May 8 2025 GM

From TCU Wiki

DRAPAC VPN Project Protects Human Rights Defenders From Censorship And Surveillance

Glitter Meetups

Join Meg, Program Coordinator, and other EngageMedia team members on May 8 who will:

Meg Soriano is a Programs Coordinator at EngageMedia. Prior to joining EngageMedia, she was the communications director of EduKonek, a citizen-led initiative that aims to provide mobile phones and data to Filipino public school students embarking on distance and blended learning. Outside of work, Meg enjoys attending concerts, visiting museums and accomplishing side quests.

What is Glitter Meetup?

Glitter Meetup is the weekly town hall of the digital rights and Internet Freedom community at the IF Square on the TCU Mattermost, at 9am EDT / 2pm UTC. It is a text-based chat where digital rights defenders can share regional and project updates, expertise, ask questions, and connect with others from all over the world! Do you need an invite? Learn how to get one here.

Notes

Can you introduce yourself and the work you do, and what the VPN is about?
  • I’m Meg Soriano, from Quezon City, Philippines! I am a program coordinator in EngageMedia, a nonprofit that helps protect digital rights and supports people advocating and fighting for human rights, democracy, and the environment—especially across the Asia-Pacific. You can learn more about us and the work that we do in the latest Community Series: https://www.digitalrights.community/blog/community-series-engagemedia
  • As a coordinator, I coordinate EngageMedia’s efforts around expanding and strengthening the digital rights movement in the Asia-Pacific region, among them the annual DRAPAC assemblies and the regular DRAPAC series (I’ll briefly share and send links later on these projects). I also lead and coordinate the user tech activation and advocacy efforts of EngageMedia’s Human Rights Technology Initiative: https://engagemedia.org/projects/humanrightstech/
  • Among the projects under the Human Rights Technology Initiative is the DRAPAC VPN Project: https://engagemedia.org/2025/drapacvpn/. Which we are glad to discuss more about!
Can you give a short overview of the VPN project? Who is it targetted towards? and why was it designed or why did you start it?
  • The DRAPAC VPN Project provides free, secure internet access to individuals at risk of censorship and surveillance—particularly human rights defenders, journalists, researchers, and activists across the Asia-Pacific region.
  • To echo what my colleague K mentioned in the Community Series interview, “Internet freedom is not the default in our region. Surveillance and censorship are the norm in several countries. If we look at Myanmar, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Bangladesh, for example, there is a clear community need for secure tools. There is strong demand for privacy-respecting, community-centered technologies..”
  • To help address these challenges and needs, the DRAPAC VPN Project distributes access to a secure VPN service built on Outline VPN by Jigsaw. This tool makes it much harder for authorities to detect or block VPN traffic, allowing users to safely bypass censorship and stay connected to the open internet.
  • What’s also good to note about this project is that it fosters collaboration among several human rights organisations. Specifically, the DRAPAC VPN is a collaboration among EngageMedia, Reporters Without Borders, eQualitie, Digital Defenders Partnership, SAFEnet, Exile Hub, DigiSecLab and Spring Revolution Security. These groups operate a network of VPN servers and help vet users to ensure the service reaches those who need it most.
  • The impetus of the project is actually the team at RSF, who reached out to us about supporting their network in Myanmar with VPN access. At that time, we were already running a few servers for the DRAPAC assembly attendees. And the need came from the community when the military in Myanmar started blocking commercial VPNs.
What some of the key features of the project is? And also, if you can, the VPN itself! (for people who might want an idea on how to set it up or the core features) Are there people already using it? How do you distribute it?
  • The DRAPAC VPN project is part of EngageMedia's key program which is the Human Rights Technology Initiative - designed to enhance digital security for human rights defenders across Asia-Pacific, who operate in some of the world’s most restrictive digital environments. https://engagemedia.org/projects/humanrightstech/
  • These are the key features of the project:
  1. Resistance to blocking – Designed to circumvent sophisticated censorship techniques, allowing internet access in high-risk environments. Specifically, The DRAPAC VPN project currently supports Outline VPN which is built on Shadowsocks protocol. Shadowsocks is a secure proxy protocol designed to help users bypass internet censorship. It encrypts and disguises internet traffic, making it harder for censors—especially those used by governments—to detect and block access.By incorporating Shadowsocks, Outline VPN ensures that users can access blocked websites, communicate securely, and avoid surveillance—even in heavily censored environments like Myanmar.
  2. Trusted network – Backed by trusted human rights organisations and grassroots community groups hosting servers and managing user access. Access keys are distributed through a network of trusted partners rather than a central authority. This decentralised model increases accountability and enables partners to vouch for applicants based on direct knowledge or referrals.
  3. Decentralised infrastructure – Supported by a distributed, highly-scalable pool of VPN servers, ensuring reliability and security. Its decentralised structure keeps data under users’ control, enhancing privacy and security, unlike centralised commercial VPNs that store data on company servers and may expose it to third parties. (In terms of trusted network and decentralised structure, just to share also, we thought of making this project not centralized but managed by different multiple organizations so that in the future, if EngageMedia can no longer provide free VPN support (e.g. funding issues), other organizations in that partnership can pick up the leadership and continue the support for HRDs.)
  • And yes, people are already using it! As of last week of April, we have more than 200 active DRAPAC VPN users.
  • EngageMedia runs 5 servers, the rest are run by DRAPAC VPN partners and there are 13 servers in the current pool.
  • Following the earthquake in Myanmar, we're seeing increased demand for VPN support from inside the country.
And how do you make sure that its always running, and there are no breakdowns etc beyond paying for it?
  • So far we don't see breakdowns. Outline (and the underlying shadowsocks protocol) itself is pretty lightweight. There have been instances where we received reports from the ground that certain servers might be blocked. The beauty of Outline is its simplicity. So we can just deploy new servers and terminate the blocked ones rapidly.
  • We have the DRAPAC VPN Bot (https://engagemedia.org/2025/drapacvpnbot/) - specifically, access just got even easier with the DRAPAC VPN Bot. With the DRAPAC VPN Bot, users can now request Outline VPN access keys directly through two popular instant messaging apps - Telegram and WhatsApp. Why chat bots for Outline VPN? The conventional methods of accessing VPN can be cumbersome, requiring some technical knowledge and financial resources that may be inaccessible during critical moments.
  • Instant messaging platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp remain widely accessible even during critical times, providing a vital lifeline when other channels are blocked. These apps are particularly useful for human rights defenders who are working in the field or are constantly on the move.
  • By integrating Outline VPN access directly into everyday messaging platforms, DRAPAC VPN Project enables more human rights defenders to quickly and easily request and access VPN support through familiar interfaces. This significantly lowers technical barriers and increases adoption rates among those most at risk.
  • The DRAPAC VPN Bot is available in Bengali (বাংলা), English, Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), Bahasa Melayu (Malay) and Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ) on Telegram.
And would you have a Signal integration soon?
  • You can send a message to +61342365876 on WhatsApp. However, On WhatsApp, the chat bot is only available in English. We're trying to improve this. Feel free to try sending a message too. As to the Signal, we're exploring this possibility as well. Let's see. Definitely, we'll update the community.
Is there any threat to your work being seen as subversive? If so, how do you avoid, counter, and/or continue working under such prevailing narratives by govt. proxy groups?
  • As you may already know VPN is outlawed in India and Myanmar. And there's regulatory burden in other countries in Asia-Pacific that compromises privacy and security, eg Indonesia and others. So when we design the DRAPAC VPN partnership (ie who can run and maintain the servers as part of the project), the requirement is that they are 1) have to be human rights organisations and 2) registered in countries not designated as "not free" in the Freedom House Internet Freedom ranking. https://drap.ac/vpn/partners/
Is there any activity, or subgroup of the human rights community, that DRAPAC VPN is not aimed at -- so, a group/activity that should probably use something else? Let's say an independent journalist wishes to make a story on a sensitive topic in Kashmir. Would the VPN be a suitable product for them to use?
  • I don't think so. If you are a human rights defender and one of the DRAPAC VPN partners can vouch for you, you're in!
  • It depends on the circumstances. I think it's hard to give a straight yes/no answer. One consideration is risk, if using Outline raises their risk profile, I'd recommend explore other circumvention tools that's not Outline/VPN. Another consideration is how advanced the VPN blocking is on their network because DPI is getting more sophisticated and we are playing catchup. The great thing is Outline is constantly improving. I think from our stats, we don't see any usage from conflict regions other Myanmar. Might be useful for us to reach out to folks in Kashmir and see.
  • The honest answer is that we do zero traffic monitoring so whatever you do when connected via one of the Outline servers is private. So this is something that was raised to use when we reach out to partners. The way we mitigate the risk of user abuse is the allowlist.
What other initiatives or products are under the DRAPAC VPN? How does it complement the use of the VPN?
  1. We are also conducting a baseline study to understand how human rights defenders access, use, and experience digital technology designed to protect them. You can participate in the survey at survey.engagemedia.org/techsurvey2025en.
  2. digisec.wiki - one-stop-shop digisec knowledge base for HRDs. This a volunteer-run community wiki for human rights defenders to share knowledge and resources on digital security and online safety.If you do not have a user account, you can request one online by completing the sign-up form or emailing sysop@digisec.wiki
  3. Jitsi Meet by EngageMedia: Fuss-free videoconferencing for the digital rights community
  4. Human Rights Tech Learning Series: a collection of virtual learning sessions designed to strengthen the digital resilience of activists, journalists, and civil society actors across the Asia-Pacific and beyond. We’ve held two sessions so far - 1) Outline VPN and 2) Self-Hosting WordPress. Stay tuned for the next!
  5. We also conduct Open Tech Camps to bring together activist-technologists from across Asia-Pacific and beyond in a dynamic, participant-driven unconference. Some members of TCU here attended. We held the first one in Penang, Malaysia last February and the second one will be held in August 2025 as a side event to the DRAPAC25 Assembly in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia which is a good segue to the next EngageMedia project/event.
  6. DRAPAC25 Assembly. The Digital Rights Asia-Pacific Assembly (DRAPAC25) returns for a third edition this August 26 to 27, 2025, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, continuing the vital work of fostering resilience and solidarity within the digital rights community in the Asia-Pacific. For this edition, we are co-hosting with Architects of Diversity (AOD Malaysia), the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), the Initiative to Promote Tolerance and Prevent Violence (INITIATE.MY) and Sinar Project. You can visit the site here: https://drap.ac/25/. We're officially open for session and activity proposals and accepting Fellowship and Volunteers applications.
  7. While we gear up for the DRAPAC25 Assembly, we have the DRAPAC Series -Series of webinar that aim to generate and sustain conversations about the challenges and opportunities for the region with regards to human and digital rights in the networked society. The latest one is scheduled on May 30 which is about “Human Rights Responsibilities and Challenges for Tech Companies Operating in Authoritarian Countries” Feel free to join.
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