In perhaps one of the most audacious and worrying revelations in the battle for privacy, it's been found that the manufacturing supply chain for a number of servers has been compromised. A Bloomberg investigation reports that servers made in China's technology hub have been tainted with the installation of a tiny chip that can siphon data. At least 30 major tech companies are affected in the sophisticated nation-state attack.

At some point it became a commonly known 'fact' that the Great Wall Of China is the only manmade structure visible from space. However this supposedly unassailable common knowledge really doesn't stand up to scrutiny - especially when you actually try to spot it from space.

Huawei is receiving rave reviews for its latest handset, the P20 Pro. Even in the United States, where the phone isn't on sale, reviewers are importing the device to declare it the phone of the year. The praise is understandable - it pushes the camera past its nearest competitors and is arguably the prettiest phone ever built.

And yet... I find it difficult to wholeheartedly recommend this phone in the current climate.

Project Fi already makes it cheap and easy to use your phone all over the world without needing to swap a new SIM card in every country, but if you're planning a trip to China, there's one huge reason to check out Google's service.

New cybersecurity laws introduced in China make it harder for global companies to store data pertaining to Chinese nationals. And although cloud providers have set up data centres in countries that require citizen data to remain onshore, Amazon and other providers are taking steps to sell their hardware assets to Chinese companies.

Just a couple of days ago, Apple started removing VPN apps from the iOS App Store in China, in response to changing Chinese laws. Now Russia has joined the party, banning VPNs and proxies that allow citizens to access banned sites. It seems that North Korea's limited 28-site Internet might not be such an outrider in years to come.

Brief news items of note for Lifehacker readers, including: Valve will soon sell the Steam Controller in Australia, Mafia III reviewed, inside the richest and most mysterious village in China.