Easy Access to Facebook in Vietnam, Part Deux

Submitted by tomo on January 14, 2011 - 2:58pm

Here's an easier way to access Facebook again in Vietnam, as a follow-up to my earlier post Bypass Vietnam's Block on FaceBook - or China's Block on YouTube.

Just change your DNS settings to use 65.111.171.175 as your DNS server like before. I've set up a DNS server which returns different IP addresses for facebook (facebook.com and fbcdn.net). You can also do this on your computer by setting entries for all subdomains of facebook.com to 153.16.15.71 and for fbcdn.net to 60.254.175.11.

For detailed instructions on changing your computer's DNS settings refer to http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html but remember to use the address 65.111.171.175 instead of Google's 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.8.4.

UPDATE: It now appears that lisp4 is down and traffic to all known Facebook ip addresses is being blocked. DNS won't solve this problem so please refer to the other methods in Bypass Vietnam's Block on FaceBook, e.g. proxies, Hotspot Shield, and VPNs.

If you know any other IP address that accesses Facebook please leave a comment and I'll change the DNS server accordingly.

UPDATE Januay 25 2011: Facebook was working normally for a few days, now back to just lisp4.

UDATE June 24 2011: DNS not working? Try more ways to get around Vietnam's Facebook block

UPDATE 2012: There is another set of IP addresses which were supposed to work for Facebook. These IP addresses no longer work and I don't know of any new ones that do work:
60.254.175.42
66.220.149.11
66.220.153.11

Changing DNS settings is no longer sufficient to access Facebook and you must resort to making a VPN or ssh tunnel connection outside of Vietnam and browse the internet from it.

UPDATE April 2 2012:
Recently, Viettel isn't blocking Facebook at all while FTP is blocking it fully. DNS tricks haven't worked for awhile.

If your ISP is blocking Facebook then you must use a general workaround such as Hotspot Shield (spammy) or a VPN like StrongVPN.

Read the rest of this article...
August 15, 2013 - 10:51pm
#2
admirza (not verified)

Its really a very interesting posting indeed. Thanks for sharing such interesting posting with us.
legume

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December 30, 2012 - 2:19pm
#3
David (not verified)

Does anyone have the "back story" on Vietnam's blocks of various social media sites? It's been about 3 years since the Facebook ban was ordained, and I really expected it to have been resolved by now. At one point I thought FB had approached the VN government to work out a deal, but nothing seems to have come of it.

I also found out - the hard way - about VN's block on the WordPress and Blogger websites. I had successfully started a blog on Wordpress a few months ago when I was located in one part of Saigon. Now I'm in another part, and can no longer access my blog, nor any of WordPress, apparently because I'm now using a different ISP.

That gets to the bigger question: Why, after all these years, are this country's blocks implemented so, well, erratically? All I can guess is that there are some ISP's who feel the need to kowtow to the demands of the government (or some particular ministry or official), while others can get away with thumbing their noses at the demands of that same person or office.

Whatever the reason is, I suspect that the spotty implementation of internet bans in this country says *something* interesting about the system here... I'm just not sure what that something is.

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January 30, 2013 - 9:35pm
(Reply to #18) #4
STraveller (not verified)

I've been 2010 the first time in Vietnam. Only Facebook was blocked and it was for me no problem. But when also Wordpress is blocked then it might be a problem, because I work a lot on my travel-blogs. If it really doesn't work longer I would go earlier back to Thailand than planned. :-(

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October 4, 2012 - 12:19pm
#5
Trickslove (not verified)

Awesome idea. . .In india FB will banned soon.. We can't imagine a world without FB. I think this would be helpful for us in future

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April 3, 2012 - 10:52am
#6
Vietnam tours (not verified)

using ultrasulf is the best way to access fb in Vietnam

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July 23, 2012 - 11:41pm
(Reply to #15) #7
Fiverr Backlinks (not verified)

Hello there! Would you mind if I share your blog with my myspace group?
There's a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content. Please let me know. Thank you

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March 29, 2012 - 10:36am
#8
irisha (not verified)

hi fellas ! :-*

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March 3, 2012 - 6:02pm
#9
Anonymous (not verified)

If you have an iPhone or iPad simply use the Facebook mobile version. Worked fine on hotel wifi in Ho Chi Minh City.

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June 19, 2011 - 9:52am
#10
Stewart (not verified)

ahhhhh! I'm such a computer failure. As soon as I seen stuff about this DNS trick my head starts to hurt. I'm not really sure how to work it. I'm on Win XP, I don't know if that's a problem. I'm thinking about getting a VPN but I don't want to have to pay for it!

Sucks that I'm too dumb to figure out how to change the DNS.

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January 21, 2011 - 6:58am
#11
Mai (not verified)

Thank you very much. It had been working greatly until this morning when i no longer being able to access it any more. Any suggestions?

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January 21, 2011 - 2:27pm
(Reply to #7) #12
tomo

It looks like the Facebook block varies by ISP (FPT vs Viettel, etc.) but I currently can't reach the old Facebook server 153.16.15.71 (lisp4) even from the US so I've reverted my DNS server.

The quickest way to access now is to use a proxy server.

Try this one (socks5) which works for me: 202.177.251.150 port 1080.

You can configure your browser to only use the proxy for Facebook by using browser add-ons like FoxyProxy or Switchy Proxy for Chrome.

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May 2, 2011 - 3:10pm
(Reply to #9) #13
Ritchelle Galarce (not verified)

i can access now facebook but why i dont appear online to ,my friends?
do you have any suggestions for me to change the settings of my computer?

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January 15, 2011 - 3:20pm
#14
Mai (not verified)

This one works great but it does not allow you to upload new photos :((

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May 2, 2011 - 3:12pm
(Reply to #5) #15
Ritchelle Galarce (not verified)

what will i do to upload new photos and change mt profile picture?

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January 16, 2011 - 1:06pm
(Reply to #5) #16
tomo

Mai, I just tried uploading a photo to my status and also a new photo album and it was successful. Let me know what problem you have and maybe there's something more I can do to help you.

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January 21, 2011 - 7:02am
(Reply to #6) #17
Mai (not verified)

I think i followed the link you sent you Couch Surfing and it had been working great until this morning. I tried lips4, i did not work either. Do you have any suggestion ???

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January 14, 2011 - 5:58pm
#18
tomo

fb.me solution: go to http://unshort.me/index.php?r=http://fb.me/XXXXXXX where you fill in the shortened URL, or just paste into the field at unshort.me

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January 14, 2011 - 5:56pm
#19
tomo

OK, it looks like fb.me won't really work since it resolves to the facebook IP addresses that are blocked (69.63.189.11 69.63.189.12 and 69.63.189.16). Sorry, you'll still need a proxy for that which is stupid since it's just a URL shortener. Let's see if there's a site that un-shortens fb.me....

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January 14, 2011 - 3:57pm
#20
tomo

Update: added fb.me too

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