I haven't read 3BP myself (but I have read you all discussing it numerous times), so take the following with a grain of salt:

Might this be a 2002 foreshadowing of the 2008 novel, in which GCJ-02 was meant as an anti-sophon measure?

(I checked to see when CIA had a network liquidated, but that was 2010, so —unless someone's been applying a temporal obsfucation algo— any earthling paranoia leading to metaphorical wallfacers was already in the zeitgeist before that action was taken)

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8dX-A4h2DU