Shadowsocks China
Shadowsocks – Wikipedia
ShadowsocksOriginal author(s)ClowwindyInitial release20 April 2012; 9 years ago[1][2]Stable releaserust1. 11. 2[3] / 24 July 2021; 2 months agowindows4. 4. 0. 0[4] / 31 December 2020; 8 months agoandroid5. 2. 5[5] / 6 July 2021; 2 months agoX-NG1. 9. 4[6] / 13 November 2019; 22 months agolibev3. 3. 5[7] / 15 September 2020; 12 months agogo0. 1. 5[8] / 2 May 2021; 4 months agopython2. 1[9] / 2 January 2017; 4 years
Written inPython; Rust; C#; Kotlin; Swift; Objective-C; C; Go; C++ Operating systemUnix-like operating system Microsoft Windows Android iOS Typecommunications protocol free software Internet censorship circumvention
Shadowsocks is a free and open-source encryption protocol project, widely used in China to circumvent Internet censorship. It was created in 2012 by a Chinese programmer named “clowwindy”, and multiple implementations of the protocol have been made available since. [10][11] Shadowsocks is not a proxy on its own, but (typically) is the client software to help connect to a third-party SOCKS5 proxy, which is similar to a Secure Shell (SSH) tunnel. Once connected, internet traffic can then be directed through the proxy. [12] Unlike an SSH tunnel, shadowsocks can also proxy User Datagram Protocol (UDP) traffic.
Takedown[edit]
On 22 August 2015, “clowwindy” announced in a GitHub thread that they had been contacted by the police and could no longer maintain the project. The code of the project was subsequently branched with a removal notice. [14][15][16][17] Three days later, on 25 August, another proxy application, GoAgent, also had its GitHub repository removed. [15][16] The removal of the projects got media’s attention, with news outlets speculating about the possible connection between the takedowns and a distributed-denial-of-service attack targeting GitHub that happened several days later. [18] Danny O’Brien, from Electronic Frontier Foundation, published a statement on the matter. [19]
Despite the takedown, collaborators of the project have continued the development of the project.
Server implementations[edit]
The original Python implementation can still be installed with Pip (package manager), but the contents of its GitHub repository have been removed. [20][21] Other server implementations include one in Go, Rust, and C using the libev event loop library; C++ with a Qt GUI; and Perl. The Go and Perl implementations are not updated regularly and may have been abandoned. [21][22][23][24]
Client implementations[edit]
All of the server implementations listed above also support operating in client mode. There are also client-only implementations available for Windows (shadowsocks-win), macOS (ShadowsocksX-NG), Android (shadowsocks-android), and iOS (Wingy). [25] Many clients, including shadowsocks-win and shadowsocks-android, support redirecting all system traffic over Shadowsocks, not just applications that have been explicitly configured to do so, allowing Shadowsocks to be used similarly to a VPN. If an application doesn’t support proxy servers, a proxifier can be used to redirect the application to the Shadowsocks client. Some proxifiers, such as Proxycap, support Shadowsocks directly, thus avoiding the need for a Shadowsocks client, but some require a client.
Net::Shadowsocks[edit]
Net::Shadowsocks is name of the Perl implementation of Shadowsocks protocol client and server available on CPAN. [26]
ShadowsocksR[edit]
ShadowsocksR is a fork of the original Shadowsocks project, claimed to be superior in terms of security and stability. Upon release, it was found to violate the License by not having the source code of the C# client available. [27] It was also criticized for its solution to the alleged security issues in the source project. Shadowsocks is currently under development, while development of ShadowsocksR has stopped. [28]
Similar projects[edit]
Shadowsocks is similar to The Tor Project’s Pluggable Transport (PT) idea. PT makes it hard for Internet Service Providers to detect Tor traffic. They also both use a socks proxy interface. Whereas Shadowsocks is simpler, Obfs4 used in PT is more obfuscated. [29] Unlike Obfs4, Shadowsocks is not resistant to Active Probing. [30] The most similar PT to Shadowsocks is Obfs3.
See also[edit]
Great Firewall
Internet censorship in China
Outline VPN
References[edit]
^ “发一个自用了一年多的翻墙工具 shadowsocks”. Archived from the original on 22 April 2012. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
^ “Shadowsocks 的前世后生”. GFW BLOG. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
^ “Release 1. 2”.
^ “Release 4. 0”. 31 December 2020. Retrieved 3 January 2021.
^ “Release 5. 5”.
^ “Release 1. 4”. 13 November 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
^ “Release 3. 5”.
^ “Bug fix”.
^ “Release 2. 1”. 2 January 2017. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
^ clowwindy (20 April 2012). “initial commit”. Retrieved 10 June 2016 – via GitHub.
^ “Ports and Clients”. Retrieved 10 June 2016 – via GitHub.
^ “Shadowsocks – Protocol”. Archived from the original on 4 December 2015. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
^ clowwindy (22 August 2015). “shadowsocks/shadowsocks@938bba3”. Retrieved 10 June 2016 – via GitHub.
^ a b Rudolph, Josh (25 August 2015). “Circumvention Tool Deleted After Police Visit Developer”. China Digital Times. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
^ a b Percy (26 August 2016). “中国开发者被警察要求删除软件” [Chinese coder ordered to delete software by police] (in Chinese). GreatFire. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
^ Kan, Michael (30 August 2015). “China intensifies Internet censorship ahead of military parade”. PC World. International Data Group. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
^ Cimpanu, Catalin (29 August 2015). “Recent GitHub DDOS Linked to Chinese Government and Two GitHub Projects”. Softpedia. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
^ O’Brien, Danny (28 August 2015). “Speech that Enables Speech: China Takes Aim at Its Coders”. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
^ “Shadowsocks”. GitHub.
^ a b “Shadowsocks Servers”. Shadowsocks.
^ zhou0 (18 December 2017), shadowsocks-perl: An asynchronous, non-blocking shadowsocks client and server written in Perl, retrieved 11 January 2018
^ shadowsocks-go: go port of shadowsocks, shadowsocks, 10 January 2018, retrieved 11 January 2018
^ shadowsocks-rust: A Rust port of shadowsocks, retrieved 12 October 2019
^ “Shadowsocks – Clients”. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
^ “Net::Shadowsocks – the asynchronous, non-blocking shadowsocks client and server”. Retrieved 6 April 2017 – via CPAN.
^ clowwindy (18 August 2015). “AppData & temp & 当前目录” (in Chinese). Retrieved 10 June 2016 – via GitHub.
^ “Long-term Shadowsocks Plan: ShadowsocksR versus Shadowsocks2 · Issue #501 · StreisandEffect/Streisand”.
^
^ “How China Detects and Blocks Shadowsocks · Issue #22 · net4people/BBS”.
External links[edit]
Official website
Successful avoiding censorship in China for 35 people with …
For the past few weeks, I was part of a group of people that were visiting China for some cultural events. An outage of services that makes our everyday life “better” (like Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter… ) seemed like a big problem for many of our group members. Some of them are in a really bad relationship with technology and they even don’t know which phone operating system they have, so how would they know what is VPN. Luckily for them, I saved their asses and they didn’t have to spend 10+ USD each for commercial VPNs. I understand China’s censorship for their people, they want to have control over everything and only allow services that give them backdoor access to users’ data. They don’t need Facebook, WhatsApp, or Instagram; their alternatives are in some cases far better than our western services. But hey, we are tourists, we need our friendly services to keep in touch with our friends and hours of searching through the Web, I managed to open a private VPS and setup a Shadowsocks server for all of us. This was the easiest option for people with zero knowledge of VPNs. They had to download the Shadowsocks client (Shadowsocks for Android or Outline App for iOS) and click on the link to load the configuration. Guess what, even this procedure was hard for some of them my side, I managed to open an account on Vultr because it’s really affordable (5 USD monthly per server) and has a data center in Japan. I opened a VPS with pre-installed Docker, setup basic firewall rules (which isn’t necessary), wrote a one-liner startup script that starts shadowsocks-libev server and that’s the first day in China, everything worked perfectly. The next morning the server was not accessible anymore. Then I started another one which was down again in the next few hours. I was ready to install v2ray plugin to avoid Shadowsocks server detection. Then after raising the server a few times, I read about setting up a server on known ports like 80, 443 and they shouldn’t be automatically blocked. After setting up a server on port 80, there were no issues at all, for the next 2 weeks. Overall performance of Shadowsocks server was great. In peek moments, when the entire group came to the hotel and started to penetrate Facebook and Instagram with new media they collected throughout the day, the server had never touched more than 20% CPU. In those 3 weeks, they made close to 500GB of traffic, which personally amazed me how much traffic they can generate with social, for now, I can confirm that Shadowsocks is still a good and really cheap (read: free) option for accessing open internet in China.
Shadowsocks Review 2021: Before You Buy, Is It Worth It? – WizCase
To connect to Shadowsocks, you need to either rent or buy a server from a third party. Shadowsocks was designed this way so everyone using it would have a different configuration because they would be renting servers from different third parties. This makes it harder for China’s firewall to detect your traffic. Server rental companies operate data centers all around the world and let you rent servers from them.
An app called Outline makes it easy to rent a server from several services and then connect to it with Shadowsocks. Outline automates the process of renting a server from DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, or Amazon Lightsail. Outline recommends using DigitalOcean because it is easy to set up and cost-effective.
The Outline client makes it easy to rent and run your own Shadowsocks-enabled server
These server rental firms don’t offer the features of a VPN, like zero-logs policies to hide your activities, streaming optimized servers, or lightning-fast speeds. You’re also limited to very few servers, which means you’ll be left with no alternatives if there’s a technical problem or your IP gets blocked. That’s why I recommend you try using Private Internet Access (PIA) to connect via Shadowsocks instead. With over 34400 super-fast servers, you have literally thousands of backups if one has a technical issue. Plus, PIA lets you connect with the Shadowsocks protocol. This gives you the advantages of a VPN and Shadowsocks all in one (for less per month than renting a server).
Shadowsocks will get you past strong firewalls but it isn’t guaranteed to keep you safe. Unlike VPNs, Shadowsocks only gives you a way of getting around censorship by disguising your traffic with HTTPS (a data transfer protocol that tricks government filters).
The Outline client makes it easy to connect using Shadowsocks, but it doesn’t have zero-logs policies or encryption to hide your data. That means server operators, ISPs, and other third parties might be able to see what you’re doing online when you use Shadowsocks. You’ll also be vulnerable to common online threats like phishing emails, malware, and scammers on public Wi-Fi networks. To defend against spying and cybercrime, you need a premium VPN.
Shadowsocks was built with the main purpose of bypassing censorship — privacy or anonymity have never been priorities for its developers. Your privacy will be mainly determined by which server you use with Shadowsocks but even if you rent a server that offers powerful encryption protocols, it might not be enough to protect your privacy.
Although Shadowsocks itself does not keep logs, some server rental services do while you use them or put your privacy at risk by partnering with third-party data firms. For example — while DigitalOcean promises not to log your online activities, it partners with SolarWinds to provide server analytics. When SolarWinds got hacked, millions of users (including DigitalOcean users and employees of US government agencies) had their data compromised. Incidents like this show that only a top-tier VPN with a proven no-logs policy and military-grade cipher can offer sufficient protection for your data from malicious third parties.
While it won’t encrypt your connection, you can torrent with Shadowsocks as long as the server you’re connecting to allows it. If you use a server with no encryption, torrent speeds will be faster than with a traditional VPN — but you also won’t stay anonymous. While you should never use torrent sites to violate copyright law, even accidental downloads of protected material could get you in legal trouble. If safety is a priority for you when torrenting I would not recommend Shadowsocks. I prefer a super-fast VPN that ensures I remain anonymous and keeps my data safe while torrenting.
Does Shadowsocks Work in China? Yes!
Created by an anonymous Chinese hacker calling themselves “clowwindy” to bypass internet blocks, Shadowsocks reliably works in China.
Recently, China has cracked down on VPNs that were previously able to bypass China’s strong firewall. Only a few VPNs work in China and they rely on well-known protocols to encrypt data. This has allowed Chinese censors to create machine-learning technology that can often identify these protocols and block the VPNs supporting them.
While a VPN is rerouting your traffic through a server in a different location, Shadowsocks is disguising the connection between your local computer and a proxy server. Shadowsocks relies on you renting, buying, or creating your own proxy servers. You will therefore have a different configuration to other Shadowsocks users who use other server providers. Its non-centralized system makes it less likely for officials to detect your traffic as each Shadowsocks connection looks a little different.
Although officials are aware of Shadowsocks and have attempted to block its use in China, it still remains one of the more reliable tools to circumvent censorship. This is because Shadowsocks is open-source and anyone can maintain, alter and release new versions of Shadowsocks if a version of it gets blocked.
If you are traveling to China and need access to your emails and other online accounts, the easiest way to rent servers and use Shadowsocks is through a third-party app. I used Outline to rent and connect servers to Shadowsocks. You can download Outline straight from its website, rent a server located outside China using Outline’s manager and connect to the open web.
Shadowsocks makes it easy to open up the restricted web in other countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and UAE. Just take note that non-approved VPNs and using circumvention tools to bypass censorship aren’t legal in these countries. The protection of a VPN or circumvention tool doesn’t give you the license to break the law.
Frequently Asked Questions about shadowsocks china
Does Shadowsocks still work in China?
So, for now, I can confirm that Shadowsocks is still a good and really cheap (read: free) option for accessing open internet in China.
Can Shadowsocks be blocked?
The blocking of Shadowsocks is likely controlled by human factors that increase the severity of blocking during politically sensitive times. We suggest a workaround—changing the sizes of network packets during the Shadowsocks handshake—that (for now) effectively mitigates active probing of Shadowsocks servers.Dec 29, 2019
Can Shadowsocks be detected?
This article will explain the Shadowsocks protocol and its use cases. Shadowsocks is a tunneling proxy developed to be free, open-source, and mainly used by Chinese people to bypass the Great Firewall restrictions. While using, it covers your browser traffic only, and it is almost impossible to detect and block it.Apr 7, 2021
