Using a VPN to bypass the Great Firewall of China
The Great Firewall of China refers to the Chinese government’s censorship of the internet. Using techniques such as IP blocking, URL filtering, DNS blocking and redirection, and packet filtering the government prevents internet users within China from accessing content which they do not approve of. International news sites, such as the BBC, and sites which publicise China’s human rights abuses, such as Amnesty International, have been blocked for a long time. greatfirewallofchina.org maintains a list of sites curently blocked by the Great Firewall.
There are several ways in which The Great Firewall can be bypassed, the fact that it cannot filter secure traffic is one. By using a VPN a secure connection is made to one IP address and all traffic from that point will be encrypted and sent through the VPN, bypassing the Great Firewall. Using a proxy based outside of China would also work.
Whilst travelling I am going to be using a VPN to encrypt all my internet traffic and to allow me to have unrestricted access to the internet. The security benefits should be obvious when you consider internet banking, email and any other online service. Its something that would be of benefit to anyone using a public wifi network regardless of where they are. When using a public wifi network, you cannot be certain that your data is not being intercepted so using a secure connection through a VPN makes a lot of sense.
Other benefits to using a VPN include being able to access content intended for audiences in different geographic locations. For example using a UK based VPN server from outside the UK would allow access to the BBC iplayer and to Channel 4 on Demand.
For the last few weeks I have been using Witopia’s Personal VPN service. So far it has been very reliable and has had no notable impact on my connection speeds. I will be sure to report back on how well it performs when I am in China.
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I use ssh tunneling wherever I go, indeed as a completely paranoid person I’m even using it right now on my home wifi network because WEP isn’t good enough. When I went to China I had absolutely no issue using ssh through my hotels net connection, it was really quite fast, one thing though, when I went over the BBC website was blocked, I do believe that is no longer the case.
I use Hotspot Shield, which is free (although it has advertising banners which can get annoying for long surfing sessions). China blocks many proxies but I’m curious to hear how much access you are able to get. I know that my blog was blocked for a time. Probably most unknown sites are.
Good luck!
Hope it works for you!
Like the new layout.
I have been looking looking around for this kind of information. Will you post some more in future? I’ll be grateful if you will.
Great info, Dan. Much appreciated. I’ll be test driving some VPNs, so its good to hear about ‘Witopia’s Personal VPN’ and that you’ve used it to good effect. Have linked to you via our blogroll of RTW trips in progress and have subbed to your RSS feed. Actually, just picked up your twitter feed, too. Looking forward to keeping abreast of your posts!
I visited China a couple of years ago before the internet had this giant firewall you have mentioned. I am in no ways surprised. I felt that my freedoms were taken and I was only visiting. I know for a fact I was being spied on.
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