Accessing a VPN has become a difficult task for Internet users. Over the last few weeks, VPNs have either been unavailable and won’t connect, or activated but not working. If they work, their speed is very low. Downloading and uploading with VPN on takes a long time, and the website and internal services are unavailable when VPN is on.
In a situation where almost none of the free VPNs are usable, many people have turned to purchasing VPNs, and a significant number of them spend useless money; Because either their heads will fall off and VPN They buy fake or pay for a tool whose servers are closed and won’t connect.
In a situation where most of the popular international platforms, from social networks and messengers to some Google services and even games, are filtered, VPN is actually And the filter breaker has become the most used member of phones, mobiles, personal computers and laptops. A widely used member, which, of course, requires spending a lot of money, time and effort to be able to use it.
Although it is wrong to reduce the use of VPNs to a tool to bypass filtering, the general public knows them for this purpose. However, VPN Or the same Virtual Private Network It has various applications that are essential for professional and non-professional Internet users. Prevent being tracked by ISPs, who have access to all user information, are one of the uses of VPN It is to prevent theft and disclosure of information and endangering the security of their information.
Maintaining privacy, protecting against hackers, securing public Wi-Fi, downloading anonymously, etc. are other important uses of VPN that can be useful for all users. Among all these advantages, changing the geographical location of the user, especially in countries like Iran, which are sanctioned by foreign companies, is one of the most important uses of VPN.
VPN access; A vital need
With the wave of filtering intensifying in the country and some platforms with Iranian IP being out of reach, this is the advantage of using VPN It has become more vital. In addition to normal Internet users who need to meet important needs such as communicating, sharing content, getting news and information, online shopping, etc., they turn to filtered platforms and, accordingly, change tools. need IP, some jobs also need VPN. A vital and urgent need that if not solved can disrupt their work or at least face problems, such as reducing speed and quality.
Programming is one of the jobs that require VPN access It is necessary. Programmers, who have been facing sanctions from some international companies for years, always use VPNs were doing their job. Mojtabi is a DevOps expert and in this context, he mentions two-way filtering for his profession and tells Zomit:
The problem is that foreign companies have blocked us, and previously, our only way was to use a VPN to show that we are not in Iran by changing our geographic location, so that we can access their services. Now you can connect to VPN limited and therefore, we are filtered from both sides.
Ehsan, who works in the same field, talked about the complexity of his working conditions and described the situation of himself and his colleagues as follows:
In the DevOps sector, as infrastructure work is done in a way, we are involved with many technologies, some of which were filtered from foreign countries due to the embargo. We were trying via VPN or internal services, such as breaker, bypass them; But these days, due to the restrictions imposed on the country’s internet, the matter has become more complicated.
Berdia, who is the developer of the Zomit series, points out all the problems that technology, IT and even gaming activists face in the absence of VPN access. Starting with his job, he says, “As a programmer, I need a VPN for technical work. For example, for my work, I need to update software packages, and for this I need to connect to Microsoft servers. “I can’t download when they shut down Microsoft’s servers.”
He also mentions the problem of gamers who can’t connect their consoles if they don’t have access to a VPN, or his colleagues in the DevOps field who can’t work with the DockerHub site. Reza pointed to the same issue of the impossibility of using Dockerhub and says that the conditions have become such that he has restricted the use of some tools: “Filtering has affected many of the tools we have, such as Docker, in such a way that we don’t feel like working with them at all.” “
He points to another problem and says: “In order to enter the code editor, I have to verify my license, which is not possible without a VPN, so I had to use the code editor altogether. change the“
The problems are not limited to external services
Reza, who is a developer, divides the problems he faces in this situation into two categories and says: “On the one hand, we need a series of external services that we cannot access in the current situation, and on the other hand, communication The interior is also disturbed; Connecting to servers inside Iran is not done through existing protocols.
The problem of access to internal servers and equipment becomes clearer in the explanation provided by Ehsan. He pointed out the challenge of connecting to these data centers by pointing out that the websites of the collections are not inside the companies and are kept in data centers and explains the story as follows:
To connect to the data centers, we have to VPN them; That is, a safe way is to use, for example, tunnels such as L2TP, SSTP, Open VPN, etc. as connection methods between networks. When these protocols are closed, we face great difficulty in connecting even to the data center and equipment inside the country.
Apart from the lack of access to VPN to connect to the data center, the problem of limited access to internal servers is also a challenge that Berdia, as the developer of the Zomit collection, has pointed out and describes it as follows: “Since two days ago, we have had access to internal servers is being limited; These servers go down from time to time and we can no longer connect to them.” He goes on to say humorously about the only remaining solution to this situation: “There is practically no such thing as the Internet.” The situation has become such that it is necessary to give the user a case to turn on the electricity and have local access to bring up the Zomit site!”
Internal samples do not meet the needs
Ali is another developer who talked to Zomit about the problems he is dealing with these days and considers the lack of suitable internal examples for filtered external services to be one of the problems in this area:
Some of the services that are filtered either do not have an internal instance, or if they have, they cannot be used. For example, some time ago I was testing the SMTP server (email sending protocol) and the internal servers were not working at all; This is, of course, a very simple service that does not have an internal counterpart.
Berdia also mentioned such a challenge in his speech and said: “The internal sample of some services we have are not very suitable. For example, it is similar to the AWS web hosting service in Iran, Abararvan, which now due to the increase in customers in recent days and the old equipment, the speed of Abarak and its containers is very low, its ping is high and it is constantly connecting and disconnecting.
AWS service It is repeated in Reza’s speech and he informs about his group’s efforts to implement a similar example of this service: “Web hosting service I don’t think AWS has a suitable equivalent in the world, but these days, since we don’t have the possibility to use it, we are trying to implement its equivalent, which is of course a very difficult task.
Ehsan is another developer who talks to Zomit about the challenges of his job these days. He is of the topic of using a VPN passes and says “we finally and with all difficulty using “VPN connects to a series of services.” But it points to other challenges that make it complicated: turning on a VPN to use services can slow down our own internal sites, which means we’re constantly turning the VPN on and off.”
Work efficiency has reached half
Berdia also mentions this in his explanation, which causes them to be blocked by foreign services. He says about this:
The issue of needing to connect and disconnect VPN causes our IP to change constantly and because of this change, it blocks our service. Therefore, practically 50% of our working time is bypassing these problems.
A 50% decrease in work efficiency is a number that Ehsan, as a dops worker, also refers to. He explains about his working conditions these days as follows: “All these conditions have made us spend a lot of our working hours testing VPNs in order to be able to do our work. It is not an exaggeration if I say that the efficiency of our work has decreased by 50% these days.”
Ali also considers the speed reduction as one of the disadvantages of the unfavorable condition of the Internet and VPNs and continues:
Internet speed is very important in some of our jobs. On the one hand, they have slowed down the internet speed, and on the other hand, using a VPN slows down the speed, and therefore, our work speed has been greatly slowed down.
Server black market in Iran
The problems of people working in the field of programming and IT are not limited to these cases, Berdia points to a case that is less discussed in the news and reports. He says:
These days, a server black market has started in the country. If you go to buy a server, you will see that Iranian and European servers have decreased and the prices have increased. Companies also take advantage of this situation. For example, last night I wanted to buy a server and I saw that one of the companies, at the time of nationalization of the Internet, had removed Iranian servers so that users would not connect to foreign servers through the Iranian server of this company.
Reza also mentioned the challenge of accessing information and articles and about the impossibility of using scientific sites and their services without using a VPN. He explains:Our work is such that we cannot do almost anything without searching, and although Google search is not a problem, 90% of the sites of scientific articles are either filtered or the services they provide are filtered and cannot be used without a VPN.”
Although the issue of disrupting VPNs and filter breakers and not accessing them is done with the aim of making access to platforms, websites and filtered content more difficult, the result of creating such a restriction is more serious than these. regardless of 93% statistics Internet users’ use of VPN shows that creating these disruptions does not lead to the non-use of these tools, disabling VPNs disrupts or makes it difficult for some businesses to operate. An issue that until today has harmed both workers by reducing work efficiency and increasing fatigue while doing work, and ultimately harmed collections, companies and businesses by complicating working conditions.
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