5 ms·

Care to share more details on how things have changed?

philsalesses 11y ago
In terms of policy, probably nothing. They have however become more competent, meaning the firewall isn't easy to hop anymore and I went to MIT. I don't know how non-technical foreigners can do anything here.
- chvid 11y ago
  Every expat in China I have met paid a few dollars a month for a VPN and had as much Facebook, Google, YouTube as the rest of us. Are you only referring to Great Firewall when you say that "life here is simply impossible"?
  - philsalesses 11y ago
    I have 4 (ExpressVPN, VyprVPN, StrongVPN, and a fourth I'll never tell anyone where it is). They do not reliably connect, are prone to attacks from the government and even when they do connect, you'll be throttled into oblivion. Before I discovered Shadowsocks (Chinese went to clouds house and made him remove it from github), my VPN would, within 3-5 minutes, be throttled to about 128k average speed. I would be elated if I could get a 1 MBps connection out. And for those wondering, I pay for 200MBps and I do get that in within the Chinese intranet.
    - caskance 11y ago
      How dare they try to stop people from breaking the law.
      - xiaoma 11y ago
        Law? Since when has the PRC even admitted that the GFW exists? If it has, it's news to me.
        caskance 11y ago
        How is that relevant? Secret laws are still laws. Just ask the NSA.
    - hansstam 11y ago
      You say you went to MIT and don't know how to set up your own VPN server?
      - kchoudhu 11y ago
        Fairly certain the GFC can ferret out any VPN you can set up on your own.
        noodles23 11y ago
        Not exactly. If you use an standard VPN protocol right out of the box (read: OpenVPN), then yes it is automatically blocked. The OpenVPN SSL handshake is different to regular SSL. There are certain ways you can disguise the traffic and the VPN companies that specialize in China do that- but the GFW is regularly updated so what works today probably won't work next month. The other issue is that even if you do get a VPN working, they have a tendency to throttle your connection. VPN traffic is quite different to your regular http/https.
      - philsalesses 11y ago
        Aren't you snarky... Read carefully. I have a fourth. And that wouldn't fix it anyway. They detect it on the protocol level. They posison your DNS.
        rndmind 11y ago
        That's a legitimate question, setting up an OpenVPN server is trivial. I am curious, have you tried using obfusproxy or an alternate way to obfuscate your vpn traffic?
philsalesses 11y ago
Not yet. Planning to write a small series of posts when I move back, but I do need some time out of this environment before I can judge things with less a biased mentality. Distance is great for that. Will post to HN when I do.
- webmasterraj 11y ago
  A post about the 2 year cat and mouse game of vpns and gfc is something I'd love to read.

In terms of policy, probably nothing. They have however become more competent, meaning the firewall isn't easy to hop anymore and I went to MIT. I don't know how non-technical foreigners can do anything here.

chvid 11y ago
Every expat in China I have met paid a few dollars a month for a VPN and had as much Facebook, Google, YouTube as the rest of us. Are you only referring to Great Firewall when you say that "life here is simply impossible"?
- philsalesses 11y ago
  I have 4 (ExpressVPN, VyprVPN, StrongVPN, and a fourth I'll never tell anyone where it is). They do not reliably connect, are prone to attacks from the government and even when they do connect, you'll be throttled into oblivion. Before I discovered Shadowsocks (Chinese went to clouds house and made him remove it from github), my VPN would, within 3-5 minutes, be throttled to about 128k average speed. I would be elated if I could get a 1 MBps connection out. And for those wondering, I pay for 200MBps and I do get that in within the Chinese intranet.
  - caskance 11y ago
    How dare they try to stop people from breaking the law.
    - xiaoma 11y ago
      Law? Since when has the PRC even admitted that the GFW exists? If it has, it's news to me.
      - caskance 11y ago
        How is that relevant? Secret laws are still laws. Just ask the NSA.
  - hansstam 11y ago
    You say you went to MIT and don't know how to set up your own VPN server?
    - kchoudhu 11y ago
      Fairly certain the GFC can ferret out any VPN you can set up on your own.
      - noodles23 11y ago
        Not exactly. If you use an standard VPN protocol right out of the box (read: OpenVPN), then yes it is automatically blocked. The OpenVPN SSL handshake is different to regular SSL. There are certain ways you can disguise the traffic and the VPN companies that specialize in China do that- but the GFW is regularly updated so what works today probably won't work next month. The other issue is that even if you do get a VPN working, they have a tendency to throttle your connection. VPN traffic is quite different to your regular http/https.
    - philsalesses 11y ago
      Aren't you snarky... Read carefully. I have a fourth. And that wouldn't fix it anyway. They detect it on the protocol level. They posison your DNS.
      - rndmind 11y ago
        That's a legitimate question, setting up an OpenVPN server is trivial. I am curious, have you tried using obfusproxy or an alternate way to obfuscate your vpn traffic?

philsalesses 11y ago

Not yet. Planning to write a small series of posts when I move back, but I do need some time out of this environment before I can judge things with less a biased mentality. Distance is great for that. Will post to HN when I do.

webmasterraj 11y ago
A post about the 2 year cat and mouse game of vpns and gfc is something I'd love to read.