China to block VPNs by February 2018
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Scary times when you have a country going down this road. This is getting terrible when a country takes freedoms away for political gain.
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Bad news, but expected. Keep in mind there is no freedom in China, not as westerners(or perhaps people i guess) perceive it.
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I was just discussing this with a Chinese VPN company last night. They felt that while it is in the headlines right now, they were not confident that it was possible to enforce or would necessarily really mean anything. Keep in mind that VPNs have been illegal without a permit in the past, so this isn't really anything particularly new.
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@scottalanmiller Do you think this will not go ahead then? or will it be a case they will not block but make it illegal to use?
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How could you block it?
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@stuartjordan said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller Do you think this will not go ahead then? or will it be a case they will not block but make it illegal to use?
I think something will go ahead. Blocking low hanging fruit. VPN is pretty tough to block - at least without crippling the Internet completely. As long as you have SSH and HTTPS, you have super common VPNs everywhere.
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@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@stuartjordan said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller Do you think this will not go ahead then? or will it be a case they will not block but make it illegal to use?
I think something will go ahead. Blocking low hanging fruit. VPN is pretty tough to block - at least without crippling the Internet completely. As long as you have SSH and HTTPS, you have super common VPNs everywhere.
What are the chances they will make port 443 (HTTPS) illegal? Of course you could do HTTPS over port 80, but please read into the spirit of my question.
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@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@stuartjordan said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller Do you think this will not go ahead then? or will it be a case they will not block but make it illegal to use?
I think something will go ahead. Blocking low hanging fruit. VPN is pretty tough to block - at least without crippling the Internet completely. As long as you have SSH and HTTPS, you have super common VPNs everywhere.
What are the chances they will make port 443 (HTTPS) illegal? Of course you could do HTTPS over port 80, but please read into the spirit of my question.
I'd say 50/50, but that's purely my own guess.
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@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@stuartjordan said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller Do you think this will not go ahead then? or will it be a case they will not block but make it illegal to use?
I think something will go ahead. Blocking low hanging fruit. VPN is pretty tough to block - at least without crippling the Internet completely. As long as you have SSH and HTTPS, you have super common VPNs everywhere.
What are the chances they will make port 443 (HTTPS) illegal? Of course you could do HTTPS over port 80, but please read into the spirit of my question.
I'd say 50/50, but that's purely my own guess.
Right - so say they do.. now online banking, shopping, etc becomes HORRIBLY dangerous!
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@dashrender - going backwards rather then forward.
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The Chinese government are already using deep packet inspection to identify VPN protocols being used, they would also block IP addresses to known and established VPN providers.
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@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@stuartjordan said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller Do you think this will not go ahead then? or will it be a case they will not block but make it illegal to use?
I think something will go ahead. Blocking low hanging fruit. VPN is pretty tough to block - at least without crippling the Internet completely. As long as you have SSH and HTTPS, you have super common VPNs everywhere.
What are the chances they will make port 443 (HTTPS) illegal? Of course you could do HTTPS over port 80, but please read into the spirit of my question.
I'd say 50/50, but that's purely my own guess.
Right - so say they do.. now online banking, shopping, etc becomes HORRIBLY dangerous!
Every resident of China who has access to a computer is given an email account by the chinese government.
My exchange student has one, its just a bunch of numbers@qq.com.
So all online activity in the country is already monitored, this is just another step.
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@dustinb3403 said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@stuartjordan said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller Do you think this will not go ahead then? or will it be a case they will not block but make it illegal to use?
I think something will go ahead. Blocking low hanging fruit. VPN is pretty tough to block - at least without crippling the Internet completely. As long as you have SSH and HTTPS, you have super common VPNs everywhere.
What are the chances they will make port 443 (HTTPS) illegal? Of course you could do HTTPS over port 80, but please read into the spirit of my question.
I'd say 50/50, but that's purely my own guess.
Right - so say they do.. now online banking, shopping, etc becomes HORRIBLY dangerous!
Every resident of China who has access to a computer is given an email account by the chinese government.
My exchange student has one, its just a bunch of numbers@qq.com.
So all online activity in the country is already monitored, this is just another step.
What prevents them from not using it?
Are they also required to install a cert into the certificate store so China can break into all SSL traffic?
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@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@dustinb3403 said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@dashrender said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@stuartjordan said in China to block VPNs by February 2018:
@scottalanmiller Do you think this will not go ahead then? or will it be a case they will not block but make it illegal to use?
I think something will go ahead. Blocking low hanging fruit. VPN is pretty tough to block - at least without crippling the Internet completely. As long as you have SSH and HTTPS, you have super common VPNs everywhere.
What are the chances they will make port 443 (HTTPS) illegal? Of course you could do HTTPS over port 80, but please read into the spirit of my question.
I'd say 50/50, but that's purely my own guess.
Right - so say they do.. now online banking, shopping, etc becomes HORRIBLY dangerous!
Every resident of China who has access to a computer is given an email account by the chinese government.
My exchange student has one, its just a bunch of numbers@qq.com.
So all online activity in the country is already monitored, this is just another step.
What prevents them from not using it?
I honestly have no idea, I asked why not use gmail or yahoo and got "to lazy" as an answer... so that could be it. It could also be those services are simply banned. Honestly no clue.
Are they also required to install a cert into the certificate store so China can break into all SSL traffic?
Don't know here either.
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wow - too lazy... the apathy... makes you want to send them packing..
