We don’t know whether the Chinese government came down like a ton of bricks on the developer of the Clash proxy, who signs himself @Fndroid. But that would fit the pattern. In recent months, China has been making it harder and harder to escape the Great Firewall, a name for its technology for censoring the Chinese Internet.
TechCrunch’s Jagmeet Singh reports that earlier this month, the software for Clash for Windows, a proxy tool that helps people bypass the Great Firewall, suddenly disappeared from GitHub (“Anti-censorship tools are quietly disappearing into thin air in China,” November 21, 2023).
Proxies disguise the user’s IP address. They are not quite the same as virtual private networks (VPNs), which add encryption.
GitHub is where @Fndroid posted updates to Clash and where people generally downloaded the proxy.
After deleting the repository, the developer of Clash for Windows, who goes by the pseudonym @Fndroid, posted on X that they would stop updating the tool, with no further detail. “Stopped updating, see you soon?,” the developer wrote in Chinese.
“Technology is not good or bad, but people are,” the developer continued. “It’s time to face the light and move forward.”
Very cryptic. What bad people? Maybe the Chinese government, maybe people ratting @Fndroid out to the Chinese government or on the verge of ratting him out. Maybe he hasn’t been caught but, feeling the heat, is getting out while the getting is good. The fact that he’s posting at all and has responded to a TechCrunch inquiry suggests that he is not currently rotting in a Chinese prison.
@Fndroid’s response to TechCrunch only confirms, politely, that the developer just does not want to talk about it: “I must inform you that I am not in a position to provide any insights or comments on this matter. My current commitments and policies prevent me from discussing this topic publicly. I appreciate your understanding and respect for my privacy in this regard. I wish you success in your reporting and hope you find the information you need from other sources.”
Another proxy developer who stopped developing his proxy, who goes by EAimTY, published a post that less obliquely alludes to the hazards of resisting state censorship.
As Google-Translated, EAimTY’s post gives many reasons for shutting down the project, including the hassle of dealing with obnoxiously demanding users. But he also says: “I am in China and cannot bear the risk of continuing development. I don’t need your donations, and I don’t have the guts to commercialize this project, so I have no more motivation to maintain it.”
