Normally they have to fight VPN issues anyway, but having a sovereign state inject your packets is certainly a fun new one.
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.
Besides that, when negotiating a secure connection through unencrypted channels you typically use Diffe-Hillman to establish the encryption keys. As far as I'm aware, this method cannot be broken. Both nodes compute their own private encryption key and do math to create unencrypted data that must be verified by the other node's key. Even if you had full control of the data stream, you can't determine those private keys and cannot break into the encrypted connection that follows.
Also VPNs are typically UDP, but there's no hard requirement as far as I know.
Based on that information, the theory for why a nation state would block https like this for a moment is either an accident, or to only block the low hanging fruit of people who don't use a VPN.
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.
It’s good to know the boss.
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 :)
If you get a green card and leave the us for any amount of time, on return the border agent makes a determination on the spot if you intended to live abroad.
Less than six months is simply less suspicious than more.
If the answer is yes, well then it is yet more proof that the US immigration system operates basically extrajudicially just like the IRS and ATF, and only occassionally do the courts pull them back in after much hardship for the plantiff.
Words and policies are supposed to have meaning, and I doubt we'll get any charts or graphs on border refusals per amount of time spent abroad for GC holders.
Green cards are for people who intend to continuously by resident in the united states.
If you go home for 3 months and get a job and rent a house then you no longer continuously reside in the united states.
It's that's simple, but there's no hard or fast rule on how many days.
So much has happened since then...
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.
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!
I'll just say Microsoft is not the only company doing that, and there are also Chinese-owned SAASes which American companies pay for.
Example: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
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.
Visiting somewhere means submitting yourself to their laws. With China's, that's not an option for me. Having restricted communication with home is a dealbreaker too. I would not let that stand so I'd have to break their laws.
It may be a beautiful country but it's not a beautiful place to be. At least not for someone like me.
Though having said that there are many places I refuse to travel to. The US is currently one as well for obvious reasons.
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.
Not really. People like it in China, regardless of whether they're Chinese.
I took an English teaching certification course in Shanghai. The teachers for that course were used to rotating around the world as the company held courses in various random locations.
One day the teachers asked what was apparently a standard question for them, "are you planning to stay here after you get the certification?"
And they were flabbergasted when everyone answered yes. Apparently in most of the locations that offer CELTA courses, the majority of people come for the course and get out as soon as they can.
The teachers, incidentally, were British and New Zealander, and they were firm about instructing us in teaching British pronunciation. I assume most of the students went on to ignore that part of the curriculum.