PRC Court: Unauthorized Great Firewall Circumvention Services are Illegal Hacking Tools
According to a Henan court, during the summer of 2016, a man named Liu Bingyang started selling a VPN service based on software called "Shadowsocks" to people in China. The court found that Shadowsocks allowed users to "illegally access overseas websites, receive and view illegal videos, and receive and listen to illegal broadcasts." The court did not convict Liu of operating an unlicensed business or illegally operating a telecommunication service. Instead the Court sentenced Liu to three years imprisonment for violating Clause 3 of Article 285 of China's Criminal Law which provides: Any person who provides programs or instruments used specially for penetrating into or illegally controlling computer information systems, or knowingly provides programs or instruments to another person for committing illegal or criminal acts of penetrating into or illegally controlling computer information systems shall, if the circumstances are serious, be punished in accordan