Realized I was using a banned VPN app from my own country without knowing it

I live in the US and travel a lot for work, but last month I was in China for a conference. I always use this VPN app called TunnelBear to check my email and social media. Turns out, TunnelBear is actually banned in China because it uses weak encryption that the government can crack, so they block it on purpose. I only found out after my phone got locked out of a bunch of services and a local tech guy pointed it out to me. He said I was basically broadcasting my data to anyone who wanted to see it, which feels like the opposite of what I thought I was doing. Now I'm wondering if I should just switch to a different VPN or if there's any way to use banned tools safely when you're abroad. Has anyone else dealt with accidentally using restricted software in a different country?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant.jason27d ago

Well played, you were basically waving a "please hack me" flag at the Great Firewall. Might as well switch to something that actually does the sneaky part right.

kevin_schmidt9726d ago

Switch to Shadowsocks with obfuscation, it handles the sneaky part better than most tools.