Astrill wants its users to know it was the target of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack yesterday, and that they “are experiencing technical issues with our API servers,” and are investigating, and “apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
Unfortunately, if you are in China and only use Astrill, it’s unlikely you’ve gotten this message (unless you happened to see it on Reddit). Astrill’s been tweeting, beginning with this 13 hours ago:
We are experiencing technical issues with our API servers. We are investigating this.
— Astrill (@astrill) June 12, 2013
An hour later:
At the moment everything should work as normal. We were a target of a DDoS attack. We are working on measures to prevent this in the future.
— Astrill (@astrill) June 12, 2013
And so on:
We apologize to all customers for this downtime.
— Astrill (@astrill) June 12, 2013
We are experiencing performance issues with our API system. The system is no longer able to serve all customers requests in real time.
— Astrill (@astrill) June 13, 2013
We ask customers to stop trying to connect or login at this time.Please wait an hour or so. The system can't handle it.
— Astrill (@astrill) June 13, 2013
In the coming weeks we will work on total redesign of our API which will be able to handle much more request.
— Astrill (@astrill) June 13, 2013
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding as we work to improve the reliability of our systems.
— Astrill (@astrill) June 13, 2013
So there you have it, Astrill users. (Disclosure: I use Astrill) There is a systemwide problem, but the company’s working on it, and better days are (hopefully) ahead. The company has not revealed the source behind the DDoS, but since it runs a service that is technically “illegal” in China, we have a few guesses.
This post was written with assistance from Witopia. (Disclosure: I also use Witopia. Fuck you, Great Firewall.)
UPDATE, 7:27 pm: Astrill’s back up!
@ OP
You are a Witopia’s customer?
Good luck to you.
I was its loyal customer for two years when a few incidents made me realize that it had been passing my VPN connection logs to my government without proper court orders either from the USA (where it is headquartered) or from the EU Court of Justice.
I was called up by the secret service of my government and I had to explain to them that although I was a Witopia customer, the VPN connection was shared among its customers. I challenged the secret service to prove that I was the only one using the VPN gateway at that time.
Have you ever realized Witopia only accepts credit card or PayPal payments and not more anonymous channels such as digital currencies (think Bitcoin, CosmicPay, Perfect Money)?
“So there you have it, Astrill users. (Disclosure: I use Astrill) ”
Missed that part did you?
Great journalism.
My guess is this ITS THE NSA overloading the system because they are spoofing IP addresses in China, then they can accuse china of attacks then US can use force to prevent!
“UTAH DATA CENTER
When construction is completed in 2013, the heavily fortified $2 billion facility in Bluffdale will encompass 1 million square feet.”
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)”
Im really happy I dont have to use American systems here in China.
Nice and secure for me. say WHAT I FCKING WANT ANY TIME OF DAY!
Only joking pussies I know you can find me, really.
And this, my friends, is just yet another reason that you’re an idiot if you use a VPN… so many much better ways.
halifax,
which are the much better ways?
can you elaborate?
Pigeon or I hear a message in a bottle is a really cool way to get messages out of china.
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Get a server in a country that cares about privacy and can have IPs swapped out easily. If you keep it to yourself, it’ll never get blocked.
Buy a VPS server.
Lrn2makeyourownvpn
i am in shanghai, not far from PLA Unit 61398.
even if i buy and make a vps server, china’s internet brigade can still block my ip address from connecting to twitter and facebook.
any suggestions?
yea don’t USE Twatter or Facefook, NSA are watching you.
Be careful: Astrill is not anonymous.
It does not allow you to sign up using a proxy or VPN.
Upon signing up and to verify your account, you must reply using a one-time PIN sent to a valid mobile phone number.
All these allow you to be tracked by Astrill.
click the following link to see which VPNs take your anonymity seriously:
http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-that-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2013-edition-130302/
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Astrill is best VPN over here in China that is why their competitors are always attacking on them so their service will get down. Using Astrill since 2010, my favorite VPN Provider.