Apparently we don't like foreigners... Lol...

[Grant H.]

Taiwan is a long way from “basically China”. China has *zero* sway there. It’s among the freest countries you can find, particularly in East Asia. Been to both?

I have been to both, and while I agree that their sway isn't great, or real publicly felt, it does exist. Our customer has to do with preventing that sway and such, and they are noticeably worried about the posturing and actions from China, especially post Hong Kong.

That said, TWN as a country is fine with a level of surveillance and people tracking that most US citizens wouldn't like.

Yup PRC (China) and ROC (Taiwan) to me is a different country and should be a different country.
I've learned world geography as a different country too.

It should be, but China doesn't agree. Satellite imagery has found where China has built full scale versions of the TWN Presidential compound, and other important .gov buildings, in the Mongolian area. The imagery reminds me of the shoot houses on US .mil bases that I have seen.

One thing that is getting tracked really closely by my company, our US .gov resources, and the TWN .gov resources is the possibility that China might invade pending US election results.

[nighterfighter]

Back to the thread topic, I'm glad the forum is geofencing. It may be an inconvenience for some of us, but there are technology solutions that can mitigate the problem. VPN back to a home system is one, and using a commercial VPN solution like NordVPN is another. If you're traveling often and forced into using open networks, you're probably taking precautions already, right?

VPN to a home system is good, as is any sort of commercial solution (NordVPN, PIA, etc). HOWEVER many places (and specifically countries like China/Russia/Taiwan) can or do block all VPN traffic. It's not trivial to get around this, a decent amount of TCP/UDP knowledge is required, lots of changing src/dst ports, and hoping things cooperate with you. (Ironically, Southwest Plaza Mall in Littleton, CO blocks some VPNs.)

Your other option is to use Tor (but I'm assuming the board blocks Tor even harder than specific IPs), or Tor -> VPN, (or VPN->Tor) but this is much harder to set up than a simple VPN, and can raise red flags. (Not all Tor traffic is illegal, but a high % of it is)


If you are more paranoid about VPNs tracking you (some of them do), you can host your own VPN utilizing an Amazon EC2 instance and an OpenVPN template. They aren't terribly hard to configure and get running, but this does cost a non-zero amount of money and is a lot more involved than pressing "Connect" on your NordVPN app.

If anyone has specific questions about VPN/Tor, let me know and I'll answer what I can. I currently work as a senior cybersecurity engineer and am getting a M.S. in Cybersecurity, so this is kinda my life right now...

[MrPrena]

I have been to both, and while I agree that their sway isn't great, or real publicly felt, it does exist. Our customer has to do with preventing that sway and such, and they are noticeably worried about the posturing and actions from China, especially post Hong Kong.

That said, TWN as a country is fine with a level of surveillance and people tracking that most US citizens wouldn't like.



It should be, but China doesn't agree. Satellite imagery has found where China has built full scale versions of the TWN Presidential compound, and other important .gov buildings, in the Mongolian area. The imagery reminds me of the shoot houses on US .mil bases that I have seen.

One thing that is getting tracked really closely by my company, our US .gov resources, and the TWN .gov resources is the possibility that China might invade pending US election results.

Because of those crazy neighboring countries, countries like South Korea, Israel etc has to do mandatory military.


https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/15...-hollow-shell/

[fitz19d]

Taiwan is a long way from ?basically China?. China has *zero* sway there. It?s among the freest countries you can find, particularly in East Asia. Been to both?

Know and hangout with folks from both. Spent a month in taiwan for friends wedding. Freeist for asia doesn't make it free. Friend actually got scooped up and held at one point not that long ago because his parents thought they did him a favor registering him with their government as a child for dual citizenship. So the customs people on one of his 1-2x yearly trips suddenly had him flagged for essentially draft dodging. (Born in the US I thought, or maybe it was taiwan and immediately moved here I forget, either way they hadn't bothered to tell him). Fortunately he knew some people who could pull strings before it also became kinda an incident as he's a serving E-8 in the army with some actual clearances working with special people.

So while it's a far cry from being china, I was being hyperbolic, still not a place I'd test my chances in.