2012 ~ In March 2012, the Pakistan government took the unusual step of touting for firms that could help build it a nationwide content-filtering service. They wanted to use china like firewall. The official document has been taken down but internet never forgets. source
2018 ~ A document came to light, with inbox business technologies ltd., Official partner of sandvine in Pakistan, to implement censorship tools across Pakistan. The deal was done in $18.5 Million. Source
2020 ~ Pakistan asks citizens to register their vpns or get their ips banned. Source
2020 ~ They asked international corporations to setup ofrices in Pakistan and deilver a backgate to Access users perianal data on demand. Corporations redused, and threatened to stop its operations completely. They caved. source
2024 ~ Twitter/X ban. Source
2024 ~ A bill has been proposed to ban VPN all together due to security risks. Source
Present and Future projections:
It was a longtime comming and no one could’ve stopped it. I know I may get hate for this but yes, IK’s government was one of the leading time where they activily worked to get censorship amomg all channels.
You’re underestimating the the power of tech they have, they are in the initial stage of trial and error. The tech implemented can ban every vpn on earth and you can’t do shit about it. Twitter/X ban will be followed by other social media platforms ban as they have refused to cooperate with local authorities in the past.
Sandvine is already in deep waters and a controversial company internationally, they are not to be underestimated.
If you’re a gamer or do p2p networking and know how to see packet losses, just look at the data and see how abnormal it is. The first phase is going to be completed in the coming months. By the end of the year, you can on only access parts of internet, which higher ups allowed you to do.
There are still ways around to have private traffic and I cannot state ways to do it here, due to bad actors on Reddit. This is the time to do your research, there’s gold mine out there, you just need to use your head and google.
Coming times are only going to get worse, there’s nothing you can do about it rather than protest, which people can’t do because there are other more pressing things going around the country. The least you can do is call out local actors implementing the sandvines deep packet system here.
Get that Visa, gtfo if you’re remotely involved in the corporate sector.
