Pakistan internet | internet firewall Pakistan | Pakistan wordoxi

 

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Pakistan internet

Pakistan interne are such disruptions have been partially blamed for accusations from rights groups that Pakistani authorities are deploying technology to observe and censor the country’s internet. When  a sense got that internet speeds in Pakistan internet, internet speed, speed boaster, Pakistan firewall, firewall internet  had slowed over recent days, he became apprehensive. Then he panicked. Websites that a Karachi-based freelance software designer uses to find work wouldn’t load. The ones he had created for clients were taking hours longer than usual to upload onto servers  if they managed to upload at all.

Clients sent the WhatsApp voice notes and photos that would not be download. A sketch of a clock at the bottom right of every image — the symbol that it had not yet been sent — almost seemed to taunt him.

“Forget bad for business; it’s a disaster,” said Naeem, 39, who asked that only his last name be used. He figures he has lost over half his roughly $4,000 monthly income so far. “Our work depends on fast, reliable internet.”

Main idea

Internet speed is slow due to the internet firewall Pakistan throughout Pakistan have come crashing to a crawl these past few days, setting the Twitter verse and Internet chat rooms ablaze with accusations of a secret government test run of a new, supposedly better firewall-type system to increase monitoring of and control over the Internet. The government, however, has rejected these claims. Holistically, internet speeds have become half of what they usually were. That is to say, the amount of time it used to take to upload a file is now doubled. Video conferencing and online calls are filled with frozen screens and delayed voices.

The Pakistan Software Houses Association, which represents the software industry in the country, said that it “strongly deplores the serious aftereffects of the highhandedness in implementing the national firewall,” cautioning Pakistan could lose up to $300 million because of the disruptions.

The Pakistan Freelancers Association said if continued, the problems will “result in a downgrading of Pakistan on the international freelancing boards – detrimental” to this nascent industry.

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Pakistani authorities said they were upgrading their systems to improve cybersecurity but said that government surveillance technology was not behind the disruption. Instead, they blamed it on the people’s heavy use of Virtual Private Networks, commonly known as VPNs, that strain the networks.

“The state has neither shut down nor throttled the internet,” said Shaza Fatima Khawaja, the state minister for information technology and telecommunication, at a news conference on Sunday. Ms. Khawaja said the government was consulting with technical experts and service providers to address the problem.

Digital research

Digital researchers and analysts, however, attributed the slow internet speeds to a reinforcement by the authorities to control the country’s digital space, which they said was increasingly constricting the room for free speech, as well as civil liberties, in an already fragile democracy.

They accuse the Pakistani authorities of deploying a new firewall-like system that is significantly more advanced than the web-monitoring system the government had in place, blocking certain websites and parts of the internet.aliiii

Analysts say the new technology lets them keep withholding access to parts of the internet, such as social media sites, and messenger and communication platforms, and further augments surveillance, control, and censorship of the digital space.

Usama Khhilji, director at Islamabad-based Bolo Bhi, said it appeared to allow the authorities to target and block specific people or groups of people, and block specific components of mobile applications such as voice notes, pictures, and videos on WhatsApp, and text messages and voice calls:.

Digital rights groups have raised an alarm that the system could ultimately give the authorities the power to trace messages from the phone or computer to their origins, as well as enable blocking content altogether. What has tied it up recently, some rights groups suspect, is that the new technology is not properly adapted to the infrastructure of Pakistan’s internet. However, when this speech was broadcast via viral videos on tik tok and shared in WhatsApp groups, a political awakening struck many people there who had never heard a politician challenge the military in this way before, and ignited the their base Mr. Khan is in prison on charges he says are politically motivated. The government is frustrated by its inability to counter Mr. Khan’s popularity,” said Muhammad, who asked that his last name be withheld for fear of government reprisals.  The army’s media and public relations department, Inter-Services Public Relations, has recruited senior officers to its ranks in the latter to combat the flood of anti-military. messages on social networks.

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Since May, military officials have spoken in press conferences and press releases about what they described in speeches as “digital terrorism,” vowing to fight suspected agents the military says are trying to sow the discord in the country. That rhetoric has raised concerns among human rights defenders and other activists, who fear the military plans to treat Pakistanis who post messages critical of the government on social media in the same way they treat militant groups that carry terrorist attacks against Pakistanis. This month, army chief General Asim Munir went further, declaring in a speech that there were restrictions on freedom of expression in Pakistan and accusing foreign elements of fueling “digital terrorism. “Those who seek to create a divide between state institutions and the people of Pakistan will not succeed,” General Munir warned on August 14 at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul.

Human rights groups and security analysts warned that such moves appeared to equate Mr Khan’s new political supporters with the threats faced by regional armed insurgent groups, including the Islamic State affiliate and the Pakistani Taliban, known as and T.T.P.”It is the nature of security states that governments use the label of terrorism against their political dissidents and use these anti-terror laws as a weapon against them,” said Abdul Basit, a researcher at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. . This “gives militant groups propaganda material that shows the state uses terrorism for political purposes and suppresses legitimate dissent,” he added. Salman Masood reported from Islamabad, Pakistan