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For three months the Online Safety Act has been gloriously defeating abiding companies. Shall we get prepared for blocking?

It’s been three months since the Online Safety Act’s major duties came into force in the UK, and so far, the only people not criticizing it seem to be the ones who wrote it. Demand for VPNs has skyrocketed, while a petition against the law collected nearly half a million signatures in just a few days. Still, there’s no sign of anyone in the government reconsidering it. Xeovo looks into who’s actually benefited, what the costs have been, and whether the promised results are showing up at all.

In November, 2025 Russia-based web host Media Land was sanctioned by several countries as a bulletproof service — the one hackers relied on to launch DDoS attacks and attack businesses in the United States and in allied countries. “Bulletproof” may refer to a VPN as well, as it usually means abuse resistant and private. Xeovo explains how genuinely reliable anonymous VPNs and hostings differ from bulletproof services — and why the real bulletproof operators are often not those who call themselves that.

What arе the most dangerous things in the world? Viruses, highways, processed foods, Australian spiders? And what is danger, really? Regardless of how we define it, there must be clear risks and measurable harm. 

Somehow social media platforms are not showing up on any list of the most dangerous things, although even antibacterial soap and apathy have had such an honour. Why, then, did the Australian government prohibit having a social media account for those younger than 16? 

Let’s uncover potential causes.

This is the pilot episode of our new interview series Meet the Developer, where we talk to the people behind anti-censorship tools. Our goal is to shine a light on the developers whose open-source solutions help millions of people stay connected.

In this first episode, we sit down with Toby, the lead developer of Hysteria, to discuss the project’s origins, technical challenges and his perspective on internet censorship.

Let’s start with an introduction. Tell us who you are and what you do.

Just call me Toby. I’m a software engineer. Previously, I have worked for a large company. But right now, I’m a co-founder of a startup with some friends.

Nice to meet you Toby! Would you like to share what type of startup it is, or is it a top secret project?

We are still in stealth mode.

Why did you decide to develop Hysteria?

It was originally a project I developed for myself when I was in college.
China’s global Internet connectivity has been notoriously bad for as long as I can remember (still not any better right now). Not just in the sense of censorship, but also in terms of connection quality.

For example, if you have a server in the US and want to connect to it from China, expect over 10-20% or more packet loss.

So if you set up a proxy server in another country to circumvent censorship, it would be painfully slow (the most popular tools back then were GoAgent and later Shadowsocks).

So Hysteria began as an attempt to improve my speed for watching YouTube videos.

It’s always great to see developers building something to solve their own challenges. I can relate to the packet loss issue. Either you suffer the packet loss, or you have to purchase an expensive server with CN2 routing, which will cost a lot.