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(I live in China) I would advise against VPN entirely. I am unsure about the state ability to decrypt the content of the connection (heavily depends on how the

(I live in China) I would advise against VPN entirely. I am unsure about the state ability to decrypt the content of the connection (heavily depends on how the VPN is configured really — weak and legacy ciphers, etc.). But they will detect it and eventually you'll start dropping packets like crazy. A simple way to evade all of this is to use shadowsocks with a strong cipher and strong password between your computer in China and your server outside of it. Don't use any free server and don't use any commercial shadowsocks offerings. Set it up yourself, it's pretty easy. On the mobile phone side of things. I wouldn't trust anything. Especially Apple that has been very complaisant with local authorities. China plays a tactical game: they pretend (or we suspect, and they want us to) that they can do a lot of things. But nobody knows the extent of what they are actually capable of.

shawnz 8y ago
But shadowsocks is a VPN. What makes it better than other offerings?
- HippoBaro 8y ago
  Shadowshocks is not a VPN at all. It's a connectionless SOCKS5 proxy. No hand-check, no key exchange, no protocol agreement. VPN is not made to be undetected, only secure in the sense of data encryption. Shodowsocks has broader objectives. See https://shadowsocks.org/ https://shadowsocks.org/ for info.
  - shawnz 8y ago
    > It's a connectionless SOCKS5 proxy. On your local workstation, it exposes itself as a SOCKS5 proxy. But to communicate with the shadowsocks server, it uses a proprietary protocol which is not SOCKS5 and does have a key exchange process. Either way, these details don't affect its ability to be detected. > VPN is not made to be undetected "VPN" is not just one technology. Many vendors of VPN software do claim that their software is made to be undetectable. One example is shadowsocks, but there are other vendors who also claim that.
    - HippoBaro 8y ago
      Thanks for the info, couple of things I didn't know. What I meant by "it's not a VPN" was mainly it doesn't make your computer part of another private network.
dangrover 8y ago
Used to live in China. Can vouch completely for the Shadowsocks approach. It can't be blocked yet. Set up an endpoint at home or on EC2 and configure Streisand. Works great on mobile and desktop.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
68c12c16 8y ago
shadowsocks is on their radar now...and they have been able to detect its usage with some success, unfortunately... i.e. The Random Forest Based Detection of Shadowsock's Traffic, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8048116/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8048116/ I don't really understand what kind of scientists would do such researches to help the government carry out the censorship more efficiently, over their fellow people...it's either those intellectuals have no brain, or no heart...
- ausjke 8y ago
  this is correct, SS is on the radar and is not as dependable as it used to be, there is a variant of SS that is said to be an improved version but it is still not 100% dependable.
Markoff 8y ago
or he could just use roaming mobile data which are not subject to great firewall

shawnz 8y ago

But shadowsocks is a VPN. What makes it better than other offerings?

HippoBaro 8y ago
Shadowshocks is not a VPN at all. It's a connectionless SOCKS5 proxy. No hand-check, no key exchange, no protocol agreement. VPN is not made to be undetected, only secure in the sense of data encryption. Shodowsocks has broader objectives. See https://shadowsocks.org/ https://shadowsocks.org/ for info.
- shawnz 8y ago
  > It's a connectionless SOCKS5 proxy. On your local workstation, it exposes itself as a SOCKS5 proxy. But to communicate with the shadowsocks server, it uses a proprietary protocol which is not SOCKS5 and does have a key exchange process. Either way, these details don't affect its ability to be detected. > VPN is not made to be undetected "VPN" is not just one technology. Many vendors of VPN software do claim that their software is made to be undetectable. One example is shadowsocks, but there are other vendors who also claim that.
  - HippoBaro 8y ago
    Thanks for the info, couple of things I didn't know. What I meant by "it's not a VPN" was mainly it doesn't make your computer part of another private network.

dangrover 8y ago

Used to live in China. Can vouch completely for the Shadowsocks approach. It can't be blocked yet. Set up an endpoint at home or on EC2 and configure Streisand. Works great on mobile and desktop.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

68c12c16 8y ago

shadowsocks is on their radar now...and they have been able to detect its usage with some success, unfortunately... i.e. The Random Forest Based Detection of Shadowsock's Traffic, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8048116/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8048116/ I don't really understand what kind of scientists would do such researches to help the government carry out the censorship more efficiently, over their fellow people...it's either those intellectuals have no brain, or no heart...

ausjke 8y ago
this is correct, SS is on the radar and is not as dependable as it used to be, there is a variant of SS that is said to be an improved version but it is still not 100% dependable.

Markoff 8y ago

or he could just use roaming mobile data which are not subject to great firewall