Using Bitsquare in mainland China

Great thanks! I added it to the wiki as well: https://github.com/bitsquare/bitsquare/wiki/Hosted-Bitsquare-using-VPS

Hmm, now it is suggested MEEK with China:

https://blog.torproject.org/blog/breaking-through-censorship-barriers-even-when-tor-blocked

yep i also think bridges are the key. Maybe the Problem can be solved when you create a function that works like a button ā€œrefresh Bridgesā€ to get a new Bridge. May Tor devs can help to improve on this topic.

Greetings

sdc-linux

Bridges are already implemented but it did not help.

Then everyone needs to setup Relays (Bridges)ā€¦ otherwise Chinas Gov has enough resource to block them 24/7 :smiley:

Last time I was there, obfs4 still worked.

Normal bridges have not worked for a long time.

Regarding bridges, if someone in China can confirm that obfs4 (or other transport) still works, I will be more than happy to run half a dozen for our Chinese friends ā€¦

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What about I2P (https://geti2p.net/en/) ? Would that be worth considering?

I have heard that I2P running in hidden mode has been successful in China (hidden mode being default setting for China users).

Our Tor hidden service will not be compatible with I2P.
Obfs4 will hopefully work, but it needs more dev effort what is atm not available. Also when entering chinese market we need translation and arbitrators there as well as media people. So I think that will all need bit more time until we are ready for that.

Seems wise. It is a very important group to target, but it seems you are already aware of that.

I agree that it is sensible to approach them when the conditions are right.

Can anyone in China test that obfs4 actually does work?

Iā€™m making enquiries about this. For now, just enabling it for English-speaking people in China would be useful.

edit: Nope, my contacts couldnā€™t help.

Hi karnal,

Iā€™m from China mainland and suffers too for the GFW.
Brigdes are easily get blocked and I have to use a proxy to connect to tor network when using tor browser.
For Bitsquare,
I manually modified the torrc file added a line for a proxy config similar to the torrc file in tor browser. But I found the torrc file are force reloaded each time I launch the application. So there is no way to configure a proxy.
Will it be an easier way that you guys provide a way to configure a proxy to connect to tor. Maybe first step is to not overwrite the ā€˜torrcā€™ config file each time when launching?
Thanks for your excellent work to bring us this great application!

Best regards

Thanks for the input! Can you provide me the torrc file?
One thing u could do is to run from source and just use your torrc file instead of that from src code. U need to follow all the steps in /doc/build.md file.
I will add a task to not override the torrc file, or make it customizable via program arguments for the next release.
Would you be available to help us test with obfucs4/meek once that is implemented?

Hello ManfredKarrer,

Thanks for the reply, I will try to pull from github to see if i can run from source but i canā€™t guarantee when I will finish the test, but I will keey you guys updated.
I will be happy to help testing once a new release with the ability to set the proxy parameters before connecting to tor is available.
For now I tested from Tor Browser, it seems that:
without proxy:
Meek-amazon OK to connect, no proxy needed
Meek-azure NOK after a long time connecting
Obfs4 NOK after a long time connecting

using a proxy all 3 method is OK.

For the torrc file you can find it in a torbrowserā€™s directory Browser\TorBrowser\Data\Tor , the line for proxy is like below:

Socks5Proxy 127.0.0.1:1080

This parameter is automatically generated by TorBrowser in itā€™s torrc file after you configured a proxy from itā€™s GUI. I guess it should be the same format to be used in bitsquareā€™s torrc file.

Regards,
RK

Hello ManfredKarrer,

Fyi, I just tested today run it from src, added the parameter in torrc to use a shadowsocks as a proxy. Everything looks fine, it successfully launched and connected to tor and synchronized.

Regards,
RKong

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Nice! I have had severe problems in China connecting to internet via Tor and it is very good that you succeeded to use Bitsquare there.

also shadowsocks sounds interesting!

I only quickly skimmed through this thread so I apologise if this was mentioned or itā€™s too obvious, but some VPNs also have Tor options on their server side e.g. NordVPN

i have tryed torify /opt/Bisq/Bisq also can not work ,

hi , iā€™m in china , bisq is good , but i can not using it in china , i have try openvpn , but itā€™s not stable , the GFW also can block it , itā€™s not so easy to chinese to using vpn , and the gov would concat you if you using vpn which not regsiterd , so vpn is not the way to solve this problem , i have try a encrypt tunnel ,with squid , is stable , so if someone can make the bisq can edit the torrc file would be good to solve this problem , iā€™m using proxy , iā€™m using tor or google , youtube with this encrypted tunnel proxy is stable as so far , i just need to edit the torrc file using http or https proxy would be good to work , torify /opt/Bisq/Bisq does not work for me ,so ,any one can help me , thanks a lot ! by the way , send me mail would be good , hrylee @163.com . thanks !!