Background
On August 9th, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in a disputed election. Thousands of protesters have been demanding a fair election and urging the President to step down as he supports police brutality, violent crackdowns on protests, and unlawful detention of journalists. As social unrest ensues, internet connectivity and cellular service have been down since August 9, 2020.[1] Although the government blames cyberattacks, it appears that these outages are government imposed.
What is happening
According to NetBlocks, the “blocking strategy being used started with so-called deep-packet inspection, which allows a censor to filter web traffic and block access to specific sites.” The outages seem to be a “brute-force blocking strategy at the network layer, rather than a more refined filtering system at the application layer. The blackout included VPNs.[2]
Eve of the election, “the two state-owned companies that share a monopoly on all access to the global web in Belarus began shutting down up to 80% of bandwidth on OPv6, the protocol that routes internet traffic”[3]
Application layer outages are in part due to DPI keyword filtering [4]
Resources available in Russian for safe access to Internet services
Belarusian is indicated when available.
*Do you want to help make more technology and resources available in Belarusian or Russian? Visit the Localization Lab wiki to browse the open source internet freedom projects that we support and join our community of dedicated volunteers.*
Educational Resources and Tips
Attending Protests (Safety tips & precautions on attending a protest)
Keeping your Data Safe (How to ensure your mobile device is secure)
Umbrella App (Customizable educational resource for Android and iOS with tips and advice for physical and digital security)
*Disclaimer: This is a link to digital security basics created by locals in Belrussian and widely shared, but it’s not one of our projects and we can’t verify or confirm this advice. This guide is linked to Telegram, which is not one of the messaging apps we support.
Circumvention Tools to Access Censored Content
Tor Browser - Web browser that circumvents online censorship and anonymizes web traffic using the Tor network. It protects the user’s identity by encrypting traffic through three layers and hides the IP address.
Tor Tips (available in Belarussian)
Psiphon (available in Belarussian)
Sending/Downloading Files
SecureDrop (Route communications/securely send files)
OnionShare (Anonymously share/download files)
Messaging (All end-to-end encryption)
Signal (Offers disappearing messages and password protection)
Wire (Offers disappearing messages and password protection)
Briar (does not rely on central server, sync via Bluetooth/WiFi/Internet)
Matrix (VoIP, decentralized conversation store)
Citations
[1] https://netblocks.org/reports/internet-disruption-hits-belarus-on-election-day-YAE2jKB3
[2] https://www.wired.com/story/belarus-internet-outage-election/
[3] https://www.ft.com/content/3466da92-946e-4d29-81b3-e96ba599a63e
[4] https://netblocks.org/reports/internet-disruption-hits-belarus-on-election-day-YAE2jKB3