Ask HN: I'm going to China. What privacy precautions can/should I take?

I was in China last month, there is nothing to worry about. I did not face any issue as such except for the language barrier. So, download google translate.

For VPN - Get VPNExpress app before leaving your country. All apps work great with it. If you are going for a long time, I recommend getting a paid version of VPNExpress.

Also, download didi app for cabs. And, get a sim card from the airport. Mine costed 50 Yen for 1GB data and 50 minutes of calling.

Have a safe trip :)

Buy a new phone. Use Project Fi. Throw or sell your phone to other people at US or China after your trip finished.

Get a VPN, that's all.

Use a non-Chinese carrier if possible (if you are from the US, Project Fi, or the T-Mobile plan with unlimited international roaming come to mind). You get a built-in tunnel to the home country and full access to the internet that way. Lots of basic VPN connections are actively killed though you probably won't be punished for trying. Ssh tunneling works fine.

Maps in China are scrambled by some random distance (ostensibly on national security grounds), so you may want to download a local mapping app such as Baidu maps to get your true location and not be 200 meters displaced in a random direction.

Statistically much of China is under-policed [0], especially in the east, so while it depends on where you are, if you don't draw lots of attention to yourself, nobody really cares.

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_depend...

We (in China) use VPN software everyday to get access to most of the website (FB/Google/Twitter/IG/Slack, etc). It's illegal to sell VPN service without government permission, but no one will catch you if you are a user.

Almost all the Chinese business accept mobile payments, if you do care about privacy, you should prepare enough RMBs.

Don't discuss Chinese politics, laws, policies etc. Don't offer VPN to others.

However, you can acknowledge the firewall existing, e.g. you can say "I can't access my email, can I send you this photo with Bluetooth/WeChat instead?"

Chinese know the firewall exists, they just mostly don't care (and if they do care they would never tell you about it)

It would be best if you did not take your personal laptop. Get a cheap chromebook and put your important data on a cloud service of some sort. Once you pass through customs you need to completely wipe the laptop, re-install a trusted version, then pull down the data you need. Wipe the laptop again before you leave and be prepared to just leave it behind if it ever left your physical control during your trip. Find out which VPN services are currently working from China and also familiarize yourself with shadowsocks.

You need a disposable phone that does not have any data on it (contacts, notes, photos, etc) that you do not want to share with the Chinese government. If possible you should get a SIM card from Hong Kong and use that since it is less likely to have VPN and other connections blocked.

Beyond this you should look to some of the online guides out there targeted at journalists and how they can protect themselves, most of the same rules will apply to you in this situation.

Set up a VPN using Streisand [1]. I usually setup a Digital Ocean server in Singapore running Shadowsocks VPN using Streisand.

Forget about all other comments here suggesting a particular VPN service. Trust me, this is the way to go. I go to China for work multiple times a year. Not only will you suffer with sporadic speeds, latency, dropped connections and you’ll need to pre-download clients or configuration files before you enter China in some cases (Astrill). Stop looking further, Streisand gives you options for your own private VPN. Delete the server once you’re out of there.

Streisand is a godsent when you need VPN and you don’t know which ones are not blocked without going to dozens of shady forums.

Also, it’s obvious but do not discuss politics in China with your friends or coworkers. Enjoy food that normal middle class eats at extremely crowded high turnover lunch places. You won’t get sick and the food is going to be amazing. Don’t have anything that is “free”. It’s a trap.

[1] https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

    git clone https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand.git && cd streisand
    ./util/venv-dependencies.sh ./venv
     source ./venv/bin/activate

People here are generally a bit over-paranoid. I've been to china many times, not once did anyone search my phone or laptop. the CCP cannot screw their way into your hard disk. Just get a VPN and make sure it's working before you get there, that's really about it. You don't need to get a new computer or leave that one behind when you leave.

The food in china can be great, but it can be better in various chinatowns in the world due to higher quality ingredients.

I'm assuming you're going to a major city and aren't visiting a sensitive area like Tibet or Xinjiang. I highly recommend using a foreign mobile carrier so that you won't need to bother with a VPN on your mobile. It's just easier when you're new there.

Dissidents are kidnapped for speaking out, that is true, but that's because they have potential to influence the masses. You probably don't have that kind of influence, so nobody cares what you think or say.

You should definitely prepare a VPN before you leave. I recommend Shadowsocks. You can talk about it, no problem. I would avoid doing so on WeChat however, because who knows, maybe the regime will decide to use that against you in the future.

I recently spent 2 months in China

1. WeChat and Alipay. It was hard for me to get vendors to accept paper money.

2. Google Translate

3. The plane ride might be hard if you normally use your devices. I was not allowed to watch my devices. I had to only watch pre-approved content from the planes entertainment system.

4. VPN. I even went as far and carried a portable router that supported vpn and tor.

5. I bought a cellphone there and a cheap data package and used this phone for everything including Baidu Maps. Translating. Paying. If doesn’t work here in the US even so I will save for my next trip.

6. If spoken to by the police answer then. Same with customs and border patrol. Don’t be a smart ass.

7. People are open to talking. They know about the great firewall and their countries politics. Don’t say anything negative about President Xi. You may offend the people you are talking with. The locals would much rather ask you questions about the USA.

8. Try to learn some basic Chinese. It will help. I could give you a crash course if you want.

9. Depending upon where you are staying you may get cards slid under your door advertising prostitution. I asked friend about this and they were mixed wether it was a setup or not. I noticed it was a high school age boy that was sliding them under the doors. His after school job I guess.

10. I took my own laptop. I was never searched. Nothing ever taken from me. I used security precautions just in case though.

Somehow Westerners going to China seem to think that they matter a whole lot to the Chinese government. The ego-bruising truth is that you don't matter in the slightest. The airports are actually less dystopian than in the US by a great measure, and nobody really cares what you might have on your hard drives, what blog posts with a whopping 62 shares you might have made in the past or whatever other crypto-democratic scenario you might fantasize about. To get in trouble you really have to go out of your way to do so by actively organizing unrest. Chinese people do talk openly about sensitive topics, they just probably won't be too interested in doing so with someone who doesn't speak Chinese well, although it did happen to me a few times (in a university setting, mind you). Just use common sense in conversations. Get a VPN, read reviews to check if it works in China. If you need a pay-as-you-go SIM card, make sure your phone has the right bands. Be prepared for a slow connection sometimes. That's about it.

Source: I've been here 4 years, pretty much always in Shenzhen.

1) If you will be using wifi/landline internet (vs. always tethering to your phone), get a paid VPN that advertises working through the GFW and make sure it works before you leave. YMMV, but I've tried SSH tunnels, shadowsocks, lantern, streisand, and probably a few other open/DIY methods. In my experience none of them work for more than a day or so before they start getting throttled or completely blocked. If you are constantly moving from one connection to another it might be different. Your results could also be different in a different area of the country.

2) Get a working foreign SIM that lists China somewhere in the contract, or buy a Hong Kong "cross-border" one (not a generic HK one, which will only work in HK)... they won't be blocked. The Hong Kong one will likely only work in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, but it's probably cheaper than setting up something based on a US SIM.

3) Don't worry about your laptop/phone unless you are a journalist or work at a target for industrial espionage (for example, FAANG)

4) Don't go out of your way to start controversy, but certain people can have interesting conversations about sensitive topics. Give it a little time and ease into it if you feel like you need to talk politics. Or if you have trouble reading people's emotions just skip it. Pretty much anybody with a graduate degree in a technology field would probably be happy to help you debug VPN issues if you're already friends with them.

And some not so much security as general survival topics:

5) "Boo yow lah jhaow" = quit putting those fucking Sichuan peppers in every single thing I order (YMMV in different areas of the country, but here in Shenzhen even cabbage isn't complete unless it's fried with a generous handful of peppers and vegetable oil). (This will be completely ignored about 50% of the time, even if your pronunciation is correct.)

6) Baidu maps is pretty helpful if you want to show a cab driver your destination. They won't be able to interpret google maps. Older cab drivers won't be able to see the small characters on your screen, but if you take a screenshot then zoom in sometimes it works. Or just choose young cab drivers.

7) Wechat. Everybody has it. Even if you never try to pay for anything with it, you can quickly "friend" someone and even if neither of you are dual language you can long-press on messages and use the in-app translation to get a lot done. Just be careful to avoid idioms and slang, use simple sentences, write out pronouns instead of dropping them, etc.

Hmm alternatively you could take a break from things like Facebook and instagram and shit like that. Spend that time enjoying the culture :)

Wechat will be your friend.

Wechat is your friend.

They can't hack what you don't bring. Buy a cheap amazon fire tablet or chromebook for use on wifi / in flight entertainment.