I live in South Africa so this doesn't affect me but the post was made for the sake of local South Korean royallers. [Recent news from South Korea] The SNI (Ministry of Information and Communication) Internet service provider (ISP) provided the Internet blocking service - reported on 12th Feb 2019 by the IT industry. It is more powerful than the existing URL blocking or Domain Name Server (DNS) blocking. Unlike the existing method of accessing pornographic sites by a simple method, the 'SNI field blocking method' is known to be able to regulate the server name exchanged during the connection process without being encrypted. The effect of this change kicked in yesterday. In summary, the government blocked access to every foreign website with HTTPS that can expose citizens to pornography or copyright infringement. This doesn't affect local Korean players' gameplay in royals but it prohibits them from accessing the royals website and forum. Currently, Gtop100 is blocked with HTTP but they can access it via HTTPS. However, Royals website and forum are not accessible with HTTP AND HTTPS. Without accessing the vote page on forum, they cannot receive the daily 8k nx even if they vote directly from Gtop. Now the question is, what are the possible outcomes if they vote using a public VPN? They won't ever play (login) using VPN but only when voting. The concern lies with a possible overlap of IP address with hackers' or banned users' during voting. It would be much appreciated if a staff member could provide a clear resolution even if the only viable option is to use a private VPN.
Are you sure that the MapleRoyals website and forum are blocked from South Korea? Would be nice to see a screenshot of the error message that is given, unless it is redirecting to warning.or.ko? If it does redirect, then this means the domain royals.ms has been added to their blacklist, and there isn't much we can do except from attempting to appeal the blacklisting.
"According to the IT industry, Korean Internet service provider (ISP) companies have blocked the targeted websites by using "SNI (Server Name Indication) field blocking method" It is a technique to open packets of https users called SNI which are exchanged during the authentication process. This is aimed at the fact that the SNI is not encrypted. A packet refers to the data content of users." I have translated the article: https://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=102&oid=025&aid=0002884235
It is already started to be redirected to warning.or.ko when accessing http://royals.ms by 1 month ago. However, redirecting to warning.or.ko did not cause any inconvenience because we were able to simply bypass using https. However, from yesterday, the Korean government decided to open packets of Internet users directly in order to block access to 895 foreign sites that the Korea Communications Commission decided to block. So now it is not even possible to bypass using https. (I am using a simple public vpn to access to this forum now)
yes. the game is accessible without VPN! The government only deals with websites, so connecting to the game server does not have any problems. The only problem is that we can not vote using Korean IP. Because we cannot access to royals.ms using Korean IP in Korea.
Interesting to know, as the login server & website are on the same server, and have the same IP address. I'm guessing not, but does the website work through this link? http://185.125.230.117/?page=index It may need you to click advanced to proceed to the website (in chrome).
That's good, I presume this works too? http://mapleroyals.online/ Although I only set this up a few minutes ago, so might not work all around the world yet. Probably easier to remember.
Yes. It also works!!! Even I am writing this reply on https://mapleroyals.online/forum/threads/https-blocked-in-south-korea-vote-issue.134721/#post-777586 with my home wifi.
On behalf of the Korean community, we are really thankful and obliged for the swift help Matt and the rest of the staff provided for a small community like us!
Even though this doesn't affect me, it made me pretty happy that this was fixed so fast for our friends over in Korea.
Like the user above, unaffected but gotta give credit where it's due! Great work tackling the issue in such a timely manner @Matt
