Subject: [Mtgvenue] FYI: China to block overseas VPNs

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2018 18:49:58 -0500

China to block overseas VPNs

  At the end of March all non-Chinese VPN services will be blocked
  within China. An official of that country's Ministry of Industry
  and Information Technology told reporters that all VPN services
  must be licensed by the government. After March 31st, clampdowns
  will commence against use of foreign, unlicensed VPN providers
  which "unlawfully conduct cross-border operational activities”.
  (Such as what? Accessing non-state news sources, or otherwise
  circumventing the Great Firewall of China)?

  Read:
  https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-to-block-overseas-vpn-
  services-from-end-of-march-01312018102313.html

--
]               Never tell me the odds!                 | ipv6 mesh networks [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works        | network architect  [
]     [email-masked]  http://www.sandelman.ca/        |   ruby on rails    [

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From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2018 19:16:49 -0500

My moderately recent (2017) experience is that Chinese cell carriers
recognize if you have a non-Chinese SIM, at least they recognize if you
have an American SIM, and do not impose the usual restrictions. Of course
if you are on some local WiFi, for example one run by a hotel you are
staying at, then your cellular identity is lost and you can't get to the
New York Time, gmail, facebook, etc. It's easy to believe they are clamping
down even further on Chinese residents but I'm not sure they care that much
about cell phone data access to the outside for non-Chinese and, of course,
I can tether my computer through my cell phone.

Thanks,
Donald
===============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
 [email-masked]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:49 PM, Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
wrote:

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From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2018 18:36:28 -0800 (PST)

As far as I understand it: when you roam, you are actually
connected "directly" to your home carrier network in the 
sense that your IP address range is the same as if you
were at home and traffic isn't intercepted.

The more worrying thing is that Chinese ISPs are detecting
VPN connections and shutting them down. This is different
from what happens on the cell network(s).

There are of course "international" hotels in China that
seem to ignore these rules and give you full open access,
but that too may change, sadly.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher
The Internet Protocol Journal
Office: +1 415-550-9433
Cell:   +1 415-370-4628
Docomo: +81 090 3337-9311
E-mail: [email-masked]
Skype: organdemo

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From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2018 22:13:36 -0500

>   China to block overseas VPNs

While this is unfortunate for various users of the network in China, I
can think of only one case where such a restriction would affect us.
That is the case where the restriction would apply to us in the event
we had a meeting there.  Under the current WG drafts, AFAICT, this
restriction would fail a Mandatory criterion for the IETF network,
because at least some participants would not be able to get their
regular work done.  (For instance my current employer requires a VPN
for practically everything I do.)

I believe such a case would be something caught by the current
site-selection criteria, so I think this is yet another example where
our existing procedures are in better shape than one might have
thought from some of the discussion.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
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