Blocking and unblocking Signal in Egypt

On Monday, Open Whisper System confirmed that its private messaging app "Signal" has been censored in Egypt after numerous reports over the weekend.

Over this weekend users of Signal in Egypt "including myself" reported that they could not connect to Signal through major ISPs.

Personally, I did face this and I could not connect to Signal through Orange 3G and 4G networks as well through TEData, Egypt's main ISP.

According to reports, you can use the famous encrypted messaging service through VPN. On Monday, Open Whisper System confirmed that you can only access Signal through

We'll begin deploying censorship circumvention in Signal over the next several weeks. Until then, Tor or a VPN can be used to access Signal.

— Open Whisper Systems (@whispersystems) December 19, 2016

Interestingly, the service would connect and disconnect throughout the weekend.
On Tuesday, the service is back again on TEData. I do not know what is really happening.

Signal earned fame in Egypt when it was reported that Italian investigators used it to communicate with Rome during their first visit to Cairo to investigate Italian researcher Giulio Regeni's murder.
It is not a big secret that the security authorities in Egypt above them the ministry of interior monitor social networks after 2013.
Seems to me that encrypted Signal caught the attention of authorities and it was found that it could not be monitored easily, thus it was decided to block it altogether.
Great days indeed.