Iran fails to block Justin Bieber off Instagram

Iran’s so-called “smart filtering” system isn’t quite as smart as Iranian officials thought, as images
 belonging to some of the worlds biggest internet stars are flooding Instagram. Yes – now Iranians have the guilty pleasure of being able to drool, or gawk, at shirtless images of Justin Bieber’s ABsolutely fABulous six-pack, and lest we forget the woman who broke the internet, Kim Kardashian displaying her more than generous ASSets. Oh and there are some of Jennifer Lopez too!

Instagram accounts displaying saucy or risqué images were previously blocked in Iran, at least 983 according to a paper presented at a technology conference in Berlin recently. But now Iranians appear to be able to connect to them. This is likely due to Instagram encrypting connections between users’ devices and Instagram’s servers which has made it increasingly difficult for any third party (like Iran’s “smart filtering” system!) to tell which accounts users connect to. Much to the horror of Iranian hardline clerics, I’m sure!

Iran’s “smart filtering”, their pièce de résistance, allows officials to control what Iranians can and cannot access online. For example, they may want to censor certain pages on a website that the Islamic government considers immoral, not the entire site. However, Iran’s “smart filtering” has failed this time to block a number of Instagram accounts.

Iran’s country’s culture minister Ali Jannati admitted Sunday that they can no longer block or filter out immoral content from social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram due to technical and geographical capabilities. Great news!

Jannati told police commanders that “This government believes we cannot fight this technology en masse. It’s like blocking the entire highway for the violation of a few cars.”
The official number of Instagram users in Iran has not been released, however, Cafe Bazaar (a leading consumer internet company in Iran) says more than 6 million users have download the app – all now enjoying Bieber, Kardashian and Lopez!

Use a VPN to beat online censorship!
According to a study published by the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs, nearly 70% of Iranians, aged between 15 and 29, use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to bypass blocked websites such as Twitter (although President Hassan Rouhani is allowed to use it), YouTube and Facebook.

Planning a trip to Iran?  Or maybe you know someone in Iran who would benefit from using a VPN? Tell them about Hide My Ass! Pro VPN and help them to lift stupid blocks on websites.  Feel free to give them our email address: info@hidemyass.com and one of our support donkeys will be more than happy to help!

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How to stay anonymous online: 5 top tips

Want to know how to stay anonymous online? What are the best ways to stay anonymous online and
how can you keep snooping eyes off your online activities?
The world was abruptly woken to the fact of NSA’s mass surveillance of internet traffic thanks to Edward Snowden, and ever since that revelation more and more people around the world have expressed their concerns, frustrations and anger against this extreme, invasive spying technique.
But what are the best ways to help you stay anonymous online? Fortunately, there are many services and apps that will help you to stay secure online and allow you to surf the internet anonymously – stopping eyes from snooping on your online activities!

When the Snowden documents were released, it was revealed that the NSA had difficulty in cracking a number of services which offer encryption. Amongst these revelations was the NSA term “Level 5 catastrophic” which means that the NSA can’t break the encryption – yet!  his is a combination of CSpace, Tor and ZRTP and a anonymizing piece of technology like a VPN, meaning the NSA has “near-total loss/lack of insight to target communications,” according to Der Spiegel.

How to stay anonymous online – 5 tips to surf anonymously and stay anonymous online

1. Virtual Private Network (VPN)
Use a VPN and you’re in great company with millions of other security-conscious people around the world. When you connect to a VPN server, all of your traffic is encrypted, meaning anyone ‘listening in’ will be unable to decrypt or view data being sent, other than a string of meaningless characters. It’s a great piece of technology which will allow you surf anonymously, and stay anonymous online.

2. Dropbox
Now if Edward Snowden says “get rid of Dropbox” (he called the cloud storage system “hostile to privacy”), then I think that’s a good enough reason not to use it. If you do need to share files, try Spideroak which Snowden recommends.

3. Javascript
JavaScript is widely used across the web as its functionality allows the user to interact with websites in a fairly complex way. Use online banking? Facebook? or Google search? It’s a good bet there’s some Javascript running there somewhere. The problem is not with Javascript itself, but how attackers can hijack vulnerabilities in the browser and get Javascript code to do things it’s not meant to, like send you off to a malicious website and install malware and keyloggers. While disabling Javascript completely could be argued as the best option for the security-conscious, it does reduce the level of internet functionally available to the user.  A compromise would be to install NoScript which allows you to disable any running scripts (Java, Flash, etc.) on websites you don’t trust, and whitelist the ones you do. While this won’t encrypt your data, it will potentially stop any harmful code running on your computer.

4. Incognito mode
We recently explained how to use incognito mode on Safari, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. Using incognito mode and clearing cached browsing data stops websites from being able to track you, to an extent. When you use incognito mode your browser, for example Safari, will not store cookies or temporary internet files, and so while this feature will not make you anonymous or encrypt your data, it will help to stop a casual observer from finding out what you’ve been up to online.

5. CSpace
While most people may use Facebook chat or Skype to communicate with friends, it’s long been known that these services can be, and are, intercepted on a regular basis. A more secure service is CSpace, which is an open-source encrypted chat service which allows people to communicate safely and securely, as well as transfer files.
Staying anonymous online isn’t hard to achieve – look out for our next 5 tips on how to stay anonymous online!

More information about HMA! Pro VPN can be found on our website.

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Singapore shoppers – secure your device with a VPN

Increasing numbers of shoppers in Singapore are turning to the internet to purchase goods and
services, and more and more consumers are placing orders using their smartphone or tablet. But what about security risks? Well, good news because secure online shopping in Singapore is possible – continue reading to find out how!


The tide is turning for shoppers in Singapore, who are ditching the department store in favour of scouring the millions of online retailers to save money, especially on luxury goods and services, and often buying in bulk. Air tickets, accommodation and cinema tickets are some of the most popular transactions.

According to a study by Visa around 47 per cent of consumers used their smartphone to place an order online over the last six months, with this figure set to rise to 53 per cent next year. Shoppers in Singapore using their smartphone or tablet are expected to exceed PC and laptop usage by 6 per cent over the next year, with tablet use growing to 29 per cent, and mobile phones by 24 per cent.
Visa’s Country Manager Brunei Ooi Huey Tyng said “Singaporean consumers are increasingly comfortable making purchases and payments with their mobile devices, and we expect this trend to continue.”

Online security concerns
With growing number of shoppers in Singapore using their smartphones or tablets to shop online come security concerns, data breaches, and also the worry of their personal and confidential information, such as banking usernames and passwords falling into the wrong hands. A study by GFK found that 57 per cent of respondents were fearful that their financial data could fall into the hands of attackers and cyber criminals and 20 per cent were uneasy about sharing their credit card details with online retailers.

Secure online shopping in Singapore – use a VPN!
To terminate online security risks, one of the best tools shoppers in Singapore (or anywhere else), can use to protect their personal data on their smartphone or tablet from getting into the wrong hands is to use a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN adds a solid layer of security to your device, especially when using free public Wi-Fi to purchase goods online. This is because public Wi-Fi doesn’t give any encryption security, which makes it very easy for cybercriminals or attackers (or even a 7-year old schoolgirl) to swiftly hack into your device and steal your valuable personal information. Using a VPN on your smartphone, tablet or PC will stop them dead in their tracks, because a VPN encrypts all your data over the internet, so they won’t be able to decipher the data on your phone.

To learn more about staying safe online, check our Wi-Fi safety tips.
HMA! Pro VPN can help you to safeguard your valuable personal data when using public Wi-Fi hotspots, bypass government internet blocks, and also allows you to access TV shows from any country. Check out our list of VPN servers, and for Singapore shoppers – we have a handy VPN server in Singapore!

And don’t forget read Hide My Ass! reviews to see what our customers have to say about us!

Happy (safe) online shopping!

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Hide My Ass! Interviews Tamas Bodoky

On March 18th 2015, Index on Censorship hosted its yearly Freedom of Expression Awards. The event recognises individuals and groups whose impact on tackling censorship worldwide is paramount. Privax had the honour of sponsoring the Freedom of Expression Awards. In addition, we were pleased to give the winners digital security training that will help them bypass surveillance and censorship measures wherever they are.

More often than not the stories behind those extraordinary individuals escape the mainstream press in favour of bigger headlines. One such story is about Tamas Bodoky, winner of the 2015 Digital Activism Award. Bodoky is the editor in chief and founder of atlatszo.hu, a watchdog NGO and investigative journalism website that has rocked the Hungarian government with its breaking stories. Atlatszo–the name means “transparent”–specializes in investigative journalism and advocating information access. Its Facebook page has over 62,000 fans and their website receives more than 300,000 unique visitors a month. Due to the secretive nature of Hungarian politics, Atlatszo has spearheaded Freedom of Information (FOI) requests in the country. It has handled over 5000 requests; filing more than 100 court applications of this nature and winning 60% of them. As a result, the governing majority introduced a bill to curtail FOI legislation which was dubbed ‘Lex Atlatszo’.


Atlatszo’s first legal achievement was to get reporters’ privilege, the journalists’ right to withhold the identity of confidential sources recognized by the media law of Hungary. Among their other achievements is a Crowdsourced Bribe Tracker; an online tool for average citizens to report their experiences of everyday corruption by providing details of the time, place and amount of a witnessed bribe.

After the Freedom of Expression Awards, I had a unique opportunity to speak to Tamas Bodoky and shed light on the website’s beginning, its goals and outlook for the future.

Mahmoud Hamdy: How would you describe Atlatszo?
Tamas Bodoky: Atlatszo.hu is a watchdog NGO and online news site for investigative journalism to promote transparency and freedom of information in Hungary. It produces investigative reports, accepts information from whistleblowers, files freedom of information requests, and commences freedom of information lawsuits in cases where its requests are refused. Atlatszo.hu operates a Tor-based anonymous whistleblowing platform (Magyarleaks), a freedom of information request generator for the general public (Kimittud), and a crowdsourced platform to report everyday corruption anonymously (Fizettem).

MH: When and why did you start Atlatszo?
TB: We started atlatszo.hu in 2011, because we think that mainstream media became biased in Hungary. In the past decade mainstream media in Hungary has become a tool of political and economic interest groups, and it is often not the journalists, but the owners of the media and politicians who decide what can be published, and what can become an issue in a publication. The result is a very limited freedom of the press in Hungary. There are many taboos, many important stories remain untold, and numerous corruption cases go undisclosed, even if there are whistleblowers and they have evidence.

MH: How are you funded?
TB: 50% crowdfunding with small donations and “subscriptions” of 3 EUR a month. 50% big international donors like the Open Society Foundations, Norway NGO Fund, Fritt Ord.
MH: How important is unrestricted internet access to you?
TB: Very important, this is an entirely internet based organisation.We are aware of increasing state surveillance of the internet, what makes us worry, especially regarding source protection, since we communicate with some of our sources online.

MH: For a bit of a local context, can you please tell us how difficult is it to publish critical stories in mainstream domestic media? And, which ones had Atlatszo published that gained most attention?
TB: The first problem is that mainstream media is lacking the resources to do journalistic research. If that is done by someone else – like atlatszo.hu or investigative journalists working elsewhere – mainstream media might pick up the story. This is happening very often to us, the most important pieces being about how the political elite or the friends and family of the prime minister are directing public funds into private enterprises via hijacked public tenders. For individual stories visit their website.

MH: How have the people reacted in Hungary after you published controversial stories such as state control of the media?
TB: Hungary is deeply divided politically, some people become our fans, others are smearing us, depending on their political standpoint. It is hard to have a rational discussion about facts in Hungary, everything is over-politicized.

MH: Have you had any pressure from local and/or regional authorities?
TB: We experienced a smear campaign calling us foreign agents and even traitors by the government funded media, and one of our institutional donors, the local Norway NGO Fund was scrutinized by the authorities.

MH: What is the main criticism that you have faced in the past?
TB: Being politically biased or serving the political opposition. This is not the case, we regularly publish stories on the left-liberal parties and politicians wrongdoings. However, since the conservatives are in power, most of our stories cover governmental corruption. Nowadays it is mostly the foreign funding, what gets criticized.

MH: How do you deal with this criticism?
TB: About being politically biased: we communicate about our past work under the socialist governments of the past, when our journalists, including myself, did expose that governments corruption as well. About foreign funding: first we made jokes about it, like the infamous “Soros Army” T-shirts. At the same time we speeded up our crowdfunding campaigns to reach more than 50% crowdfunding, what we successfully achieved last year. That means we have a local constituency willing to pay for our free content, we have thousands of committed local supporters.

MH: Have your stories resulted in policy change in on the EU level?/ Did someone reach out to you from Brussels for more insight on some of the big stories you’ve unearthed?
TB: We know from sources that we are noticed and have an informal impact on the EU level, but we are not aware of any formal policy changes, and we don’t have formal contacts in Brussels. However, our stories sometimes trigger investigations on the EU level as well, as it happened in the case of PM Viktor Orbán’s son in law, whose company won huge amounts of EU funds on hijacked public tenders.


MH: What is next for you?
TB: I am dedicated to run the org and stabilize or even increase funding at the current, 200,000 USD per year level. We intend to raise the percentage of crowdfunding and other incomes to 70%, and reduce OSF funding to 30% in order to avoid donor-dependence and legitimacy issues. We wish to attract more and more experienced investigative journalists to work with us, to increase the number of readers, have more impact on public life in Hungary.

12 Eurovision facts and figures

Fancy reading some Eurovision facts? Of course, you do! The Eurovision Song Contest 2015 airs this
Saturday in Vienna, Austria and is expected to draw in a staggering 180 million viewers around the globe. With songs and many zany acts that will make you cringe, cry and laugh, to politically biased voting to “nul points” we take a look at 12 essential Eurovision facts. Oh and we’ve also thrown in some super funny misheard lyric videos including “Gimme Gimme your tar” to boot!


12 Eurovision Facts to whet your appetite!
1. The first Eurovision Song Contest took place in Lugano, Switzerland on the 24th May, 1956.

2. Eurovision welcomes Australia for the first time this year, however don’t expect to see them in future contests as this is a one-off deal to celebrate 60 years of Eurovision.

3. Many believe that Eurovision should only be open to European countries causing a many to debate why Morocco, Turkey and Israel are allowed to join in all the fun – well it’s because the song contest is broadcast on the Eurovision TV Network – it’s not just for Europeans.

4. Ireland has won the Eurovision Song Contest an incredible seven times, with Johnny Logan winning it two times in 1980 and in 1987. He also composed a winning song in 1992.

5. Staying on the Irish theme …Riverdance first burst onto our TV screens when the contested was hosted in Dublin in 1994 during the interval. Eurovision has a lot to answer for!  “Flatly my dear i don’t riverdance”

6. If you, like myself have been saying “nul points” for many decades, well we are all wrong, wrong, wrong!  It’s never been used – it’s actually “pas de points” or “zero point”. But I’m going to continue saying “nul points!”  Norway is the winner for the country which has received the most zeros – in 1963, 1978, 1981 and in 1997, and has also finished last eleven times! However, Norway has also won the contest three times, in 1985, 1995 and 2009.

7. Over 1,400 songs have been sung (and wailed), in the Eurovision Song contest to date.
8. The first transgender winner was Dana International who represented Israel in 1998. Conchita Wurst won the contest in 2014 with “Rise like a Phoenix” – in case you forgot!

9. The most successful Eurovision Song Contest winner is of course ABBA with “Waterloo” in 1974. However, one country, the United Kingdom gave them “Nul Points.”

10. In 1957 Britain’s hopeful Patricia Bredin performed the shortest song in Eurovision history, with “All” – a poultry one minute and 52 seconds. The rules now stipulate that all Eurovision songs must be longer than three minutes.

11. Songs sung in English appear to put Eurovision contenders on the right track to stardom. Twenty-two winnings songs have been sung in English, while songs sung in French have won 14 times. Ooh la la.

12. While you may think that the oldest winner of Eurovision was Englebert Humperdink – 78, the oldest entry was 95-year old Emil Ramsauer from Switzerland in 2013. The youngest Eurovision entrant was Sandra Kim, 13 who won the contest in 1986.

And there you have it – 12 Eurovision facts. Who will win Eurovision 2015 – well, we don’t have long to find out. I can barely contain my excitement!

As promised, and with only 4 days to go until the Eurovision final takes place, take a look at this misheard lyric video. Enjoy!

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ISPs to spy on Pakistani internet users

Internet freedom in Pakistan is threatened by a new bill, the Pakistan Prevention of Electronic Crimes 
Act 2015, which will force ISPs to spy on their customers.  The bill was recently passed by a National Assembly and will now be debated in parliament before becoming law.

The new law would further clamp down on Pakistani’s fundamental human rights to freedom of speech and expression, plunging Pakistan deeper into the realms of state censorship, matching existing oppression evident in many countries including and China, North Korea, and Russia which recently banned memes mocking public figures – mostly those of President Vladimir Putin. This new law replaces the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Ordinance in November 2009 which at the time, wasn’t a top priority for the government.


Pakistan, which already censors the internet by enforcing the country’s strict anti-blasphemy, anti-pornography and anti-government rules, has yet to confirm who will oversee this new law, and how it will be implemented.

The Pakistan Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2015 bill includes new regulations which will not only criminalise users for everyday actions that so many us take for granted, but also places all internet users in Pakistan under mass digital surveillance:

• It will be criminal offence to own and operate online accounts on social media platforms in another person’s name
• Online users face jail sentences of up to three years and a huge fine ($9,800) for sharing fake information that “is likely to harm or intimidate the reputation or privacy of a [person]”
• Under the Pakistan Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2015 bill, ISPs will be forced to spy on their customers and keep all user metadata for a year

Pakistan is certainly no stranger to internet censorship. In September 2012 Pakistan banned YouTube after the social media channel failed to remove the trailer “The Innocence of Muslims”, that caused violent protests in Pakistan, and the Islamic world. While the ban on YouTube was supposed to be temporary, the block on Youtube remains three years on.

Threatening netizens with imprisonment and fines of up to $9,800 (the average yearly salary in Pakistan is around $3,060 PPP) is a strategic, manipulative move to control users to comply with this draconian law.

How to beat internet censorship!
Beating internet censorship is what we at Hide My Ass! do. We help hundreds of thousands of users around the globe access a free and open internet using our VPN software. A VPN is the best tool you can use to stop snooping governments, and thwart attackers and other third parties from accessing your personal information. When you connect to any one of our VPN servers (we have a handy VPN server in Karachi, Pakistan!), your real location and identity is hidden, allowing you to surf the net anonymously and securely.

Visit our main website for more information, or drop us an email!

What do you think about the Pakistan Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2015 bill? Do you think it’s right to force ISPs to spy on their customers?

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Is your boss watching you 24/7?

Does the company you work for track your every move even AFTER you’ve left the office for the
day? If your company has provided you with a work phone, then it’s quite possible they’re spying on you!  A mobile app that is used by many companies to monitor and track their employees in the field has propelled one company, Intermex, into the spotlight by allegedly breaching one employee’s right to privacy.


Former employee at Intermex, Myrna Arias, is suing the money transfer company for violating her privacy and wrongful termination after she was fired for uninstalling the app, Xora Streetsmart, which the company supposedly asked her to download onto her work phone so they could track and monitor her movements.

According to Arias, her boss John Stubits “bragged that he knew how fast she was driving” and that he “made it clear that he was using the program to continuously monitor her, during company as well as personal time.”

According to the complaint, Arias was required to keep her work phone on all day – 24 hours, 7 days a week in order to take client calls.

The app, Xora, has GPS capability which, of course, has been around for years. The app is used by companies whose employees work off site, for example, FedEx drivers to ensure that they are taking the quickest routes, and not slacking off.

Speaking to The Washington Post, Jay Stanley from the American Civil Liberties Union said “Employers have legitimate reasons for monitoring their workers, but all too often we that that kind of tracking spilling over into the private parts of their lives.”

Do you think it’s right for any company to track and monitor its employees 24/7? Surely this encroaches employees’ right to privacy?

Arias had no objection to being monitored during work hours but is now seeking damages of $500,000 for loss of earnings and damages for invasion of privacy.

Is there nothing that doesn’t track and monitor our every move, entice us with tasty treats, offer us huge savings in exchange for our data? It’s all so Orwellian!


Just when you think you’ve left the office for the day, the office follows you – from dusk to dawn! There’s nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide!

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