[qybaz]

>Also, some high end hotels did provide unfettered access to the Internet for some reason, so I guess anyone could go there and browse Facebook for the price of an expensive coffee.

Practically everybody who is knowledgeable with computers uses a VPN - restrictions are only for "the plebs"

[nothis]

Whenever I read about countries banning sites, people post "just use a VPN, lol". But I wonder: If China really wants to, couldn't they just block VPNs? At the worst, just whitelist a bunch of sites and services and literally block everything else?

[flohofwoe]

Technically, VPN apps are banned, and VPN usage by individuals is illegal in China. Don't know how much this is enforced though, probably not much.

[netheril96]

The GFW is evolving. Many VPN protocols or servers that worked in the past works no longer. It’s definitely not as simple as “just run a VPN”, but more like a cat and mouse game.

[someotherperson]

They do. They fingerprint for OpenVPN in real time and block it. In 2018 I was cycling through multiple VPNs at a time. The only thing that worked was Shadowsocks.

[systemvoltage]

Can confirm. I setup a Shadowsocks VPN using Streisand on a DO instance at the Singapore data center. That was the only way to get through the firewall.

[RealityVoid]

I think this would make unworkable way too many things. Is it even the internet at that point?

[justbaker]

That’s how I remember a friend advertising Ultrasurf to me — a vpn used in China