Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Blocking and unblocking Signal in Egypt "Updated"

On Monday, Open Whisper System confirmed that its private messaging app "Signal" had been censored in Egypt after numerous reports over the weekend.
Signal app

Over this weekend users of Signal in Egypt "including myself" reported that they could not connect to Signal through major ISPs.

Personally, I did face this and I could not connect to Signal through Orange 3G and 4G networks as well through TEData, Egypt's main ISP.

According to reports, you can use the famous encrypted messaging service through VPN. On Monday, Open Whisper System confirmed that you can only access Signal through


Interestingly, the service would connect and disconnect throughout the weekend.
On Tuesday, the service is back again on TEData. I do not know what is really happening.

Updated on 23 December 2016 

Open Whisper System released a new version of Signal "3.25.3 for android" and "2.6.9" for iOS that added censorship circumvention for Signal users in Egypt and UAE "yes, it turned out Emirates blocked Signal as well"

Signal update
a screenshot from iOS update

Signal earned fame in Egypt when it was reported that Italian investigators used it to communicate with Rome during their first visit to Cairo to investigate Italian researcher Giulio Regeni's murder.
It is not a big secret that the security authorities in Egypt above them the ministry of interior monitor social networks after 2013.
Seems to me that encrypted Signal caught the attention of authorities and it was found that it could not be monitored easily, thus it was decided to block it altogether.
Great days indeed. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank You for your comment
Please keep it civilized here, racist and hateful comments are not accepted
The Comments in this blog with exclusion of the blog's owner does not represent the views of the blog's owner.