How does Great Firewall of China block VPN?
Interesting read, thanks for sharing. I always believed in the cypherpunk ideal that the proles can resist oppressive governments through technology. I wonder if China will change this.
The article doesn’t explain anything about “how does the great wall of China block VPN”. This is all it says about the topic:
Blocking VPNs: Virtual Private Network (VPNs) are a common way to circumvent the Great Firewall. Termed “ Climbing the Wall” (攀墙) within the Chinese community for using VPNs to access blocked websites, VPNs are the cheapest and most effective method to work around the Great Firewall, albeit it is not fool-proof. During sensitive events such as the death of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo in July 2017 or the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 2017, VPNs were blocked, a move that crippled many foreign enterprises working in China. However, the Great Firewall was loosened during the Beijing Olympics in 2008, allowing foreign media and players to access most of the blocked websites. The Firewall works by identifies “VPN-looking” traffic and kills off the connection, preventing it from connecting to foreign servers. Reports to implement a blanket ban on VPNs in February 2018 proved to be only rumours.
There are many methods which oppressive governments and institutions around the world (not just the Chinese government) can use to block VPN connections.
However, since SSL (https) connections are not blocked, this encryption can still be used for VPN’s. It’s a game of cat and mouse
We would love to tell you, but its a very complicated method they use. Circumventing their system was a challenge to us, but we managed to come up with a viable and sustainable solution.
In short, all systems can be broken (given time)
We find it ironic that a country which heavily relies on the Internet, then choses to restrict it to it’s citizens. Almost like the biting the hand that feeds them.
Can you comment on MSN Messenger? Is it still available in China?
You could use psiphon pro or tor and use a online bridge with it alongside the updated tor browser
Most, if not all domestic vpn providers have been shut down. Here are the services that are still usable:
稳定的付费vpn推荐 (basically still usable VPN services in China)
Not a chance.
There will always be ways around it, unless China literally makes their own separate internet or blocks EVERYTHING going in/out of the country. Even then, satellite communication would probably catch on quickly.
VPN traffic can be made to look like almost anything, even to a trained human. AI is still nowhere near as good as humans at pattern identification, and likely won’t be for a good long time.
Actually in China, we don’t say “climbing up the wall” which is what the Chinese means that he gave 攀墙， we say leaping over the wall 翻墙。
MSN messenger no longer exists but you can still use the same hotmail /msn account for Skype 
Both work fine for now without a VPN (it wasn’t always the case last year).
Didn’t Microsoft discontinue MSN Messenger for Skype?
That’s what I thought.