Wickr Secure Open Access

Psiphon is proud to announce an exciting new partnership. Over the last few months we have been

working with Wickr to create a new feature for their secure messaging platforms:

Wickr: Secure Open Access.

With this feature Wickr and Psiphon have made it possible for teams and enterprises in any part of

the world — US, Europe, Asia or Latin America — to have reliable end-to-end encrypted

messaging, calling, file and screen sharing with no interruptions in service. No other secure

communications platform enables unfettered connection anywhere in the world this way.

Wickr, already well established in the secure messaging environment with their versatile platform,

recognized that as organizations are increasingly global, there can be both security as well as

accessibility concerns when trying to ensure secure communication for people all around the globe.

Wickr believes their end users shouldn’t have to worry about being able to connect to their

colleagues, friend or family - no matter where they are, and Psiphon agrees.

By integrating Psiphon's sophisticated network protocols into their new feature, Wickr will allow their end
users to seamlessly protect their traffic and send it over the Psiphon network, ensuring they always stay
connected no matter where they are.

You can read more about our new partnership here.

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

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