Internet shutdowns are a frequent occurrence
It is hard for most of the readers of this article to imagine being disconnected from the internet for even one minute. Every time that we are unwillingly removed from global communications, be it a WiFi failure at home or a visit to an area with poor mobile internet coverage, it is painful and memorable.
Yet government-induced shutdowns, in which hundreds of thousands of people are purposefully cut away from the internet, happen daily all over the globe. AccessNow and the #KeepInOn coalition estimate that in 2020 there were at least 155 internet shutdowns in 29 countries. And 2022 saw high-profile shutdown events in Iran, the Tigray province of Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and other locations.
As a rule, more technically sophisticated regimes such as China or Russia choose selective censorship, restricting access to some content and communications while keeping the internet functioning for the apolitical consumer. Regimes without long-term censorship plans, meanwhile, resort to brute-force shutdowns. Shutdowns are also used as part of war tactics, when the entire populations are punished for supporting a force hostile to a government. This was the case with the shutdowns in Sri Lanka, Tigray and Ukraine.
NewNode technology: a grassroots peer-to-peer physical network
While shutdowns will severely impact connectivity that people rely on, it doesn’t have to mean a total loss of connectivity. This is where NewNode peer-to-peer technology comes in.
NewNode itself is a mobile messenger, and NewNode VPN is a mobile VPN app. Both rely on the NewNode protocol. Other apps, too, make use of the NewNode protocol — which can be built into apps with NewNode Kit, an SDK.
The NewNode protocol is a peer-to-peer protocol: all devices that use it are peers. The core idea behind the NewNode protocol is the use of local radio (Bluetooth, WiFi) for device-to-device communication, and chaining such communications so that each peer is not only a client but also a network router. The more peers there are, the bigger the network is, and the better the bandwidth is. With this method, peer-based networks appear wherever there is a sufficient number of NewNode users. Such networks do not depend on any major network infrastructure; they will work in the desert or on a small island in the middle of the ocean.
Various NewNode-enabled apps (NewNode itself, NewNode VPN and NewNode Kit-enabled third-party apps) all participate in this ad hoc network equally, improving connectivity for all users.
The NewNode protocol is also designed to find a path to a resource even if it is unavailable directly. The logic is: if the phone doesn’t have access to a resource, it finds another peer on the NewNode network which does, and gets data from this second device by using it as a proxy server.
NewNode technology during shutdowns
There are five ways that NewNode’s solutions help to partly restore connectivity during shutdowns.
- Local messaging. All participants in the local NewNode network can communicate with one another. The main use case here is messaging, by using NewNode, the mobile messenger.
- Sharing connections to the internet. If one of the peers has internet access (for example if one of the phones in a crowd has a satellite connection), it becomes a gateway for other peers who don’t. This way such a peer becomes a gateway for the entire network. This works for all NewNode-enabled products.
- Sharing connections to local servers. Similarly, if the peer has access to a local network (for example to a WiFi network), every resource on that network, even if it’s not NewNode-enabled, becomes accessible to other peers. In this manner a local news server can become accessible to the entire peer-to-peer network. This can be realized with NewNode VPN or NewNode Kit-enabled apps.
- Bypassing censorship. If the shutdown is not complete and some parts of the consumer internet remain active, NewNode can route around the censorship blocks. NewNode traffic looks to the censors as plain HTTPS, and there are no “server” IP addresses or URLs that can be blocked. This works for all NewNode-enabled products.
- Data ferries. Peers on the NewNode network have a caching function. This means that if one of the peers successfully accessed a URL previously, data cached on this peer will become available to the whole peer-to-peer network. An example of this is if a user traveled outside the shutdown zone, read a news article, and then moved back into the shutdown zone and into the peer-to-peer network. In that case, the news article that they read outside will be available to everyone else in the peer-to-peer network. Again, this works for all NewNode-enabled products.
NewNode in action
NewNode products are fairly new, but have already proven themselves useful in the field in situations of Internet shutdowns and censorship.
In Iran, where these products are especially popular, there’s been a spike in downloads of NewNode VPN since protests started on September 20, 2022, and the government initiated an internet shutdown:
with NewNode (the messenger) following a similar pattern
NewNode Kit is used by a number of content apps, largely in order to avoid censorship blocks, although as a result these apps also become shutdown resistant.These apps include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, The Navalny App, Meduza, USAGM, and others.
NewNode VPN saw another uptick during the 2020 protests in Belarus, when over 800K users signed up within one month.
How you can help
We know that most readers of our content are tech savvy but also passionate about freedom from government oppression, including internet freedom. Our mission is to provide internet connectivity to people around the world, including people suffering from internet censorship and shutdowns.
We believe we have the right tools, but we also need your help!
- Download and test NewNode and NewNode VPN.
- If you are satisfied with how it works - tell your friends about it. Especially those friends who live in countries and regions at risk of Internet shutdowns. We would also love to hear your success stories.
- If you find issues with our products - tell us about them.
- Keep NewNode products on your phone, even if you live in a place where you don’t fear government-led shutdowns. Shutdowns can also result from weather and unexpected network malfunctions. NewNode is an emergency tool — it’s good to have it just in case.
- Keep your phone switched on during emergencies, even if there’s no network. NewNode relies on peer devices; you may help a neighbor by providing network access.