In China uses Rocket Shadow. Alternatively, you could purchase an eSIM, such as Holafy.
Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
581–590 of 775 posts
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#582Hey I run Skipvids.com we receive alot of Indonesia traffic. I think we are still accessible there.
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#583Hello! 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.
It will be done very soon....
"Dame Rachel told BBC Newsnight: "Of course, we need age verification on VPNs - it's absolutely a loophole that needs closing and that's one of my major recommendations." - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo
They phrase it as age verification, but what they mean is the VPN provider needs to provide them the client list...
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#584If you need to bypass censorship, you'll need a tool specifically designed for anti-censorship, rather than any one repurposed for that.
Since China has the most advanced network censorship, the Chinese have also invented the most advanced anti-censorship tools.
The first generation is shadowsocks. It basically encrypts the traffic from the beginning without any handshakes, so DPI cannot find out its nature. This is very simple and fast and should suffice in most places.
The second generation is the Trojan protocol. The lack of a handshake in shadowsocks is also a distinguishing feature that may alert the censor and the censor can decide to block shadowsocks traffic based on suspicions alone. Trojan instead tries to blend in the vast amount of HTTPS traffic over the Internet by pretending to be a normal Web server protected by HTTPS.
After Trojan, a plethora of protocol based on TLS camouflaging have been invented.
1. Add padding to avoid the TLS-in-TLS traffic characteristics in the original Trojan protocol. Protocols: XTLS-VLESS-VISION.
2. Use QUIC instead of TCP+TLS for better performance (very visible if your latency to your tunnel server is high). Protocols: Hysteria2 and TUIC.
3. Multiplex multiple proxy sessions in one TCP connection. Protocols: h2mux, smux, yamux.
4. Steal other websites' certificates. Protocols: ShadowTLS, ShadowQUIC, XTLS-REALITY.
Oh, and there is masking UDP traffic as ICMP traffic or TCP traffic to bypass ISP's QoS if you are proxying traffic through QUIC. Example: phantun.
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#585Years ago, I created a very basic HTTP proxy using Google Cloud. The idea relies on Google Cloud wouldn't be blocked because the industry in that country probably also needs Google Cloud to function, so the government couldn't touch it.
You can see it here: https://github.com/paddlesteamer/gcrproxy. I don't know whether it works or not (maybe something has changed; it is very old code), but the idea beneath it remains. And I think it is also applicable to other cloud services, too. Cheaper (even free to some point) than having your own VPS.
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#586Hello! 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.
Can someone competent pull together a manual to set a vpn with obfuscation? I am sure it will be well received.
A github repo would be ideal really
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#587Earlier 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.
Well, mimicking China's GFW is seemingly the objective of some governments. But they are also able to allow some light (text-based) ssh usage and still prevent proxying.
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
90% of “citizen journalism” is nothing of the sort. Just like “citizen science” researching vaccines.
Citizen journalism avoids the main weakness of a centralised system: it's incredible suspectible to capture. A prime example of this is the mass opposition around the world to Israel's genocide in Gaza. Israel committed such genocides prior to the event of social media, such as the Nakba, but it was rarely reported on, due to media ownership being concentrated in the hands of a few pro-Zionist individuals.
Using “pro-Zionist” when you mean “Jewish” doesn’t mean you aren’t antisemitic
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#589Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
We have different definitions of simple.
Re: Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?
#590If you need to bypass censorship, you'll need a tool specifically designed for anti-censorship, rather than any one repurposed for that. Since China has the most advanced network censorship, the Chinese have also invented the most advanced anti-censorship tools. The first generation is shadowsocks. It basically encrypts the traffic from the beginning without any handshakes, so DPI cannot find out its nature. This is…
Does starlink work in China?