Protonmail added support for TOR this week but that can't be it
United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
11–20 of 78 posts
Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#12It must be something that was posted on hacker news lately!
Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#13Did they block pr0n there?
Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#14Could this be a result of the articles about a "backdoor" in whatsapp?
I don't think so. The news about WhatsApp supposed backdoor was published on the 13th: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/13/whatsapp-...
and the uptick of UAE users began around the 15th and the 16th: https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?... Wouldn't there have been a more direct correlation between the 13th and the numbers of users?
Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#15Could this be a result of the articles about a "backdoor" in whatsapp?
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Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#16Did they block pr0n there?
Even Skype was blocked in Abu Dhabi last time I was there.
Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#17I can't find anything blatant in the news that would explain something like this, especially of this magnitude. I think it might be a botnet or something similar, although that's just conjecture at this point.
It roughly coincides with news about WhatsApp and the U.S. inauguration. Both seem vaguely relevant but not very compelling or explanatory.
Why would a botnet be so centralized in the UAE? Seems like the opposite of what you'd want if you could help it, so maybe they can't help it?
Some kind of state-sponsored test/attack against the Tor network seems like the best explanation to me.
Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#18The same graph with censorship events on: https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?...
Just on the start the spike, there are many events. Though I don't know how to find information on those events.
Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#19First thing that came to my mind was a botnet; it would be one of the easiest ways to get a huge spike in Tor usage, I'd think.
Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days
#20This also happened in Tunisia in 2013 [0]. We believe that it was a bot. [1]
[0] : http://imgur.com/a/mjYsP
[1] : http://gizmodo.com/the-anonymous-internet-is-under-attack-12...