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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?

#721

Post by sebastiennight »

dwood_dev wrote: post #675
tarruda wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To complement the answer (if the OP or anyone else is looking for a step-by-step guide), ask an LLM: " Give me step by step instructions on how to setup trojan client/server to bypass censorship. Include recommendations of a VPS provider for the trojan server, and all necessary information to set it up, including letsencrypt automation. Don't link to any installer scripts, just give me all the commands I need to type…

ChatGPT happily helped me run through all kinds of tools and configs. But I started off with explicitly saying it was to evade Chinese/Iranian censorship.

Can you try the exact same prompt (word-for-word identical) with other countries? Eg. US, Canada, Russia, Italy?

I'd be curious to know if there was a difference.

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

#722

Post by sebastiennight »

maleldil wrote: post #700
cft wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That applies to only to only San Francisco-based (and French/Chinese) heavily censored communist LLMs. Grok is willing to provide instructions: https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5LWNvcHk%3D_a78b768c-fcee-4029...

> censored communist LLMs Are you seriously calling OpenAI and Anthropic "communist"?

Let's not feed the troll...

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

#723

Post by Daishiman »

some_random wrote: post #693
Daishiman wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It 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.

Yeah obviously, do you think that's evidence that every single one is a honeypot?

No. You don't need to compromise every single VPN, just enough that the investment makes sense.

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

#725

Post by dongcarl »

mmwelt wrote: post #436
dongcarl wrote: post #50

Give Obscura a try, we get around internet restrictions by using QUIC as transport, which looks like HTTP/3 and doesn't suffer from TCP-over-TCP meltdown: https://obscura.net/ Technical details: https://obscura.net/blog/bootstrapping-trust/ Let us know what you think! Disclaimer: I'm the creator of Obscura.

Looks like MacOS and iOS only, which is unfortunate. Support for at least Windows and Android is needed for wider adoption. Linux would also be nice.

We're working on it! Android is next :-)

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

#726

Post by kragen »

some_random wrote: post #119
kragen wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPNs 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 spe…

Do you have any evidence for either of these claims?

It sounds like you're in the habit of deciding what to believe based on evidence. This will serve you well. But it also sounds like you're in the habit of getting that evidence from people who stand to gain from changing your mind—people like subordinates, entrepreneurs, marketers, politicians, and influencers. In time, you will find that this will serve you less well, because selective choices of evidence can make a fairly convincing case for most things that aren't true.

Probably if you investigate the question you will come to the same conclusion I did; I don't have any special access to non-public evidence. Maybe you won't, which is fine with me. I don't have anything to sell you, so your opinion doesn't really affect me.

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

#727

Post by dwood_dev »

sebastiennight wrote: post #721
dwood_dev wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT happily helped me run through all kinds of tools and configs. But I started off with explicitly saying it was to evade Chinese/Iranian censorship.

Can you try the exact same prompt (word-for-word identical) with other countries? Eg. US, Canada, Russia, Italy? I'd be curious to know if there was a difference.

Fascinating result. It's non-deterministic!

I went to create a clean chat, did temporary mode, and it rejected me! I tried again in another temporary chat and it worked.

Here is my exact prompt: "Best multi protocol vpn client for iOS with the widest protocol option for evading Iranian/Chinese censorship?"

I tried US, UK, France. All went through, but they did caution that evasion may be illegal.

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

#728

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

allset_ wrote: post #518
rsync wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, at least, that’s how it would work if it wasn’t for SNI…

Cloud Flare supports ECH. https://developers.cloudflare.com/ssl/edge-certificates/ech/

Any examples of Cloudflare client websites that have enabled ECH

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

#729

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

majorchord wrote: post #724
immibis wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China blocks ECH.

do you have a reliable source for this claim?

China's use of SNI-based censorship is well-documented

For example, see

https://censorbib.nymity.ch/pdf/Niere2025a.pdf

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