The VPN that works in Cuba is not the one they recommend
Search for “best free VPN” and you will find fifty nearly identical lists. They all rank by the same things: speed, whether they unblock Netflix, how many servers they have. Reasonable criteria for someone in Madrid or Miami. For someone in Cuba, not one of those three matters at all. The criteria are different, and […]
A bridge in your browser: helping from outside without putting anyone at risk
From exile you do what you can: you share, you denounce, you march, you send money. All of that counts, but all of that is indirect. I have spent a while looking for something material, something measurable, that puts nobody back home at risk. It exists, and it takes five minutes. I have been running […]
How to document an event so that it stands as evidence
When we documented the July 11 caravan in Tampa I did not simply upload the photos. I handled the material as if someone were going to dispute it, because at some point someone will. This is what I learned doing it, in case it helps anyone who goes out to document an event. You do […]
Publishing from Cuba without it costing you your freedom
This is the last article in the series and the hardest one to write, because it is the only one that gives advice. And badly calibrated advice on this is not a typo: it is someone in prison. So I will start with what this text is not. I cannot promise you safety. Nobody can. […]
How a website gets blocked in Cuba
When someone in Cuba types the address of an independent outlet and the page does not load, they almost never see a notice saying “blocked”. They see a blank screen, or an error, or simply a wait that never ends. That ambiguity is deliberate. There is one screen that does tell you something, and further […]
A million and a half Cubans said no
Almost everything written about censorship in Cuba ends badly. This article does not. When the regime blocked WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and Signal after July 11, 2021, the idea was simple: cut the channels carrying images of the protests out of the country. And it failed. Around a million and a half Cubans got out […]
How you switch off an entire country’s internet
On July 11, 2021, shortly after four in the afternoon local time, Cuba’s internet traffic fell to zero. That is not a metaphor. The network analysis firm Kentik recorded it: the country’s BGP routes collapsed all at once. Its director of internet analysis, Doug Madory, explained why this could not have been a fault or […]
Cloudflare WARP: what it really does, and what it does not
Cloudflare WARP is described in a lot of places as “a free VPN”. That description is convenient, it is the one that gets shared most, and it is the one that can land someone in serious trouble if they take it literally. It is worth understanding what it actually is, because for a Cuban it […]