Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#101

Post by blibble » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #60

throwbas wrote: post #15

I have the fortune to reside in Russia-controlled Donbas. Over here they have been blocking all WireGuard connections for a long time. OpenVPN seems to be blocked selectively depending on the host. The government and commerce must need it more than WireGuard. It isn't consistent. Different ISPs block different hosts and protocols at different times. I assume we are a kind of test and staging environment for censorshi…

How, technically, can they block wire guard? It can operate as pure UDP on any port. Are we referring to wireguard vendors like tailscale here?

I would have thought psk mode would have encrypted the entirety of the initial handshake

maybe not

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#102

Post by lovegrenoble » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #86

[flagged]

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Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#103

Post by Wytwwww » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:00 PM UTC

waihtis wrote: post #88

libertine wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stay strong, hopefully, Russia will collapse and you'll be free - I may be naive but I still think there are enough Russians who can see this tragedy as the doing of a man who wants to continue to live the life of a king, and it's probably his only way of survival after so many murdering and prosecution.

[flagged]

> close to five hundred years

To be fair what we consider to be "western democracy style" didn't really exist prior to the late 1800s. Even Britain only started resembling a democratic state in the 1830s.

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#104

Post by mmastrac » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:04 PM UTC

Information control is just one part of how totalitarian regimes maintain that control. Western media is full of stories of the Russian "meat grinder" that would probably incense Russians, so it's probably in Putin's best interests to control how many Russians can actually see that.

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#105

Post by WhatsTheBigIdea » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:05 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #94

xtian wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia produces more container ships by tonnage than the US with a fraction of the population, to pick just one example of many. Before SpaceX, the US was dependent on them for rides to the ISS. They produce some of the most formidable and battle-tested military-technical systems in the world. How exactly is that a failed state? Seems like you want other people to make the same decision you did since maybe you’re uns…

Two out of the three of those are heavily military-based, and thanks to the cold war, the US and Russia have been heavily investing in the military for over half a century. So maybe that's not a fair comparison to make. Besides manufacturing capability, I think determining whether something is a "failed state" or not, you need to look at other things, focusing more on social details. Is the government truly democrati…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state

https://www.britannica.com/topic/failed-state

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/failed-state

Russia does not appear to qualify as a failed state by the definition published in any of these three sources.

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#106

Post by lovegrenoble » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

8organicbits wrote: post #41

someotherperson wrote: post #16

Unfortunately, thanks to the Great Firewall of China, there has been a lot of resources put in to fingerprint VPNs and block them by state actors. Fortunately, however, there is equally years of some of the smartest minds on the planet working to bypass Chinese censorship, so there are some great OpenVPN alternatives. I really encourage you to look into something like Shadowsocks which Chinese people have found great…

What's the current legal risk of using a VPN in China or Russia these days? I found a couple articles about people getting charged, but none I know to be reputable or particularly well written.

[flagged]

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#107

Post by MrDisposable » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

Russian here, living in Russia.

My paid VPN provider stopped working months ago. Then my self-hosted Outline server stopped working. Then my self-hosted OpenVPN stopped working too. Both were hosten on Digital Ocean (Frankfurt).

What currently works for me is self-hosted Outline running on an US server, but I suspect that won't last long.

Looks like I have no choice but to learn how to self-host XRay. A smart friend told me that it still works and is hard to block, but unfortunately he has no personal experience with it -- and no need for it anymore, since he emigrated to another country.

Does anyone here have any experience with XRay / XTLS-Reality?

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#108

Post by gruez » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #63

apfsx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shadowsocks and ShadowsocksR don’t work anymore in my experience in China or Iran. V2ray does which is the successor to those.

Shadowsocks does work against MITM attacks by my US ISP Comcast though. It is great software.

What "MITM attacks" are you talking about?

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#109

Post by cedws » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

It's worth mentioning that the Russian government has a plan to completely detach the country from the wider Internet. This system has already been tested and is available at the flick of a switch.

Unfortunately, it's probably a matter of time until this system is activated for real and the Iron Curtain drops to the floor. Then Putin will find some way to blame the West and rally against us.

Re: Tell HN: Russia has started blocking OpenVPN/WireGuard connections

#110

Post by mmastrac » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #7

With some luck they end up blocking their own troll farms.

Unfortunately I imagine those operate from regions without controls. I remember the story of the fire at the troll factory from a few years ago when internet discourse magically improved for a few days.