Internet Firewall of AMERICA "Targeting VPNs" via Throttling speeds? HOW does this work?

[ProphetPX 1]

I just now saw a post in my Telegram newsfeed which had this to say:

VPNs targeted, throttled - Gov Jan6 Patriot witch-hunt? https://youtu.be/38za1LYj2XQ

Here is the info undeneath the actual YOUTUBE video: 
 

Quote

 

Rob Braxman Tech

232K subscribers

 

 

 

This past week on Feb 2 - Feb 7, 2021 a massive attack was conducted on encrypted services, particular VPN's. VPN traffic was throttled to near unusability. Basically in 2021, the Great Firewall of the USA was turned on. And then abrubtly turned off. Purpose of the action was unknown. No party stepped up to acknowledge and aside from me, no one has stepped up to call any Internet Provider of their egregious action against privacy minded people. Why did this attack happen? Why did the attack stop? Which company is responsible? Is this because of a government mandate? Why the concerted efforts with cable companies to throttle on the other side? Was it because they had network congestion and were just trying to deal with that? But why the selective choice of throttling the people interested in privacy? Since VPN's can cloak themselves, why even bother to do this since at best the effect is temporary? Let's discuss all this. ----------------------------------- I'm the Internet Privacy Guy. I'm a public interest technologist. I'm here to educate. You are losing your Internet privacy and Internet security every day if you don't fight for it. Your data is collected with endless permanent data mining. Learn about a TOR router, a VPN , antivirus, spyware, firewalls, IP address, wifi triangulation, data privacy regulation, backups and tech tools, and evading mass surveillance from NSA, CIA, FBI. Learn how to be anonymous on the Internet so you are not profiled. Learn to speak freely with pseudo anonymity. Learn more about the dangers of the inernet and the dangers of social media, dangers of email. I like alternative communication technology like Amateur Radio and data communications using Analog. I'm a licensed HAM operator.

 

HOW can ANYONE "throttle" VPN traffic if it is encrypted?   unless they watch a certain port all the time???  And AirVPN lets us pick our own ports or sets apart isolated ports for us....

Why is this even happening?!

  Edited ... by ProphetPX

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

Do you have other sources which can back up what you're suggesting? One YouTube video is simply not enough, especially from someone who owns a VPN provider company. My best bet is that traffic between his nodes was deprioritized temporarily because of high usage and unknown protocol type (if there is strong encryption between them, which he hints at).

I tried to look a bit further but I'm struggling in finding anything. Not even Reddit yields results, but all this could be bad search terms, so don't take my word for it.

How can we try verifying it without the human factor? Traffic logs can be used. So I looked at the traffic graphs of some of the US servers, namely Pollux, Yildun and Sabik, all in different cities. If it really was an "attack", those servers should all show some fluctuations in that week, right? Because all traffic there is OpenVPN – to be fair, not only on 443 and 1194, but still it's OpenVPN, it should show something if the claim is true.

• While I thought Pollux showed a few more or less interesting segments in said week, Yuldun and Sabik (all different cities) look almost boringly normal.
• On Dimidium, another city, the average traffic was even more than in this week.
• I looked at Sneden, just another city, and there was a steady traffic low on 6th, lasting from maybe ~ 3 PM to ~ 6 PM UTC.
• I checked Kruger in the same city as Sneden and the gap is also there, but much shorter and ending at 12 PM.

Now, all this is at datacenter ISP level and one can argue that, in order to protect monetary interests those are not touched by those measures. Whether the residential ISPs did something to their customer's OpenVPN traffic is unprovable without someone doing that kind of math.

Also, all this seems to only make sense if other VPN protocols experienced the same kind of performance degradation as they're in the same market with the same goals. IPsec would be of particular interest because it's widely used by companies to allow people working from home. We're still in the midst of a pandemic, I believe. We need numbers from those people, too.

I also would like to point the attention to one or two sentences in the video. This one for example does not make much sense when you think about it: "We use VPNs not because we're criminals and have something to hide but because we just want to be left alone" [2:24] – criminals are using VPN services exactly because they want to be left unharmed when doing their crime (i.e., left alone). It's just human nature to some degree: if there is a chance we can do something we'd normally be punished for without anyone knowing it was us, the resistance lowers and we're more likely to do that. Just count the people who come to the forums looking for help with their torrent client – they know it's unsafe if they do it plainly and so they hide that fact behind a strongly encrypted tunnel. You wouldn't subscribe to something with a monthly cost if you were looking to simply torrent some Linux ISOs, would you? It's unreasonable, the better option would be plain over your ISP or maybe using an always-online option like a VPS, it's simply cheaper. Those who don't subscribe out of this reason, well you know what they say, exceptions confirm the rule.

TLDR: So, was there an attack? I believe it was a temporary high load balancing act misinterpreted quite badly. More numbers help a great deal, tough, especially from residential ISPs during that timeframe.

[Flx 76]

3 hours ago, OpenSourcerer said:

I tried to look a bit further but I'm struggling in finding anything. Not even Reddit yields results, but all this could be bad search terms, so don't take my word for it.

One reference you missed:->https://torrentfreak.com/court-orders-telegram-to-block-pirated-movies-tv-shows-and-music-210210/
Edit: Above torrentfreak link might be related to what happened. Make of it what you will.