Comment by vbezhenar
4 years ago
Some information that could be of interest to those running VPN servers.
I live in Kazakhstan and recently our government decided to shut down the Internet. But apparently there were ways to get out: they did not filter two TCP ports. My guess it was some "backdoor" put by employees who had to obey the orders but wanted to provide people some way to get around those blocks. Those ports were used to run VPN software. I used Outline VPN on my VPS and it allowed me and my friends to have a working Internet.
TLDR: allow specifying port and protocol (TCP/UDP) as some kind of advanced option for those users who need it for some reason.
Right now we've got Internet back and it works fine, but who knows when our government will decide to shut it down again.
PS mullvad.net website apparently is blocked in Kazakhstan as well. I know that they block popular VPN provider websites, so that should not come as a surprise, but still. I have no idea whether actual VPN subnets are blocked or not.
I think it is probably more likely those ports were the backdoor the government or their allies was using to function. Everyone always builds in a backdoor for themselves!
When I hear about things like this it makes me glad I have a simple satellite communicator - it will only do short text messages but that is a hell of a lot better than nothing. Of course one could get a full satellite based mobile internet device or phone but the plans on those get quite expensive.