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How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

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Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#151

Post by vidarh »

hinkley wrote: post #144
noduerme wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a small personal anecdote from another country with tight restrictions: When I rented a furnished apartment in Saigon back in 2008, there was an ethernet cable on the table and a piece of paper in English that said "Do not visit websites of anti-government propaganda, or pornography, or news such as the New York Times." Naturally, as the police held my passport for the entire year I was in Vietnam, I was cautiou…

In fact, the US Department of State recommends that all US citizens have a photocopy of their passport with them, when traveling abroad. Supposedly you get in shorter lines at the consulate if you have at least a photocopy of your passport available. You should be able to petition the consulate of your home country to issue you a new passport. I think it may be illegal, but I've heard from people who travel to places…

Some countries will issue second passports legally exactly for the reasons you list, but you typically need to apply for permission. Replacing your passport early without needing to pretend it's lost because it has stamps from a "problematic" country tends to be easier most places, but of course a hassle if you travel to these countries more than once.

Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#152

Post by b59831 »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #140
nonethewiser wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tragic. Hard to imagine living in such a backwards place

[flagged]

Same?

So ICE will arrest you for a VPN?

ICE runs concentration camps?

This comparison is silly.

Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#153

Post by mrguyorama »

beebmam wrote: post #96

Deeply unethical stuff. Why are Chinese people not currently trying to overthrow this garbage?

Because "Everybody does it and gets away with it", as seen in this very comment section, so it doesn't actually put much pressure on the public as far as they are concerned.

Also, "it's done for social harmony"; Very few places are as dogmatically hostile towards social good as the US, and are willing to make individual liberty sacrifices so that everyone may be better off. Arguably this is the same rhetoric or philosophy as the "Thin blue line" American cops love.

Also, your average chinese person just doesn't care to see english language media that much. They have diverse (to them) opinions and culture on their homegrown social media systems, and don't feel a need to leave the walled garden of Chinese internet much in the same way most westerners do not feel the need to join Russia's social media apps.

Also, the CCP "brought millions out of poverty" within living memory. Many people there feel that justifies a hell of a lot of vaguely "bad" actions, or makes it way easier to rationalize things.

Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#154

Post by reaperman »

hinkley wrote: post #144
noduerme wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a small personal anecdote from another country with tight restrictions: When I rented a furnished apartment in Saigon back in 2008, there was an ethernet cable on the table and a piece of paper in English that said "Do not visit websites of anti-government propaganda, or pornography, or news such as the New York Times." Naturally, as the police held my passport for the entire year I was in Vietnam, I was cautiou…

In fact, the US Department of State recommends that all US citizens have a photocopy of their passport with them, when traveling abroad. Supposedly you get in shorter lines at the consulate if you have at least a photocopy of your passport available. You should be able to petition the consulate of your home country to issue you a new passport. I think it may be illegal, but I've heard from people who travel to places…

USA will issue “anyone” 2-3 valid passports at the same time. This is designed for two reasons:

1) you travel a lot and sometimes may need to mail your passport off to get a pre-travel visa from some consulate, while you are still outside the USA. This way you can send off one passport to get the visa for your next country, while keeping a valid passport with you while you’re abroad.

2) You need to travel between Israel and countries which have laws against visiting Israel (Historically, GCC countries). This way you can always present whichever passport doesn’t have Israel’s entry and exit stamps on it.

I’ve had two valid US passports at the same time, and I’m just a random nobody American.

Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#156

Post by stevofolife »

guessmyname wrote: post #107
WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #3

I was wondering about simply using VPNs, which is not mentioned in the article at all, but checking GFW on Wikipedia, it tells: > The use of VPNs in China can provide individuals access to the international internet, but in China, it can be a potential legal risk. In 2017, the Chinese government declared all unauthorized VPN services to be illegal.[94] An example of the use of this punishment is Vera Zhou, a student…

More context about this WikiPedia excerpt: → https://www.chinafile.com/extensive-surveillance-china → https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/student-01272020075256.ht... It looks like 周月明 (Vera Yueming Zhou) was sent to a Chinese concentration camp mostly because she was part of a religious minority and not necessarily for using a VPN to access the University of Washington’s website. > Vera was living in her hometown of…

Thanks for this elaboration. Upon reading original comment, it felt very strange that she was "encamped" for using VPN to access her school homework. Immediately I knew there was more than it meets the eye.

Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#157

Post by noduerme »

hinkley wrote: post #144
noduerme wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a small personal anecdote from another country with tight restrictions: When I rented a furnished apartment in Saigon back in 2008, there was an ethernet cable on the table and a piece of paper in English that said "Do not visit websites of anti-government propaganda, or pornography, or news such as the New York Times." Naturally, as the police held my passport for the entire year I was in Vietnam, I was cautiou…

In fact, the US Department of State recommends that all US citizens have a photocopy of their passport with them, when traveling abroad. Supposedly you get in shorter lines at the consulate if you have at least a photocopy of your passport available. You should be able to petition the consulate of your home country to issue you a new passport. I think it may be illegal, but I've heard from people who travel to places…

Anyone that says you should keep your passport on you when you're in a foreign country has never traveled. I never keep my passport on my person when I'm walking around outside the US. I lock it away as securely as I can wherever I'm staying, and carry a color copy of it in my pocket.

Part of this is simply because American passports are extremely valuable. Another part is that anyone who wants to fuck with you in some semi-official capacity now has to choose whether to go back to your hotel or arrest you on the spot, which puts them in a better mind to give up or take a bribe.

Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#158

Post by lsllc »

blablablub wrote: post #38
sysstemlord wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go for ssh if I was trying to bypass it. At least legally I can claim that I'm just sshing to my aws server and not be jailed for using vpn.

using ssh for proxying is getting blocked within the first minute.

Could be a use case for X-Windows with ssh -X [0]? (so your web browser is actually running outside the GFW, it's just the window updates that are coming over the SSH tunnel).

[0] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/12755/how-to-forwar...

Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#159

Post by emaro »

hutzlibu wrote: post #67
fundatus wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I went to China (2018) you could simply get a China Unicom Hong Kong SIM card and then use that to roam in mainland China. With that you'd get the Hong Kong censorship level, which is much much less restrictive. No VPN or anything needed apart from the SIM card itself.

"you'd get the Hong Kong censorship level, which is much much less restrictive." Didn’t that changed since 2018?

I'm in China right know with a Mainland/Macao/HK eSIM. My Chinese friend has to use a VPN to access Instagram as did I when I was connected via WiFi in mainland China. Using the eSIM connection I could access Instagram and Youtube without any issues, likewise here in Hongkong (with WiFi).

I didn't investigate how large the difference is, but Hongkong traffic is still treated more liberal.

Re: How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]

#160

Post by EGreg »

ec109685 wrote: post #106
EGreg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of satellites, the ones in geosynchronous orbit, how can Chinese block those?

“We will shoot your satellite if you don’t block access while over China”.

In orbit? Good luck

Lasers maybe?

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