Press Release

Keeping Ukrainians online during electricity outages

Montreal, Canada
December 26, 2022
Press release

Canadian support from eQualitie allows hundreds of thousands of Internet users in Ukraine to stay connected

Canadian Technology Organization eQualitie, in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, DEPS UA, and the Association of “Right Owners and Providers of Content”, supplied 29 Ukrainian ISPs with 172 SBL 135-12HR batteries to power the providers’ fiber optic network during power outages.

A cargo weighing 6,600 kg as humanitarian aid arrived in Ukraine from Poland, where eQualitie purchased a series of  batteries donated for Ukrainian ISPs. Each battery weighing 38 kg will be installed on the fibre optic and distribution networks of local Internet providers, allowing them to power their networks for an additional 10-12 hours through the electricity outages. This batch of donations has a total capacity of 20,640 Amps or 247 kWh. – helping more Ukrainians access the Internet without interruption. 

Distribution of batteries is based on a needs assessment conducted by eQualitie together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. The stated needs were to bring batteries for regions most affected by Russian aggression – Chernihiv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, Sumy, etc.

This support became possible due to the efforts and commitments of the Canadian government, taking place within the framework of the project “Digital Emergency Support of Civil Society in Ukraine”, implemented by eQualitie together with the NGO “Internews Ukraine”. Internet Service Providers are among the project’s key recipients, – supporting their efforts in providing Internet and communication services to the public.

Whilst the Ukrainian Internet has shown great resilience during this conflict, it is essentially another civic utility reliant on electricity. Internet access has provided a communications and an information lifeline for so many over the last eleven months. In the conditions of constant Russian shelling of the critical infrastructure of Ukraine, and as a result – power outages, the work of providers becomes even more difficult. We note the significant efforts of Ukrainian providers to restore the infrastructure damaged during the war in order and hope that our small contribution will allow hundreds of thousands of people get reliable access to the Internet” notes Dmitri Vitaliev, eQualitie’s director.

With the first shipment of batteries, eQualitie joins the international campaign “Keep Ukraine Connected” by NOG Alliance as an initiative of international assistance with equipment for Ukrainian ISPs. In January, eQualitie plans to purchase and bring additional batteries to Ukraine.

Beyond the supply of batteries, in Ukraine eQualitie protects the websites of Ukrainian media and CSOs from DDoS attacks by means of its own infrastructure called Deflect.ca. Also, the organization helps users in the temporarily occupied territories access a free Internet, with the CENO browser software, an Android application that helps them evade Russian censorship. At the very beginning of the conflict, eQualitie launched a decentralized communications project in Ukraine https://dcomm.net.ua/ with 10 regional locations for Ukrainian users to chat using the secure Matrix system and communicate on the Mastodon social network.

For media inquiries, please, contact Vitalii Moroz at vitaliy@equalitie.org 

eQualitie creates decentralized internet services in support of a more equal and equitable network. Our solutions are open source, battle proven and developed in mind of our principles. Everyday, they enable freedom of association for millions of people online.

Read More

eQualitie launches CENO, world’s first decentralized p2p mobile browser

Share the web, peer-to-peer. CENO.

CENO Browser lets anyone access and share information in areas with censored communications

Montreal, May 10, 2022 – eQualitie, developer of open-source and reusable digital security systems, is pleased to announce the public launch of its newest democratization tool, CENO Browser. Short for censorship.no, CENO is the world’s first mobile browser that is built specifically to side-step current Internet censorship methods. It also enables people to access and share information in and across regions where connectivity has been interrupted or compromised.

CENO uses established technologies in new ways. While the user experience is akin to using a standard mobile browser, CENO operates over a peer-to-peer (p2p) network on the open-source Ouinet library and BitTorrent protocols, allowing it to run reliably where other browsers might not or do not. Because the web content is delivered, cached and decentralized via p2p routing, it cannot be forcibly removed by external agents. Furthermore, CENO is equipped to access and share cached content offline and via local area networks (LANs). CENO’s resiliency makes it ideal for those who need stable access to and sharing capabilities of web information during media censorship events, filtering, attacks, shutdowns, natural disruptions, unrest, conflict and war. CENO’s routing and distribution can also significantly reduce bandwidth consumption and associated costs.

“CENO holds great promise and launches at an opportune time for those engaged in democracy movements and activities,” says Dmitri Vitaliev, founder and director of eQualitie. “It is already helping thousands of civilians, NGOs, investigative journalists and independent media internationally to share information on their mobile devices.”

View the press release in full

Download CENO Browser from the Playstore

The Censorship.no project on Github

 

Read More

eQualitie’s position on the war in Ukraine

український / русский / english / français /

Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants’ blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.

Testament, Taras Shevchenko, 1845
(translated by John Weir)

For ten years eQualitie has stood firmly in defence of digital human rights. Throughout this time, we strive to create technology and offer services that protect freedom of expression and association online. To help us stay balanced in achieving this mission we have purposely stayed out of politics, debates or public declarations.

But, as the Russian army is invading and destroying Ukrainian cities, killing innocent civilians and hiding the truth from its own population – we choose to stand with Ukrainians who are defending their homes and families. We mourn the lives already lost and the destruction of Ukrainian cities and its cultural heritage. We also choose to stand with Russian anti-war protesters , arrested in their thousands for trying to stop the annihilation of morality in their country. This is an international struggle for human dignity, freedom and the right to life.

To this effect, we have launched technical and capacity building efforts focused on supporting Ukrainian civil society and territorial defences, as well as supporting activities in Russia that preserve online communities and those challenging the war efforts. Some of this work has already begun:

Why now? Simply because maintaining our neutrality will not sufficiently address the injustice and undue suffering caused by the Russian government and army on the people of Ukraine.

We believe that Ukraine will win, their people will rise from the ashes of this conflict, stronger in spirit and solidarity. And we will make every effort to help them in this struggle!

 

Read More

eQ offers Deflect website security services for free in response to COVID-19

 

 

In response and solidarity with numerous efforts that have sprung up to help with communications, coordination and outreach during the COVID-19 epidemic, eQualitie is offering Deflect website security and content delivery services for free until the end of 2020 to organizations and individuals working to help others during this difficult time. This includes:

  • Availability: as demand for your content grows, our worldwide infrastructure will ensure that your website remains accessible and fast
  • Security: protecting your website from malicious bots and hackers
  • Hosting: for existing or new WordPress sites
  • Aanalytics: view real-time statistics in the Deflect dashboard

Deflect is always offered free of charge to not-for-profit entities that meet our eligibility requirements. This offer extends our free services to any business or individual that is responding to societal needs during the pandemic, including media organizations, government, online retail and hospitality services, etc. We will review all applications to make sure they align with Deflect’s Terms of Use.

It takes 15 minutes to set up and we’ll have you protected on the same day. Our support team can help you in English, French, Chinese, Spanish and Russian. If you have any questions please contact us.

 

 

 

Read More

Deflect – Taking Care of Business

Today we are pleased to announce that Deflect is opening its virtual doors to businesses small and large, bringing the same robust web protection infrastructure that the most targeted civil movements around the world have come to rely on.

For eight eventful years, Deflect has specialized in defending high-profile human rights and independent news groups, delivering their websites to over a million daily readers and confounding the aims of state-sponsored hacking teams trying to silence them. Now we think it’s time to share our experience and time-tested tooling with enterprises and organizations looking to invest in rock solid DDoS mitigation and at the same time support an ethical company working towards sustainable revenue.

We believe that a principled approach to providing Internet security services is essential to restoring equality in the digital commons. To this end, we won’t accept any website that spreads misinformation, propagates hate-speech, incites violence or initiates cyberattacks against others. For the full list of stipulations, see here.

We also believe your data belongs to you, so we don’t sell it or share it with anyone except you. We are proud to call ourselves a reputable and responsible Internet services provider.

2017 & 2018 Deflect statistics

Technically speaking, Deflect offers a tailored web security service including web caching and hosting, attack mitigation and investigation, in-house data analytics, encryption in-transit and at-rest, as well as our experienced and multilingual support desk.

We’ve created a fair and transparent pricing model based on the size of your website’s unique monthly visitors, so there’s no free trial which automatically renews at a premium, no subscription plan that changes  according to network circumstances, no penalty for actually defending your site against a cyberattack and no hidden charges for technical support.

We are a small, dedicated team, widely distributed around the globe and punching well above our weight. We’ve proven ourselves many times against some of the biggest, baddest botnets and this year alone delivered websites to over eighty million unique IPs (bots not included!) which represents ~2% of people connected to the net.

This is our first move into the commercial sector, driven by a desire to achieve self-sustainability for our non-profit activities, so when you sign up with Deflect, you multiply the effect of your dollar by enabling us to defend more vulnerable groups in this era of widespread assaults on honest reportage, rights advocacy and civil liberties across the world.

Sign up here 

Contact us

Deflect logo for portfolio

Read More