VPN in China, site DNS still blocked....

[dore_m]

This one has me stumped:

I live in China, where Facebook is blocked. I have a DD-WRT router that is always connected via pptp vpn in the USA.

Yet when I'm on the wireless network, I cannot get facebook. Is it a DNS issue? I think somehow I am getting DNS poisoned, even though I am using opendns.

It's really strange, on two separate computers, if I go to a website that reports my location, the location is shown as in the USA, yet I cannot get to FB at all. I then need to run a proxy to get to FB. Sites like Hulu work perfectly.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[bill001g]

More than likely the DNS is not going though the tunnel. Could be a bug or the router confused. I suspect you are using router as your DNS server and letting it decide. I would first hard code a DNS server in your PC not sure if the standard 4.2.2.2 or 8.8.8.8 will give you issues in china otherwise there are other public dns servers.

The solution to any DNS issue is to hard code the entries in the HOST table. That method never fails....well except for a corporate proxy server

 

[dore_m]

I've also checked the DNS entries. Both the router is showing 8.8.8.8 and openDNS servers, and my wifi adapter in my computer is showing openDNS servers.

As a matter of fact, if I run a command window and type "ipconfig /all", my computer is indeed using openDNS servers.

-Dore

 

[RealBeast]

Can you connect with this IP address: 31.13.69.160 ?

 

[dore_m]

Ok. So I changed DNS servers to one in Europe and now things work ok.

I get the feeling that China is "spoofing" google's DNS and OpenDNS. Or DNS poisoning. The trick is to find a public DNS that is not being guarded by the GFW.

-Dore

 

[Charli990]

Well, I have shared my experience in few more websites and I hope it can be helpful here too.
China is great but thinking about the internet really made me crazy, I read a review from a vpn provider "Saturnvpn.com" that some one already used it in China and that was OK there.
As it was cheap I bought an account for 2Month and for $5 before I leave for China,
I was not sure if it really works or not.
When I got there the first thing I tried was the Internet and I saw that allmost all the websites are blocked.
I hited the vpn connect button, and in just few seconds it says you are connected, I tried to access some blocked websites and yes! It worked. no problem! There are 3 protocols PPTP, L2TP and OpenVPN saturnvpn offers.
And when you buy a account, You can use all of them.
I could connect using PPTP at the hotel. But I was in a resturant and PPTP didn't work, So I tried OpenVPN and as saturnVPN staff said, OpenVPN works even in saturn! It worked like a charm.
I know many of you who want to travel to china are looking for a service to bypass the censorship there and this is my recommendation. http://saturnvpn.com
It has also free test account and you can test the service before you pay.

 

[dore_m]

Careful about recommending vpn's. In China, when a VPN begins to have a good track record and gets many many users, the government tends to block it. The rules to keep your VPN working are like Fight Club:

The first rule of VPN is you do not broadcast your VPN provider.
The second rule of VPN is you do not broadcast your VPN provider.

Lol.

-Dore