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Until Comcast blocks VPNs, because why wouldn't they?
by glandium 9y ago
Until Comcast blocks VPNs, because why wouldn't they?
- tehlike 9y agoYou mean, ala Great Firewall? I can't imagine that happening, but who knows.
- visarga 9y agoWell, worst case, we turn to massive hard drives, darknets and sneakernet, like Cuba.
- zaarn 9y agoBecause Comcast at their heart is a good company who has the best interest of their customer in mind in everything they do.
- throwaway613834 9y agoHow do you just "block VPNs"? Corporations need them don't they?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zaarn 9y agoBuy the Business & Work VPN Package for just 5,99$/m so even you can connect to your workplace remotely without having to worry about your datacap!!!
- arbie 9y agoBack when Verizon introduced data plans, it was called "Business email and internet access" or some such, and it cost $30. This is a great way for ISPs to milk legitimate VPN traffic _and_ tax downloaders.
- tzs 9y agoSuppose the VPN is on port 443, 465, 993, or 995. Would the ISP be able to tell that it is a VPN and not an HTTPS, SMTP, IMAP, or POP server?
- dtech 9y agoIt's hard but possible. China manages to detect VPN's with their great firewall and cut a VPN connection to outside countries fairly fast. You basically need to look at traffic patterns. A TLS handshake (HTTPS) is very distinct from a typical VPN handshake (except maybe OpenVPN since it uses TLS) Or they can just block/throttle IP's of VPN providers. Not a lot of people can set up their own VPN server.
- icebraining 9y agoEven OpenVPN seems to be detectable, there's a provider that suggests running it over an extra TLS tunnel[1]. The overhead must be terrible, though. [1] https://airvpn.org/ssl/ https://airvpn.org/ssl/
- icebraining 9y agoPorts are not enough, they can inspect packets. I believe most VPN protocols can be detected, although you could probably adapt one (possibly OpenVPN, which can already use TLS) to look like a regular HTTPS or IMAPS connection (assuming they don't analyze the patterns of traffic). There's still the possibility of blocking commercial VPN services by their IP addresses, making it harder for anyone who can't host one themselves on a VPS or something.
- twelvedogs 9y agoVPNs can and will adapt, they're only detectable if they behave a certain way, last article i read a while ago openvpn was generally being detected by the way it did the handshake. but yeah, the only permanent way to block VPNs is to get rid of encrypted traffic, otherwise they're going to be in a running battle of updating their detection methods and vpn providers obfuscating their protocol
- 9y ago