The Chinese government can intercept foreign web traffic as it flows to Chinese websites, inject malicious code, and repurpose traffic, according to a report by the Citizen Lab, a recipient of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. The report finds that a tool dubbed “the Great Cannon” could be used to spy on anyone who retrieves content on a Chinese computer and, therefore, represents a significant escalation in state-level information control.
