China is said to plug a major hole in its Great Web Firewall

In this photo illustration, a man holds an iPad with a Facebook application in an office building at the Pudong financial district in Shanghai, September 25, 2013. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/Files

China’s government has told telecommunications carriers to block individuals’ access to virtual private networks by Feb 1, people familiar with the matter said, thereby shutting a major window to the global Internet. 

Beijing has ordered state-run telecommunications firms, which include China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, to bar people from using VPNs, services that skirt censorship restrictions by routing web traffic abroad, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about private government directives.