As I noted in my reply at that time, everyone has always agreed that the overall server remained intermittently accessible until Feb 2020. The particular database "was not accessed from outside of the WIV after 12 September 2019", though.
Right, a database put online in June 2019 - widely claimed to be “suspiciously removed” in Sept 2019, actually wasn’t. It was available into 2020 at which point after a bunch of hacking attempts, they took it down. And certainly “everyone hasn’t agreed” because in every thread about the topic people imply like this 6
Month old database is a smoking gun when it’s self evidently not.
I don't think the server is conclusive evidence of anything, but your representation seems misleading to me. The date when the information became publicly unavailable seems like the relevant one to me, even if the server remained connected to the Internet for a few months afterward.
And you seriously believe their claim that it was taken down due to "hacking attempts"? Given the international importance of the subject, is there really no one anywhere in China who can keep a simple database-backed website running? Or could they not share the information in a form that obviously presents no information security risk, like a dump on a flash drive?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33247997
As I noted in my reply at that time, everyone has always agreed that the overall server remained intermittently accessible until Feb 2020. The particular database "was not accessed from outside of the WIV after 12 September 2019", though.