China Will Block All VPNs by February 2018

Megalith

Megalith

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The actual news here is probably that China hasn’t already been doing it: the country has officially ordered state-run telecommunications firms, which include China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, to bar people from using VPNs. It’s a decision that renders little shock, being that the country has one of the most restrictive internet regimes.

The clampdown will shutter one of the main ways in which people both local and foreign still manage to access the global, unfiltered web on a daily basis. China has one of the world’s most restrictive internet regimes, tightly policed by a coterie of government regulators intent on suppressing dissent to preserve social stability. In keeping with President Xi Jinping’s “cyber sovereignty” campaign, the government now appears to be cracking down on loopholes around the Great Firewall, a system that blocks information sources from Twitter and Facebook to news websites such as the New York Times and others.
 
I am surprised it took them THIS long to do it.

I am actually still shocked that they haven't restricted internet access to chinese government websites only TBH.
 
After spending several years living over there, I can attest to how important it was to have a VPN. I can also attest to how difficult it was to obtain freelancing positions due to such governmental regulations. I'm curious to see how many foreign companies begin to pull operations out of Zhōngguó as a result of this decision. It certainly won't come anywhere close to grinding the economy to a halt over there, but it might move any decision making for international corporations outside their borders.
 
So when hackers from a Chinese IP do something over here can we finally blame to government without them telling us some unscrupulous entity "not at all related to our government, no really we mean it it" did it. Because obviously they have everything locked down
 
Just another way to suppress their citizenship...."to protect them" or just protect their own asses from being ousted from power.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
Is it that easy to detect encrypted traffic running on a standard port like 80?
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80 is open traffic. I don't see how they could detect an SSL VPN on port 443, unless they know the destination IP is a VPN. But sounds like they are going to have fun playing VPN whack-a-mole. They block 1 IP, and 5 more will pop up in its place.
 
Biznatch said:
80 is open traffic. I don't see how they could detect an SSL VPN on port 443, unless they know the destination IP is a VPN. But sounds like they are going to have fun playing VPN whack-a-mole. They block 1 IP, and 5 more will pop up in its place.
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Biznatch said:
80 is open traffic. I don't see how they could detect an SSL VPN on port 443, unless they know the destination IP is a VPN. But sounds like they are going to have fun playing VPN whack-a-mole. They block 1 IP, and 5 more will pop up in its place.
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Or the track the IPs that are accessing the VPN IPs and just whack everybody that is in those buildings. Do that enough times any they either get everybody to stop or they have an uprising.
 
I’m sure there will be a few false flag attacks that will blame VPNs as a contributor, and the calls for banning domestic users from using a VPN will start right afterwards, and the general public will fall for it.
 
The Chinese had been enjoying a bit too much freedom in the past few years. It was bound to happen. Gotta keep em under your thumb!

Next up, congress and parliament trying to do the same goddamn thing.
 
Yes that may seem bad, but in America, you get a spinny thing sometimes when watching Netflix 4K. Who's really being oppressed I ask you.

preloader.GIF
 
Biznatch said:
80 is open traffic. I don't see how they could detect an SSL VPN on port 443, unless they know the destination IP is a VPN. But sounds like they are going to have fun playing VPN whack-a-mole. They block 1 IP, and 5 more will pop up in its place.
Click to expand...

Deep packet inspection. China has been using that for over a decade. Almost all known VPN protocols (as of 2014) leave certain telltale patterns that the traffic encrypted (however many bits) in a sequence of packets is VPN-related. It takes a few packets (as of 2014) to identify the traffic as VPN, but then you are cut off. An alternative as of current is to use less-common protocols like ShadowSocks, but you need a willing host in another country outside of China.
 
Maxx_Power said:
Deep packet inspection. China has been using that for over a decade. Almost all known VPN protocols (as of 2014) leave certain telltale patterns that the traffic encrypted (however many bits) in a sequence of packets is VPN-related. It takes a few packets (as of 2014) to identify the traffic as VPN, but then you are cut off. An alternative as of current is to use less-common protocols like ShadowSocks, but you need a willing host in another country outside of China.
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Someone will find a way to mask the signature to look like https traffic. It shouldn't be too hard to do.
 
Pretty sure many legit companies, like HP, are going to see this as a big deal. There's plenty of mundane, legit, reasons to use VPNs, such as remotely provisioning servers...
 
So just when you thought Net Neutrality is the worst, or the best thing that could every happen, China has announced that it will shut down all VPN access by next February according to Bloomberg (Warning-Auto-start Video).

Beijing has ordered state-run telecommunications firms, which include China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, to bar people from using VPNs, services that skirt censorship restrictions by routing web traffic abroad, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about private government directives.

This all means that Twitter and Facebook access will be going away (not that that is a bad thing), but a host of non-China media sites will be unreachable as things will be blocked by the Great Firewall. NO VPN FOR YOU!
 
spaceman said:
Well. That may well be our future too. Unless we get out and vote for people who support a global internet. Fight the power.
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What exactly is a global internet?
China is a strange example because they're communist. There's no such thing as free speech there.
 
Might sound like a noob question but how will legit worldwide corporate operate with this ? I mean for intranet per say ?
I know the company I work for have a big network accessible everywhere but it goes thru VPNs and such... Will those be affected ? I can't wrap my head around companies opening all their traffic because of this ?
 
MMitch said:
Might sound like a noob question but how will legit worldwide corporate operate with this ? I mean for intranet per say ?
I know the company I work for have a big network accessible everywhere but it goes thru VPNs and such... Will those be affected ? I can't wrap my head around companies opening all their traffic because of this ?
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Businesses can still use VPNs. Many companies would shut down if they couldn't. I know where I'm at (in the U.S.) we use VPNs for each connection outside of the company.

If you were visiting china, you could probably VPN to your own router to browse the web (though I must admit I've never setup a VPN on my router (because I never really needed it).
 
The Chinese people know how to juke and move and ideals are very hard to control. Those people will beat it.

Corporations and governments all around the world are trying to wrest control of the internet.

The internet keeps beating them.
 
This makes me wonder if all the rumors about their economy falling apart are true.
 
MMitch said:
Might sound like a noob question but how will legit worldwide corporate operate with this ? I mean for intranet per say ?
I know the company I work for have a big network accessible everywhere but it goes thru VPNs and such... Will those be affected ? I can't wrap my head around companies opening all their traffic because of this ?
Click to expand...
My guess is you'll have to apply for some kind of business license exemption to use a VPN, and your ISP will probably have some static routes set up for this very purpose and be forced to inform the gov't if they detect you straying outside the course.
 
Patton187 said:
This makes me wonder if all the rumors about their economy falling apart are true.
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Their growth rate is close to 7%. They may have issues in some sectors and maybe they'd like higher growth, but they're the 2nd largest economy.
China is expected to become the world's largest economy next year, so I think they're doing just fine.
For reference, the only time since 1961 that we grew at least as fast as China is currently growing is 1984. There are only a 3 other times where we broke 6% and the last one was 1966. Someday India may surpass China.
 
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nysmo said:
My guess is you'll have to apply for some kind of business license exemption to use a VPN, and your ISP will probably have some static routes set up for this very purpose and be forced to inform the gov't if they detect you straying outside the course.
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Sounds reasonable but IT personal will have some commotion trying to firewall everything within the VPN lol... This will not end well
 
"Beijing has ordered..." This is what happens when you give the govt the power to control sht.
 
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