Comment by chickenzzzzu
4 days ago
Think of how many people who have remote jobs with American companies couldn't connect to their meetings while they "work from home" while secretly being in China!
Normally they have to fight VPN issues anyway, but having a sovereign state inject your packets is certainly a fun new one.
Anyone operating in/around China who needs a real VPN has a service they pay for and use that isn't mainstream that isn't blocked (using V2ray or similar). There's a reason why Shadowrocket is the number 1 app on the app store. I'm sure there are a lot of cases of people using e.g., off-the-shelf VPN apps and have trouble, but power users in China are always running a VPN, usually to Japan, that doesn't have this problem.
How do you propose users in China will magically get around a nation state injecting packets?
That's literally what VPNs are for.
If you aren't aware: a Virtual Private Network creates a fully encrypted link between you and a remote node. So long as your encryption keys are secure, there's no way for anyone (even a global superpower) to listen to or intrude on that connection. There is no possible way to break into this connection, even with the entire planet's computing resources.
From the outside, all you can see is a stream of encrypted data between two nodes. You cannot tell where the traffic goes once it exits the VPN server or what it contains.
The only way to compromise a VPN connection is the most straightforward and pedestrian: compromise the VPN host and directly spy on their clients with their own hardware.
The GFW certainly can and has detected such encrypted streams and blocked them for being un-inspectable. With a VPN you can perfectly hide what you're doing and you can perfectly prevent intrusion. You cannot prevent someone noticing you're using a VPN. China can simply blanket ban connections that look like VPN traffic. But they cannot tell what you're doing with that VPN.
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> using V2ray or similar
How many people suddenly "lost internet" mid-meeting and had to blame it on their router...
> Normally they have to fight VPN issues anyway
There are special virtual SIM cards that provide access to services from mainland China, as well as VPNs that function normally without issues. I used both while I was in China.
Yeah, have used one. Mine was a downloadable eSIM and meant for foreign travelers with 1-week plan. It actually establishes an IPsec VPN to the origin country. Beijing dare not to block foreigners' roaming services.
I suspect those connections worked fine.
It’s good to know the boss.
I definitely appreciate that a percentage of so called "employees" are actually just full fledged Chinese nationals, living permanently in China, paid a salary to pretend to be an American who had their identity stolen.
But there absolutely is also a non-negligible number of Chinese and Indian nationals, who have some type of visa status in the US (especially a green card) who spend many months in their original countries making $200,000 or more per year while living like royalty in their home countries :)
The green card isn't citizenship, you lose it if you don't live in the US. It's not like they don't know when you enter or exit the country.
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How common can this really be? And what kind of companies? I’m finding it really hard to imagine this to be widespread.
I live in a popular Digital Nomad friendly country, and myself included, work with Europe/American companies roughly matching their time zones.
Now, the people I work with know that I'm not really located in the same time zone, but I know people who don't bother to mention it. I rarely get phone calls, but I have a roaming connection active for banking/OTP/etc. Plenty of cheap cafes with great WiFi (500mbps+ almost everywhere), and several times cheaper too.
Microsoft was caught doing it for the US federal government, so presumably Chinese software engineers are working on other Microsoft products too.
I'll just say Microsoft is not the only company doing that, and there are also Chinese-owned SAASes which American companies pay for.
Sadly much more common than it should be. The durations vary widely, but with the price of airline tickets and the nature of corporate software engineering jobs, it's extremely easy to self-justify a month abroad. The US government allows 6 months officially for green card holders.
If it wasn't literally 10x cheaper to live abroad than it is to live in Seattle/San Jose, it wouldn't be as prevalent. And not to mention, the quality of life is often better at the 10x cheaper price as well.
I can give you as much proof as you would like!
Lookup the North Korean version of this with the laptop farms
Example: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
Yeah if I'd sneak off to work from another place I'd pick somewhere really nice. Not China.
China spans 9.6M km. It has some of the biggest and most modern megacities (Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen to name a few) and features ancient historical wonders like the Great Wall, Forbidden City and Terracotta Warriors.
The nature spans salt lakes and rainbow mountains akin to South America, to the Northern Lights in Mohe down to karst formations of Guilin shared with Vietnam's Halong Bay.
The cuisine is diverse and dishes popular in places like Xi'an reveal lasting influences dating back to the Silk Road.
If you can't find "somewhere really nice" amongst the myriad people and locations you haven't tried.
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Have you ever been to China?
Because they have some of the most beautiful scenery and buildings I've seen and I've been to dozens of countries.
Personally I wouldn't go there for remote work, because the internet interference is a pain but a holiday definitely.
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You say that because you don't hold a Chinese or Indian passport. Now think of those who do, who have family obligations, food preferences, local bank accounts.
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