For your history lesson, who remembers the time when the Government blocked social media platforms during the 2016 presidential elections? Of course you do. The Government has for so long struggled to fight against what it describes as “lugambo” (read rumours) that is being exchanged on social media platforms. This led to a social media black out during the 2016 general elections that the Ugandan online community resorted to VPNs to access social media. The government also had plans to ban porn websites in Uganda
The governement seems to be taking the banning route lately but somehow Ugandans, especially millennials, always found a way around during the times when the Government had switched off some internet platforms. By the help of VPN apps, some smart Ugandans still enjoyed freedom of expression and full access to the open Internet like no block was standing in their way. But sadly, your freedom of expression may have ended with this Google update that ends domain fronting.
First things first, what’s domain-fronting?
Domain fronting is a way of accessing censored websites and platforms on the internet, by disguising the final end point of a website to look like its a credible website such as Google. App developers used Google to host web addresses, which resulted in the final end point becoming unknown. The process has been used by users to hide the end page they access, and thus evade internet censorship in their country. Most Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) such as Psiphon’s VPN service and others used here in Uganda used domain fronting to make all data requests through that VPN appear as if they were headed for google.com and encrypting the end point to prevent the censors from digging further. Blocking some platforms required the Government to block the entire fleet of Google services, which it obviously couldn’t do.
Its all doomsday for domain fronting.
For quite sometime, the Google App Engine has let users get around state level Internet blocks using a practice called domain-fronting. However, Google recently changed in its network architecture. This means that the domain fronting trick no longer works. App developers will no longer be able to use Google to get around Internet censorship. “First spotted by Tor developers on April 13th, the change has been rolling out across Google services and threatens to disrupt services for a number of anti-censorship tools, including Signal, GreatFire.org and Psiphon’s VPN services,” as The Verge reported.
A Google representative said, “Domain fronting has never been a supported feature at Google, but until recently it worked because of a quirk of our software stack. We’re constantly evolving our network, and as part of a planned software update, domain fronting no longer works. We don’t have any plans to offer it as a feature.”
Signal publicly adopted domain fronting in 2016 and it has been employed in many VPNs to evade State and Carrier level censorships. Some VPNs that Ugandans resorted to during the social media blackout used domain fronting. But what if all of them use domain fronting? What happens if the Government decides to block social media or any other platforms? Shall we have have any power against the blackout?
There is a massive outcry
Digital rights groups such as Access Now have come out to ask Google to revert its update. “Google has long claimed to support internet freedom around the world, and in many ways the company has been true to its beliefs,” said Nathan White of Access Now. “Allowing domain fronting has meant that potentially millions of people have been able to experience a freer internet and enjoy their human rights. We urge Google to remember its commitment to human rights and internet freedom and allow domain fronting to continue.”
“As a repository and organizer of the world’s information, Google sees the power of access to knowledge. Likewise, the company understands the many ingenious ways that people evade censors by piggybacking on its networks and services. There’s no ignorance excuse here: Google knows this block will levy immediate, adverse effects on human rights defenders, journalists, and others struggling to reach the open internet,” said Peter Micek, General Counsel at Access Now. “To issue this decision with a shrug of the shoulders, disclaiming responsibility, damages the company’s reputation and further fragments trust online broadly, for the foreseeable future.”
Lets bring the point back home, what doe this mean to Ugandans?
It means that using VPNS such as Psiphon that apply domain fronting to evade government Internet censorships will no longer work. We still can’t confirm how many VPNs use domain fronting. But for now, the Government should be smiling!
