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If you're feeling despair, there are real things that you can do. I do one thing that makes me proud every day. I run an obfs4 Tor bridge on an old Linux Mint

If you're feeling despair, there are real things that you can do. I do one thing that makes me proud every day. I run an obfs4 Tor bridge on an old Linux Mint box that's just sitting around in my home.* The bare minimum thing that Chinese and any other country's citizens need is information, and freedom of information. This is where tech truly, truly helps. [*] Yes, they may first need to connect to a working VPN, but that's OK, to really become free they can then connect to a Tor bridge like mine.

shgidi 6y ago
How is it useful? (Sorry for my ignorance)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- toxik 6y ago
  I am more worried being implicated with distribution of child pornography. The government is watching what comes through the pipes, and it’s your name on the pipe.
  - mindfulhack 6y ago
    Oh in my case it's an entry bridge I run, not an exit relay. That's the one you really need to worry about being. It's not recommended anyone does that (at least at home). What I'm recommending is very safe as it doesn't directly connect your computer or IP address to anything bad. I've run this node for about 2 years now. Tor project has excellent explainer pages about the risks and how it all works. If however you mean not being involved with the Tor project in any capacity whatsoever, I really insist that that's the wrong, and a very dangerous anti-freedom philosophy to take. At some point, we have to take a stand and defend the right to absolute encryption for anybody, no questions asked. Why? Because this is the normal human experience. Privacy is normal and healthy. Having everything you do recorded and stored by others permanently, is not normal or healthy. The more you use and promote the use of encryption, privacy and anti-censorship technologies in benign and good contexts like mine, the less it's dismissed as an automatic indicator of crime. As far as I'm concerned, I consider myself lucky that I have legal freedom of association in my own country so that I can even safely run this Tor bridge. As to the court of public opinion on the social level in my community, all I need to do is explain this important humanitarian use case that I do it for.
dumb1224 6y ago
There are substantial number of internet users capable of breaking out of the GFW. At least to my knowledge. The VPN request signature is actually very obvious and prone to be recognised by GFW. There are many other recommended methods. A large market is available for this purpose.
Benmcdonald__ 6y ago
Also this. The Chinese communist party can't censor TLS 1.3 and ESNI. Update your website https://twitter.com/mrkoot/status/1292358618004828160?s=20 https://twitter.com/mrkoot/status/1292358618004828160?s=20 Also promote bitcoin in China. CCP survives on the money it can threaten and coerce out of its popularity. Bitcoin removes people's assets from CCP control
- rini17 6y ago
  Little does it help you if they block it completely...
  - throwawaye3735 6y ago
    I don't know in Hong Kong but it's blocked already in the mainland since a week ago. There are currently workarounds but they will probably get around to blocking those as well. Here is the article https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-blocking-all-encrypted-https-traffic-using-tls-1-3-and-esni/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-blocking-all-encr...
eSephiroth 6y ago
Tor don't work well in China. So is VPN. Chinese don't even know it exist. It's hard for none tech people. Even all Smart tech people in China know how to use these tools, it's still less than 0.00001. Make some virus-like dummy tools. As far as mobile or PC infected. They will connect global internet not China LAN. It must infect nearby devices as well. That's the only way to help.

shgidi 6y ago

How is it useful? (Sorry for my ignorance)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
toxik 6y ago
I am more worried being implicated with distribution of child pornography. The government is watching what comes through the pipes, and it’s your name on the pipe.
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  Oh in my case it's an entry bridge I run, not an exit relay. That's the one you really need to worry about being. It's not recommended anyone does that (at least at home). What I'm recommending is very safe as it doesn't directly connect your computer or IP address to anything bad. I've run this node for about 2 years now. Tor project has excellent explainer pages about the risks and how it all works. If however you mean not being involved with the Tor project in any capacity whatsoever, I really insist that that's the wrong, and a very dangerous anti-freedom philosophy to take. At some point, we have to take a stand and defend the right to absolute encryption for anybody, no questions asked. Why? Because this is the normal human experience. Privacy is normal and healthy. Having everything you do recorded and stored by others permanently, is not normal or healthy. The more you use and promote the use of encryption, privacy and anti-censorship technologies in benign and good contexts like mine, the less it's dismissed as an automatic indicator of crime. As far as I'm concerned, I consider myself lucky that I have legal freedom of association in my own country so that I can even safely run this Tor bridge. As to the court of public opinion on the social level in my community, all I need to do is explain this important humanitarian use case that I do it for.

dumb1224 6y ago

There are substantial number of internet users capable of breaking out of the GFW. At least to my knowledge. The VPN request signature is actually very obvious and prone to be recognised by GFW. There are many other recommended methods. A large market is available for this purpose.

Benmcdonald__ 6y ago

Also this. The Chinese communist party can't censor TLS 1.3 and ESNI. Update your website https://twitter.com/mrkoot/status/1292358618004828160?s=20 https://twitter.com/mrkoot/status/1292358618004828160?s=20 Also promote bitcoin in China. CCP survives on the money it can threaten and coerce out of its popularity. Bitcoin removes people's assets from CCP control

rini17 6y ago
Little does it help you if they block it completely...
- throwawaye3735 6y ago
  I don't know in Hong Kong but it's blocked already in the mainland since a week ago. There are currently workarounds but they will probably get around to blocking those as well. Here is the article https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-blocking-all-encrypted-https-traffic-using-tls-1-3-and-esni/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-blocking-all-encr...

eSephiroth 6y ago

Tor don't work well in China. So is VPN. Chinese don't even know it exist. It's hard for none tech people. Even all Smart tech people in China know how to use these tools, it's still less than 0.00001. Make some virus-like dummy tools. As far as mobile or PC infected. They will connect global internet not China LAN. It must infect nearby devices as well. That's the only way to help.