission of users and protect users from being monitored by any organization or government. Also on the server does not save browsing history.

Many users in mainland China also bypass firewalls via VPN.

Another cyber expert reminded Hong Kong residents that they should regularly learn how to use new encryption software to protect themselves. They may also consider deleting chat logs and leaving groups.

The VPNPro Information Security Research Institute published a survey result last year, showing that 97 major VPN providers in the world are controlled by 23 parent companies, and 6 of these 23 are companies. Chinese company with 29 VPN providers.

A person in Shenzhen who was involved in local VPN operations revealed that Chinese companies have started to set up or acquire VPN companies overseas on their own since 2015. After these VPN companies merged with the Chinese company, although they continue to charge service fees, the difficulty of bypassing firewalls is increasing.

According to the report, the purpose of expanding the CCP's VPN companies is to increase the difficulty for users when they bypass the firewall, and to collect and analyze the content and time of users browsing the web, linking connecting VPN user identifiers and setting data for VPN users to enhance surveillance.

Since the CCP announced the "Hong Kong National Security Law", in addition to the keyword "VPN" in the number of searches on Google in Hong Kong has skyrocketed, the terms "immigration" and "Taiwan" have also become two other popular search keywords. 

On the evening of May 21, the number of searches for the term "immigrant" more than quadrupled and the keyword "Taiwan" doubled.