Russia Seeking To Ban Tor, VPNs and Other Anonymizing Tools

An anonymous reader writes Three separate Russian authorities have spoken out in favor of banning online anonymizing tools since February 5th, with particular emphasis on Tor, which — despite its popularity with whistle-blowers such as Edward Snowden and with online activists — Russia's Safe Internet League describes as an 'Anonymous network used primarily to commit crimes'. The three authorities involved are the Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, powerful Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor and the Safe Internet League, comprising the country's top three network providers, including state telecoms provider Rostelecom. Roskomnadzor's press secretary Vadim Roskomnadzora Ampelonsky describes the obstacles to identifying and blocking Tor and VPN traffic as "difficult, but solvable."

Comments

This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything the evil former Commies do now is held up as a destroyer of freedom. If someone here proposes a similar law, half of Congress will (hopefully) stand up and say "That's something the Russians would do to suppress Freedom(TM)."

Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[ihtoit]

oh, so Putin invaded three countries immediately following the world trade centre incident on the pretext of finding the one man they held responsible? No wait, that was the United States.
Putin bombed Serbia? No, wait, that was the United States.
Putin aided in bloody coups against legitimately elected Governments in Liberia, Haiti, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Egypt? No, all the United States.

Who's the asshole?

Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has works with people from Russia, the best description of how the country is run would be similar to Chicago with the Mafia in charge. There is just enough order so that things can function, and not much else past that.

One example are Russian cars. By law, they have to have sets of cameras on them... because there will be no other way to find who is at fault if a wreck happens. The police don't have enough resources to find who is at fault, so one has to "pack their own parachute" in order to get insurance money if there is a wreck.

Is Putin another Stalin? No. Russia has its issues, mainly underpopulation, and thousands of miles of borders with countries that would love to nick off some Russian territory. Plus, here in the US, Islamic extremist aggression makes the news often. There, border skirmishes by combatants is common, and there is a sizable death toll.

Another part of it is that Putin has to be an asshole. He has to run the country with an iron grip or else separatists will fracture the country... and if this happens, it would have far reaching and severe consequences.

The real truth is that Putin is an ass... but there is a lot worse that could be running the country. However, Russia has only to gain in future years. Oil prices are going back up, and will be at three digits a barrel by Memorial Day due to OPEC production cuts. While fracking has depleted US reserves, Russia still sits on incredible deposits, which are only going to be worth more as everyone else runs dry.

Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[KiloByte]

oh, so Putin invaded three countries

You mean, Georgia, Ukraine and (brewing) Moldova? With functional takeover of a number of ex-USSR countries as well (Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova differ only by daring to stand up to Russia)? And aiding bloody coups elsewhere?

Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[ihtoit]

I'll see your former Soviet states and raise you a Columbia, Panama and Zaire.

I could do this all fuckin' day,

Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll see your former Soviet states and raise you a Columbia, Panama and Zaire.

I could do this all fuckin' day,

The number of assholes isn't limited to one. In addition: You aren't automatically the good guy if there are worse people.

Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[mjwx]

I'll see your former Soviet states and raise you a Columbia, Panama and Zaire.

I could do this all fuckin' day,

Gentlemen, gentlemen,

Both countries have small penises. Can we please move on.

Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

I could do this all fuckin' day,

Yep. Of course you can do it all day. Because you can live in a country where you can do that without fear of retribution.

But. Y'know. Keep fighting the good fight, comrade.

Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

oh, so Putin invaded three countries immediately following the world trade centre incident on the pretext of finding the one man they held responsible? No wait, that was the United States. Putin bombed Serbia? No, wait, that was the United States. Putin aided in bloody coups against legitimately elected Governments in Liberia, Haiti, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Egypt? No, all the United States.

Who's the asshole?

Putin invaded the following after 9-11-2001, although his reasons had nothing to do with those events.
Georgia, Moldova (arguable whether Russian troops were involved at first, but they're in Transnistria now), Ukraine
Those invaded areas are for all practical purposes under the control of Russia. In Georgia and Ukraine, you might as well redraw the map and give them to Russia.
How many counties the "evil" US invaded does it control? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Are you a Russian apologist? You should know why NATO, not the US only, bombed Serbia. It was over genocide. But if you wish to play the Russian propaganda card here, the Serbs were all helpless victims and did nothing wrong. Right.

Actually US participation in the Egyptian coup was negligible or non-existent because most of the Obama administration believed that the Muslim Brotherhood was doing a great job and the US officially opposed the coup. Not sure what exactly you are referring to via the Somalia and Haiti comments. It's arguable that Libya's elections at the time were not free given that it was a one party state. Liberia? I haven't heard about the US doing anything there other than trying to help with Ebola, which is something good ol' Russia could never be bothered to do. Syria is another one party state so you can call it "legitimately elected" if you have a really loose definition of what a "legitimate election" means.

Re:We need a distributed Tor immedietly

[epyT-R]

Those three governments qualify.

Re: Cue the delusional "legitimate use" posts.

[Catbeller]

"If you define "crime" properly, pretty much _everything_ anybody does on the Internet is criminal."

Well said, and correct, Anonymous poster. "Criminal" has no meaning, or any meaning they wish.

In Russia, criticizing the Orthodox Church will see them slam you in prison, and calling out Putin as a pedo will get you and half a restaurant radioactively poisoned with polonium, which only comes from government nuclear reactors.

In Israel, trying to leave your ghetto may get you killed, tortured, or dumped in prison, or all three.

In Saudi Arabia, pretty much anything is "criminal" (except, of course, anything royals choose to do, including creating and running Al Qaida).

Everything and nothing is a crime. Bedspreads are golden sprinkler cookie clowns. See? So much fun when words mean nothing at all.

Re: Cue the delusional "legitimate use" posts.

[MichaelMacDonald]

In the USA you can be picked up by the police for a traffic violation, put in jail with a murderer and then allowed to bleed out on the jailroom floor after having your head knocked on. Or shot while running unarmed from a police officer, or if you're a teenage kid shot in front of your parents for carrying a screw driver because the police didn't want to waste their time teaching you the lesson your parents intended. I'm not sure. There's so much more. In any event, you're more likely to be killed in the USA than just about anywhere else in the world. The poorer you are, the better your chances of being killed at any given moment.