Hacker Read

dreamcompiler · 2023-05-04 20:12:26

Will this mean that you need to use an always-on VPN when traveling to the UK, much like what one has to do* when visiting China?

* Or had to. I dn't know if the VPN trick still works in China.

reply

olalonde | karma 25101 | avg karma 4.21 · | 2012-05-01 21:50:42+00:00

Ironically, I recently bought a VPN in the UK to go around China's Great Firewall. Luckily, I can switch to another location free of charge.

dgellow | karma 16126 | avg karma 4.42 · | 2022-03-04 21:13:44

That’s illegal in China. You’re only allowed to use VPN approved by the government and only for some use-cases.

howlingfantods | karma 573 | avg karma 4.98 · | 2024-04-19 13:34:23

WhatsApp servers have been blocked in China forever. I lived there for 13 years and the only time I recall using WhatsApp without VPN was in the early 2010s.

joyeuse6701 | karma 827 | avg karma 1.79 · | 2019-07-17 17:55:34+00:00

Not true, I was in China prior to 2009 and a VPN was required.

bspammer | karma 1676 | avg karma 3.35 · | 2017-07-31 13:21:10

Can anyone in China confirm if the solution in this article (padding the packets to random lengths) still works? I'm heading out to China later this year and it would be nice to have this as a backup if my VPN doesn't work.

sixseven | karma 55 | avg karma 3.06 · | 2023-10-05 22:34:50

There are quite a few VPN providers I know that work reliably in China.

ThalesX | karma 2532 | avg karma 3.48 · | 2024-04-25 17:51:28

Have you been to China? I've been to China and had no problems using all the things you're mentioning with the help of a VPN. Was it as easy as in Europe? No. Did it feel like a ban? Also no.

winrid | karma 4020 | avg karma 1.39 · | 2024-04-25 01:00:44

VPNs frequently get banned in China. I bought two major VPN services (nordvpn and one other) and they did not work when I got there. Luckily I had a backup VPN I host on Linode. It would randomly stop working though...

winrid | karma 4020 | avg karma 1.39 · | 2020-01-14 21:00:24+00:00

I'm so glad I setup my own vpn as a backup before going to China. NordVPN didn't work there on any WiFi network.

WickyNilliams | karma 863 | avg karma 2.36 · | 2016-05-24 10:41:17+00:00

When I was out there last year, I was able to use VPNs to access otherwise blocked services (e.g. Facebook, Google etc). My (British) friend who lives there is still able to use VPNs. He is based in Shenzhen, which has a thriving tech scene, so I guess they are more lax with blocking VPNs there. Nevertheless, he is moving to HK soon to escape some of the restrictions

It's quite weird having an android phone in China, since almost all the services are blocked.

reply

Tosh108 | karma 43 | avg karma 1.16 · | 2014-04-10 20:52:05+00:00

When I was in China my university VPN stopt working after a while. Don't know what happened, but they seemed to have blocked it.

kevcampb | karma 1448 | avg karma 10.27 · | 2013-07-26 16:08:20+00:00

I lived in China for 4 years. It's amazing how everyone there knows what a VPN is. Really, everyone.

hhsub | karma -14 | avg karma -1.75 · | 2021-08-20 11:31:44

The Chinese have figured out how to use a VPN. I'm sure you can too!

gcb0 | karma 5864 | avg karma 1.39 · | 2019-01-01 00:40:21+00:00

Why would you ever need to use a VPN while in china accessing their owned services? That's great for china from an infosec perspective though.

Now they know your VPN exit IPs, and if you re-use the pattern/pin of the phone to lock the wallet, they will know that too.

reply

helen___keller | karma 5575 | avg karma 4.5 · | 2020-09-18 08:42:32

Are you talking about a VPN into china or a VPN out to the western internet?

For the latter, I don't know if this still works but last time I visited China my Google Fi plan (which has a built in VPN https://support.google.com/fi/answer/9040000?hl=en ) actually worked with no further changes, so I was able to pretend I was on western internet over 4G the entire time I was in China. This was in early 2019.

Which is lucky for me because the school VPN I was initially relying on stopped working halfway through the trip.

reply

Canada | karma 3400 | avg karma 2.8 · | 2017-11-21 15:59:22+00:00

That has started failing with iPhone. Now you need that and you need need a VPN. I haven't looked into why yet.

Outside of China you can just choose US as your region and it's fine.

reply

intopieces | karma 4709 | avg karma 2.79 · | 2016-05-30 16:39:00+00:00

How was your access to VPNs, or did you have a chance to try them out? I used to work for a VPN company and China was a constant challenge.

acheong08 | karma 1302 | avg karma 2.14 · | 2023-08-10 15:46:21

The UK on its way towards becoming like China. I thought I would never have to use VPNs again after leaving but oh well.

Notes from my 5 years in China: - Use a protocol like trojan-gfw over cloudflare. It 1: hides the fact that you’re using a VPN and looks like normal https traffic, 2: Is open source and the Trojan-go/v2ray repositories are well tested in nightmarish environments like China. 3: Cloudfare obscures the IP address of your server from the government. - You can have your server use something like Mullvad so that your traffic blends into the crowd (of customers) - Always have an emergency protocol that is unlikely to get blocked. I wrote my own custom implementation of HTTPS over DNS for when they decide to cut off general internet access to sites outside the country. (Happens every month or so for a few days) - For messaging, use a fully open source & end to end encrypted & federated protocol that you can self host. Matrix.org is blocked in China but self hosting still allows you to contact people on the main server.

reply

manlio | karma 524 | avg karma 14.56 · | 2014-12-29 16:36:47

Slightly OT, but I'm going to travel through China in a couple days and before reading this thread I thought I could get away with my VPN (hosted on my Digital Ocean VPS) plus eventually Tor, but now I'm not quite sure anymore.

Could anybody shed light on this?

reply