@redjon777 my hoster has quite a good connection to Asia, so I'm at least faster than accessing websites without VPN. I didn't test if I'd get better performance with a server in HK tho. However, most of the websites I wanna reach are based in the west, so the data needs to get over there somehow in the end of the day.

There are different techniques to hide traffic as pictures. The most "stupid" one is to simply put an html header on top of your traffic and a ".jpg" and the html footer at the end of it.
If they figure that out, you can attach a tiny actual picture to it and hide the traffic as part of the (already compressed) JPG.

If this one doesn't work, you can build an actual picture where the single pixels of the picture encode your data.

If the censors are really good, they might however still figure that out. Then I'd hide the encrypted data in the image noise. As most encryption standards scramble data in a way that it pretty much resembles random data, they'd need enough traffic data (which is hard to match as one picture may be streched over several packages) and tons of computing power to conduct a sufficiently accurate kolmogorov-smirnov test to uncover that one.

So you can keep playing the game with the authorities to perpetuity. Just always gotta stay one step ahead of them.

Perhaps try using a T0R browser.... I have heard that it works quickly and seamlessly for accessing your FB etc.

And it is free :)

@SJayne: last time I tried, they managed to block TOR in China. Even when I tried running my own entry node, I still couldn't gain access, as it seems they found a pattern in the protocol which they can block. Has this issue been resolved yet?

@kurtosis T0R is working fine, someone told me they are using it today without any issues.

Thankfully, it's always being updated, so perhaps that's why it's smooth recently.

I'm about ready for that Smirnov test, better way to spend my time.

@SJayne: sounds cool - gotta try it the next time I'm in China.

What is it like speed-wise? Do you get a halfway decent amount of traffic out of China through that network?

@kurtosis: the speed can vary, though generally very good.

Why not use it in your current nation? Perhaps if use was more common and widespread it would assist in normalising- and thus promoting- anonymous/private net use. It would likewise signal that using such a platform is not just a means for nefarious activities.

@SJayne: I just downloaded TOR once again. To be able to use it in China, I obviously have to use meek. But I found it's really slow, even in the west. I couldn't get gokunming.com to open...

Moreover, the speed in the west is generally not a good indicator of what kind of speed I could expect in China. The bottle neck is mostly the connection out of China.

@kurtosis: in so far as I understand (and I am no expert on the subject), there are now other bridges one may use, such as obsf4. So, if you have poor speeds with one transport, you just select a different one. This may explain why speeds are better :)

@SJayne: they wrote that obsf4 won't work in China, but I'd have to try it myself. Are you currently in China and could give it a try?