Proton pulled their VPN servers out of India after they passed a law mandating logging.
'you can connect to our new Smart Routing servers for India. These will give you an Indian IP address and behave just as our physical servers in India did. The only difference is that, in reality, they are based in Singapore.'
What's scary is that China and India are to massive countries in terms of population. The way this is going most of humanity could end up living in countries with low respect for human rights.
I was beaten for standing against authoritarian government.
The situation is so bad in India that I am afraid to reveal my religion in university. Lot of people in University tries to oppress me and I can't even complaint because everyone is ok with this and they enjoy oppressing us minorities.
I honesly feel like a jew living under nazi germany. 😞
Stay strong, man. I really hope it doesn't come to the worst.
I sounds like it is time to leave...
I am trying exactly that. I just want enough skills to get a job in EU country and I will be free from that torture.
I honesly feel like a jew living under nazi germany
i am sorry, but i am not sure if you know how ridiculous and hurtful this sounds for people who have witnessed the holocaust and their relatives.
you do not know how it feels to be a jew under naxi germany.
i do not doubt your suffering and oppression, but this is a bit insensitive in my perception and i think these are things we shouldn't compare until there are comparable things happening.
anyway, yes, that sucks. i am sad that your government is like this in an authoritarian way and that everbody else is ok with everything.
I work for the US government and Proton is blocked at the network level, so I can't check my personal email at work. In that sense, the US has already "banned" it. In what other way could a government "ban" an email provider?
Honestly doing personal tasks on your works network is not a great idea. If anything use wireguard to route your traffic back to your home. (You can flash OpenWRT and set this up)
When I work from home, I can just not connect to the VPN and it's fine. When I'm on site there's no way around it
You can't just use a VPN to connect yourself to your home network?
The network blocks Proton.me at the top level. You think they're going to allow a VPN?
Even if they didn't block it is it worth the risk? Sending mystery traffic home over a government network is always gonna be sus.
Of course! I can check my email on my phone. It's not a huge deal, just a slight inconvenience.
Well I guess it is up to you. If it violates your employers policy then don't do it obviously but you can adjust your VPN to make it hard to differentiate between normal traffic and VPN traffic. It can work in China so it probably can work for you.
If your that concerned about your work don't use your phone or at the very least don't connect to WiFi
I've had corporate LANs that I couldn't route around to my wireguard servers from even using netmakers turn server stuff which punches through most shitty lans.
Did you change the port?
Yes changed ports, I never went too hard on it as im not usually near an office and just used my hotspot for personal stuff.
Also it's never a good idea to try too hard circumventing corporate "security"
That's odd. I'm surprised they blocked it for you. I also work for the US federal government and I haven't had any issues with using Proton at work. I wonder why the difference.
Wow, TWO terrorists working in the US government‽‽ /s
It was fine until a few weeks ago. We moved into a new building and something with the network changed. Concurrently we also have to connect via the VPN a different way than we used to. With all of those changes Proton went from not blocked to blocked.
Well getting it banned at the ISP level comes to mind.
A lot of this stuff is highly suspicious considering how long governments have been trying to ban VPNs and encrypted messaging. At some point I’d expect someone in favor of bans to commit activities like this to push services to block and governments to ban.
The government's move is in line with a recent policy that has targeted services with end-to-end encryption. A host of encrypted apps were blocked at the start of last year — including the likes of Threema, Element, Wickrme, and Safeswiss — and the government is going after WhatsApp to disable end-to-end encryption, although it isn't clear how that would even work.
This is why GPG is still an important and valuable tool. You can use it on litteral anything and not relying on single point of failure. Paired with steganography no one will know the message even existed. Yet, not many are willing to learn nor support this anymore.
Edit: use of more conservative wording
Edit 2: correct spelling
The problem with GPG is it is painful to use and draws attention. It would be better to use something like Briar, Session, Simplex Chat or Jami.
(Jami hasn't been audited so be careful)
GPG is painful. No doubt. But with the pain it gains agility. Any single apps and protocols enables secure communication, being TLS, Tor, GPG or any one you listed, can draw attention. However, apps are more vulnerable. Their traffic pattern can be analysed and block individually while GPG is protocol agnostic. Look how China GFW had block many E2EE apps/protocols.
In today's world, secure communication apps like SimpleX are more in flavor as it is way easier to use. I used them daily as my main communication method. But it's also good to learn GPG as a backup when those apps fails.
Can you recommend anything to learn about GPG?
Hey it is banned on my country too! :3
Which Country ?
Turkey (🤢)
You should take note of other services that are blocked since it could give you an idea of what your government is trying hide, by using OONI probe
You think I don't know? There is a reason that I connect to the internet only via VPN and my country generally uses DPI to censor sites and so on. Half of the population is paralised and propagandised by instagram, tiktok and the national TV. the rest are made to feel very powerless, hell most students are aiming to study the university aboard and never come back afterwards(me, I am the students), I am well aware of the mass censorship and the oppression of our government against marginalised minorities like immigrants, kurds and LGBTQ people(me). We have a putin sittuation over here the same far right fascist party wins every election and my only hope at the moment is to escape
Proton pulled their VPN servers out of India after they passed a law mandating logging.
'you can connect to our new Smart Routing servers for India. These will give you an Indian IP address and behave just as our physical servers in India did. The only difference is that, in reality, they are based in Singapore.'
More details here https://protonvpn.com/blog/servers-india/
This is why i love proton
What's scary is that China and India are to massive countries in terms of population. The way this is going most of humanity could end up living in countries with low respect for human rights.
I was beaten for standing against authoritarian government. The situation is so bad in India that I am afraid to reveal my religion in university. Lot of people in University tries to oppress me and I can't even complaint because everyone is ok with this and they enjoy oppressing us minorities.
I honesly feel like a jew living under nazi germany. 😞
Stay strong, man. I really hope it doesn't come to the worst.
I sounds like it is time to leave...
I am trying exactly that. I just want enough skills to get a job in EU country and I will be free from that torture.
i am sorry, but i am not sure if you know how ridiculous and hurtful this sounds for people who have witnessed the holocaust and their relatives.
you do not know how it feels to be a jew under naxi germany.
i do not doubt your suffering and oppression, but this is a bit insensitive in my perception and i think these are things we shouldn't compare until there are comparable things happening.
anyway, yes, that sucks. i am sad that your government is like this in an authoritarian way and that everbody else is ok with everything.
I work for the US government and Proton is blocked at the network level, so I can't check my personal email at work. In that sense, the US has already "banned" it. In what other way could a government "ban" an email provider?
Honestly doing personal tasks on your works network is not a great idea. If anything use wireguard to route your traffic back to your home. (You can flash OpenWRT and set this up)
When I work from home, I can just not connect to the VPN and it's fine. When I'm on site there's no way around it
You can't just use a VPN to connect yourself to your home network?
The network blocks Proton.me at the top level. You think they're going to allow a VPN?
Even if they didn't block it is it worth the risk? Sending mystery traffic home over a government network is always gonna be sus.
Of course! I can check my email on my phone. It's not a huge deal, just a slight inconvenience.
Well I guess it is up to you. If it violates your employers policy then don't do it obviously but you can adjust your VPN to make it hard to differentiate between normal traffic and VPN traffic. It can work in China so it probably can work for you.
If your that concerned about your work don't use your phone or at the very least don't connect to WiFi
I've had corporate LANs that I couldn't route around to my wireguard servers from even using netmakers turn server stuff which punches through most shitty lans.
Did you change the port?
Yes changed ports, I never went too hard on it as im not usually near an office and just used my hotspot for personal stuff.
Also it's never a good idea to try too hard circumventing corporate "security"
That's odd. I'm surprised they blocked it for you. I also work for the US federal government and I haven't had any issues with using Proton at work. I wonder why the difference.
Wow, TWO terrorists working in the US government‽‽ /s
It was fine until a few weeks ago. We moved into a new building and something with the network changed. Concurrently we also have to connect via the VPN a different way than we used to. With all of those changes Proton went from not blocked to blocked.
Well getting it banned at the ISP level comes to mind.
Modi trying not to be an authoritarian POS challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!!)
authoritarian is when u no want bomb threats. Genius.
Please elaborate. Modi dismantling India's democracy is well documented.
What does that have to do with this thread?
They don't want companies to aid people who want to bomb them. Is that really a tall ask? What do you prefer, that they wiretap the entire internet like western governments do here? You can know the UK can read our private messages? - https://gizmodo.com/teen-fine-joke-text-taliban-jets-scramble-in-spain-1851192668
A lot of this stuff is highly suspicious considering how long governments have been trying to ban VPNs and encrypted messaging. At some point I’d expect someone in favor of bans to commit activities like this to push services to block and governments to ban.
This is why GPG is still an important and valuable tool. You can use it on litteral anything and not relying on single point of failure. Paired with steganography no one will know the message even existed. Yet, not many are willing to learn nor support this anymore.
Edit: use of more conservative wording Edit 2: correct spelling
The problem with GPG is it is painful to use and draws attention. It would be better to use something like Briar, Session, Simplex Chat or Jami.
(Jami hasn't been audited so be careful)
GPG is painful. No doubt. But with the pain it gains agility. Any single apps and protocols enables secure communication, being TLS, Tor, GPG or any one you listed, can draw attention. However, apps are more vulnerable. Their traffic pattern can be analysed and block individually while GPG is protocol agnostic. Look how China GFW had block many E2EE apps/protocols.
In today's world, secure communication apps like SimpleX are more in flavor as it is way easier to use. I used them daily as my main communication method. But it's also good to learn GPG as a backup when those apps fails.
Can you recommend anything to learn about GPG?
Hey it is banned on my country too! :3
Which Country ?
Turkey (🤢)
You should take note of other services that are blocked since it could give you an idea of what your government is trying hide, by using OONI probe
You think I don't know? There is a reason that I connect to the internet only via VPN and my country generally uses DPI to censor sites and so on. Half of the population is paralised and propagandised by instagram, tiktok and the national TV. the rest are made to feel very powerless, hell most students are aiming to study the university aboard and never come back afterwards(me, I am the students), I am well aware of the mass censorship and the oppression of our government against marginalised minorities like immigrants, kurds and LGBTQ people(me). We have a putin sittuation over here the same far right fascist party wins every election and my only hope at the moment is to escape
alternative opinion: LE has become overly reliant on cheap tricks like spying.
The extreme Indian nationalism in the comments is insane. They will lick any boot that comes to power in their country.
my school also blocks it, i have to use skiovox and a vpn just to access my personal email