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

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

#561

Post by tsimionescu »

roscas wrote: post #46
daveidol wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, kinda crazy to think about a government blocking a protocol that just simply lets two computers talk securely over a tunnel.

That is how you know they haven't got a clue on what they're doing.

On the contrary, it shows that they know very well what they're doing. Their goal is censorship. If that disrupts connectivity for some niche but valid use cases, so be it. The vast majority of people have never used a WireGuard tunnel, so they are unimpacted. Some corporate use cases that even that government would approve of are disrupted, but they can either lie with that or have a whitelist. Most non-corporate use of this and other similar protocols is not something the government would allow.

So, given their nefarious goal, they are doing a great job by blocking WireGuard (and similar protocols, presumably).

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

#563

Post by tsimionescu »

cogman10 wrote: post #480
asqueella wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advanced enough censors (who have DPI) do block or slow down ssh, e.g.: https://serverfault.com/questions/1122015/ssh-blockedfor-for...

That's a pretty strict censorship that basically locks your digital infrastructure into your country.

Something that is often a benefit from the perspective of these regimes, yes.

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

#564

Post by raxxorraxor »

I would rent a server in an outside jurisdiction and use it as proxy. It isn't too hard to setup and you can share it with others too. I believe it would be completely legal as well. As least it should be.

That said, you are much less anonymous with that. But you could opt for your server using an additional VPN service to mitigate that.

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

#565

Post by orthoxerox »

myshoemouth wrote: post #236
_verandaguy wrote: post #97

Hello! I've got experience working on censorship circumvention for a major VPN provider (in the early 2020s). - First things first, you have to get your hands on actual VPN software and configs. Many providers who are aware of VPN censorship and cater to these locales distribute their VPNs through hard-to-block channels and in obfuscated packages. S3 is a popular option but by no means the only one, and some VPN prov…

I'm curious. How does a state actor do actual DPI without pushing certs to end user devices?

Pushing certs to end user devices is simple. First you create your own national CA. Then you make all government services use TLS certificates signed by the national CA. Then you make phone vendors preinstall the root cert of the national CA into the trust store if they want to sell them in your country. Then you make your ISPs buy and install MITM appliances.

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

#566

Post by GJim »

estimator7292 wrote: post #515
nine_k wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More dangerous though. You'd need something like truecrypt, too.

Nah, just drop a few thousand 1GB flash drives from a plane. Load them with a tor browser, a wireguard client, and instructions on finding a remote exit. Only one copy needs to survive and it can spread very quickly and irreversibly by foot.

Plugging in a strange USB drive?

What could go wrong.

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

#568

Post by pipes »

_verandaguy wrote: post #97

Hello! I've got experience working on censorship circumvention for a major VPN provider (in the early 2020s). - First things first, you have to get your hands on actual VPN software and configs. Many providers who are aware of VPN censorship and cater to these locales distribute their VPNs through hard-to-block channels and in obfuscated packages. S3 is a popular option but by no means the only one, and some VPN prov…

Thanks for this, UK citizen/subject here I believe the UK government is likely to go down the path of banning vpns.

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

#569

Post by GJim »

figassis wrote: post #543

The thing about fighting against vpn blocks is that if you win, the govt can just turn off the internet. Something like starlink would be ideal in these circumstances, but you'd have to have the receivers in the country before lockdown.

Thereby entrusting your internet connectivity to the whims of an unhinged lunatic.

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

#570

Post by sim7c00 »

tiberious726 wrote: post #411
ivanstepanovftw wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is no 'nothing special' with Obfs4proxy. DPI sees it as random byte stream, thus your government can decide to block unknown protocols. Instead, you should trick DPI into thinking it sees HTTPS. Unless your government decides to block HTTPS.

Exactly this. Hell, for OP's use case of accessing things like twitter, a good old fashioned https proxy would be entirely fine, and likely not even illegal.

what i was thinking. DPI might pick up on proxy headers. alternatively, idk how far one would get just slapping wireguard or openvpn on a VPS somewhere on port 443. that used to work fairly well but i suppose my experience there is like 10+ years out of date by now.

i know a US based tech firm i worked for around 2020 had a simple HTTPS proxy for chinese clients to download content updates. worked really well. it was hosted on some cloud provider and accessible via DNS name. so its not like it wasn't easy to block it. they just didn't bother or it was lost in a sea of other similar activities.

that all being said, regarding oppressive regimes and political turmoil situations: if your health or freedom is at risk, don't rely on internet people's 'guesswork' (hard to tell where ppl get their info from, and what its based on etc.). be careful. if you are not confident, don't go forward with it. Try to get advice from local experts instead, who are familiar in the specific context you are dealing with.

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