4 ms·

I visit China every couple of years. I used to work remotely while I was there, but these days I’ve given up on the idea. It used to be easy, just ssh tunnel to

I visit China every couple of years. I used to work remotely while I was there, but these days I’ve given up on the idea. It used to be easy, just ssh tunnel to a friendly server and you’re all set. Now they block every technique I can come up with and fuck up the entire connection if you make a wrong move. There are specialist VPN services that still work, but it’s a real pain to figure out which ones work and which ones used to work and are now broken, and you can’t count on anything continuing to work.

css 8y ago
With the risk of sounding like a shill, I have been using HMA Pro for almost 5 years now to connect to social networks and Apple's messaging services. Aside from power/local internet outages I have not had issues connecting to "blocked" services.
- mikeash 8y ago
  I don’t care if you are shilling, I’m glad to know about more stuff that might work.
  - css 8y ago
    Amusingly when I go to their homepage Chrome hits me with NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID. All I know is that I use it and it works, albeit slowly.
rfolstad 8y ago
Mosh over any vpn worked when I was there.
- monocasa 8y ago
  They're currently cracking down hard on VPNs from what I've heard.
qudat 8y ago
I was just in China, this worked most of the time although slow: https://getoutline.org/en/home https://getoutline.org/en/home
netheril96 8y ago
If you have ssh access to a friendly server you can use shadowsocks. It is easy to set up (no certificates and mucking with firewall rules like VPN), and works perfectly, at least for me.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Last time I tried, ssh worked fine for interactive command line use but got throttled to death if I tried to proxy other traffic through it. It seems like they’re doing traffic analysis to see which connections are acting like VPNs.
kurthr 8y ago
Yeah, one other thing that works is to use a foreign wireless connection (of course it is carried by ChinaTelecom etc) like AT&T or BT. I've rarely seen those connections blocked, even when hotel/local wired connections and the company VPN were all... "slowing down" for certain sites. I haven't been to Hainan though so I don't know about any particular issues there.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  It works because the local telco is actually relaying the data frames back to the home telco (beyond the firewall) instead of terminating the data session themselves within the firewall.
- baybal2 8y ago
  I know they block roaming sims from certain countries after few month in the country

css 8y ago

With the risk of sounding like a shill, I have been using HMA Pro for almost 5 years now to connect to social networks and Apple's messaging services. Aside from power/local internet outages I have not had issues connecting to "blocked" services.

mikeash 8y ago
I don’t care if you are shilling, I’m glad to know about more stuff that might work.
- css 8y ago
  Amusingly when I go to their homepage Chrome hits me with NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID. All I know is that I use it and it works, albeit slowly.

rfolstad 8y ago

Mosh over any vpn worked when I was there.

monocasa 8y ago
They're currently cracking down hard on VPNs from what I've heard.

qudat 8y ago

I was just in China, this worked most of the time although slow: https://getoutline.org/en/home https://getoutline.org/en/home

netheril96 8y ago

If you have ssh access to a friendly server you can use shadowsocks. It is easy to set up (no certificates and mucking with firewall rules like VPN), and works perfectly, at least for me.

mikeash 8y ago
Last time I tried, ssh worked fine for interactive command line use but got throttled to death if I tried to proxy other traffic through it. It seems like they’re doing traffic analysis to see which connections are acting like VPNs.

kurthr 8y ago

Yeah, one other thing that works is to use a foreign wireless connection (of course it is carried by ChinaTelecom etc) like AT&T or BT. I've rarely seen those connections blocked, even when hotel/local wired connections and the company VPN were all... "slowing down" for certain sites. I haven't been to Hainan though so I don't know about any particular issues there.

Rjevski 8y ago
It works because the local telco is actually relaying the data frames back to the home telco (beyond the firewall) instead of terminating the data session themselves within the firewall.
baybal2 8y ago
I know they block roaming sims from certain countries after few month in the country