Psiphon empowers users to remove barriers to an open internet by leveraging a resourceful combination of secure communication and obfuscations tools. “Every time they find new ways to block or inspect traffic, we find ways to keep people connected.” Gantous, Business Development and Analytics, at Psiphon. “Governments and companies are getting more and more sophisticated in their ability to block and control internet traffic,” said Alexis M. Psiphon, for example, is an open-source Internet Freedom tool designed specifically to support users in the most censored countries worldwide. And, as a result of 2017 political tensions between Hamas and Fata supporters in Gaza, the Palestinian government began blocking news sites that provide divisive viewpoints on Palestinian politics.īut citizens in countries that impose state-sponsored filtering techniques do have some options. As of 2017, Egypt has blocked access to 21 political sites it deems critical of the government. Since 2015, for example, the Malaysian government has censored news channels that report on the Prime Minister’s alleged billion-dollar corruption scandal. Unfortunately, this trend shows no sign of stopping - in fact, research indicates censorship is expanding in both scope and depth worldwide. Brazil’s Globo news network recommended Psiphon to circumvent the blocking.Psiphon serves as a weapon in the fight against online censorship. The Psiphon user base in Brazil tripled within the first 24h of the ban. Using Psiphon, Brazil’s WhatsApp users were able to retain or restore access to the application. In addition, the messaging service uses end-to-end encryption and messages cannot be intercepted. Although WhatsApp is owned by Facebook Inc, the two companies operate separately.ĭuring a press conference that followed, Dzodan stated that WhatsApp is unable to turn over the data because it doesn’t store users’ messages after they’ve been delivered. A day later, an appeals judge overturned that order and Dzodan was released.

In March, Judge Montalvão ordered the arrest of Facebook executive Diego Dzodan on charges of obstructing justice after WhatsApp failed to deliver messages subpoenaed in the criminal investigation. The suspension was overturned by another judge on Tuesday following an appeal from WhatsApp’s lawyers, allowing WhatsApp to resume services in Brazil. When you send an end-to-end encrypted message, no one else can read it – not even us.” Not only do we encrypt messages end-to-end on WhatsApp to keep people’s information safe and secure, we also don't keep your chat history on our servers. In response to the recent suspension of WhatsApp services, company CEO Jan Koum posted a message to Facebook stating, “Yet again millions of innocent Brazilians are being punished because a court wants WhatsApp to turn over information we repeatedly said we don’t have.

The five main mobile operators were ordered to block the messaging service, beginning at Monday at 2 p.m. The judge is seeking user data from WhatsApp as part of a criminal investigation. On May 2nd, Brazilian state judge Marcel Maia Montalvão issued an order to block WhatsApp for 72 hours. Psiphon use surged again in Brazil in response to another nationwide suspension of WhatsApp messaging service. In December, Psiphon blogged about a previous blocking event in Brazil, available here.

Why whatsapp open with psiphon