10mo ago

Does Lemmy have an active VPN community?

I have a question regarding VPN usage in South Korea and Saudi Arabia. I may go for short term work in either South Korea or Saudi for a few months. Does anybody have any idea, how safe it is to use a VPN as a foreigner in these countries? Worse case scenario, can I use a VPN in a Azure VM and scp torrent downloaded files or something?

20 comments

SK is a non-issue. I personally wouldn’t step foot in SA though. I don’t think they block vpn but they will ruin your day if they think you’re possibly related to a known objector.
SK would only be an issue if you have reason to believe they would be interested in you for some reason.
- What if I use a VPN inside a cloud VM and scp the files? Would that raise any flags?
  
  VPN usage is simple to detect. I don’t know how SA deals with it. If it’s like China you may get throttled considerably and “raise flags”
  I never had issues with SK but it’s been a minute. I doubt it will be an issue.
- Fuck me..... But yeah that was what I was kinda expecting.
  
  https://code.kryo.se/iodine/
  https://blog.torproject.org/introducing-webtunnel-evading-censorship-by-hiding-in-plain-sight/
- just stay away from that shithole SA.
No way you'd get into trouble in South Korea. Don't worry about that. Can't say much about Saudi Arabia though
Just don't. Use the time to catch up on your book reading.
- This is the best answer. Torrents / possibly illegal downloads are a big no-no in many countries, if you’re truly a movie addict: buy a portable dvd drive and a bunch of movies (2nd hand can be very cheap nowadays). Additional advantage: internet access is still not very good in many places. On VPNs: there are several options, a commercial one like Nord, your company’s (never, ever torrent over your company networks!) or a self hosted. My home router can run ipsec and wireguard services, yours possibly too. DO REMEMBER: VPN traffic is very recognisable, if the local ISP thinks it’s sus, questions may be asked; better be careful.
Do your best to stay away from SA.
!privacy@lemmy.ml
VPNs are super common for business reasons. A lot of business travelers are going to use a VPN to access files and services only available on their network.
Using a big VPN might be risky; a self-hosted VPN should be less risky. I'd avoid torrenting though, even legal torrents.
Can you ask your IT department their recommendations?

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