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It is indeed a country full of contradictions. I was there in 2016, and besides the usual, like Google, Netflix, Facebook or Twitter, most western sites seemed

It is indeed a country full of contradictions. I was there in 2016, and besides the usual, like Google, Netflix, Facebook or Twitter, most western sites seemed to work, just very, very slow for some reason. Also, some high end hotels did provide unfettered access to the Internet for some reason, so I guess anyone could go there and browse Facebook for the price of an expensive coffee.

qybaz 5y ago
>Also, some high end hotels did provide unfettered access to the Internet for some reason, so I guess anyone could go there and browse Facebook for the price of an expensive coffee. Practically everybody who is knowledgeable with computers uses a VPN - restrictions are only for "the plebs"
- nothis 5y ago
  Whenever I read about countries banning sites, people post "just use a VPN, lol". But I wonder: If China really wants to, couldn't they just block VPNs? At the worst, just whitelist a bunch of sites and services and literally block everything else?
  - flohofwoe 5y ago
    Technically, VPN apps are banned, and VPN usage by individuals is illegal in China. Don't know how much this is enforced though, probably not much.
  - netheril96 5y ago
    The GFW is evolving. Many VPN protocols or servers that worked in the past works no longer. It’s definitely not as simple as “just run a VPN”, but more like a cat and mouse game.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    I think this would make unworkable way too many things. Is it even the internet at that point?
  - someotherperson 5y ago
    They do. They fingerprint for OpenVPN in real time and block it. In 2018 I was cycling through multiple VPNs at a time. The only thing that worked was Shadowsocks.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      Can confirm. I setup a Shadowsocks VPN using Streisand on a DO instance at the Singapore data center. That was the only way to get through the firewall.
- justbaker 5y ago
  That’s how I remember a friend advertising Ultrasurf to me — a vpn used in China
ChemSpider 5y ago
That time is gone meanwhile. In late 2019 I had a very hard time getting access to my Gmail account, despite trying all the usual workarounds and staying in the best hotels in town. Even non-English news sites were blocked, sites that I could browse freely just a few years ago. Skype worked ok, but text chat only. Images never arrived.
- manuelabeledo 5y ago
  Funnily enough, Google Fi worked just fine in late 2019. I’m wondering if foreign SIM cards are not subjected to filtering.
  - NamTaf 5y ago
    Foreign SIM cards on globs roaming are not passed through the GFW as traffic is carried back to the ‘origin country’ before being sent to the internet writ large. So IP lookups still think you’re in your original country. I used global roaming when working in China to circumvent the GFW (albeit at high expense for data).
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I used Google Fi in early 2020 in China. iirc it really just depended on where you were... Sometimes Fi let me break through the GFW, but it definitely did not in Beijing.
    - nneonneo 5y ago
      It should always, because the APNs (gateway for your IP packets) for Google Fi are in the US no matter where you are roaming from. That’s standard fare for any cellular service: you always connect to the internet gateways in your provider’s home country when roaming.
  - nanliu 5y ago
    During my last visit using GoogleFI, the mobile phone shows a US IP when running whatismyip. So even though the phone is connected to the local telecom 5G network, traffic is segmented and routed back to the US carrier (T-Mobile in AWS US east IP ranges if I remember correctly) before hitting any website. So phones with GoogleFI sim works like a US client with a bit higher latency. This was really nice, but attempting to tether another device to the phone was a highly frustrating exercise as it did not work reliably whatsoever.
foverzar 5y ago
> It is indeed a country full of contradictions. Over the years, I came to understand that contradictions are almost always just false assumptions.
- manuelabeledo 5y ago
  At least in this case, there aren’t any “false assumptions”. For a country governed by a so called “communist” party, there are glaring inequalities. If we limit ourselves to free Internet usage, it’s clear that the system is designed so poor or uneducated people would only be able to consume government approved content, whereas elites could have access to anything.
  - foverzar 5y ago
    Not sure that I understand your take. How does having "a communist" party imply that there would be no inequalities? Especially given that merely a few decades ago China was poor like hell and everyone outsourced all the cheap labor there? > it’s clear that the system is designed so poor or uneducated people Isn't education in China largely sponsored by government?
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > it’s clear that the system is designed so poor or uneducated people would only be able to consume government approved content That's not by design, that's just the virtue of human ingenuity. Give us something we ain't supposed to do, and people will invest a lot of effort to still make it work. Case in point; For a while Germany wanted to put Internet filters in place, based on DNS blocks [0] Trivial to circumvent for anybody remotely familiar with networking, yet seemingly impossible for the vast majority of people who have no expertise in the field. Was it designed like that to lock out the poor, uneducated, Germans? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz

qybaz 5y ago

>Also, some high end hotels did provide unfettered access to the Internet for some reason, so I guess anyone could go there and browse Facebook for the price of an expensive coffee. Practically everybody who is knowledgeable with computers uses a VPN - restrictions are only for "the plebs"

nothis 5y ago
Whenever I read about countries banning sites, people post "just use a VPN, lol". But I wonder: If China really wants to, couldn't they just block VPNs? At the worst, just whitelist a bunch of sites and services and literally block everything else?
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  Technically, VPN apps are banned, and VPN usage by individuals is illegal in China. Don't know how much this is enforced though, probably not much.
- netheril96 5y ago
  The GFW is evolving. Many VPN protocols or servers that worked in the past works no longer. It’s definitely not as simple as “just run a VPN”, but more like a cat and mouse game.
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  I think this would make unworkable way too many things. Is it even the internet at that point?
- someotherperson 5y ago
  They do. They fingerprint for OpenVPN in real time and block it. In 2018 I was cycling through multiple VPNs at a time. The only thing that worked was Shadowsocks.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Can confirm. I setup a Shadowsocks VPN using Streisand on a DO instance at the Singapore data center. That was the only way to get through the firewall.
justbaker 5y ago
That’s how I remember a friend advertising Ultrasurf to me — a vpn used in China

ChemSpider 5y ago

That time is gone meanwhile. In late 2019 I had a very hard time getting access to my Gmail account, despite trying all the usual workarounds and staying in the best hotels in town. Even non-English news sites were blocked, sites that I could browse freely just a few years ago. Skype worked ok, but text chat only. Images never arrived.

manuelabeledo 5y ago
Funnily enough, Google Fi worked just fine in late 2019. I’m wondering if foreign SIM cards are not subjected to filtering.
- NamTaf 5y ago
  Foreign SIM cards on globs roaming are not passed through the GFW as traffic is carried back to the ‘origin country’ before being sent to the internet writ large. So IP lookups still think you’re in your original country. I used global roaming when working in China to circumvent the GFW (albeit at high expense for data).
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I used Google Fi in early 2020 in China. iirc it really just depended on where you were... Sometimes Fi let me break through the GFW, but it definitely did not in Beijing.
  - nneonneo 5y ago
    It should always, because the APNs (gateway for your IP packets) for Google Fi are in the US no matter where you are roaming from. That’s standard fare for any cellular service: you always connect to the internet gateways in your provider’s home country when roaming.
- nanliu 5y ago
  During my last visit using GoogleFI, the mobile phone shows a US IP when running whatismyip. So even though the phone is connected to the local telecom 5G network, traffic is segmented and routed back to the US carrier (T-Mobile in AWS US east IP ranges if I remember correctly) before hitting any website. So phones with GoogleFI sim works like a US client with a bit higher latency. This was really nice, but attempting to tether another device to the phone was a highly frustrating exercise as it did not work reliably whatsoever.

foverzar 5y ago

> It is indeed a country full of contradictions. Over the years, I came to understand that contradictions are almost always just false assumptions.

manuelabeledo 5y ago
At least in this case, there aren’t any “false assumptions”. For a country governed by a so called “communist” party, there are glaring inequalities. If we limit ourselves to free Internet usage, it’s clear that the system is designed so poor or uneducated people would only be able to consume government approved content, whereas elites could have access to anything.
- foverzar 5y ago
  Not sure that I understand your take. How does having "a communist" party imply that there would be no inequalities? Especially given that merely a few decades ago China was poor like hell and everyone outsourced all the cheap labor there? > it’s clear that the system is designed so poor or uneducated people Isn't education in China largely sponsored by government?
- freeflight 5y ago
  > it’s clear that the system is designed so poor or uneducated people would only be able to consume government approved content That's not by design, that's just the virtue of human ingenuity. Give us something we ain't supposed to do, and people will invest a lot of effort to still make it work. Case in point; For a while Germany wanted to put Internet filters in place, based on DNS blocks [0] Trivial to circumvent for anybody remotely familiar with networking, yet seemingly impossible for the vast majority of people who have no expertise in the field. Was it designed like that to lock out the poor, uneducated, Germans? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz