How To Stay Informed, Connected and Do Business In Spite Of State Censorship

They, them, those are planning to destroy what little communication freedom remains, using the crisis they're responsible for as an excuse. Fortunately, there are many freedom loving tech geniuses helping us pirates stay one step ahead of the crown. This article is to help evade the tyrants' plans, and then turn their actions against them.

Many of the recommendations below require downloads which may not be available after the censoring ramps up further. So, decide what you need to do and make it happen, while you still can.

VPN and TOR

A VPN is helpful if state censorship is only blocking your ability to communicate or receive information outside your geographic area. In these cases here are a couple of recommendations allowing you to tunnel past local censorship.

CryptoHippie at https://Secure.Cryptohippie.com is an excellent service, well worth a price higher than the others.

ProtonVPN at https://ProtonVPN.com is another excellent service.

Do your research before selecting a VPN service, especially if you want more than simply bypassing the censors as addressed in this article.

Another option to address local censoring is TOR (The Onion Router) browser using the tunneling feature to a first router outside your restricted area. Install it without making any modifications, expanding to the full screen or any other of the many things they caution against to achieve the highest anonymity. It can be downloaded from https://torproject.org . TOR is not well suited for accessing high resolution videos or torrents.

Note: A VPN or TOR will not help if a website is blocked at the DNS (domain name servers) or ISP (Internet Service provider) level. Solutions for those are below.

Email and RSS Feeds

To assure staying connected with your information sources, be sure to register for their emails and RSS feeds.

If you're using any major free email service (google, yahoo, hotmail, etc…) or accessing your email online, incoming email can be most easily blocked. So, you should setup email through a paid service, small business or personal domain (eg: yourname@yourdomain.com) which can be accessed with an open source email client like Mozilla Thunderbird (MS Outlook and other proprietary programs may cooperate with authorities to block messages). These steps will help assure you receive messages from your trusted information sources, in spite of censoring efforts.

Note: RSS feeds may be blocked by the powers that shouldn't be. However, if your sources have your email address, messages can be sent from alternative servers to bypass the censors. So, sign up for email messages.

Website Static IP Addresses

This bypasses the crown blocking websites at the DNS level. The DNS system are many servers providing the Internet phone book. Very few websites take the trouble and pay the extra expense for a static IP which bypass the DNS. Here are the few known by the author:

AntiWar.com.com is http://67.192.17.210

CorbettReport.com is http://77.235.50.111

SurvivalBlog.com is https://185.8.177.173

To find any static IP address for the website of a trusted information source:

Change the website to one you're checking at the end of
https://www.ip-tracker.org/locator/ip-lookup.php?ip=corbettreport.com

Copy the IP Address found on the page

Then try the IP address in your browser to see if it works (most don't)

If it works, save it and please share your trusted information source's static IP in the comments below.

Note: Individual IP addresses can still be blocked at the ISP, unlike decentralized applications which are presented next.

IPFS: Inter-Planetary File Sharing

IPFS is a decentralized file sharing network which allows access to uploaded files. They can be in the form of a web page with links to other IPFS files. The home page is at https://ipfs.io . Download your browser's IPFS companion at https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion (scroll down the page a bit to find the obvious link) or you may be able to add the extension within your browser. Another option is to download the IPFS Desktop App from https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-desktop .

IPFS allows media files, documents and other file types to be shared and linked in a way that is extremely difficult to block. Best of all, this content is accessible on IPFS forever.

Some websites have their website content mirrored on IPFS like FreedomsPhoenix.com at

/ipns/QmW6iyZ27fYAwd15CQ9nDkLhZPa5QsfbZ8EuSoncHgwA8Y/ . This can be entered into the desktop app, or browser with the IPFS extension, thereby accessing the website while bypassing the DNS and website IP address. You have to know the latest IPFS address of websites, or you'll get an old page like that for FreedomsPhoenix at the IPFS address above. The latest IPFS address can be provided if you subscribe to the source's email list and receive it in a way that is difficult to block (see first section of this article). Then you'll have the entire website and all the media links from a decentralized network which is extremely hard to block.

Note: IPFS can be slow at times, especially for new content. The more its accessed and seeded to additional nodes, the quicker it becomes. FreedomsPhoenix.com maintains several nodes to help overcome this for their content. They also maintain IPFS websites for several others like CorbettReport.com , WeAreChange.org and others which will be linked when the time comes. Be ready with your IPFS desktop and browser extensions installed, in case their installation downloads become blocked by the powers that should not be.

Decentralized Social Networking

There are a few good decentralized solutions the author is familiar with, each having their strengths and weaknesses.

Flote.app is the first of these. To avoid being blocked, you need to download the app from https://Flote.app and NOT access the content through the website which can be blocked at the DNS level. The Flote app communicates with a decentralized network of nodes.

Save the Freedom's Phoenix user @LoveBusLibertyTour so it's easy to find when you need it. Do the same with the other good sources of information you like on Flote.app

You can also provide information on Flote by making posts as you would on other social networking sites. This will be available on the decentralized network for others.

Flote allows uploading of media and is introducing live streaming.

Note: Flote.app has one significant weakness. If the crown goes to the centralized leadership and physically threatens them or their family, then they may be forced to modify the code and cause Flote to be disabled. So, it's not bulletproof and should be used in combination with other solutions herein.

LBRY is another decentralized open source platform much like a decentralized youtube. To directly access the nodal network and evade DNS censoring, download the app from https://lbry.com .

Note: The author doesn't know much about this one, but others speak highly of it. LBRY does have a central corporation as a potential vulnerability.

Telegram is another open source decentralized app to stay in touch with people and information sources like Ernest Hancock's Declare Your Independence and several others. Download the desktop program or app from links at the bottom of the page at https://telegram.org

Media and documents up to 1.5 Gb can be attached to posts, allowing posts of full length articles, audio and even a reasonable length video. Long for articles are less often sent as text. Audio messages are easy to send. Encrypted P2P (peer to peer) messaging is available.

Note: The default P2P messaging is NOT encrypted and you may need to ask permission from the recipient for enabling of this with them. Most of the developers behind Telegram are in the same locale, so they may be rounded up and coerced in sufficient numbers to force disabling of the code.

Pocketnet.app also requires you to download the app to avoid being blocked. You can post text and images which reside on the decentralized nodal network. Unfortunately, media and documents are not yet able to be uploaded. However, you can link to an IPFS file to accomplish this, taking into account the initial slowness of accessing these files until some others have done so to seed it across multiple nodes.

Pocketnet is a fully distributed network with a globally dispersed development team and no central leadership to coerce. The code is open source and built on the Bitcoin code. So, it would be much more difficult to block than Flote.

Note: Pocketnet is beta and less user friendly. Fortunately, there is an overview at
https://pocketnet.app/nodechampion?s=73b0bd8bdff7ba328de6ea859e6b1fdc0385167f4a2895968e772a32dd5d393a&mpost=true
and information about making posts at
https://pocketnet.app/index?s=e8f5e0cf6391ce0a40aab977614395d051e76848648e2d1cbc4623c7a39de57f

Again, download the app before any blocking at the DNS level prevents access to it.

If you would like to help make the Pocketnet network more robust against attempts to block it, you can set up your own node on an old laptop. Instructions to do this are at
https://pocketnet.app/nodechampion?s=c71b5b92f22e0bca284f25ec1a9e93fb8a34ecc246286d1cc56dd1bb2f7801c1&mpost=true

Decentralized Shopping With Crypto

OpenBazaar decentralized shopping can be downloaded from OpenBazaar.org and installed on a PC. It also has a mobile companion app, Haven available at https://gethaven.app/ or https://apkpure.com/haven-private-shopping/io.ob1.nativeandroid . Sellers list products on this decentralized nodal network for which buyers can purchase with crypto, including escrow if desired. Much more info about using OpenBazaar/Haven is at as a seller or buyer is at
https://pocketnet.app/index?s=7d1e1bc526f215ab5aedf337b7786785804b398d92c6e0f28899c7848c0c726b&mpost=true

If you have a store on OpenBazaar/Haven, be sure to also list it at https://Agorist.Market to possibly connect with more buyers in the counter-economy.

Note: OpenBazaar is relatively new and may be a little slow at times. You can help increase robustness by keeping your store open on your desktop to act as a node for the network.

All of the above is limited to the knowledge of the author at this time. There are likely other options fulfilling the needs addressed herein and more important details about those mentioned above. Please add your further suggestions for defeating state censorship in the comments below for a possible update of this article. Now, decide what you need to do and make it happen, while you still can.