So around mid day on Tuesday the 15th the whole of Zimbabwe was cut off from the internet. The government directed all internet service providers to flip the switch to off. They wanted to stop the flow of information amidst protests that had turned violent.
Not all the internet went off all at once though. Econet and TelOne were the first to throw the switch but by 1 o’clock most service providers had made the internet inaccessible. Utande customers still had internet though. They were affected by the blackout for far fewer hours than the rest of the country.
What happened?
Normally Utande uses Liquid Telecom to route its traffic. It looks like below:
However soon after Liquid Telecom switched off, Utande was now sending traffic through EASSy Cable instead of the normal route through Liquid Fibre. It looked like below:
Most likely an automated mistake
This most likely happened as an automated response to the sudden close down by Liquid Telecom. This was a built in redundancy switch we suppose. It probably happens automatically when Liquid the primary route for Utande traffic goes offline for any reason.
In this case the auto-response saved the Utande customers a couple of hours of darkness. Eventually the Utande customers were switched off too but who doesn’t envy them for the extra hours of sunshine they enjoyed while everyone else was languishing in stone age.
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Hello My Beloved Zimbabweans.
My Name is *@* *Scvliq* Name Encypted with Online Ciphers.I work for a network provider company here in Zimbabwe- ~company not mentioned for privacy reasons~ . I am also a Member of the *Level_IV Hackers ZW*, which is a group of International ethical hackers from all over the world. I Know most of us had problems in accessing their social media Accounts Like *WhatsApp, Facebook and other Social Media Platforms*.
This sounded and still sounds so unfair not only to someone who wanted to announce death, an accident or someone who needed emergency medical help and this has led to a significant loss to some of the people who have online businesses. First of all on behalf of all network providers in Zimbabwe [ Econet, Telecel , Netone and Africom] I would like to apologise for the poor or no broadband services, this was beyond the control of all these network providers. Today the network services has been blocked from the common social media sites ,but there are a lot of solutions to that please share the solutions , everywhere to help others.
Please Share this Message with others , just in case it happens again , and someone will be In serious need of help through WhatsApp, You Might Help.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=free.vpn.unblock.proxy.turbovpn
Before I tell you how to Access your WhatsApp and Facebook even when you are stopped from accessing your accounts, I will explain the ways in which you can be blocked from accessing your *Social Media Accounts*
1. Network Services Providers[ Econet , Telecel , Netone and Africom] May stop Your Broadband, this will lead to a serious network problem in accessing all internet services, this is the easiest method Network Service Providers can use,
2. Network providers can block only the social Media Sites that they don’t want you to access, for example they can block you from accessing http://www.whatsapp.com or http://www.facebook.com this will take them sometime and is hard to restore as compared to method 1.
3. They can talk to the owners of the social Media Platforms like WhatsApp to block users from a specific region, this requires more and strong ethical hacking techniques that can be by passed by browsers like TOR websites. This is the last Option.
Now I am going to explain how you can overcome all these and start accessing your accounts even when you are not allowed to
1. If you are privileged that you have WIFI, then nothing will stop you from accessing your Social Media Account Except option III above which is very complicated.
2. The second method you can use to access blocked sites id using the ping function. Open cmd and type ping followed by the name of the website e.g. ping http://www.facebook .com
3. Use Virtual Private Network Applications Like *OPERA VPN*, Tubo VPN.VPN Connect Or any other VPN applications but before you use this vpn make sure your APN is set correctly , set apn as econet.net for econet, prox: 80, port: 8080 MCC:648 MNC: 04 , telecel.net for telecel and netone.net for net one.. A VPN Application Fakes location or tells a fake location therefore you can fake your location then activate roaming this will deceive your network service provider that you are not in the specified range then *BOOM*, you’ll be using WhatsApp, Facebook and all your social Media Accounts.
4. This Method should be your last option, please pay special attention to the steps when doing this method.
i. Download and or Install VPN into your android mobile
ii. Only for Android Users Go to Settings>> about Phone
iii. Tap Build Number 7 times and you’ll enter developer mode , go back to settings and look for developer options >> mock locations; then put OPERA VPN as the default mock locations app and you are ready to go, open opera VPN and change your location activate roaming , you’ll be ready to go.
Thank you so much for taking time to read this, with hope that our country is going to be well very soon. Please share with others, you might help someone. *PLEASE SHARE, SHARING IS CARING!!!!*
Thanks for sharing…let no single individual or political party or organisation hold everyone to ransom for their own selfish narrow-mindedness, narrow interest or shackled to a very narrow view. The world is much bigger than that individual, party or organisation.
The VPN method works for those who have browsing bundles or WIFI, but for most of Zimbabweans they use specific bundles e,g Whatsapp+Twitter etc.
Thats why the blocking of social media is currently successful!!