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JSY
Premium Member
join:2000-04-05
Elmhurst, NY

JSY

Premium Member

Can anyone suggest a reliable VPN to South Korea?

I've tried a few VPN services with servers in South Korea and have gotten strange results. Usually, even though the IP is identified as being in South Korea, many sites do not recognize me as being in South Korea. I am not well versed into why this is happening, but I've now tested 3 subscription VPNs and all yield similar results. The interesting thing, however is when I test the public VPN at VPNgate (hosted by Univ. of Tsukuba in Japan) to South Korea - I get the proper results as if I was in South Korea.

When visiting "google.com" with pureVPN and ExpressVPN - you are directed to the "google.com.hk" which is the Google Hong Kong site. When I used VyprVPN, I'm actually not redirected at all.

When I use the public VPNgate, however, I am properly redirected to "google.co.kr", the South Korea Google site.

When visiting "play.google.com" with pureVPN and ExpressVPN - I get the Play storefront for Hong Kong. When I use VyprVPN, I get the Play storefront for what seems to be the U.S.

When I use the public VPNgate, I get the proper Play storefront for South Korea.

Thinking that this is maybe a Google thing, I remembered that South Korea censors/blocks adult websites with a message. I decided to give this a test.

When visiting an adult website with pureVPN, ExpressVPN, and VyprVPN - I can access it without issue. When I use the public VPNgate, I get the government blockage site.

Checking the IPs that I was assigned for each of these VPN services - they all checked out to be located in Seoul, South Korea.

So, this doesn't make sense to me. What is going on with the subscription based VPNs as opposed to the public VPN that is making certain sites know that I am not in South Korea. Why is the public VPN the only one of this lot that is working like it should?

I am in need of a reliable and stable VPN to South Korea and so far the public VPNgate is the the only one that I've tried that delivers if not always stable. However, I was hoping a subscription based VPN would be more reliable but so far each one that I've tried seems to fail at what I need. I inquired with pureVPN and they told me that it was likely a result of new IPs that have recently been added and that the info hasn't propagated yet. That doesn't really make sense to me, though.

Does anyone have any other VPNs they can suggest and/or might be able to explain this experience above?

billaustin
they call me Mr. Bill
MVM
join:2001-10-13
North Las Vegas, NV

billaustin

MVM

Did you ask here? »Virtual Private Networking
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

HELLFIRE to JSY

MVM

to JSY
said by JSY:

I inquired with pureVPN and they told me that it was likely a result of new IPs that have recently been added and that the info hasn't propagated yet. That doesn't really make sense to me, though.

Try here for starters

Do you have the IP address(es) you're getting assigned while VPN'ing into these services you're trying? I'd try crossreferencing them
against the RIR and seeing where're they're physically located/registered to.

Dollars To Donuts, it's a geo-IP issue, and basically geo-IP data ain't worth crap.

My 00000010bits

Regards

JSY
Premium Member
join:2000-04-05
Elmhurst, NY

JSY to billaustin

Premium Member

to billaustin
said by billaustin:

Did you ask here? »Virtual Private Networking

I looked at the forum list for so long and I couldn't find any such forum. Don't know how I missed that!!!
JSY

JSY to HELLFIRE

Premium Member

to HELLFIRE
said by HELLFIRE:

Do you have the IP address(es) you're getting assigned while VPN'ing into these services you're trying?

I just tried it again with pureVPN. The IP they assigned me is 192.253.247.6. I am getting the same results - some sites just don't recognize this as a South Korean IP.

I then tried it once again with the public VPNgate and it assigned me 58.233.175.246. This IP consistently gets recognized as of South Korean origin.

Thanks for the comment!
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

1 recommendation

HELLFIRE to JSY

MVM

to JSY
From the AMERICAN RIR ARIN.net

Net Range192.253.247.0 - 192.253.247.127
CIDR192.253.247.0/25
NameGZSYSTEMS-KR
HandleNET-192-253-247-0-1
ParentPUREVPN (NET-192-253-240-0-1)
Net TypeReassigned
Origin ASAS38001
CustomerGZ Systems Ltd (C05157879)
Registration Date2014-07-09
Last Updated2014-07-09
Comments
RESTful Linkhttp://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-192-253-247-0-1
See AlsoUpstream network's resource POC records.
See AlsoUpstream organization's POC records.
See AlsoRelated delegations.
 

From the ASIA-PACIFIC RIR apnic.net

% Information related to '58.224.0.0 - 58.239.255.255'
 
inetnum:        58.224.0.0 - 58.239.255.255
netname:        HANANET
country:        KR
descr:          Hanaro Telecom, Inc.
descr:          Shindongah Bldg, 43, Taepyeongno2-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul
descr:          ************************************************
descr:          Allocated to KRNIC Member.
descr:          If you would like to find assignment
descr:          information in detail please refer to
descr:          the KRNIC Whois Database at
descr:          " http://whois.nida.or.kr/english/index.htm "
descr:          ************************************************
admin-c:        HL196-AP
tech-c:         JK250-AP
status:         ALLOCATED PORTABLE
changed:        hostmaster@nic.or.kr 20061107
mnt-by:         MNT-KRNIC-AP
source:         APNIC
 

Don't know if you got any other IP addresses, but as I said, your best bet is to look em up against the RIRs.

Otherwise, I think the results above speak for themselves why one reads as a SKorean IP address and the other does not.

My 00000010bits

Regards

JSY
Premium Member
join:2000-04-05
Elmhurst, NY

JSY

Premium Member

Wow - thanks for this. This is very interesting and I will look up some of the other IPs. I no longer have access to ExpressVPN or VyprVPN since I couldn't use them for these reasons but this gets me started on understanding why this is happening.

It's unfortunate that there isn't much of a way of figuring out if there are any VPN services out there that don't have this issue unless there was a free trial.
megamech
Premium Member
join:2014-11-13

megamech

Premium Member

Agreed that free trials help to figure out what works best for all sorts of different applications.

I recently switched from PIA to IPVanish for speed and when I made the switch I picked them based on server list, speed promises and 7 day money back guarantee.

Overall I'm happy with them so far, good streaming speeds, and they have a couple of servers in SK, might be worth a try.