Turkey citizens use VPN to air grievances

Byron Acohido | USA TODAY

In a repeat of a phenomenon that helped fuel the Arab Spring uprisings, citizen protestors in Turkey are using a free VPN service to thwart reported Internet censorship.

Over the weekend, some 120,000 people inside Turkey downloaded Hotspot Shield, a free mobile app supplied by U.S. vendor Anchorfree that sets up a VPN (virtual private network) linked up to the outside world.

Usually, the company sees about 10,000 new VPN sign ups per day from the nation of about 73 million, says David Gorodyansky, Anchorfree's founder and CEO.

On Saturday, TechCrunch reported that both Facebook and Twitter have been impossible to access from inside Instanbul and other areas of Turkey. This came amidst protests against restrictions on alcohol and other issues escalated into clashes with police, and increased use of Twitter and Facebook to rally the citizenry.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told France 24 that social media "is the worst menace to society" and called Twitter "a menace."

CyberTruth asked Anchorfree's Gorodyanksy to weigh in on how an encryption service has emerged as a tool to aid social protest.

CT: Has the use of VPN to get around government censorship ever happened before?

Gorodyanksy: Yes, protesters often flock to VPN's like Hotspot Shield during crackdowns, protests and government censorship. In fact during the Arab Spring we saw Hotspot Shield go from about 100,000 Egyptian users to more than 1 million users in just three days.

CT: So how did use of your technology go viral this past weekend in Turkey?

Gorodyanksy: Honestly, it's mostly word of mouth. We don't do anything special marketing-wise, but when people are fighting for their right to free information and government control, we don't have to. I'm just happy that we can help - I find it both really satisfying and humbling to enable Internet users to gain freedom to access all information online and are glad Hotspot Shield has played a role in global events by putting the user first.

CT: What's the key difference availability of private VPNs made in this particular set of circumstances in Turkey?

Gorodyanksy: VPNs probably helped in a variety of ways. It made the user private and anonymous so their activity could not be tracked. Users were routed through VPN servers in the US or other countries that might have helped route around local slowdowns and speed their access to social media. In the case of Hotspot Shield we also compress images and video so that would definitely have helped during the slowdown.

CT: To what degree is use of private VPN by individuals catching on in daily life?



Gorodyanksy: Privacy is going mainstream and people are starting to understand using a VPN is important. As internet usage has become more mobile, people have definitely become more aware that they leave themselves open to hacking and identity theft when using WiFi hotspots if they don't use a VPN. And recent reports show that many password protected home WiFi networks are vulnerable s well.

Also I think that the emergence of cloud computing has shifted the threat away from devices to internet browsing activity. People understand that anti-virus software is not enough anymore.

Furthermore users are extremely concerned in being tracked online. Microsoft has defaulted users in IE 10 into Do Not Track. Millions of users are relying on AnchorFree, Microsoft and others to provide them with simply to use tools to protect their privacy online. Hotspot Shield is one of the most effective ways to protect your privacy across both mobile and web.