Its Outline VPN can now be built directly into apps—making it harder for governments to block internet access, particularly during protests.
Google is launching new anti-censorship technology created in response to actions by Iran’s government during the 2022 protests there, hoping that it will increase access for internet users living under authoritarian regimes all over the world.Jigsaw, a unit of Google that operates sort of like an internet freedom think tank and that creates related products, already offers a suite of anti-censorship tools including Outline, which provides free, open, and encrypted access to the internet through a VPN. Outline uses a protocol that makes it hard to detect, so users can surf the web largely out of sight from authorities who might want to block internet access. But during last year’s pro-democracy protests across Iran, the regime used sophisticated tactics, not only intermittently blocking all internet access but targeting VPNs like Outline too.Now Jigsaw is releasing Outline’s code in the form of a software developer kit (SDK) so that other applications can build censorship resistance directly into their products, the company exclusively told MIT Technology Review. This will create an easier and more streamlined user experience. For example, users of an app that runs this code—like a news site, for example—need not connect separately to the internet through a VPN. And at the same time, Google hopes it will put the users one step ahead of the censors.
Lessons from Iran
On September 19, 2022, the Iranian government started to shut off mobile internet service in Tehran during protests against the killing of Mahsa Amini days earlier. The Iranian government, long known for technically sophisticated surveillance and a propensity for cracking down on internet use, began regularly shutting down the internet from 4 p.m. until midnight. As Iranians started looking for alternative ways to access WhatApp, Instagram, and the rest of the web, many turned to VPNs, like Outline, which can route traffic out of the affected area through a sort of virtual tunnel. The number of daily users of Outline’s VPN on Android jumped a whopping 1,500 percent in Iran during the fall of 2022, according to Jigsaw’s lead engineer for internet freedom, Vinicius Fortuna.
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a disgraced group has nothing to share except worthless behaviors
stay here and do something useful
deannounce the fashecette and don’t join the group
not single dim for democrats