Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?

As someone based in China, it's a bit surprising that techniques used by Chinese people get very few mentions here, while I do think they are quite effective against access blocking, especially after coevolving with GFW for the past decade. While I do hope blocking in Indonesia won't get to GFW level, I will leave this here in case it helps.

I found this article [0] summarizing the history of censorship and anti-censorship measures in China, and I think it might be of help to you if the national censorship ever gets worse. As is shown in the article, access blocking in China can be categorized into several kinds: (sorted by severity)

1. DNS poisoning by intercepting DNS traffic. This can be easily mitigated by using a DOT/DOH DNS resolver.

2. Keyword-based HTTP traffic resetting. You are safe as long as you use HTTPS.

3. IP blocking/unencrypted SNI header checking. This will require the use of a VPN/proxy.

4. VPN blocking by recognizing traffic signatures. (VPNs with identifiable signatures include OpenVPN and WireGuard (and Tor and SSH forwards if you count those as VPNs), or basically any VPN that was designed without obfuscation in mind.) This really levels up the blocking: if the government don't block VPN access, then maybe any VPN provider will do; but if they do, you will have a harder time finding providers and configuring things.

5. Many other ways to detect and block obfuscated proxy traffic. It is the worse (that I'm aware of), but it will also cost the government a lot to pull off, so you probably don't need to worry about this. But if you do, maybe check out V2Ray, XRay, Trojan, Hysteria, NaiveProxy and many other obfuscated proxies.

But anyways, bypassing techniques always coevolve with the blocking measures. And many suggestions here by non-Indonesian (including mine!) might not be of help. My personal suggestion is to find a local tech community and see what techniques they are using, which could suit you better.

[0] https://danglingpointer.fun/posts/GFWHistory

I read that as a euphemism for piracy.

Please consider the potential consequences of circumventing the ban. Do what you do, but above all stay safe!

It's not just about UK abilities to enforce laws, but also about other factors. The described activities are extremely unattractive as criminal: small market, small margin, the need for planning, preparation and qualification.

There is no need for special efforts to enforce the law. Put a few people in jail - and everyone else will quickly find safer and more legal ways to spend their time. No one will do something like that unless they are confident of their impunity.

Give Trojan proxy a try. It's supposed to go unnoticed since it works on the https port 443. Something like: https://www.anonymous-proxies.net/products/residential-troja... If you get it with a residential IP is even better. Works great in Iran and China and i suspect will wotk great for you too