Psiphon. Internet Beyond Borders Berlin

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders Berlin | June 17th 2022

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Overview
1. Very quick intro
2. Psiphon Network overview
3. Censorship in Context
4. Working Together
5. Closing / Questions

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Our Apps
Lightweight apps for Android, iOS, and Windows allow any user with an internet connection to
seamlessly and securely tunnel traffic from their device over Psiphon servers.

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Our Apps

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Understanding Network Dynamics with Psiphon Data
Network anomalies
reflect activity and
changes by censors
in real-time

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Understanding Network Dynamics with Psiphon Data
The KPIs:
Usage:
○ Daily Unique Users
○ Bytes Transferred
Usage intensity:
○ Frequency of use
○ Avg. bytes / UU / d
Performance
○ Throughput
○ Establishment
duration (time to get
connected)
○ Dial duration
○ Tunnel duration
○ Failed tunnel events

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Major Milestones in the Information War in Russia
24 Feb - Invasion of Ukraine. Usage spikes in
Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia provided early
indication of network disruptions and the perceived
threats to digital security
04 Mar - Ordered the blocking of Facebook and
Twitter and major international media outlets, such as
BBC, Deutsche Welle, RFE/RL, VOA, and Meduza.
Many more independent media orgs were also
blocked, suspended publication, or pressured to shut
down.
14 Mar - Russia blocked access to Instagram,
impacting an estimated further >80 million users.
16 Mar - Significant new filtering measures were
implemented against VPN traffic across numerous
Russian networks. Reports of VPN service
disruptions.
30 May - A new wave of countermeasures against a
number of standard VPN traffic types (for eg. IPsec,
L2TP, IKEv2) reportedly affected many providers

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Impact
Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
The current 1.452 Million daily
active users represents the
highest ever single-day total
Psiphon users in Russia.
Over 1PiB/day for Russian users.

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Network Disruptions, March 16th (by ASN)
SORM -> TSPU?

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Network Disruptions, March 16th
Resilient network protocols
seamlessly take up the
balance of Russian traffic

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Network Disruptions, March 16th
Performance impact
(key categories)

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Network Disruptions, March 16th

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Network Disruptions, March 16th
TCP connections take
visibly longer.

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Why Stop?
Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Very high-”collateral
damage” filtering that
was only partially
effective?

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
March 30-Now: Network Normal?

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Ukraine in the Runet
Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Ukraine ASes being annexed
into the Russian telecom space
through switching of BGP
routes to Russian upstreams.
= more users under censorship

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Ukraine in the Runet
Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
eg. Psiphon adoption in
Mariupol and Donetsk

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Psiphon | Internet Beyond Borders
Hearing from You.
What are new threats to your group
posed by this wave of censorship?
Which sources of information are
valuable during Internet disruptions.
Which sources do you turn to most
frequently?
What are tools/data/metrics do you
wish you had access to during
censorship events?

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Psiphon & UNOCC
Thank You
Спасибо !
Keith McManamen [email protected]