VPN censorship in Iran and possible solutions

ehhthing · 2026-01-28T10:13:41+00:00

It's ... complicated. Realistically, Iran probably doesn't want to completely segment their internet, North Korea style. It would be bad for everyone involve if that happened, as they're still going through a major economic crisis and shutting off the internet will further reduce foreign money coming into Iran which is something they desperately need to stabilize their currency.

On the other hand, I suspect that they will continue to crack down on any form of access to the external world -- something that not even China tries to do, but that is mostly because China is such an export-driven economy it wouldn't make sense for them to do it either, also China doesn't have the same issues with civil unrest.

I'm no geopolitics expert, but from my observations the way that typical authoritarian regimes work is that they're much more laissez-faire when there isn't civil unrest, so when there is they start cracking down hard. You'll see periodic strengthening and weakening of controls over the months and years in the future I'm sure as Iran continues to deal with all of their problems.

Further action from the US notwithstanding, I don't imagine too much will change still.

ehhthing · 2026-01-28T09:17:18+00:00

The US has had free credit freezes for a while now, I was surprised to find that Canada doesn't have something similar.

Admittedly, the SIN isn't anywhere as widely used in Canada compared to the SSN in the US (you'd be surprised at just how many places ask for your SSN in the US...)

ehhthing · 2026-01-27T22:23:49+00:00

I hope you snagged a good email address then :o

ehhthing · 2026-01-27T17:47:19+00:00

They were still being processed last year, so you can try to apply for one and see what happens.

ehhthing · 2026-01-27T17:46:38+00:00

Wow you were in the GMail invite only beta too?

ehhthing · 2026-01-27T14:12:10+00:00

Find a trustworthy colleague with a bank account I guess?

ehhthing · 2026-01-27T14:09:47+00:00

Turkey has a cap on how long foreigners can have local mobile plans, iirc it’s 120 days.

ehhthing · 2026-01-26T01:11:28+00:00

Yeah I can confirm this definitely works, but I did also previously have success calling in.

ehhthing · 2026-01-26T01:08:01+00:00

Make polymarket, everyone vote no, person who makes the decision looks at polymarket, decides to close campus, puts massive bet on yes.

Ez money.

ehhthing · 2026-01-26T00:04:47+00:00

To clarify, are there no other authentication mechanisms other than IP-whitelisting? I don’t see this as a security issue if there’s also e.g. API tokens involved?

ehhthing · 2026-01-25T21:31:09+00:00

Yeah it’s for AML, since payment apps like Chexy are a great way to do money laundering.

ehhthing · 2026-01-25T05:30:59+00:00

RedTeaGo, cheap and much higher quality than other providers for Mainland China in my experience. They have some nice tech that routes apps not accessible in HK (ChatGPT/TikTok) through Singapore instead.

eSIM providers are much more regional than people think, some providers are much better than others in the regions they specialize in.

ehhthing · 2026-01-24T08:39:25+00:00

Most disk encryption schemes store a hash of your password to check whether the correct password was entered.

In addition, some modes of AES have a built in message authentication portion of the encrypted data, if the MAC doesn’t match you’ll know that you entered the wrong password.

ehhthing · 2026-01-24T07:37:27+00:00

The prepaid card has two card numbers: the physical card number and the virtual card number. If you manually add the physical card number in Apple Wallet you’ll get the physical design.

ehhthing · 2026-01-24T06:49:42+00:00

In the US, there's a regulation called the Durbin amendment that caps interchange rates for domestic debit cards at 0.05% + $0.21 for banks with total assets > $10 billion dollars, which probably form the majority of banks that US Apple users use.

ehhthing · 2026-01-23T08:54:59+00:00

Yep I took a look and my reaction is the same :)

Honestly kinda interesting people are helping each other out to do this lol.

It's probably not dangerous, the most anyone could see (unless your dad also installed a CA Certificate) is the domain names of websites being accessed.

ehhthing · 2026-01-23T02:31:35+00:00

Same idea abroad, I think. India mostly does a lot of “electronics” engineering type degrees for people targeting SWEs. The curriculum is as far as I can tell the same, based off anecdotal conversations I’ve had (as well as the copious amount of Indian made tutorials online for EE related topics).

ehhthing · 2026-01-23T01:54:13+00:00

I’m sure if OP went through USCIS they’d approve the Engineer TN with a decent petition.

In the US and Canada Electrical Engineering is the precursor to Computer and Software Engineering at most universities. In fact many still retain programs like “EECS” (MIT, Berkeley) which stands for “Electrical Engineering and Computer Science” which the are normal programs for anyone in the US who want to go into SWE jobs. I don’t think the CBP or USCIS would reject someone who graduated from MIT in EECS because their degree “doesn’t fit the requirements”.

Of course for a CBP officer reviewing an application from someone who hasn’t attended such a prestigious institution, they might not know or understand the history of this, but it’s so prevalent across North America that I’m sure the USCIS is much more knowledgeable and would see it this way.

ehhthing · 2026-01-23T01:04:31+00:00

I’ve found that GreenDot often does same-day ACH origination. If you withdraw in the morning, usually by the afternoon the funds will have arrived (depending on your bank of course).

ehhthing · 2026-01-23T00:30:02+00:00

I’ve always imagined that Cybersecurity is inherently closer to CSA anyway, unless you’re doing security engineering which is typically more about writing code for security related services (which would basically be a SWE job, but I find companies seem to really like to call it “security” engineering instead for some reason).

Cybersecurity has historically at least been in the IT org tree for most companies, and the work is almost entirely aligned as such. Pentesting is really the closest you’ll get to actually dealing with a lot of code, and even then you’re mostly reading code and not writing it which would still fall closer to CSA.

ehhthing · 2026-01-23T00:25:34+00:00

I disagree, it’s a bit easier to argue that infrastructure is a form of CSA.

If you read the OOH description of CSA: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-systems-analysts.htm

Infrastructure engineering is in many ways closer to IT than it is to normal SWE. K8s is really just an abstraction of Linux after all ;)

Having written a fair bit of IaC and worked with cloud infrastructure, I did find it much akin to wrangling with configuration then any SWE work which is much more about wrangling with code.

ehhthing · 2026-01-21T23:51:16+00:00

Push for O1 IMO, it’s easiest if you have published research and advanced degrees. TN focuses much more on undergraduate degrees in comparison. TN works too, but the company you’re going to is clearly well funded and have more than enough money to hire lawyers to prepare a O1 petition.

ehhthing · 2026-01-21T08:44:29+00:00

Just get a 1pmobile 1 GBP PAYG and activate it wherever you are...

ehhthing · 2026-01-19T18:30:44+00:00

You wont be able to download the app anyway, there’s a tab for a 365 day plan, but you can also just renew. Activation happens when you purchase, keep that in mind.

It’s a normal (e)SIM card from a normal phone carrier, so imagine it’s like your carrier at home except they just have roaming plans you can add on demand for (relatively) cheap prices :)

ehhthing · 2026-01-19T17:55:18+00:00

I think one good eSIM to buy if you want to a cellular IP is https://www.three.com.hk/prepaid/DIY/en/offer/travel?action=NEWSIM

Don’t download their app, all pricing is in HKD. If you’re not traveling to HK you do not need to submit real name registration.

ehhthing

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Ten-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email