Overview
- NetBlocks reports multi‑day nationwide internet restrictions in Iran during mass protests intended to hinder communication and independent reporting.
- Snowflake is a free extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and it can be activated on phones via embed-snowflake.torproject.org to donate connectivity.
- Once enabled, the tool shares only a small portion of the volunteer’s bandwidth and shows how many users are being helped now and over the past 24 hours.
- Connections are routed through the Tor network with layered encryption and short‑lived relays, while WebRTC masking makes the traffic resemble audio or video calls to reduce detection.
- An Eset security expert quoted in German coverage says using Snowflake to share a connection is legal in Germany and does not expose the volunteer’s device or data.