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You've come to a wrong place to ask. Most people here (judging by recommendations of own VPN instances, Tor, Tailscale/other Wireguard-based VPNs, and Mullvad)
by reisse 1y ago
You've come to a wrong place to ask. Most people here (judging by recommendations of own VPN instances, Tor, Tailscale/other Wireguard-based VPNs, and Mullvad) don't have any experience with censorship circumvention.
Just look for any VPNs that are advertised specifically for China, Russia, or Iran. These are the cutting edge tech, they may not be so privacy-friendly as Mullvad, but they will certainly work.
- temptemptemp111 1y ago[dead]
- wat10000 1y agoMullvad worked OK in China for me recently. Sometimes I'd have to try a few different endpoints before it worked. Something built specifically to work in those places would probably be better, but it wasn't too much trouble. Not necessarily a recommendation, just sharing one data point.
- Liftyee 1y agoI remember always needing obfuscation enabled in Mullvad, but it would work in the end (as you said, after trying a few endpoints).
- riehwvfbk 1y agoOP: look into VLESS (and similar). And read up on ntc.party (through Google translate). There are certain VPN providers that offer the protocol.
- yogorenapan 1y agoI think REALITY is the newer protocol. I remember VLESS being somewhat more detectable
- taminka 1y agonah, vless is the protocol, reality is a newer obfuscation method that works over vless edit: op, protonvpn has a free tier that works in russia, so likely works everywhere, or if you're comfortable with buying a vps, sshing into it and running some commands, look up x-ray, and use on of their gui panels
- mrtesthah 1y ago[flagged]
- dang 1y agoPlease don't do this here.
- yogorenapan 1y agoYou can always do v2ray -> Mullvad in a docker container routed with gluetun for censorship avoidance and privacy
- hinkley 1y agoI have a little, maybe enough to be dangerous. SSH won’t be sufficient to avoid all traffic analysis. Everyone can see how much traffic and the pattern of that traffic, which can leak info about the sort of things you’re doing. If you’re worried about ending up on a list, using things that look like VPNs while the VPNs are locked down is likely to do so. Also… your neighbors in Myanmar didn’t do a lockdown during the genocide and things got pretty fucking dire as a result. People have taken different lessons from this. I’m not sure what the right answer is, and which is the greater evil. Deplatforming and arresting people for inciting riots and hate speech is probably the best you can do to maintain life and liberty for the most people.
- logicchains 1y ago>Also… your neighbors in Myanmar didn’t do a lockdown during the genocide and things got pretty fucking dire as a result The genocide in Myanmar was incited _by_ the government there; giving it more power to censor it's citizens' communications would have done absolutely nothing to help the people being genocided. Genocides don't just suddenly happen; the vast majority of genocide over the past century (including Indonesian genocides against ethnically Chinese Indonesians) had the support of the state.
- hinkley 1y agoThis has been simmering for a very long time. The first I heard of it was violence that broke out after the defacement of a Buddhist temple statue. That would have been almost 20 years ago. Buddhists murdering people tends to lead one to ask a lot of questions. At that time I think the government was hands off, let it happen rather than tried to stop it. Regardless of who was behind the violence, the whole region has thought about what to do in such situations and they aren’t the same answers the West would choose.
- kragen 1y agoVPNs that are advertised are for-profit products, which means: 1. They are in most cases run by national spy agencies. 2. They will at least appear to work, i.e., they will provide you with access to websites that are blocked by the country you are in. Depending on which country's spies run the system, they may actually work in the sense of hiding your traffic from that country's spies, or they may mark you as a specific target and save all your traffic for later analysis. My inclination is to prefer free (open-source) software that isn't controlled by a company which can use that control against its users.
- some_random 1y agoDo you have any evidence for either of these claims?
- Daishiman 1y agoIt is absolutely self-evident that VPNs are considered high-value targets and that all spy agencies invest a chunk of resources to go after high-value targets.
- gnfargbl 1y agoI would invite you to read again the two claims made, and consider whether your statement actually addresses the veracity of either. To be a little trite: we all agree that chickens like grain, but it does not follow that a majority of grain producers are secretly controlled by a cabal of poultry.
- rl3 1y ago>... but it does not follow that a majority of grain producers are secretly controlled by a cabal of poultry. That's precisely what someone who's in on it would say.
- some_random 1y agoYeah obviously, do you think that's evidence that every single one is a honeypot?
- esosac 1y agowhat's wrong with those solutions?
- leshenka 1y agoWrong threat model. Solutions like mullvad/proton focus on privacy not breaking the blockade. They have well known entry points and therefore easily blocked. You can play cat and mouse game switching servers faster than censorship agency blocks them (e.g. Telegram vs Roskomnadzor circa 2018 [1]) but that gets expensive and not really focus of these companies. What you need is open protocols and hundreds of thousands of small servers only known to their owners and their family/friends 1: https://archive.is/sxiha https://archive.is/sxiha
- tomaskafka 1y ago> Just look for any VPNs that are advertised specifically for China, Russia, or Iran. If I was working for a secret service for these countries, I would set up many "VPNs that are advertised specifically for x" as honeypots to gather data about any dissidents.
- dmantis 1y agoIt doesn't matter, he should look into the open source protocols that these services use. He doesn't have to use them. VLESS / v2ray works in Russia, as far as I know.
- spinagon 1y agoYeah, I'm using v2less on rented VPS, it's been workin for almost 2 years already (Russia)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- refulgentis 1y agoMr. Kafka, suspicion is healthy. However, abstraction provides no way forward when faced with practicalities instead of theory. Creates a Kafka-esque situation - anything suitable is by definition unsuitable. Better to focus on practical technical advice.
- s1mplicissimus 1y agoI don't see parent abstracting. They are simply pointing out a very real risk, which you don't provide any counter points to. Instead you seem to dismiss their point based on a strawman
- refulgentis 1y agoSir: you have written my comment better than I ever could. Thank you, - Refulgentis
- Hizonner 1y agoHmm. People who recommend widely used approaches, and well-known, well-established providers, "don't have any experience with cenorship circumvention". So the solution is no-name providers using random ad-hoc hackery, chosen according to a criterion more or less custom designed to lead you into watering hole attacks. Right.
- reisse 1y agoNone of the things I listed are "widely used approaches, and well-known, well-established providers" in the parts of the world where it does matter. Yeah, maybe V* and derivatives are random ad-hoc hackery, but they also are the well-known standard now.
- Hizonner 1y ago> Yeah, maybe V* and derivatives are random ad-hoc hackery, but they also are the well-known standard now. A lot of people use Telegram and think it's private, too. What about the part about choosing your VPN provider in the way most likely to get you an untrustworthy one who's after you personally?
- reisse 1y ago[flagged]
- adamfisk 1y ago@reisse is 100% right. Most people outside of heavily censored regions have no clue what technology is actually used in those countries. The well-known, well-established providers don't actually work in censored regions because: 1) The problem is very difficult and requires a lot of engineering resources 2) It's very hard to make money in these countries for many reasons, including sanctions or the government restricting payments (Alipay, WeChatPay, etc) The immediate response would be: "If the problem is so difficult, how can it be solved if not be well-known, well-established providers?" The answer is simple: the crowdsourcing power of open source combined with billions of people with a huge incentive to get around government blocking.
- more_corn 1y ago^ this comment is right on. The cutting edge of VPN circumvention is the one marketed to people in China. Last I poked at this there were a lot of options.
- johnisgood 1y agoCan I have a list of these options?
- arewethereyeta 1y agoActually I do, we sell a lot of proxy types designed specifically to circumvent such filters. Trojan works great for our Iran and China users: https://www.anonymous-proxies.net/products/residential-trojan-proxy/ https://www.anonymous-proxies.net/products/residential-troja...
- ailun 1y agoMullvad worked okay in China in June for me. I imagine it will be better in Indonesia with their less sophisticated blocking.
- 77pt77 1y agoThis makes no sense. On the one hand they do DPI with ML. On the other hand a major player is open! Something is not right here...
- fn-mote 1y agoSpell out your argument more. Find some hard evidence. Even “major player” needs to be backed up. Do you even know how many users Mullvad has in CN? I don’t. Searching says the whole company apparently has ~500k users. I don’t think that’s enough to be a significant presence in China.
- exFAT 1y agoFWIW, Mullvad did not work for me in June in China :)