4 ms·

Obfs4proxy and Shapeshifter are an absolute PITA to install. Get your own VPS server (VPS in EU/US with 2GB of ram, 40GB of disk space and TBs/month of traffic

by 77pt77 1y ago

Obfs4proxy and Shapeshifter are an absolute PITA to install. Get your own VPS server (VPS in EU/US with 2GB of ram, 40GB of disk space and TBs/month of traffic go for $10 a year, it's that cheap). Never get anything in the UK and even USA is weird. I'd stick with EU. Install your software (wireguard + obsfuscation or even tailscale with your own DERP server) Another simpler alternative is just `ssh -D port` and use it as a SOCKS server. It's usually not blocked but very obvious.

mrb 1y ago
In my experience, in China as of 2016, "ssh -D" vasn't reliable at all, I wrote more details at https://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewall-of-china/ https://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewa... (see "idea 1")
- jquery 1y ago
  I just spent 3 months in China this summer. The GFW has become much more sophisticated than I remember. I found only one method that reliably worked. That was to use Holafly (an international eSIM provider) and use its built-in VPN. China largely doesn’t care if foreigners get around the GFW, I guess. Another method that usually worked was ProtonVPN with protocol set to Wireguard. Not sure why this worked, it’s definitely a lot more detectable than other methods I tried. But as long as I rotated which US server I used every few days, this worked fine. No luck with shadowsocks, ProtonVPN “stealth” mode, Outline+Digital Ocean, or even Jump / Remote Desktop. Jump worked the longest at several hours before it became unbearably slow, I’m still not sure if I was actually throttled or my home computer started misbehaving. I didn’t get around to setting up a pure TLS proxy, or proxying traffic through a domain that serves “legitimate” traffic, so no idea if that still works.
  - edm0nd 1y ago
    Holafly (and other "travel" eSim providers) have been caught routing traffic through China. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/travel-esims-secretly-route-traffic-over-chinese-and-undisclosed-networks-study-619659 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/travel-esims-secretly-route-t...
    - jiggawatts 1y ago
      That article seems bogus. IP blocks are routinely bought and sold, and hence their geo location database entries are not reliable. If you’re physically in the EU or the UK and your traffic is routed through China it would be unusably slow and immediately noticeable to non-technical users.
  - thenthenthen 1y ago
    Exclusively use Shadowsocks here in the mainland. Was surprised to see Ngrok to work as well, but prolly not very long/reliable.
    - ghoshbishakh 1y ago
      It is a tunnel, cant be used to browse a site through it isn't it?
      - 77pt77 1y ago
        If you have a working tunnel the rest is trivial.
- 77pt77 1y ago
  Regarding your usage: Organic Maps app can download all maps for offile and works OK in China. It uses openstreetmap data. 1024 bit RSA keys is laughable. I'm inclined to think this was not by accident. Idea 1 and 2 are basically the same.
extraduder_ire 1y ago
Where are you finding a VPS in the EU for $10/year? Any I've seen are about 5-6 times that much.
- danielhep 1y ago
  Check LowEndTalk and LowEndBox
  - dannyobrien 1y ago
    https://lowendtalk.com/ https://lowendtalk.com/ Can recommend. Always a little crazy, always insanely cheap. If it doesn't work out, you can just switch to another provider.
- 77pt77 1y ago
  https://billing.chunkserve.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 https://billing.chunkserve.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 https://my.servitro.com/cart.php?a=view https://my.servitro.com/cart.php?a=view https://manager.ouiheberg.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 https://manager.ouiheberg.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 1GB or even 512MB and 10GB of storage is very easy and completely doable to use for a VPN + HTTPS server Traffic is super cheap nowadays. Your real issue will be IP reputation. https://lowendtalk.com/categories/offers https://lowendtalk.com/categories/offers Is a good source.
kijin 1y ago
Which countries you need to avoid depends on your threat model. For example, there is need to avoid the USA if all you're trying to do is bypass the Chinese firewall. There might even be a legitimate use case for pretending to have a UK IP address. Since OP is in Southeast Asia, a VPS in JP or SG will probably hit a decent balance between latency and censorship avoidance.

by 77pt77 1y ago

mrb 1y ago

In my experience, in China as of 2016, "ssh -D" vasn't reliable at all, I wrote more details at https://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewall-of-china/ https://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewa... (see "idea 1")

jquery 1y ago
I just spent 3 months in China this summer. The GFW has become much more sophisticated than I remember. I found only one method that reliably worked. That was to use Holafly (an international eSIM provider) and use its built-in VPN. China largely doesn’t care if foreigners get around the GFW, I guess. Another method that usually worked was ProtonVPN with protocol set to Wireguard. Not sure why this worked, it’s definitely a lot more detectable than other methods I tried. But as long as I rotated which US server I used every few days, this worked fine. No luck with shadowsocks, ProtonVPN “stealth” mode, Outline+Digital Ocean, or even Jump / Remote Desktop. Jump worked the longest at several hours before it became unbearably slow, I’m still not sure if I was actually throttled or my home computer started misbehaving. I didn’t get around to setting up a pure TLS proxy, or proxying traffic through a domain that serves “legitimate” traffic, so no idea if that still works.
- edm0nd 1y ago
  Holafly (and other "travel" eSim providers) have been caught routing traffic through China. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/travel-esims-secretly-route-traffic-over-chinese-and-undisclosed-networks-study-619659 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/travel-esims-secretly-route-t...
  - jiggawatts 1y ago
    That article seems bogus. IP blocks are routinely bought and sold, and hence their geo location database entries are not reliable. If you’re physically in the EU or the UK and your traffic is routed through China it would be unusably slow and immediately noticeable to non-technical users.
- thenthenthen 1y ago
  Exclusively use Shadowsocks here in the mainland. Was surprised to see Ngrok to work as well, but prolly not very long/reliable.
  - ghoshbishakh 1y ago
    It is a tunnel, cant be used to browse a site through it isn't it?
    - 77pt77 1y ago
      If you have a working tunnel the rest is trivial.
77pt77 1y ago
Regarding your usage: Organic Maps app can download all maps for offile and works OK in China. It uses openstreetmap data. 1024 bit RSA keys is laughable. I'm inclined to think this was not by accident. Idea 1 and 2 are basically the same.

extraduder_ire 1y ago

Where are you finding a VPS in the EU for $10/year? Any I've seen are about 5-6 times that much.

danielhep 1y ago
Check LowEndTalk and LowEndBox
- dannyobrien 1y ago
  https://lowendtalk.com/ https://lowendtalk.com/ Can recommend. Always a little crazy, always insanely cheap. If it doesn't work out, you can just switch to another provider.
77pt77 1y ago
https://billing.chunkserve.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 https://billing.chunkserve.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 https://my.servitro.com/cart.php?a=view https://my.servitro.com/cart.php?a=view https://manager.ouiheberg.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 https://manager.ouiheberg.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 1GB or even 512MB and 10GB of storage is very easy and completely doable to use for a VPN + HTTPS server Traffic is super cheap nowadays. Your real issue will be IP reputation. https://lowendtalk.com/categories/offers https://lowendtalk.com/categories/offers Is a good source.

kijin 1y ago

Which countries you need to avoid depends on your threat model. For example, there is need to avoid the USA if all you're trying to do is bypass the Chinese firewall. There might even be a legitimate use case for pretending to have a UK IP address. Since OP is in Southeast Asia, a VPS in JP or SG will probably hit a decent balance between latency and censorship avoidance.