New 1 Gbit/s server available. New country: TW

[Staff 9973]

Hello!

We're very glad to inform you that a new 1 Gbit/s (full duplex) server located in Taipei (Taiwan), is available: Sulafat.

The server supports OpenVPN over SSL and OpenVPN over SSH, TLS 1.3, OpenVPN tls-crypt and WireGuard.

The AirVPN client will show automatically the new server; if you use any other OpenVPN or WireGuard client you can generate all the files to access them through our configuration/certificates/key generator (menu "Client Area"->"Config generator"). The server accepts connections on ports 53, 80, 443, 1194, 2018 UDP and TCP for OpenVPN and ports 1637, 47107 and 51820 UDP for WireGuard.

Full IPv6 support is included as well.

As usual no traffic limits, no logs, no discrimination on protocols and hardened security against various attacks with separate entry and exit-IP addresses and 4096 bit DH key not shared with any other VPN server.

This is our first server in Taiwan; the tests we have performed during the last week have been encouraging but not totally perfect for our quality standards. Your feedback is welcome and it will be crucial to determine whether this server's datacenter can meet your expectations and requirements.

You can check the status in our real time servers monitor:
https://airvpn.org/servers/Sulafat/

Kind regards & datalove
AirVPN Staff

[anon000000 2]

I love seeing new servers in new countries, thank you!

However, I connected to the Taiwan ("province of China", really?) server today and tried to watch my daily news from Democracynow [dot] org and it wouldn't load the page.

I then switched to one of the new USA servers in San Jose and it loaded the page just fine. 

I wonder who or what is preventing the Democracynow page from loading?  I also wonder if any other pages with "democracy" in them will be blocked on that server or if it's the web site, are they blocking it because it's a Chinese-named server?  

As a non-tech savvy user I'm guessing it's the web page that's blocking it but that's only a guess although I imagine Democracynow would want "province of China" people to watch their show. 
 

[Abstain9194 0]

Needs DNS tw.all.vpn.airdns.org, it doesn't seem that the hoster is blocking any traffic since traceroute does show it gets forwarded out of the data center to NY ntt.

[zsam288 36]

Disappointed this is called "province of China" in Eddie, hope this is an oversight.

[airtest202209 2]

4 hours ago, zsam288 said:

Disappointed this is called "province of China" in Eddie, hope this is an oversight.

Nope, this is the correct designation. Taiwan province is part of The People's Republic Of China and will be peacefully reunited one day.

[cheeze 4]

I just tried it. The speeds are twice what I usually get for Japan and Singapore. I've been using airvpn for 8 years, so I am familiar with the typical speeds of various locations. To note, I am located in Asia, but not in the countries mentioned.

I would love to see a  server or two  in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines. 

[cheeze 4]

On 9/13/2024 at 1:56 AM, anon000000 said:

I love seeing new servers in new countries, thank you!

However, I connected to the Taiwan ("province of China", really?) server today and tried to watch my daily news from Democracynow [dot] org and it wouldn't load the page.

I then switched to one of the new USA servers in San Jose and it loaded the page just fine. 

I wonder who or what is preventing the Democracynow page from loading?  I also wonder if any other pages with "democracy" in them will be blocked on that server or if it's the web site, are they blocking it because it's a Chinese-named server?  

As a non-tech savvy user I'm guessing it's the web page that's blocking it but that's only a guess although I imagine Democracynow would want "province of China" people to watch their show. 
 

I get this:

This site can’t be reached

www.democracynow.org’s DNS address could not be found. Diagnosing the problem.

DNS_PROBE_POSSIBLE

[cheeze 4]

On 9/13/2024 at 1:20 PM, Abstain9194 said:

Needs DNS tw.all.vpn.airdns.org

How is that envoked please? 

[Staff 9973]

On 9/13/2024 at 4:21 PM, zsam288 said:

Disappointed this is called "province of China" in Eddie, hope this is an oversight.

On 9/12/2024 at 7:56 PM, anon000000 said:

"province of China", really?

Hello!

It's ISO 3166 used by Eddie. It does not necessarily reflect AirVPN management ideas on Taiwan's independence. Quite the contrary, if you consider that AirVPN management now operates a server in Taiwan but always refused to consider servers in mainland China and withdrew servers in Hong Kong before it was clawed back by mainland China.

We do understand your complaint even for the reasons explained in this petition https://www.change.org/p/iso-international-organization-for-standardization-correct-taiwan-province-of-china-on-iso-3166-and-change-it-to-taiwan-let-tw-be-taiwan but Eddie Desktop edition considers ISO 3166 in its current code so it takes the current ISO denomination.

Kind regards
 

[zsam288 36]

18 minutes ago, Staff said:

Hello!

It's ISO 3166 used by Eddie. It does not necessarily reflect AirVPN management ideas on Taiwan's independence. Quite the contrary, if you consider that AirVPN management now operates a server in Taiwan but always refused to consider servers in China and withdrew servers in Hong Kong before it was clawed back by China.

We do understand your complaint even for the reasons explained in this petition https://www.change.org/p/iso-international-organization-for-standardization-correct-taiwan-province-of-china-on-iso-3166-and-change-it-to-taiwan-let-tw-be-taiwan
but Eddie Desktop edition considers ISO 3166 in its current code so it takes the current ISO denomination.

Kind regards
 

Sometimes standards and regulating agencies (eg ICANN) are not right and politically influenced by bad state actors.

For a VPN service with the moto "... operated by activists in defense of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship. "
I'd expect a stance against the biggest censor in the world that abuses their political influence to uphold wrong standards.

[Staff 9973]

On 9/12/2024 at 7:56 PM, anon000000 said:

However, I connected to the Taiwan ("province of China", really?) server today and tried to watch my daily news from Democracynow [dot] org and it wouldn't load the page.

Hello!

We confirm the problem and we could determine that both the domain name authoritative DNS and the web site block the Taiwan server. Packets get out regularly from the server and from Taiwan but they are black holed by the final destination datacenters. Furthermore the authoritative DNS does not answer to our DNS server in Taiwan (this is a lesser problem as you could resolve the name through some other public DNS or the hosts file). We don't know the reasons of this behavior. If you query Democracy Now and you receive a reply please let us know.

In the meantime we can "micro-route" Democracy Now web site from Sulafat, we will examine how to do it soon.
 

On 9/12/2024 at 7:56 PM, anon000000 said:

Taiwan ("province of China", really?)

Yes, this is in the official ISO-3166 that Eddie uses to find areas names assigned by the United Nations. According to a previous administrative division, Taiwan is the biggest province of the Republic of China (ROC), not to be confused with People's Republic of China (PRC, mainland China).

By using Taiwan as the country's name, "Province of China" is also a definition pushed by PRC at all levels (from UN to NGOs) to shape two ideas: that PRC must "re-unify" with Taiwan and that when you say "China" you don't talk about the Republic of China, but about the PRC (even PRC detractors fall prey of this propaganda as we can see from this thread). In this sense ISO-3166-2:TW entry could be seen as a concession to PRC narrative and the PRC can "play" over the ambiguity of the definition.

In the next version we may either stay with this one, according to the United Nations status (but see here for some arguments against this), or censor the ISO document itself. A UN spokesperson’s statement in May 2024, reiterating that Taiwan is a province of China (referring to PRC and not ROC according to directly or indirectly PRC controlled media), guided by the General Assembly resolution of 1971 (Resolution 2758), is important to see how much energy PRC spends to affirm the notion that there is only one China and this only China is PRC and not ROC.

On the other hand, we have been fighting and circumventing mainland China (PRC) censorship for 14 years, we recognize China (PRC) as a country enemy of the Internet, controlled by a regime hostile to various human rights, and in reality resolution 2758 interpretation may have been distorted by PRC..

Therefore ISO-3166-2:TW unilateral modification to delete "Province of China" is not unreasonable for us. The matter will be discussed.

However, to insinuate that the normal software usage of an ISO document to translate or find a country/area name means that AirVPN endorses PRC (or PRC alleged wet dream to invade Taiwan) or that AirVPN fails its mission after all the sacrifices brought on to circumvent censorship in mainland China is offensive to say the least, or not in good faith in the worst case. The very fact that we list the server in Taiwan with Taiwan as a country tells a lot, as today Taiwan is recognized as a country only by 12 countries in the world.

Kind regards
 

[fsy 34]

On 9/12/2024 at 5:51 PM, Staff said:

This is our first server in Taiwan; the tests we have performed during the last week have been encouraging but not totally perfect for our quality standards. Your feedback is welcome and it will be crucial to determine whether this server's datacenter can meet your expectations and requirements.

From northern Europe the performance is so similar to SG servers, not bad.
 

14 hours ago, Staff said:

unilateral modification to delete "Province of China"

Wouldn't that be caving in to PRC's narrative? REPUBLIC OF CHINA is written on Taiwan's citizen's passports and on the official government website https://www.taiwan.gov.tw/ . It is the official name freely chosen by Taiwan citizens and democratically elected government. Though I'm afraid that the ambiguity mentioned by Wikipedia is nowadays instrumental to PRC and its omnipresent propaganda.

BTW kudos to AirVPN for operating a server in Taiwan and for including Taiwan as a country in the server list, every small action counts.
 

On 9/14/2024 at 10:56 AM, zsam288 said:

I'd expect a stance against the biggest censor in the world that abuses their political influence to uphold wrong standards.

How strange that a self proclaimed PRC critic shares PRC propaganda and doesn't admit ROC existence, while acting as an indignant Taiwan defender. Unless you're an undercover Beijing tramp?
 

[Samnang 0]

Looking for new server on Taiwan or Malaysia or Thailand.