For years, autocratic regimes have been in a race to heighten those walls, as their citizens develop taller and taller ladders. The more they filter and block, the more their citizens come up with clever technical solutions to access the uncensored truth. There is mounting evidence, however, that repressive regimes are opting to just shut down access to the open internet entirely—and that such blackouts could become permanent.
The program, dubbed eQsat, has been tested and is ready to be put into action during the next internet shutdown—whether it’s in Russian-occupied Ukraine, Iran, or one of the many repressive regimes thatThe cybersecurity firm behind the program, eQualitie, has spent years developing tools designed for civil society in countries with aggressive internet filtering. Its mobile browser, Ceno, connects users to the open internet and serves content peer-to-peer.
There are some unreliable solutions to this problem. In some cases, mobile internet or Wi-Fi can be broadcast into an area experiencing an internet shutdown—there have been plans to try to broadcast a cellular or Wi-Fi signal from Finland into Russia, for example. In North Korea,bring news and entertainment into one of the most heavily censored countries in the world.