Google's New VPN, Outline, Uses Chinese Technology That Intended To Circumvent GFW

Here is the news today:
Outline is a new app that developed by Google's sibling company, Jigsaw, to deliver a painless homebrew VPN service to anyone, with or without any tech background. It provides a simple one click deploy, easy to share way of DIY your own VPN service, for those who are privacy sensitive, yet without in depth knowledge of how to build one him or herself. And if you are curious, Jigsaw claims Outline has been audited by some independent security entity.
After reading various reports on the internet, and digging around this Outline by Jigsaw I was somewhat surprised. In fact, Outline In fact is not a conventional one click VPN installer and manager. It uses a so called SOCK5 technology. It may appear as a VPN on your phone or laptop, yet in its core, it uses another open source project, called Shadowsocks. And what is this Shadowsocks, it is the most popular tool for Chinese people to fight Chinese government's Great Firewall of China, GFW.
Here is some background story, in a Chinese point of view, for those lucky enough not living in China right now. GFW was built using a mixture of imported hardware and homebrew software, in order to censor the internet. GFW's system is believed to be built into the core internet infrastructure. At its beginning, GFW is just some IP blocking tool, to block some foreign websites' IP addresses. Soon it can do what people call "DNS poisoning", a more advanced way to block websites essentially. Then this GFW can use AI to detect and block certain connections on its own. It just keeps growing in its capabilities. Now it can block most kinds of VPN using packet inspection.
For any Chinese who wants to use "normal" internet to do stuff, like reading "real" news, watching youtube or just doing some research, GFW is a huge pain in the ass. I tried to use GFWed internet just to understand how it felt. It felt awful. Most of the services I am used to are blocked, and most of the foreign websites are slow as hell. Generally speaking, that's exactly what GFW is for. Censor the internet, and discourage Chinese from using foreign internet services that are not blocked already.
So, some years ago some programmer developed a tool to deal with this whole GFW mess. It ran on his own server outside of China. It worked really well so he decided to share it on github, and named it Shadowsocks. Its service side was originally written in python, with little cross platform compatibility. Soon Shadowsocks got very popular, many talented Chinese programmer got into the project. Now Shadowsocks is the only tool I know of, that is stable, cross platform, free and open source tool to use in China. Shadowsocks has been rewritten in several other programming languages including go, c, and java. It can be run on most of the VPS, routers, phones and computers. It is stealthy enough even state run GFW can't detect it. It is efficient enough to run on some cheapish barebone VPS. It is the first tool that comes to mind for any Chinese, to get connected to the "real internet".
It got so popular, its original author got a visit from Chinese police, then deleted his code on github. But no matter. There are now enough others working on it, and it gets update all the time.
For me personally, I got to know Shadowsocks back in my ingress days. Yeah, because ingress uses google's cloud services it got blocked at its start. But we play it all the same. At that time, with the help of Shadowsocks, me and my friends had loads of fun exploring the city. Now I have several Shadowsocks servers running, I have Shadowsocks clients running on all my devices. In fact without it I can't even use this Chromebook I am typing on. All thanks to this open source project, and its contributors, I can enjoy everything I love without the need of a passport and a flight ticket. And it's all free and open source.
Talking about "free", let's talk about what Shadowsocks, and, google's Outline, is and is not.
Outline (Shadowsocks) is:

1. open source
   
2. a free service, that is all its service and client services are free of charge. (except some on iOS, of course)
   
3. a great tool to deal with internet censorship.
   

is not:

1. completely free. You need to pay for your own VPS server.
   
2. run by any company. You do everything for yourself, and you have the control.
   
3. a tor alternative.
   
4. a VPN in traditional sense.
   

I don't want to and in fact can't go any further into Shadowsocks, Outline's underlining core technology. Just go to its github and read the code.
What is curious to me is that apparently someone outside China notices Shadowsocks and built a semi automated app around it. I haven't used Outline app myself. It probably won't work inside China, and I already have enough such severs myself. What I fear is, with google now using Shadowsocks, Chinese government would take some actions. And btw Outline uses Digital Ocean's VPS, does this mean DO will be soon blocked in China as well? I hope not.
At the same time, I really hope that with more and more people interested in Shadowsocks, it would grow more stronger and hardened enough to deal with GFW with some certainty. And with my brief introduction, more people, especially hackers would be motivated to do some work on this GFW blackbox. Hacking something else is fun, yeah, but hacking Chinese government's censor black box GFW? It should be challenging enough, and rewarding enough:

you can change million's people's lives.

State of Things

It has been weeks, since something big happened inside China. President Xi has finally gotten hold of what he always wants, indisputable, unstoppable power upon China. This move has essentially wiped clean 100 years of struggle of my people. Yet all I can hear is silence. It is as if all Chinese has become blind and deaf. Life, goes on.
This silence in fact happens much earlier.
Right after Xi took power, he effectively destroyed objective media, newspapers, TV stations, internet outlets, even independent writers and intellectuals. Then he built a stronger internet censorship machine, upon human censors, AIs, willingly cooperative domestic internet ISPs and companies. After that, he used corruption as an excuse to punish those within the party who might be trouble to whatever he was planning. People love to see lawless display of state power against those who profit from political connections. It was all planned out and executed like a precise battle plan. And most of us has waken up into a nightmare and realized this has been his plan all along.
Now it is quite hopeless to be honest. There is no one politically strong enough to challenge Xi, both within and outside the party. Critics have been warned, jailed or lost his or her voice or platform. Advances in AI and data mining have silenced the rest of my people, there is nothing the state does not know. Your private chat massages, your location histories, your online presents, even your shopping history. Xi must love reading 1984. It is worse than soviet union. Under both psychological and realistic pressures, my people just shut up. Let's be honest most people just don't care anymore. As long as things go as usual. Do things go as usual?
Mostly yes.
As long as economy goes well, as long as housing market keeps going, as long as people can still live and breath under reasonable conditions, yes, things will go as usual. But will it last?
Not necessarily.
Concentrated power does not always yield reasonable decisions. In fact, it mostly yields bad decisions. Because no one can criticize, no bad news, no bad data. The system can not fix itself without right data. It may be alright at the moment, but what about under stress, what about another recession?
It has never been so easy to inter change information in the history of human race. Yet it has never been so hard and dangerous to criticize in China in like 50 years. Without some healthy amount of negative feedback, the system would inevitably fail. After all from what we can see, Xi has never been as smart as Putin. Putin knows his people, Xi just silence them.
So what does it mean for us, people who still live in China and have a life here. I have little hope. Under current toxic environment, I can see little hope. It is after all against party's agenda to politically educate people. People has no desire to learn how to govern themselves. I can see generations of suffering before people can have a voice, before a healthy political system can rise from ashes.
After all, what other communist countries ends up like? Do we, the Chinese are so different from North Korea, or soviet union? Not likely.
But hey, it's golden times, to get rich on politically connections, on corruptions and other disgusting means. There is no doubt about that. As long as you can bear the look of yourself in the mirror, or think long and hard in history perspective. But I guess they are of no problems, we are always nihilistic anyways.

Entertaining and Disappointing: The Last Jedi

0. Introduction

Just watched the newest iteration of Star Wars series, the Last Jedi yesterday, at a local theater. The theater itself was hardly filed, and most of the viewers were young couples from nearby collage. If I had a chance to choose I would not see this movie in 3D. I don't like those 3D glasses and the screen tends to be too dim to notice small details in the background, when the movie itself becomes boring.
I thought the Last Jedi would miss China market. After it was out in the North America, it was still missing in the movie schedule here in China. It was right around Christmas that we knew the date, Jan 5th. But before that, I have to deal with all kinds of spoilers online that Youtube was an impossibility.

1. My personal history with Star Wars

Most of the early Star Wars were watched on VHS tapes when I was really young. Back then VHS tapes were something new and growing up in China, it was basically the only way to watch foreign films. But I was too young to understand any plots and stuff. It was around Spring Festival, that the family decided to watch some movies together. After figuring out the VHS machine and the TV we all sit around before the screen and here came the Star Wars. After all those years I can hardly remember anything, including those fancy light sabers, except one thing, that is those giant Walkers. They were amazing.

2. Star Wars reboot, The Force Awakens

Fast forwards about 20 years, I have watched all the Star Wars series for a number of times, and of course lots of Star Trek and other stuff, the Force Awakens comes. It was exciting and all to find some old characters in the film but for someone new to the series, like my girlfriend sitting besides me, it was not so interesting at all. She fell asleep. She could not be blamed though. After all the excitement, there is little chance that I would watch that movie again. It was alright, but not classic. Filled with filler contents intended to introduce a new gen of Star Wars. Fine by me.

3. AAA entertainment, The Last Jedi

So it would be wise to watch this movie by my own this time. There is no need to drag my girlfriend again through a sleepy 2 plus hours with something not at all interesting at all. Well I was wrong. She would somehow enjoy the Last Jedi, like any other mass produced American superhero movies nowadays. Unlike the Force Awakens, I had a feeling of something not in the right place, while watching it for the first time.

3.1 Upgraded graphics

I guess any Star Wars fun would love to watch this newest movie, just for the new graphics. All those new ships, space battles, big canoes! Nowadays burning money would always gives fantastic computer generated graphics. Although it was exciting to watch some space battles, I could not help but notice there is hardly any scenes that are grand and, beautiful. At least the Force Awakens has some breathtaking sceneries. For this one? The only scene I can remember is the battle on the salt lake.

3.2 Finally we have some jedis

After all the plots in the Force Awakens, we have some jedis to fight the dark force. Knowing force and able to use force do not mean someone a jedi. In this movie after some VERY brief and somewhat incomplete trainings at least we have a jedi. That's nice. A new generation of jedi. A generation that knows how to use force yet do not share jedi traditions and do not get trained by the last jedi master properly. Some grass root jedi, I suppose.

3.3 Confusing background stories

The last 2 movies spend some serious time talking about the unknown background stories of this heroin. And somehow nobody knows how to fill that big plot hole in with some proper stories. In the Last Jedi we know somehow there is nothing to it. She was born out of nowhere. Oh god.

3.4 More confusing plots and meaningless twists

Typical AAA movie style we have a lot more confusing plots and twists. And there are enough analysis online out there that I can't agree more. The problem is, those plot shortcomings, they just don't hide themselves. I can tell there is something wrong while sitting in the theater watching, frowning.

3.5 Nihilistic wars

The worst problem of all, from my point of view, is that the Last Jedi tells us nothing. It has no grand meaning, above space battles, chasing on strange horses, and fancy swingings of lightsabers. All we can see is 2 factions fighting each other and that's all. There is no right or wrong, just different ways of doing things. There is hardly any depiction of the empire suppressing the people. And after all it's just one army trying to fight out the other. No wonder no one responds to the distress signals the rebels were sending. There is nothing worth fight for in this movie, except for survival of some, personal reasons for a couple of people, anger and other primitive emotions for others. The wars in Star Wars should have some meanings, but here they are just some nihilistic wars. And this disappoints, and to be honest bothers me the most.

4. So... What's the point?

It should be hardly surprising that Star Wars turns into just another triple A francais. After all, those AAAs are everywhere. And they are some good business as well. If I could have a chance to invest in a movie like this I would. There is hardly a business like this that would never lose money. Don't expect too highly of a movie like this in 2017, or 2018, it's just a business.
Would I want to watch the Last Jedi again sometime? Yes. I like to watch in 2D just to enjoy some details that I missed. Would I want to watch the next one when it's out in 19? Of course. Don't be so serious. It's just a business, a nihilistic business.

From 2017 to 2018

It has been a full year, fuller than anything I can remember.

The situation, from my point of view, is not good. Everything around me has been going downwards, with few exceptions. Factories have had a very bad year. More and more people just waste their money and life on, pointless jobs and most of the time, a 2-room temp housing. Damn they are not even real houses. Talked with my dad the other day, asking about industries in my hometown. Nothing. What's still left kicking are those with government or military ties. Even those, have been struggling day to day. And my father would quit his job next spring. I don't really have many friends working in IT sectors so I really can't say what they are doing there. But, IT has lost its charm, on me at least.

Another thing that bothers me a lot in 2017 is the actions and attitudes of the government. All I can see now is the gradual tightening of control over people's lives. What people see, read, watch, play, listen, everything. Not to mention other social events happening in the past year. It is frankly increasingly suffocating. With the mounting tensions both from the inside and outside, I could see a path for war. It's not like, wars are not the way out, they normally are. But the madness of people, and suffering, are not what I want for life.

The internet will be broken sooner or later. I should start pulling all my data from cloud services and start to prepare for the worst. The worst will come.

My job has not gone very well in 2017 neither. There could be many reasons I could find to justify this but, hey, maybe it's just I have not given my best. Maybe another year. Maybe.

Personally it has been fine this 2017. Could not ask for more.

As for the coming 2018, what I want is really simple. Continue my research, and continue to learn new things.

And hope for the best.

WhatsApp Back Online in China (for the moment)

Last night it was around 5 pm local time that I and my girlfriend found out that WhatsApp was not working. At the time I was not sure, checking on Twitter and various sites, thinking there might be troubles at WhatsApp's side. But no. It was a total block by government firewall, GFW.

Although there was little coverage until today, but after about 10 hours around 10 am the day after, WhatsApp was back online again. And it has been working since then.

But again, news about WhatsApp blockage finally hits news sites all over. In fact it is working OK now.

I don't know what's going on here. Only few thoeries are all I've got. Maybe later I will write about them.

WhatsApp finally down in mainland China

As far as I know, WhatsApp has been down in mainland China, for both cable and mobile data.

Nothing works so far.

WhatsApp main server works fine, tested via circumvention methods.

It looks like the GFW finally takes down WhatsApp, just before "main event" October.

Reports from other outlets would come very soon. And, lol, nothing will change for users inside China.

WhatsApp has been a great app. So long.

China's Current Censorship Is Ridiculous

O.K. I have been thinking about writing on this for a while. Facing shit load of work this has to wait. But as the time goes by, things are getting serious, and in the end, down right ridiculous, to a degree that I can not believe I am living in a country that most earth people think as a modern country.

Everything now is political, yet really no one cares about politics.

Everyday people I know of, cares less about politics, than a volcano burst on a remote planet. Most of the people I know goes to work everyday, and rest, repeat. Unlike America right now where politics sometimes considered as a dirty word, in China, politics is a distant and rather boring word. Years of Chinese education, politics as a subject is being taught, less importantly than, say math, but being taught from a very young age all the same. In Chinese so called politics classes, little about democracy process or legal systems are in there. Instead, it's almost all about one logic, over and over again, from 1st grade to even doctoral degree. That logic is, only Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could save China, and only CCP can help China grow. In other words, the legitimacy of CCP monopoly rule. Now imagine being taught this for so many times, that the word politics in the end becomes a boring subject. And politics as a whole, becomes disconnect with everyday life.

Of course there are people cares about the going ons in the high ranks of CCP, or local branches, The in fightings, and all, can be an interesting topics for some. And occasionally some groups of people would express openly on some political issues, just to be seen as a grass root political movement but few are fooled.

But for some reason, or honestly, for the same reason politics as a subject in China being so boring, legitimacy of rule, now everything is political.

First goes bunch of social media accounts which only focus on entertainments. That's weird. Why shutting down those whose media presents have nothing to do with politics, by force of a nation machine? Then a flood of even weirder and similar stuff happened. The latest one being forcing TV stations showing only propaganda shows at prime time. And yes, VPNs are being cracked down like never before.

Yet little is being discussed inside the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Everyday people still don't care. Censorship as a tool being used without moderation of any kind, things are bond to become weirder, and downright ridiculous.

To be honest I don't care. Personally I really don't want to spend my time on stuff that are being censored anyways. But this ridiculousness, just got me.