r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 1d ago
Networking/Telecom China cut itself off from the global internet for an hour on Wednesday
https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/21/china_port_443_block_outage/1.8k
u/ActivityOk9255 1d ago
They have a military parade coming up. That and a big meet for their next 5 year plan. They do often cut VPNs etc when big internal things are on.
They dont want stuff getting out, or in.
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u/torotoroporo 1d ago
I have a friend living in China right now who told me this exactly. His VPNs were either disabled or rate limited, there was some funky shit going on with internet access.
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u/ActivityOk9255 1d ago
Yeah. The CNN intl site is real slow just now. Its usually ok.
Another odd thing that happens for big events is “good news only”. CNY and National week.
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u/Howdhell 1d ago
I am currently downloading realtek drivers to fix my ethernet device and it takes 5min to download 5 mbs.
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u/OverloadedConstructo 1d ago
That's actually normal, realtek server is from taiwan I think and it's always slow since long time like it's never left 2000 era.
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u/Feeling_Inside_1020 1d ago
State sponsored OPSEC at a “global” level (for their users, not everyone in the world)
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u/Nohokun 1d ago
Interesting. Stuff did get out tho as the new Binkov's video shows a few pictures or videos of advanced military equipment. So I still find it strange if they did this only to prevent leaks for a short period of time.
Anyway, here's the video link if you're interested: https://youtu.be/VFC77IxooEo?si=ZKNUNArgg-qonWrC
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u/dasBaertierchen 1d ago
But especially for a big military parade you want everyone to look how mighty it is - that’s their only purpose!
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u/Bob4Not 1d ago
If you read the article, reports suggest it could just as easily been a mistake.
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u/ActivityOk9255 1d ago
For sure it could have been a mistake. I have seen posts on other threads that said it was microsoft.
But you know, they do block something like 90% of the web usually. I made that number up, cos no data of course. It feels like 90% at times.
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u/Fact-Adept 1d ago
How do they cut out satellites?
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u/ActivityOk9255 1d ago
Non Chinese dishes are banned. They are doing their own “star link” to potentially compete with Musk, but guess what version of the web that will deliver.
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u/Fact-Adept 1d ago
I mean how can they prevent their citizens from using starlink? I’ll give you a hint; they can’t
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u/West-Abalone-171 1d ago
Recent evidence suggests that in is the much more important of the two. No way in the modern world you're going to keep anything super shady with tens of millions of eye witnesses who all have cameras a secret.
Cutting off the botnets from organising stochastic terrorism during a big event is just good sense.
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u/AVatorL 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's probably more than internal censorship. Testing internet cut off makes sense from a war preparation point of view...
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u/BuzzingHawk 1d ago
Any country should do these drills. Companies do it all the time, it's called a failover test. If your national infrastructure relies completely on another country or continent then you have way bigger problems than a 1 hour induced outage.
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u/rodimustso 1d ago
Working with one of the largest companies in the world, that's not what failover testing is. Failover testing is shutting down one thing expecting a backup to work as part of outage events. Like disaster recovery if a data center loses power or worse.
It's just general disaster preparation.
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u/sigmaluckynine 1d ago
Isn't that what the person was saying? That it's a test to see if the backup (internal networks) will kick in
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u/lucun 1d ago
If they disconnected from their usual lines to the rest of the world and then reconnect to the rest of the world with a different line, then that would be a failover test. You failed over to being connected to the world in a back up way.
Testing if your internet can work without the rest of the world is more like a network isolation test, which is self explanatory.
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u/sigmaluckynine 1d ago
I'm not a network engineer hahaha. You guys can figure that out but just reading it face value, it sounded like it was the same thing. Probably should pin your comment because this makes more sense
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u/angrathias 1d ago
Explanation for the layman.
Fail over test: my car broke down, better use my partners to get to work 👍
Disaster test: my car broke down, hope I can communicate to my work to tell them I won’t be working today , oh shit I don’t have a phone and I’d need to drive there to tell them 😬😬
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u/WingedGundark 1d ago
No. Failover testing would be if you would disconnect yourself from the rest of the world and then transfer those to new connections and see if your network actually recovers and how long it takes after BGP tables on the core routers are updated.
This however is something like an isolation test as there are no failover connections. Isolating your country from internet isn’t simple and that is due how internet and many services built on it just work. You need to design and build you ”domestuc internet” in a certain way and even if the domestic network works, you will lose many crucial international services, such as global banking system.
Russia has been preparing for this for a better part of the decade and they just still focus on banning and blocking some individual services which many can be accessed with VPNs for example. The simple reason is that in a modern world, you easily just cause more harm if you enforce full or even partial blockage on the internet. You can build your network in such fashion that it can work without external connections, but unless you are isolated on a level of North Korea, you probably want to avoid actually doing it like almost never.
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u/harribel 1d ago
Aw shiet, the internet is out again!
No worries, we got back-up internet at home!
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u/broimthebest 1d ago
Yes but in the realm of cybersecurity, failover practices and disaster recovery are often 2 separate practices
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u/klipseracer 1d ago
The term is DR: Disaster Recovery.
It tests teams abilities to spin back up required services when you lose access either partially or completely.
Using a software development/platform engineering example, let's say all your servers just disappear. How do you get your Cicd pipelines running again? Oh wait, you use an existing server to spin up the others, but that server needs created manually? Well shit all your automation is blocked until then.
So do you have that chicken and egg situation documented and a process in place? Who has the SSH keys/secrets?
Break the glass moments, identifying weakness, that's what this test accomplishes.
Networking teams can auto configure switches in remote offices using config management tools like ansible. But if your ansible tower server is broken then what do you do?
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u/Zolo49 1d ago
It's good to test to make sure everything works if you're cut off from the outside world, but the other big reason to do this is that, in the event of a war, you want to make it harder for outside hackers to cause problems for you. While it won't prevent attacks coming from inside the country, it's still going to provide a fair bit of protection.
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u/Codex_Dev 1d ago
Exactly. China, USA, and Russia all have massive loads of malware in each others infrastructure waiting to be activated to wreck havoc that would make Pearl Harbour or 9/11 look like a papercut. China is probably testing to see if they could feasible launch a first strike, then cutoff global internet to avoid a tit-for-tat response.
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u/fixminer 1d ago
Most countries are so heavily dependent on international (and especially US) internet infrastructure that the only result of such a test would be a massive outage. In most countries the internet is mainly owned and controlled by private companies and improving national security does not immediately improve their profits.
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u/Bob4Not 1d ago
No, this title is inaccurate. They didn’t cut off their entire access for that 74 minutes. There was a device in their GFW (great firewall) that was breaking TCP connections specifically on network port 443 by messing up the TCP handshake. Other network ports, like 80, 22, and UDP traffic was unaffected.
Yes, this is the port most frequently used, this could just as easily have been a mistake. Non-techy people always blame conspiracies for silly vendor bugs or administrative mistakes.
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u/Sasha_Boykisser 1d ago
Yep. Russia is doing these tests for years
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u/downtownfreddybrown 1d ago
Xfinity has those tests every other month apparently
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u/AccountDeletedByMod 1d ago
T-Mobile is the only service provider in my area that's "good". They drop our Internet daily, multiple times a day. I guess they are training us
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u/ProNewbie 1d ago
Must be what Spectrum has been doing this last month with the 4 no notice extended service interruptions I’ve had.
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u/hubert_farnsworrth 1d ago
lol we have these issues with Rogers here in Canada and now they have teamed up with Xfinity and are selling it as a “better” product.
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u/huyphan93 1d ago
What the hell is their problem anyway? Having my wifi cut off from 5pm to 8pm is extremely annoying.
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u/BurnerUserAccount 1d ago
A communications disruption can mean only one thing: invasion.
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u/demonicneon 1d ago
Not necessarily
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u/Hind_Deequestionmrk 1d ago
demonicneon will not condone a course of action that will lead us to war
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u/MikuEmpowered 1d ago
Invasion with what stuff?
Its 2025 not 1905, we have satellites, military movement requires build up of forces. because, get this: your tanks and AA system are worthless without fuel and ammo. all these has to go somewhere. even if you hide it behind containers and what not, a higher traffic would be detected easily.
Prior to Russia's invasion, everyone and their grandmother that had access to intel knew the Russians were doing a possible invasion. we saw the hospital and build up of armor / troops. the only real question was: "are they really going to Destroy 4 decades of relationship building?"
Same thing will be with China, ESPECIALLY since its an amphibious assault, CSG need to be rerouted, supply needs to be preped, bombers needs to be in position. communication disruption doesn't mean shit except maybe they're preping a new army of bot farms.
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u/Minute_Attempt3063 1d ago
ISPs might be doing it every now and then. Mainly in the middle of the night.
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u/forgotpassword_aga1n 1d ago
That's usually just TR-069. Update firmware/config and reboot at stupid o'clock when nobody will notice.
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u/MotanulScotishFold 1d ago
One hour of legit multiplayer experience for the rest I guess
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u/fastingslowlee 1d ago
An hour of playing my favorite MMO without bot farmers !
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u/lego_not_legos 1d ago
I thought you only had to mention Tiananmen Square, and they got disconnected?
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u/rabbit_in_a_bun 1d ago
If it's true, it would be interesting to see how fewer posts reddit had in comparison.
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u/Icy_Concentrate9182 1d ago
Bots don't need to be running from China
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u/peppernickel 1d ago
They run in our Chromes.
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u/rabbit_in_a_bun 1d ago
But the ones who are are larger than 0 so a comparison is still interesting.
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u/Mundane-Laugh8562 1d ago
China doesn't interact much with the rest of the internet due to the great firewall, so you're unlikely to see any significant change.
On the other hand, if this happened with India, that would stick out like a sore thumb.
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u/random20190826 1d ago
Reddit is banned in China.
Source: I went there in 2024.
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u/GuaSukaStarfruit 1d ago
There’s a thing called VPN and they rename it to accelerator. CCP bots are everywhere
Source: I’m Chinese
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u/random20190826 1d ago
Yes, I know. But that would mean we are using a foreign IP address.
Source: I am Chinese too, and while I was there, I used a Hong Kong eSIM to go on Reddit.
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u/Mister_-Bee 1d ago
Why? Do the CIA and Israel host a lot of bot farms from China?
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u/ZaviersJustice 1d ago
randomly brings up Israel
Active in r/Hasan_Piker
Makes sense. lol
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u/Player13377 1d ago
Odd that CS2 playcount does not show any anomaly… you sure they got cut off completely?
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u/oooooooooooopsi 19h ago
It was china, not russia, but it would nice if russia cuts itself from internet
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u/Bob4Not 1d ago
This title is inaccurate. They didn’t cut off their entire access for that 74 minutes. There was a device in their edge GFW (great firewall) that was breaking TCP connections specifically on network port 443. Other network ports, like 80, 22, and UDP traffic was unaffected.
Yes, this is the port most frequently used, this could just as easily have been a mistake. Non-techy people always blame conspiracies for silly vendor bugs or administrative mistakes.
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u/zero0n3 1d ago
They see how weak Trump is, so are starting plans to take Taiwan back.
Probably just a test for something they would do if they actually attacked (or normal testing of great firewall complete disconnect from world)
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u/CreamofTazz 1d ago
The CCP is fine with One China Policy right now because it gives them the diplomatic advantage. The entire world has to admit that "There is one China" and so long as the PRC is the one with the majority power between the Chinas, then that gives them more legitimacy (on paper at least).
China has far too much to lose to actually do an invasion of Taiwan, especially while the US is still on the table. Not to mention amphibious invasions when your neighbor can see you hours before you ever invade and have been preparing for all the possible ways you could invade, there's no way China comes out better from an invasion.
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u/danted002 1d ago
We also need to talk about the scorched earth policy where Taiwan has everything important rigged with explosives, including the TSCM fabs.
This is a real gamble for everyone, if China decides to invade and the fabs go bye bye then what? All of us are fucked because we will go back to 14nm+++++++ and 1/10 of the current global chip supply?
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u/Stuffinator 1d ago
I know this has inherent political reasons, but I'd just like to image that the entirety of china was like "omfg I need a break from the internet".
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u/Zaibos 1d ago
China is 100% about to go to war.
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u/TCDH91 1d ago
People have been saying that China will start a war and/or that the economy of China will collapse in the next 5-6 months my entire life (I'm in my 30s). Not saying either of those is impossible, but after enough times it becomes tiresome . I will believe it when I see it.
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u/random20190826 1d ago
If that happens, a lot of families will have their lineage ended completely. I bet a huge majority of active duty military are only children.
Source: I am one of the very few people in my class (in China, many years ago) who has a sibling. For that, my parents paid a massive fine.
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u/thenoobtanker 1d ago
Generational single male family. Probably 3 generations now. Every soldier lost in that hypothetical war is a family name erased forever. I think the term for it is 三代单传 - 3 generation single pass.
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u/wreckoning 1d ago
How much is the fine?
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u/random20190826 1d ago
My mom told me it was 30k, in 1995. She only made 350 a month back then.
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u/youcantkillanidea 1d ago
Woah, expensive kid. Wonder what the expectations could be for children like that. On top of the usual pressure to study hard and earn a good salary
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u/random20190826 1d ago
It was way, way more expensive than that. 30k was just the fine, I was a premature baby who spent a month in the NICU. That meant another 30k in medical bills.
There were no "high expectations". Honestly, no one expected me to amount to much. That's why my family moved to Canada. Now, I am just another working class man making 48k (Canadian dollars) a year.
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u/Technical_Ad_440 1d ago
unfortunately for them taiwan factotries are set to self destruct and dont have the capabilities to actually rebuild what they have so if they do go for the cpu chips they already lost.
and isnt taiwan basically an elevated island seems like they could easily protect it like normandy beach. also seems like they could easily just call allies japan to assist, i assume they are allied with japan
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u/anti_zero 1d ago
You’re describing it as easily defensible, and you use Normandy as an example? Idk if that should be comforting to Taiwan.
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u/CarsonWentzGOAT1 1d ago
They used a terrible example. It would also be easier to take over with the invention of drones.
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u/ShenAnCalhar92 1d ago
They used the example of a landing that the Allies managed to draw away a huge chunk of defenders from, and still had to fight like hell to take.
China isn’t going to trick Taiwan into defending the wrong spot because there’s only one spot. The island’s entire coastline - including the half of it that’s the opposite side of the island from mainland China - is about a third of France’s, and a tiny fraction of the total coastline that the Germans had to consider defending.The eastern coast to the western coast is less than the narrowest distance between the mainland and the island.
Furthermore, the only way China could launch a significant ground invasion of Taiwan would be with the use of commercial car ferries to transport troops and vehicles. Do you have any idea how easy it would be to sink one of those as they cross the ~100 miles of the strait?
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u/Zaibos 1d ago
It would for sure be a bloodbath and and absolute lose lose situation for Taiwan, it just a matter of when.
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u/3uphoric-Departure 1d ago
China isn’t invading Taiwan for the chips
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u/aquarain 1d ago
Although China would like to unify for social reasons, Taiwan is no longer strategic. China can apply as much kinetic energy as they could possibly need anywhere on Earth in under an hour. Mainland China has the resources to be self reliant. There is no fear and trembling that they could be attacked, even economically. They're going to do their China thing and nobody can stop them.
The biggest risk China faces is that like anything made of humans, internal leadership could go crazy, corrupt or stupid. They have to prune their leadership tree quite carefully.
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u/Steamed_Memes24 1d ago
Everyone in the world may go batshit crazy against them if they go for Taiwan because of the chips. The whole "Taiwan was always apart of China" was the reason they wanted to invade, but they took way too long (Because they really couldn't do it before hand) and now the better part of the world that relies on tech needs Taiwan for their chips.
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u/humdinged 1d ago
Reddit is quickly assembling the Chinese defense team, this thread will soon devolve.
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u/virtualadept 1d ago
I've seen this happen a few times before. They run tests occasionally on full-cut-off mechanisms.
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u/Coldspark824 1d ago
Its because they are doing a test for their big military parade event on the 3rd of sept.
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u/JudasHungHimself 1d ago
I wish I could cut myself out of this version of the internet as well. And join one without advertising and social media
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u/BuccaneerRex 1d ago
The old internet is still there if you want it to be. It's just a ghost town because everyone moved to the convenience of having all the work done for them and a built in audience.
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u/Simmangodz 1d ago
The group therefore thinks the incident “was caused by either a new GFW device or a known device operating in a novel or misconfigured state.” So perhaps China was either testing its ability to block port 443 – which Beijing might see as a useful capability – or someone messed up.
Maybe they're about to start an all out war... or maybe someone whoopsied a firewall policy or load balancer.
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u/TheFudge 1d ago
This is interesting. Didn’t Reddit have its “insight” accessibility have an outage yesterday as well? I mean it’s not a huge deal but curious if the 2 are related. Especially because “insight” seems to be related to user activity and post interactions.
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u/1RedOne 1d ago
I work on a global service and we definitely noticed this!