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A comment on WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge. Parent comment

Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by millak on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @02:33AM (#11618394)
Why is that a flaw in the service? The ISP/mobile operator is essentially the gatekeeper to the Internet; having them block WhatsApp (or anything else) is just a case of them adding a block rule to their DNS.

What would interest me is knowing whether or not access is still blocked if you change your default DNS server to something like 8.8.8.8?

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Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by kawera on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @02:38AM (#11618417)
Changing the DNS server has no effect; I use Google's and it's still blocked.
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Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by aurbano on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @04:29AM (#11618859)
WhatsApp uses IP addresses directly to route the traffic, but you could still use a VPN. The problem is that unless everyone else uses one you won't be able to talk to them...
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Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by mirimir on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @03:18AM (#11618569)
What if you hit it via some VPN service?
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Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by kawera on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @08:40AM (#11620013)
I can reach them through a VPN, no problem at all to communicate with people outside of Brazil or with those connected through a VPN.

OT: Intrigued and tempted by ivpn.net but the about page don't give me enough info to decide (no team, no physical address...) Where can I read more?

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Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by mirimir on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @09:46PM (#11625599)
Whois has provider name, business address and telephone.[0] They say:[1]

> VPN was founded in 2009 by a group of information security professionals who met whilst doing their Msc in Information Security at Royal Holloway, University Of London.

I've never researched that, but I've worked with them for years, and it's consistent with my experience. They're good people, I believe.

[0] http://www.siteshowinfo.org/sites/www.ivpn.net

[1] https://www.ivpn.net/aboutus

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Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by kawera on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @10:47PM (#11625815)
Somehow I assumed you worked for ivpn, based on your profile. My bad! Thanks for the info anyway.
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Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by mirimir on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @02:35AM (#11626620)
I freelance.
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Re:WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide T... by ashitlerferad on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @04:53AM (#11618953)
Using DNS is the start of the flaw.
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