Have you ever used WiFi in a hotel, coffee shop, etc where they blocked your VPN?

[IndieCowboy]

Only happened to me one time in a dodgy hotel so to get around it I simply used my VPN and accessed the web via my mobile data and turned off their WiFi.
NO WAY I’m allowing their WiFi to spy on my traffic!

 

[Runwildboys]

Only happened to me one time in a dodgy hotel so to get around it I simply used my VPN and accessed the web via my mobile data and turned off their WiFi.
NO WAY I’m allowing their WiFi to spy on my traffic!

Is there someone you can report them to? It certainly seems suspicious.

 

[IndieCowboy]

Is there someone you can report them to? It certainly seems suspicious.

DEFINITELY sus! Obviously owners were Tossers But Was Only there for 1 night and since they owned the WiFi they could do whatever they want.
But won’t ever stay there again.
My data is 5G fast even with my VPN and they couldn’t spy on that so the joke was on them.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

I have never had an issue where the VPN was blocked.

However have been places where their wifi does not allow going to various sites.

One place used a specific cyber nanny type software. What i found crazy was I went in to check some lottery numbers/tickets. It blocked the official Powerball site. Reason, it was a gambling site.

So just got on my phone for a few minutes and that was that.

 

[Reality]

Only happened to me one time in a dodgy hotel so to get around it I simply used my VPN and accessed the web via my mobile data and turned off their WiFi.
NO WAY I’m allowing their WiFi to spy on my traffic!

This is not common at all as many people who travel do so for work and a lot of workers connect to their office networks via required VPN connections.

What exact error did you get?

I cannot imagine they are network blocking because the IP networks for VPNs change regularly and exist all over the world.

My guess is if by some chance they are blocking a VPN (still very surprising) it would be done at the DNS level as that would be the simplest way to do it, especially if they have a router with software that supports it or they are using a third party DNS service that allows checkbox filtering on their end.

The easy way around that (and something everyone should do) is to set your DNS servers to 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 (provided free by CloudFlare) so that all DNS lookups happen outside the network you are on.

Now that I think about it, that hotel may be using a third party DNS service for filtering content (ex: adult, illegal, etc.). If so, it may be that the default setting they chose happened to include VPNs as well.

Regardless of using a VPN or not, I strongly suggest that if you are traveling or regularly using public WiFi networks that you set your default DNS servers to 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 addresses.

While most VPNs include their own DNS servers that protect you once connected, using those DNS IP addresses will protect your DNS lookups prior to connecting and also allow you to circumvent any DNS filtering they have in place.

 

[IndieCowboy]

This is not common at all as many people who travel do so for work and a lot of workers connect to their office networks via required VPN connections.

What exact error did you get?

I cannot imagine they are network blocking because the IP networks for VPNs change regularly and exist all over the world.

My guess is if by some chance they are blocking a VPN (still very surprising) it would be done at the DNS level as that would be the simplest way to do it, especially if they have a router with software that supports it or they are using a third party DNS service that allows checkbox filtering on their end.

The easy way around that (and something everyone should do) is to set your DNS servers to 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 (provided free by CloudFlare) so that all DNS lookups happen outside the network you are on.

Now that I think about it, that hotel may be using a third party DNS service for filtering content (ex: adult, illegal, etc.). If so, it may be that the default setting they chose happened to include VPNs as well.

Regardless of using a VPN or not, I strongly suggest that if you are traveling or regularly using public WiFi networks that you set your default DNS servers to 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 addresses.

While most VPNs include their own DNS servers that protect you once connected, using those DNS IP addresses will protect your DNS lookups prior to connecting and also allow you to circumvent any DNS filtering they have in place.

The exact error was “ we block all encrypted traffic and we monitor all of your Internet traffic.. “ - - and encrypted traffic is of course your VPN.
Not sure how they were doing it but whilst the VPN was on when trying to connect, that’s why I couldn’t connect.

 

[Reality]

The exact error was “ we block all encrypted traffic and we monitor all of your Internet traffic.. “ - - and encrypted traffic is of course your VPN.
Not sure how they were doing it but whilst the VPN was on when trying to connect, that’s why I couldn’t connect.

The main reason they are trying to block VPNs I'm sure is to prevent bandwidth abuse because they tend to be cheap with their hotel internet connection and one customer transferring terabytes of data could easily saturate their network.

That said, even if they could manage to detect encrypted traffic (very doubtful beyond DNS/IP tracking), a really good VPN could get around it using more advanced settings and tactics.

You may just have to tweak the default VPN settings some to use different ports, other types of connections, etc.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

Only happened to me one time in a dodgy hotel so to get around it I simply used my VPN and accessed the web via my mobile data and turned off their WiFi.
NO WAY I’m allowing their WiFi to spy on my traffic!

That's really dodgy. No way would I ever stay there again.