What Do Uganda, Iran and Tanzania Have in Common?

Pauline Kire
5 days ago
5 min read

A woman with a puzzled expression scratches her head while standing between brushstroke flags of Uganda, Iran, and Tanzania, symbolizing confusion and shared experiences during internet shutdowns and the scramble to stay online.

For a moment, these three countries don’t seem to belong in the same sentence.

Different regions.

Different cultures.

Different politics.

You’d be forgiven for thinking the answer is nothing at all.

And yet, during the last couple of months, they shared something very specific.

A familiar political season.

Moments of tension or unrest.

And then — almost on cue — the internet went off.

Not off in the “let me buy more data” way.

Not off in the “maybe the network is slow today” way.

Off in the someone, somewhere, decided this was the moment to pull the plug way.

Suddenly, messages sat unsent. Payments froze mid-action. Online businesses stalled. Families abroad felt far away in a way that had nothing to do with distance and everything to do with silence.

Across borders and time zones, the same advice started circulating:

“Download a VPN.”

When Everyone Became an Internet Engineer Overnight

What followed was chaos. Beautiful, desperate, very human chaos.

Now — I can’t tell you exactly how it felt in Iran or Tanzania. But I can tell you what it looked like from Uganda, because I was right there in it.

Before the internet actually went off, the whispers had already started.

“It’s about to go down.”

That very day, WhatsApp groups stopped joking and started preparing. VPN names were dropped casually. Links were shared. Screenshots were forwarded. Phones were quietly stocked with options.

Because experience had taught us one thing:

Once the internet goes off, preparation time is over.

When the switch was finally pulled, there were suddenly two groups of people.

Those who hadn’t prepared…

…and those who were still very much online.

The prepared stayed connected. They kept working. They kept sending messages. They logged into email, social media, cloud tools — and yes, even internet banking — through whichever VPN finally connected.

And at the time, that felt like a win.

So… What Is a VPN?

Let’s pause for a moment and demystify this thing we were all downloading like our lives depended on it.

A VPN is simply a tool that helps your internet traffic take a different route.

Normally, when you open an app or a website, your phone connects straight to it using the usual internet roads provided by your network. A VPN adds a detour. Your connection passes through another location first, before reaching the app or website you’re trying to use.

Think of it like this:

Instead of walking down the main road that’s been blocked, you take a side street that’s still open.

That’s all a VPN really does.

It doesn’t make you invisible.

It doesn’t make you untouchable.

It doesn’t magically secure everything you do online.

It just changes the route your internet traffic takes — and sometimes, during shutdowns or restrictions, that different route is still open.

That’s why VPNs worked when the main internet roads were closed.

The Part We Didn’t Pause to Think About

When we were jumping from VPN to VPN, very few of us stopped to think about what we were doing through them.

Some of us:

logged into internet banking
accessed email accounts
reset passwords
opened work systems
signed into apps that hold very sensitive information

All while our internet traffic was passing through tools we had downloaded in a hurry, from companies we hadn’t researched, recommended by people who were also just trying to survive.

A VPN doesn’t make activity disappear.

It simply changes who is in the middle.

Some VPNs are trustworthy.

Others quietly keep logs.

Some observe patterns.

Some collect more information than users realize.

And a few behave less like privacy tools and more like curious bystanders, watching quietly while you go about your digital life.

No drama.

No warning signs.

Just risk happening calmly in the background.

And Then the Internet Comes Back

This is the part almost nobody talks about.

When the shutdown lifts, life rushes forward. Messages flood in. Work resumes. Normal internet access returns.

But the VPNs?

Many of them stay right where they are.

Installed.

Enabled.

Running quietly.

Some people forget they ever installed them. Others leave them on because “it might happen again.” And some assume that because nothing bad happened during the shutdown, everything must be fine.

But this is where risk quietly compounds.

A VPN that made sense during a shutdown may not be necessary — or appropriate — once normal connectivity is restored. Especially if it’s a free service, or one you didn’t fully understand in the first place.

What Could Actually Go Wrong

Let’s keep this grounded.

A VPN app you forgot about could still be routing your traffic through unknown servers

Sensitive logins (banking, email, work systems) may still be passing through that route
A poorly built VPN could slow your phone, drain data, or quietly observe usage
If credentials were exposed during the shutdown, the effects may only show up later
And because nothing breaks immediately, people assume nothing is wrong

This isn’t about panic.

It’s about awareness after the fact.

So If You Used a VPN During the Shutdown… What Now?

This is the part I really want my community to hear.

If you used VPNs to stay online — especially multiple ones — here’s the calm, sensible reset:

Review what you installed.
If you don’t recognize it, don’t remember using it, or don’t need it anymore — remove it.
Turn off VPNs when you’re not using them.
Especially when accessing banking, email, or work systems.
Change important passwords.
Banking, email, social media — think of it as a digital deep breath.
Update your phone.
Updates fix things we never see.
Keep one trusted option — not five desperate ones.
Prepared doesn’t mean cluttered.

This isn’t punishment for being resourceful.

It’s good digital hygiene after a stressful moment.

The Real Lesson

VPNs helped many of us stay online when the lights went out — and that matters.

But tools used in emergencies shouldn’t become habits without reflection.

Cyber safety isn’t about fear.

It’s about what we do after the emergency passes.

Pausing.

Cleaning up.

Resetting wisely.

So if you were one of the prepared — still online when others went quiet — this post isn’t here to scare you.

It’s here to say:

Well done for adapting. Now let’s tidy up properly.

Because cyber safety doesn’t begin when the internet goes off.

And it doesn’t end when it comes back on.

It lives in what we do in between.

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