UKC

I'm in China at the moment and have exhausted my Googling abilities. Does anyone back in Blighty with unrestricted internet guide me to a good proxy site that I can check up on my Facebook and buy Skype credit?

Cheers,
Frank

In reply to frankcp87:

Hahaha... now don't get me wrong, I haven't any idea about the reality here but surely if it were that simple to get a proxy to access non government sanctioned information in China then the whole country would be doing it and it would either be a much more free culture or the country would be bringing down heavily punitive methods to prevent people from using it and that would imply that it were not safe to use.

What is China like for foreigners and, actually, generally what is life like for nationals?

In reply to EZ:
Well you're right, the proxy sites don't last very long. The last one was proxymice which worked great and lasted maybe 6 months before getting shut down.

China is fairly easy for foreigners, you feel like a film star. People point and stare and what their picture taken with the "white man". Especially as I'm a good foot taller than everyone out here and have a beard. I think life for Chinese people is good as long as you're not a farmer, but even then the government is spending a huge amount on re-building villages.

China certiknly is a place unlike any where else. The mountains and rock is amazing here! And less than 1% of it has been walked up or climbed on. Its a shame china is building and developing so fast. They litterlly are blowing up whole limestone mountains for the rock to make concrete.

The places that have developed are world class though. Just need to get more Chinese people to appriciated what they have and start exploring it and protecting it. I guess its like the UK and Europe 100 years ago in that sense.

In reply to frankcp87:

Thanks for that. If you had to pick a point on the spectrum between carefree and fearful how would you describe the Chinese life in respect of the government?

Also, I find it interesting that UKC forums being such a politically motivated place is accessible from China without a proxy.

In reply to EZ: I'm in Xi'an, just coming to the end of a work stint in China and I've definitely formed the impression that the great firewall of China is a pretty leaky thing. There's any amount of non-government media available and the only website that I use regularly and can't access here is Youtube which hardly seems like a major restriction of my freedom. BBC, Telegraph etc - no problem at all - the BBC world news is on as I write this. I grant you that barriers like language and IT knowledge might make it hard for many Chinese to access it in practice but that will change.

The Chinese and expats I'm working with here have pretty good lives and in lots of ways are less restricted than in the west. I get the impression that bureaucracy is a bit of a pain, my brief look around the local hospital put me right off being ill here and there's plenty of evidence of prosperity in some areas and relative poverty in others. But the generation of Chinese in their 20s and 30s now look like they'll have pretty exciting lives.

In reply to AdrianC:

Thanks for your thoughts.

In reply to frankcp87:

The Chinese are actually pretty hopeless at blocking internet sites, the restrictions are very easy to get round, you can even get BBC news! The Iranians could teach them a thing or too, as could the Uzbeks. www.f1.proxymice.com worked for facebook for months in China before they blocked it.

To answer your question, you want a proxy browser, not just a proxy for a particular site, then you can access any site you want in total privacy. I've found the Tor browser to be excellent:

https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

It's free to download and it's worked in every country I've visited with heavy internet restrictions, including China when I was last there (9 months ago) and Iran, who are much better at blocking sites (8 months ago). I don't know much about computers, but it does seem to slow your browsing speed a bit, so I only use it for blocked sites. You may find their site blocked, if so send me a pm and I can e-mail the programme (it's tiny).

Hope this helps.

In reply to frankcp87: if only they would stop muching on tiger bones and rhinos penises.....

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:..and interning people who complain in unofficial 'black jails', though the US has done the same with terror suspects.

Use Ultrasurf. It was designed specifically to get out of the great firewall. It has funding from the American Government (it is open source).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasurf

In reply to EZ: thanks guys. Great stuff!
Ultrasurf seems to be blocked out here. But I'm home in a month for a few weeks so can sort my laptop out in the UK before flying back out here.

In reply to frankcp87:

It is an app. You need to download it. You might need to search about different locations.

In reply to frankcp87: When I was in China, I used a freebie proxy for Facetube. It wasn't great, but it was good enough. Just type free proxy and work though the list until one works.

I didn't have any problem with Skype though. That said, I was in a Holiday Inn hotel which might have made a difference?

In reply to Al Goodridge:

TOR is interesting but not perfect http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/03/identifying_tor.html
If one were worried (it sounds like the OP and others don't feel that worry is necessary) about government agencies finding out who or where you are for whatever reason, then TOR is not the answer.
Piggy backing an unsecured network with a good old fashioned bit of war driving would fix that but maybe leave the piggybacked network owner in a bit of schtum!

In reply to EZ:
On a side note (off topic, sorry) I do find it an interesting appearance to the UKC demographic that there is so much direct knowledge about China. I've never met anyone outside of work (petrochemical and power generation infrastructure) who has ever been to China and even then the folk at work are at director level. I'm not sure what it says if anything about UKC users, but it is worth note.

In reply to EZ: china certainly isn't people's no one holiday destination. But I think its becoming more popular. There are lots of Brits working out here though. I guess teaching is the biggest Expat employer. If you want an adventure head to china, you will be both surprised and tested on a regular basis.

For the climbing though, there is some great sport out here and the first trad crags have been developed recently. As I said before thee are so many area begging to be explored and climbed.

In reply to frankcp87: Have to say that after this work trip I'm way more interested in coming here for a personal visit. Lots of fascinating stuff, great food & friendly people. Definitely a different experience from what I'd expected from books & media.

In reply to frankcp87:
I've been told that in Shanghai at least you can get a residential broadband hook up basically the same day. Try getting that from BT.

In reply to frankcp87:

I used OverPLay VPN in China. You pay for it: but it has special code for getting through the Chinese firewall.
Not sure how you would get it when in China since their site is blocked.
Their support address is [email protected]

In reply to AdrianC:

What a surprise!

In reply to frankcp87:

Personally I use ssh tunneling and socks proxy forwarding when I have been in china. Prob not fesable for everyone as you need to have a server, I have a few Virtual private servers on the go so not a big issue.

This should give you all the info you need on it. http://embraceubuntu.com/2006/12/08/ssh-tunnel-socks-proxy-forwarding-secur...

I have used these guys before https://www.serverffs.com/vps/ There basic VPS without any upgrades should be more than enough. If your not up to this then as others have said you can get paid for VPN's that are one button push.

In reply to EZ: I dunno. Lots of folks on UKC are computery types and China is a bit of a power house in that industry these days. Not that they scare me. Their ability produce anything of quality is laughable but when you can hire 4 engineers for the price of one who cares?

In reply to Anonymous: Oh - I dunno about that. Plenty of places you go are pretty much what you expect.

In reply to AdrianC: Contradicting yourself somewhat there old boy... So was there Tibetan bodies dangling from lampposts? And people burning oil and coal in the streets for no reason? And government officials whipping people for logging onto Facebook? Cause that's kind of what I imagine China's like. When I watch the 'news'

In reply to EeeByGum:

Bit of a broad generalization there.