If this is indeed a case of government-ordered censorship, it would not be the first time this has happened in Turkey. These same sources were also able to disclose that Proton Mail was swept up in a concerted action launched on March 12th, 2018 against a number of services, not just Proton Mail. However, Proton Mail users are everywhere in Turkey - some even work for Vodafone Turkey or the Turkish government - and we are working to escalate this behind the scenes to get approval for Proton Mail to be unblocked. We have contacted both Vodafone Group (the UK-based parent company) and Vodafone Turkey, but so far neither has commented on the incident. The type of DNS blocking that has been performed against Proton Mail very much fits the modus operandi of the Turkish government’s online censorship efforts. Turkish ISPs have even gone as far as to conduct local DNS poisoning (new window), and to intercept requests (new window) going to well-known DNS servers, such as Google’s public DNS server. In Turkey, DNS blocking is the predominant method of blocking (new window). As part of Proton Mail’s anti-censorship efforts (and as part of the work we do at Proton VPN, our free VPN service (new window)), we actively perform research on the censorship techniques used by different regimes.
This is consistent with how internet censorship is typically performed in Turkey.
Traceroutes from Turkey to our IP addresses were succeeding, but could not be resolved by carrier DNS servers. For the first time ever though, we have confirmed that Proton Mail was subject to a block, and could face further issues in the future.
Sometimes Proton Mail is accessible, and sometimes it is unreachable. Internet censorship in Turkey tends to be fluid so the situation is constantly evolving. After investigating the issue along with members of the Proton Mail community in Turkey, we have confirmed this is a government-ordered block rather than a technical glitch. Since then, we have also received some sporadic reports from users of other Turkish ISPs.Īt one point, the issue was prevalent in every single major city in Turkey. After further investigation, we determined that was unreachable for both Vodafone Turkey mobile and fixed line users. Our support team first became aware of connectivity problems for Turkish Proton Mail users starting on Tuesday. Here’s what we know so far, and some ways to bypass the block. We have confirmed that Internet service providers in Turkey have been blocking Proton Mail this week. UPDATE March 20, 2020: Users connected to Turkish Internet service providers can once again access Proton Mail. Last update on NovemPublished on March 15, 2018
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