Google global cache servers are online in Cuba, but Google's App Engine is blocked

This is a belated update. I had hoped to get more information before posting it, but difficult Internet access in Cuba and now the hurricane got in the way -- better late than never.

Cuban requests for Google services are being routed to GCC servers in Cuba and all Google services that are available in Cuba are being cached -- not just YouTube. That will cut latency significantly, but Cuban data rates remain painfully slow. My guess is that Cubans will notice the improved performance in interactive applications, but maybe not perceive much of a change when watching a streaming video.

Note the italics in the above paragraph -- evidently, Google blocks access to their App Engine hosting and application development platform. Cuban developers cannot build App Engine applications and Cubans cannot access applications like the Khan Academy or Google's G-Suite.

The last time I checked, Rackspace and Amazon allowed access to their hosting platforms from Cuba, but IBM Softlayer and Google did not. President Obama clearly favored improved telecommunication for Cuba, stating that

I’ve authorized increased telecommunications connections between the United States and Cuba. Businesses will be able to sell goods that enable Cubans to communicate with the United States and other countries.

in his Cuba Policy Changes. While Trump claimed that he was "canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba," he made few changes and has said nothing about restrictions on access to Internet services by Cubans.

I wonder why IBM and Google do not follow the lead of Amazon and Rackspace.

Fact checking the recent news about Google in Cuba

The Cuban Internet is constrained by the Cuban government and to a lesser extent the US government, not Google.

Google's Cuba project has been in the news lately. Mary Anastasia O’Grady wrote a Wall Street Journal article called "Google’s Broken Promise to Cubans," criticising Google for being "wholly uninterested in the Cuban struggle for free speech" and assisting the Castro government.

The article begins by taking a shot at President Obama who "raved" about an impending Google-Cuba deal “to start setting up more Wi-Fi access and broadband access on the island.”

(The use of the word "raved" nearly caused me to dismiss the article and stop reading, but I forced myself to continue).

The next paragraph tells us "Google has become a supplier of resources to the regime so that Raúl Castro can run internet (sic) at faster speeds for his own purposes."

The article goes on to tell us that Brett Perlmutter of Google "boasted" that Google was “thrilled to partner” with a regime-owned museum, featuring a Castro-approved artist.

(Like "raved," the use of the word "boasted" seemed Trump-worthy, but I kept reading).

O'Grady also referred to a July 2015 Miami Herald report that Perlmutter had pitched a proposal to build an island-wide digital infrastructure that the Cuban government rejected.

Next came the buried lead -- it turns out this article was precipitated by blocked Cuban access to the pro-democracy Web site Cubadecide.org.

Perlmutter tweeted that the site was blocked because of the US embargo on Cuba.

Well, that is enough. Let's do some fact checking.

President Obama's "raving:" It is true that President Obama made a number of (in retrospect) overly-optimistic predictions during his Cuba trip, but the use of the word "raving" and the obligatory shot at President Obama were clues that O'grady might not be impartial and objective.

Google as a supplier of resources: This presumably is a reference to Google's caching servers in Cuba. While these servers marginally speed access to Google applications like Gmail and YouTube, it is hard to see how that helps Raul Castro. It has been reported that Cuba agreed "not censor, surveil or interfere with the content stored" on Google's caching servers. Furthermore, Gmail is encrypted and YouTube is open to all comers -- for and against the Cuban government.

Brett Perlmutter's boasting: about partnering with a Cuban artist's installation of a free WiFi hotspot. I agree that the WiFi hotspot at the studio of the Cuban artist Kcho is an over-publicized drop in the bucket -- much ado about not much.

Google's rejected offer of an island-wide digital infrastructure: I have seen many, many (now I'm channeling Trump) references to this "offer," but have no idea what was offered. Google won't tell me and I've seen no documentation on the offer.

Google's blocking of Cubadecide.org: It is true that Google blocks access to Cubadecide.org. Furthermore, they block access from Cuba to all sites that are hosted on their infrastructure. Microsoft also blocks Cuban access to sites they host; however, Amazon and Rackspace do not. Cubadecide.org could solve their problem by moving their site to Amazon, Rackspace or a different hosting service that does not block Cuban access.

Perlmutter blames the embargo: I don't want to give Google a pass on this. The next question is "why does Amazon allow Cuban access and Google does not?" They are both subject to the same US laws. IBM is a more interesting case -- they did not block access at first but changed their policy later.

There may be some reason for IBM and Google behaving differently than Amazon and Rackspace. I asked both IBM and Google for an explanation, but neither replied.

It should also be pointed out that the Cuban government also blocks access to some Web sites so they could counter a move by Cubadecide.org if they wished.

Before publishing this post, I wanted to confirm my understanding of the situation and I found something I cannot explain. It turns out that the Khan Academy, an educational site with both Spanish and English versions that I would love to see available in Cuba, uses both Amazon and Google as hosts.

When I accessed them from the US, I was directed to Amazon for the English site and Google for the Spanish site, but I got strange results from friends in Cuba. One told me he was unable to access either site from a government enterprise but was able to access both from a WiFi park. Another told me he was unable to access either from a university, the medical network, Mednet, or a WiFi park. I had them try the Amazon IP address I was directed to in the US (23.23.224.106), but that did not work in Cuba either.

Well, that remains a mystery, which maybe some reader in Cuba can clear up.

Well, those are the "facts" as I see them. The bottom line for me is that the Cuban government, not Google, is constraining the Cuban Internet. (I've talked about Cuban constraints in several earlier posts, for example, here and here). The US embargo and Trump's policy have also set the Cuban Internet back. That being said, I would like to know why Google feels compelled to block Cuban access when Amazon does not.

IBM's SoftLayer cloud infrastructure service blocks Cuba -- why now?

Cachivache Media recently reported that the Bitly URL-trimming service had stopped working in Cuba. Cubans had been using the service for several years, so this resulted in many broken links.

Cachivache did not know what had happened, but published a traceroute that timed out at an Akamai router. I contacted Akamai, and they said they could not say anything -- they would only talk with their customers -- Bitly in this case.

This traceroute from Cuba to Bitly times out in the Akamai network.

So I contacted Bitly and had an email exchange with one of their support people. (The press and operations departments failed to answer my emails and I could not find a phone number to call). This is a transcript of my email conversation with their support representative:

Larry: My colleagues in Cuba are unable to reach their bit.ly account. They say it failed some time ago, worked yesterday and is now broken again. I attach a traceroute.

Support: Unfortunately, Bitly links do not function correctly in Cuba. This is not an issue on our end – I believe that Cuba and Iran are both unable to access Bitly links, due to government regulations.

I wish I had more info! Let me know if you need help with anything else.

Larry: Cubans have been using Bitly for years and they are no longer on the list of state sponsors of terrorism -- it just recently became unreachable. It was back up for a day earlier in the week then went down again. There is some sort of intermittent failure.

Could you follow up with Akamai on this? Or, if it is a change in your company policy, could someone confirm that?

Support: Thanks for getting back to me. Unfortunately there is not much I can do here, we’ve had reported problems with our links in Cuba, and are working diligently to rectify the issue.

Larry: I am confused -- are you now saying that it is a technical issue rather than policy? If so, by when do you expect to rectify it? The traceroute times out at an Akamai router -- have you filed a help ticket with them?

Support: I wouldn’t necessarily say this is an issue on our end. We know that our links don’t always work in Cuba – we’re not in touch with the Cuban government about this however.

I really wish I had a better answer for you, but I don’t unfortunately! I hope you still find value in our free tool.

Larry: Are you doing it in compliance with a request of the US government? Is Akamai?

Support: As I mentioned, we’re aware of this issue, our engineers are aware and are working to solve the problem.

I can’t provide any more additional info at this time, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Well, that was inconsistent, but I guess a tech support person does not have authority to answer such questions.

Next, I heard from a friend in Cuba who told me it was not only Bitly -- other sites that used Bitly to trim their URLs were also blocked. Confused, I asked a colleague, Doug Madory, who monitors the Internet at Dyn Research, what he thought was going on. It turned out Doug had also been looking into this case. He told me the culprit was Softlayer, Bitly's hosting service, and that he would be providing more technical detail soon.

I checked with SoftLayer and the answer was on their Web site -- they block traffic from countries that are subject to U.S. trade and economic sanctions -- Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. The rationalle for the SoftLayer policy is found in a Commerce Department guidance document.

So, we know what happened, but the real question is "Why now?"

Did Bitly know Cuba and the other sanctioned nations would be cut off when they moved to SoftLayer? (It looks like Bitly moved rather recently).

It turns out that SoftLayer began blocking Iran (and presumably the other countries) last February. Was that triggered by SoftLayer (or parent company IBM) lawyers exercising caution or were they pressured to change by government officials? Are they applying for an exception to the sanction?

Regardless, cutting Cuba off seems inconsistent with the policy of the current US administration. The Commerce Department page on the sanctions refers to "the President’s policy to chart a new course in bilateral relations with Cuba and to further engage and empower the Cuban people, announced on December 17, 2014."

This change inconvenienced a lot of Cubans -- does the US Government really want to do that at that time? Sanctions like this are a blunt instrument -- harming "good guys" like Cuba's new, Internet media as well as "bad guys."

This incident also reminds us of the fragility of Internet applications with dependencies -- the company or service your application depends upon can change its price or terms of use or just turn it off as in this case.

I'll see if I can get a better answer to the question why now? and will let you know what Doug's analysis reveals, but for now, we at least know what happened.

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Update 8/9/2016

I've asked IBM and SoftLayer why they made the decision to start blocking Cuba in February. IBM said they had no comment and SoftLayer did not return my phone call or email. I asked Amazon Web Services -- another cloud hosting company -- whether they blocked Cuban traffic and did not receive an answer to my email or phone message. (At least IBM had the courtesy of telling me "no comment").

Hitting that blank wall, I did a Google search and learned that:

• IBM acquired SoftLayer in 2013.
• In September 2015, the Treasury and Commerce Departments announced amendments to the Cuba sanctions regulations. "These regulatory changes build on the revisions implemented earlier this year and will further ease sanctions related to travel, telecommunications and internet-based services, business operations in Cuba, and remittances." The announcement states the desire to loosen sanctions on telecommunications & Internet-based services in order to enhance "the free flow of information to, from, and within Cuba, and better providing efficient and adequate telecommunications services between the United States and Cuba."
• In January 2016, Treasury and Commerce announced further amendments to the Cuba sanctions regulations. Treasury Secretary Lew said "We have been working to enable the free flow of information between Cubans and Americans" and the announcement goes on to say that Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security "will generally approve license applications for exports and reexports of telecommunications items that would improve communications to, from, and among the Cuban people."
• Shortly before President Obama's trip to Cuba in March 2016, a related announcement stated that "The Cuban assets control regulations currently authorize the importation of Cuban-origin mobile applications. The Office of Foreign Assets Control will expand this authorization to allow the importation of Cuban-origin software."

The administration has increasingly relaxed Cuban sanctions on telecommunication and Internet services. So, I am still wondering why, in February 2016, SoftLayer decided to start blocking Cuban traffic.

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Update 8/11/2016

Bitly CEO Mark Josephson has posted an article addressing the blocking of their site. He reiterates the fact that the decision to block Cuba was not their's and speaks in favor of an open Internet -- an "Internet you can see across," which has been a Bitly tagline since the company was founded.

He concludes that "We understand the rationale behind the rules in place from our partner and are working with them to change this. I’m confident that we’ll be able to address this with our partner, and if we can’t, we’ll try to find another way."

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Update 8/18/2016

Amazon Web Services and Rackspace allow Cuban traffic and Google Cloud Platform and IBM/SoftLayer block it. (All of them seem to be in similar businesses).

Iroko Alejo says Envato, Themeforest, Attlassian and Schema.org are also blocked.

Paypal allows remittances to Cuba, but they stopped a message accompanying a payment because it contained the word "Cuba." (I wonder what other words they filter for).

Reading the US policy statements on Cuban sanctions (above), it seems like the administration favors Internet communication with Cuba and would be unlikely to prosecute any of these companies for sanctions violations.

I wonder why some companies are more cautious than others.

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Update 8/27/2016

PayPal froze the account of Nathaniel Parish after he bought a Cuban cigar while he was in Mexico. In the article he summarizes the US administration policies on purchases of Cuban goods, which, like our communication policy, favors exchange.

Note that his purchase of Cuban cigars was legal.

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Update 8/29/2016

I have no way of estimating the number of Web sites blocked in Cuba, but we can get some idea of the number by looking at the numbers of Web sites hosted by known blockers Google and SoftLayer.

Builtwith.com tracks the number of sites served by hosting companies. Here are their current statistics for SoftLayer and Google:

As you see, Google hosts more than twice as many sites as SoftLayer, but SoftLayer hosts more of the top 10,000 sites than Google. (Follow the links above to interactive graphs of the history of these hosting platforms).

An interesting side note -- I was surprised at the amount of information Builtwith gathers on the hosted sites. For a fee, you can order a list of the sites hosted by a particular service along with the following data on each of their clients:

Domain name, Location on Site, Company, Vertical industry, Alexa and Quantcast statistics, phone numbers and email addresses, accounts on Twitter and nine other services, names, titles and email addresses of several employees and more.

For example, I could now give you information about 14 people who work for chronotrack.com.(but I won't).

Privacy is indeed dead.

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Update 10/14/2016

Cuban diplomat Josefina Vidal tweeted examples of over a dozen broken links to Softlayer and Google sites last month, followed by this rhetorical question:

I've spoken with people in the State Department and the Obama administration did not order those sites to be blocked and does not favor doing so. IBM and Google are independent companies acting on their own.

I first wrote about this blocking more than a month before Vidal's tweets -- I hope this post did not lead to her statement.

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Update 11/15/2016

I have heard from several sources that Bitly is working again in Cuba. I asked Bitly about it and they confirmed that the service is working again. They promised more news soon, but implied that their service is a special case and other Softlayer sites remain blocked.

If you are reading this, you are probably not in Cuba.

I've been involved in a conversation about content blocking in Cuba recently. The discussion began with this screen shot -- a notice that my blog could not be found at a Nauta access room in Cuba:

I asked around and found one private home where my blog was also blocked and another home, belonging to a foreign journalist living in Cuba, where it was not blocked -- the Cuban blocking is selective.

My blog is hosted on Google's blogging platform, Blogger, and Google assures me that they do not block my blog or any others and that Cubans are free to create blogs on Blogger, watch YouTube videos (if they have fast enough connections), use Gmail and Google Plus, etc.

Google does, however, block Cuban access to their developer site. They are compelled to do that by the government because the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism includes Cuba, along with Iran, Sudan and Syria, and encryption algorithms are considered weapons. Cubans cannot download Google Earth for the same reason; however, if a Cuban installs a copy of the program, it works -- the service and data are not blocked.

Until recently, Cubans were unable to download the Google Chrome browser (maybe because it contains https code), but that restriction has been removed. I'm sure that anyone in Cuba who wanted Chrome earlier had little trouble getting a copy.

Cuba's being on our list of sponsors of terrorism is about as goofy as their list of jobs that are eligible for self-employment, so I would expect to see that reversed soon.

Google is compelled to block access to their developer tools and Google Earth code, but on a recent visit to Cuba, a Google delegation said they could not accepts Cuban apps in their Play Store. I don't understand that restriction now that US companies are authorized to do business with Cuban programmers.

I wonder why the Cuban authorities decided to block my blog and when. Perhaps it was after reading the very first post in which I postulated three primary causes of the sad state of the Cuban Internet. One of those was the government's fear of freedom of speech and communication. Maybe that did it. If so, it's too bad the censor did not notice that I also said the US embargo was another cause.

In general, I've tried to keep politics out of my posts -- I see enough that is good and enough that is bad on both sides to get everyone angry with me.

Some time ago, someone commented that I had probably been assigned a state security officer. At the time, I wrote a post saying "hi" and inviting him or her to comment on my posts. The offer remains open -- and, if you exist, thanks for not blocking my Google Plus posts. Oh, and you might ask the NSA for a look at my emails.

Coursera courses blocked in Cuba (by the US!)

I just got an email from reader and contributor Doug Madory with the subject "Coursera blocked in Cuba."

My first reaction was anger that the Cuban government would block educational material -- maybe they were trying to censor something from a Latin American history class?

But, following the link Doug sent, I discovered that Coursera has been blocked by the U. S. because they were violating export control regulations prohibiting U.S. businesses from offering services to users in sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. 

I try to keep my political opinions off this blog, but that is brain damaged.

Coursera says they are "working very closely with the U.S. Department of State and Office of Foreign Assets Control to secure permissions to reinstate site access for students in sanctioned countries."

I realize that few people in Cuba can access Coursera classes, but even as a largely symbolic gesture, that is a no-brainer.

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Update 2/5/2014

I have followed up on this story in an attempt to determine whether the U. S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ordered Coursera to block access to Cuba (and other nations -- Iran. North Korea, Libya and Sudan) or the company blocked access unilaterally in order to avoid possible problems.

Reader Alam Brito pointed out that the Google Code and SourceForge sites were also blocked. (Follow the links in the previous sentence to see their statements on the issue).

I've attempted to contact each of these companies to learn whether the government ordered them to block Cuba and the others. Here is what I have learned so far:

• Coursera says they were told to block their site by both OFAC and the State Department.
• SourceForge had promised to get back to me.
• Google has not answered emails or phone calls.

I also contacted OFAC.  They said they could not comment on specific cases, but sent a copy of the following policy statement:

• OFAC administers various sanctions programs, including programs that generally prohibit the exportation and re-exportation of goods, services, and technology by U.S. persons and entities to persons located in or ordinarily resident in Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Cuba.
• For the purpose of these sanctions programs, the prohibition on exportation of services by U.S. persons would apply to the provision of online courses and issuance of certificates of mastery upon completion of an online course to persons located in or ordinarily resident in sanctioned countries, unless specifically or generally licensed.
• While we will not comment on specific licenses, generally speaking, OFAC has a long history of licensing U.S. academic and educational institutions to engage in exchange programs in third countries as well as to provide certain in-country and online academic and educational training programs in the past.
• Some programs, such as the Syria sanctions, contain a general license by which U.S. persons and entities are generally authorized to export educational services to persons located in Syria without the need for a specific license from OFAC.
• Where not authorized by a general license or subject to a specific licensing policy set forth in our regulations, OFAC has a favorable licensing policy to authorize U.S. persons to engage in certain targeted educational, cultural and sports exchange programs, as well as research and humanitarian projects that are designed to benefit people in sanctioned countries. Of course, under a favorable licensing policy, U.S. persons need to come in and seek a license - without that, we cannot act.
• OFAC, in consultation with the State Department will continue to consider requests by U.S. persons to engage in activities to provide online courses and certificates of mastery to persons located in or ordinarily resident in sanctioned countries.

The fifth bullet point sounds rather positive, but Coursera's optional fee for a certificate of completion might be a sticking point.

OFAC also suggested that I contact edX, which, like Coursera, provides online classes. An edX spokesman said they had never blocked their site, but had requested an OFAC license to allow access in the embargoed nations. The application process took seven months, but the license was granted and they remained open.

So far, it sounds like OFAC is open, but wants to consider each case separately, so requires a license application. I may be wrong, and will hopefully hear more from the blocked companies.

While edX succeeded in obtaining a license, the delay and effort seem inappropriate and the policy is vague enough to discourage potential service providers -- self-censorship by confusion. OFAC should streamline the license application process, but, more important, should clarify their regulations so companies like edX and Coursera could avoid the process entirely.

Stay tuned for feedback from the other companies.