In many ways, the Great Firewall is associated more with slow internet and lowered productivity, not thwarted dissent. In the context of the recent crackdown, TechNode spoke with a few VPN providers that cater to customers in China, and learned more about how the GFW takes down VPN services in China. No one was getting any traffic,” says James Cox, a spokesperson for VPNinja, a Shanghai-based VPN provider that targets expats in China. IP (internet protocol) Address BlockingAccording to GreatFire.org, 8,056 IP addresses are currently blocked by the GFW. Some VPN providers give multiple IP addresses to a single server, which allows them to connect to clients when one or several other IP addresses have been blocked.