CHINA SECURITY: The Terrible Irony Behind CloudFlare’s Deal With Baidu

A journalist and security guard stand near a Baidu logo during a press conference at the Baidu headquarters in Beijing on Dec. 17, 2014. Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

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A new Web service called Yunjiasu was launched in China, through a partnership between San Francisco-based security company CloudFlare and China’s copy of Google, Baidu.

The two companies are offering a new service called Yunjiasu, which helps fix the slow Internet speeds caused by the Chinese regime’s system for Internet censorship, known as the Great Firewall. It makes foreign websites run faster in China, and makes Chinese websites run faster elsewhere.

The New York Times described this partnership as one of “trust” that “could prove to be a new model for American tech firms that are considering doing business in the delicate areas of China’s tech industry.”

But the irony is that the Chinese regime has used Baidu to launch the same type of cyberattacks that CloudFlare protects against, using the same system that CloudFlare is now helping to run more efficiently.

The cyberattack against GitHub, the most widely used coding website in the world, was widely reported in March.

But the irony is that the Chinese regime has used Baidu to launch the same type of cyberattacks that CloudFlare protects against.