Friend
Professional
- Messages
- 2,653
- Reaction score
- 850
- Points
- 113
With the rise of internet censorship, so does the need for powerful VPNs that can withstand tens of millions of users.
The White House met with representatives of major technology companies and civil society activists to discuss expanding access to U.S. government-funded circumvention tools.
In a meeting with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Cloudflare, the possibility of providing additional bandwidth for crawl tools that are supported by the Open Technology Fund (OTF) was discussed.
In recent years, the use of such tools has increased significantly in countries with strict censorship. OTF representatives have asked tech giants to help provide discounts or subsidies for the use of server capacity for VPN applications that are funded by the fund. OTF noted that the demand for VPNs is growing rapidly. The foundation used to support about 9 million VPN users per month, but now this number has increased 5 times.
VPNs help users hide their identities and change their geographic location, which allows them to bypass censorship and geo-restrictions imposed by governments. VPNs route internet traffic through external servers that are outside the control of states where access to the network is restricted.
OTF actively supports VPN services that are specifically designed to work in countries with limited internet access. Since 2022, the United States has increased funding for such tools through the Surge and Sustain Fund for Anti-Censorship Technology program.
However, despite the increased funding, OTF is facing difficulties in meeting the growing demand. The monthly number of users who access US-supported VPNs has already reached 46 million. However, a significant part of the fund's budget is spent on hosting and maintaining huge amounts of traffic on the servers of private companies.
Representatives of Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft have not yet commented on the results of the meeting. In turn, Cloudflare announced that it is collaborating with researchers to more thoroughly record Internet shutdowns and censorship cases.
Source
The White House met with representatives of major technology companies and civil society activists to discuss expanding access to U.S. government-funded circumvention tools.
In a meeting with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Cloudflare, the possibility of providing additional bandwidth for crawl tools that are supported by the Open Technology Fund (OTF) was discussed.
In recent years, the use of such tools has increased significantly in countries with strict censorship. OTF representatives have asked tech giants to help provide discounts or subsidies for the use of server capacity for VPN applications that are funded by the fund. OTF noted that the demand for VPNs is growing rapidly. The foundation used to support about 9 million VPN users per month, but now this number has increased 5 times.
VPNs help users hide their identities and change their geographic location, which allows them to bypass censorship and geo-restrictions imposed by governments. VPNs route internet traffic through external servers that are outside the control of states where access to the network is restricted.
OTF actively supports VPN services that are specifically designed to work in countries with limited internet access. Since 2022, the United States has increased funding for such tools through the Surge and Sustain Fund for Anti-Censorship Technology program.
However, despite the increased funding, OTF is facing difficulties in meeting the growing demand. The monthly number of users who access US-supported VPNs has already reached 46 million. However, a significant part of the fund's budget is spent on hosting and maintaining huge amounts of traffic on the servers of private companies.
Representatives of Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft have not yet commented on the results of the meeting. In turn, Cloudflare announced that it is collaborating with researchers to more thoroughly record Internet shutdowns and censorship cases.
Source
