Getting around VPN blocking

VPN
1

One country I visited recently pretty much blocked anything useful online. I found that the vast majority of VPNs wouldn’t connect because the hostname or IP addresses were simply blocked. For the very few VPN’s which did work, they would only work for about 20 seconds then something would stop them from working, which I assume is because the ISPs were using Deep Packet Inspection and detecting the VPN packets. After trying hundreds of servers, across multiple VPN providers, I gave up.

I believe it is possible to use proxy technology to hide the VPN connection, so the VPN looks like normal HTTP or HTTPS traffic. The VPN apps I use actually have this feature built in, but they still doesn’t work because the hostname / IP addresses are still blocked.

I’ve found a website were you can buy, or rather rent, residential IP address proxies, and mobile IP address proxies. I assume these are far less likely to be blocked by the ISPs, although there aren’t very secure.

My problem is, these proxies have user authentication on them, and my VPN app doesn’t support that. I am not sure what the best solution is, but here is my thinking. Is it possible to have some kind of bridge proxy on my [Android] phone? So my phone would connect to the SOCKS5 using the user authentication, then that app would create a local proxy without authentication, then the VPN app can use the localhost proxy without authentication, which would be relayed to the SOCKS5 externally?

2

Watching. Fed up having my VPN connection blocked to access services I’m already paying for.

3

Try using shadowsocks or v2ray?

4

If (conventional)VPN is blocked, (conventional)PROXY is also likely blocked or jammed, both of them have very strong protocol signature that can be identified easily. Overlap VPN or PROXY can be done, however it’s more complicated than you think and unlikely to be helpful. Residential IP proxy is unlikely going to help either, those service are usually for web crawler, not for anti-censorship. I know because I used them in one of my project before.

In most of those authoritarianism country you can’t rely conventional protocol to break censorship, those thing never designed to have anti-censorship in mind. To really discuss about anti-censorship, one has to aware the “censorship environment” like what censorship method are being used, and what goal is it. Tools and protocol like Trojan or V2Ray that was specifically designed for anti-censorship purpose can be used to break censorship, but only if you have the knowledge on how to properly deploy and use them in your environment.

5

if you can get access to a linux box outside, you could make an ssh tunnel out and use vpn through that.

6

Docker. You can set up a docker instance outside of the VPN but that instance wouldn’t be protected by the VPN. It could work but you will have to check manuals and so on.

All I know is you need Windows or Linux.

Good luck my fellow human.