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Didn't China ban VPN or at least started to issue fines to people who were caught using VPNs? Unless they backtracked on that..

by hw 8y ago

PakG1 8y ago
Yes, that parent comment must be old information. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2109618/man-jailed-selling-vpns-evade-chinas-great-firewall https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/21... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2125326/man-jailed-51/2-years-fined-us76000-selling-vpn https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/21... https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/2180960/chinese-vpn-user-fined-accessing-overseas-websites-part-beijings-ongoing https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/2180960/chinese-vpn... As well, I think the Chinese government has demonstrated multiple times during "sensitive times" in recent years that they can make commercial VPN services nonfunctional at the snap of a finger. If a commercial VPN service is working, it is because of the Chinese government's mercy, not because of the commercial VPN's technological ingenuity. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see commercial VPN providers advertising that they are the best or only VPN service to work in China. I remember one time I saw a viral Astrill ad floating around that said something to the effect: "We're happy that our VPN service is working great for our customers. But please don't post that your VPN service is working great. We work really hard to develop new technologies and get around the Chinese firewall, and if you keep bragging about it, the Chinese government could find out, it will make it harder for our services to work." Super bad taste in my mouth. Come on, you know that the very first customers to download new clients are from the Chinese government working to figure out how to get it blocked. Hate this kind of disingenuous marketing. edit: I will say that it is true that most commercial VPN services do seem to be used for most of the year and work well enough without consequences; the law seems to exist, but does not always get enforced. Would be interesting to see if China starts ratcheting up the fines over time.
- teknologist 8y ago
  Most, if not all of them, use fixed IP addresses which would be trivial to block regardless of what hip new crypto schemes they're running. Any customer can get the full server list too - worth it to a censor for $5. The only real threat is something like Tor which is very aggressively and actively probed/blocked in China.

Didn't China ban VPN or at least started to issue fines to people who were caught using VPNs? Unless they backtracked on that..

by hw 8y ago

Didn't China ban VPN or at least started to issue fines to people who were caught using VPNs? Unless they backtracked on that..

PakG1 8y ago

Yes, that parent comment must be old information. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2109618/man-jailed-selling-vpns-evade-chinas-great-firewall https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/21... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2125326/man-jailed-51/2-years-fined-us76000-selling-vpn https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/21... https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/2180960/chinese-vpn-user-fined-accessing-overseas-websites-part-beijings-ongoing https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/2180960/chinese-vpn... As well, I think the Chinese government has demonstrated multiple times during "sensitive times" in recent years that they can make commercial VPN services nonfunctional at the snap of a finger. If a commercial VPN service is working, it is because of the Chinese government's mercy, not because of the commercial VPN's technological ingenuity. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see commercial VPN providers advertising that they are the best or only VPN service to work in China. I remember one time I saw a viral Astrill ad floating around that said something to the effect: "We're happy that our VPN service is working great for our customers. But please don't post that your VPN service is working great. We work really hard to develop new technologies and get around the Chinese firewall, and if you keep bragging about it, the Chinese government could find out, it will make it harder for our services to work." Super bad taste in my mouth. Come on, you know that the very first customers to download new clients are from the Chinese government working to figure out how to get it blocked. Hate this kind of disingenuous marketing. edit: I will say that it is true that most commercial VPN services do seem to be used for most of the year and work well enough without consequences; the law seems to exist, but does not always get enforced. Would be interesting to see if China starts ratcheting up the fines over time.

teknologist 8y ago
Most, if not all of them, use fixed IP addresses which would be trivial to block regardless of what hip new crypto schemes they're running. Any customer can get the full server list too - worth it to a censor for $5. The only real threat is something like Tor which is very aggressively and actively probed/blocked in China.