Skip to main content

Psiphon Attending the First APSIG


On September 11th to 15th 2016, Psiphon attended the first Asia Pacific School of Internet Governance (APSIG) hosted in Bangkok, Thailand.

The weeklong regional school took place at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), where more than 30 participants from various countries in Asia Pacific came together to share their experience and knowledge on the Regional Internet Governance issues. Organized by the Internet Education and Research Laboratory (inTERLab), the five-day workshop featured keynote speakers from various backgrounds such as international organizations, academic institutes, civil society, government and business sectors. These organizations include: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), OpenNet Korea and Com First India.

As a software company that develops a trusted tool that enables unrestricted Internet content access, Psiphon was very excited to share its feedback on Internet Governance issues, including the improvement of public awareness on Internet content freedom in the Asia Pacific Region. We were extremely happy to connect with established users, within the school, to collect and understand feedback provided in regards to our software. Furthermore, Psiphon built relationships with new users from South and Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand, Pakistan and Philippines. During the role-play workshops, Psiphon contributed to the final report on the facilitation of new Internet users in the next decade. This report is now available on the APSIG official website at apsig.asia.

APSIG is a pilot program envisioned by Dr. Kilnam Chon and the next APSIG will also be hosted in Bangkok, Thailand.
Want to invite Psiphon Inc. to your next event? Email us at info@psiphon.ca

Stay in touch with us via Twitter and Facebook for ongoing updates!

Popular posts from this blog

Why You Don't Need Google's Domain Fronting

Google’s removal of domain fronting emphasizes the need for solutions like Psiphon. Google has confirmed that they will block domain fronting across Google domains and App Engine. For many apps and publishers, this represents a step backwards in the fight for internet freedom. While Psiphon has never relied on this Google service, many app developers continued to depend on the practice as a convenient and straightforward means of circumventing state-level censorship, despite the long-running speculation that Google would close this loophole (eg. Will Scott’s blog post in 2017). While the announcement has been met with criticism from internet activists and service providers alike, Google has defended their decision, saying “ domain fronting has never been a supported feature ”. Domain fronting has been a popular means of censorship circumvention for several years, being embraced by popular apps like Signal, who publicly adopted the practice in 2016 . While using Google domain

Social Media and Internet Ban in Turkey

Following the detainment of 12 pro-Kurdish lawmakers from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the early hours of November 4 th , Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp and Skype were blocked in Turkey . There were reports that Turk Telekom internet provider completely disabled access to the internet or throttled the connection to the point that it was impossible to connect. Despite lack of official decision about the restrictions, and BTK’s explanation that there was a technical problem throughout Turkey, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim made a statement later in the day and said “For security reasons, these kinds of measures can be taken time to time. These are temporary measures. Everything goes back to normal after the danger is eliminated.” Social media and internet bans ended the following evening in most of the country, but there were still some short-term connection problems during the weekend in some regions, and it was reported that some Turk Telekom users

Psiphon Usage Surges as Brazil Blocks WhatsApp

At 9PM ET on December 16th WhatsApp was blocked in Brazil . The ban came after a judge ordered that the messenger app be blocked for 48 hours when the company refused to hand over private user information related to a criminal case. For months, Brazilian telecommunications companies have been attempting to shut down WhatsApp because it provides free messaging and voice services. WhatsApp is the most popular messenger service in Brazil and telecoms blame it for luring millions away from paid cell phone use. Internet users in Brazil reacted strongly to the ban, criticizing the decision to block WhatsApp widely on social media. Millions turned to alternate messenger services and shared circumvention techniques over social media. Psiphon was praised by people in Brazil for being free, open source, and able to keep them connected throughout the blocking event. Psiphon’s surge capacity was able to cope with the increased demand, with peak data use of more than 8x that of a normal day. Psip