Disappearing Government Records Show Police Ordering People, Companies to Stop Using Foreign VPNs

China's state sponsored media has long made it clear that foreign VPNs are not legal. For example, the Global Times wrote in 2012: Residents in China have found logging into their Facebook and Twitter accounts increasingly difficult in recent days, after several popular VPN (virtual private network) companies have alleged that China's Great Firewall (GFW) has been upgraded. However, officials and experts in China's Internet industry have said that it is illegal for foreign companies to operate a VPN business in China. Three overseas VPN service providers, Astrill, Witopia and StrongVPN apologized Thursday that their service to residents in the Chinese mainland has been blocked due to a recent upgrade of the GFW. Astrill claimed that most VPN protocols have been blocked, and that many foreign companies have been influenced. Fang Binxing, designer of the GFW, told the Global Times Thursday he did not know of any upgrade to the firewall. "As far as I know,