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Russia Seeking To Ban Tor, VPNs and Other Anonymizing Tools

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-secrets dept.

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."

31 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. This is (sort of) good news for Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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)."

    1. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by I'm+just+joshin · · Score: 2

      Both?

    2. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by ihtoit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    3. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by KiloByte · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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?

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    5. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by mjwx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    7. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      Dashcams are a good idea. I live in America, and I have one. I bought it for $39 from Amazon. It hasn't recorded an accident yet, but I did record a robbery that occurred in front of my car in a parking lot. I emailed the video to the cops, and they said it helped them nail the guy. The victim was an Indian woman. They are often targeted by muggers because they wear a lot of solid gold jewelry.

    8. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by blind+biker · · Score: 2

      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?

      Moldova got already invaded - Putin took Transnistria already. In fact, that was his first invasion.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    9. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    10. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      One example are Russian cars. By law, they have to have sets of cameras on them

      I don't know who told you that, but there's no law in Russia that requires having dashcams. Nor is it a prerequisite for getting insurance - having a car insurance is obligatory, and the companies are required to provide it with certain minimum conditions satisfied.

      What it does is make it easier to prove your insurance claim should you have to make one. And also, in some cases, keep you out of jail, by proving your innocence (e.g. in a faked pedestrian hit).

      He has to run the country with an iron grip or else separatists will fracture the country

      Oh? And who are those separatists exactly, and which parts of the country are threatening to separate?

    11. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by dunkelfalke · · Score: 3, Informative

      The civil war in Transnistria happened when Putin was just a suitcase carrier for the then-mayor of St. Petersburg.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    12. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by hackertourist · · Score: 2

      That didn't work the last time. Remember the '80s? Oh, how we laughed at the KGB, Stasi et al. and their invasive ways. Listening to everybody, having half the population on the payroll and informing on the other half, reading all mail etc.
      How superior we felt, with our freedoms.

      Now look where we are.

    13. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by rockout · · Score: 2

      Oil prices are going back up, and will be at three digits a barrel by Memorial Day due to OPEC production cuts.

      I'd just like to point out that if this Anonymous Coward knew this as fact, he could be a multi-millionaire by Memorial Day with ease.

      If you agree with him, then so could you.

      Good luck with that.

      --
      I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
    14. Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  2. We need a distributed Tor immedietly by buddha379 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Tor and other centralized VPN proxies are coming under attack from authoritarian/totalitarian governments all over the world. China started assaulting VPNs recently as well. The Arab dictatorships won't be far behind. As long as there are central servers to ban/block/attack then there is no way to stop them. Eventually they will seize control of their local internet and cut themselves off from the world. There is only one answer.

    We need a distributed VPN/Proxy.

    We need a ubiquitous p2p proxy that is both a client and server. It needs to be ridiculously easy to set up, as in download it, click a few buttons and you are browsing the web through random onion routing and allowing others to do the same. 100s of millions of server/clients cannot be shut down if they run over https.

    Lantern may fit the bill. https://www.getlantern.org/ If there are others they need to get funding and widespread publicity as quickly as possible.

    1. Re:We need a distributed Tor immedietly by epyT-R · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Those three governments qualify.

    2. Re:We need a distributed Tor immedietly by sk999 · · Score: 4, Funny

      "China started assaulting VPNs recently as well."

      China has been blocking VPNs since 2011. It seems like an annual ritual. Here is a typical article from back then:
      http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

      Eventually the blocking eases, or people figure out another way around. It becomes a game of "whack-a-mole".

    3. Re:We need a distributed Tor immedietly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      This misses the point. The crackdown on VPNs has been getting tougher. (I live in China.) Yes, there are ways around it, but the bottleneck is that most people use a VPN provider, and the VPN providers have a limited number of IP addresses. If the government blocks the IP addresses of known VPN providers, it prevents most VPN access while not blocking terribly much of the traffic it considers acceptable. Allowing VPN traffic to flow through a significant fraction of the net's IP addresses requires a large organizational push from.... well, whatever organizations would not like to see VPNs blocked, but I think the international tech industry might be on our side in this one. There are certainly other things that can be done to disguise VPN traffic, but that's an easier game with more limited results.

    4. Re:We need a distributed Tor immedietly by mlts · · Score: 2

      I have not dealt with the Great Firewall, but I've seen some quite restrictive stuff here at home. One coffee shop near me actually tries to MITM traffic to my E-mail provider with a bogus SSL key coming from 192.168.168.168, and the people there have zero clue on it, and say it is corporate's decision.

      I've seen other crap as well on store Wi-Fi networks, be it ads inserted in-flight (www.google.com doesn't have Flash ads, nor does it try to install "securityupdate.apk" files if on Android), as well as executables that were downloaded and demanded to be run/installed in order to use the Wi-Fi connection. Websites were blocked or redirected willy-nilly (Google would be redirected to another search engine or some no-name site.)

      Because of that, I always use a VPN on Wi-Fi networks. Either the Wi-Fi network allows the traffic (and it will be obvious if they attempt to spoof the VPN keys), it will throttle the traffic, or it will disallow it. In this case, the real network traffic is allowed and protected, or it is blocked. The dodgy Wi-Fi AP can't tamper with it.

    5. Re:We need a distributed Tor immedietly by Immerman · · Score: 2

      Classic case of arming foreign rebels to undermine your enemy, and then being dismayed when the weapons make their way into the hands of people you'd like to suppress yourself.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  3. Re:Good by Kjella · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty sure I'm being trolled here... and he used a nick instead of his real name, foiled again. Now that you do mention it, it would be useful... what's your name and address again?

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  4. Incorrect text in the summary by yurik · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Vadim Roskomnadzora Ampelonsky" -- the second word is not part of the name, that's the organization name he is working for. It should be "Vadim Ampelonsky".

  5. This sounds vaguely familiar ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... oh, here it is.

    “If we find evidence of a terrorist plot and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or email address, we can’t penetrate that [encryption], that’s a problem,” Obama said. He said he believes Silicon Valley companies also want to solve the problem. “They’re patriots.” ...

    Emphasis mine.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:This sounds vaguely familiar ... by MichaelMacDonald · · Score: 2

      Just don't make out like this is partisan. The Patriot act was the Republicans. Too many people quote that crap with the intention to imply that the Right wing is better. It's, actually, worse. This is an overall problem in the USA, and it doesn't matter who you vote for.

    2. Re:This sounds vaguely familiar ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is an overall problem in the USA, and it doesn't matter who you vote for.

      Of course it does. If you limit yourself to the Republicans or the Democrats it doesn't matter which one you vote for, but any vote for a third party makes a difference.
      You don't need a majority of the votes make your voice heard, not when the major parties only cares about power. If a third party get the number of votes that makes the difference between them then they represent a large enough group of voters to remove the power from one party and give it to the other. That is sufficient to make them both listen very closely to what you have to say.

      Now, if one of the major parties actually had an ideology that is opposed to yours that would be another thing, but they only care about power.

  6. Re: Cue the delusional "legitimate use" posts. by Catbeller · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "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.

  7. Swell by blang · · Score: 2

    The same wonderful country that have brought us Russian Mafia Cyber Criminals is now going to break the net wide open for government criminals.
    I expect the Russian Mafia will continue to have the benefit of government protection and enjoy Tor and VPN while Russian opposition is going to get assfisted. Hail Putin.

    --
    -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
  8. Dictator's Internet Guide to Power Retention by dwheeler · · Score: 2

    This is straight from The Dictator's Practical Internet Guide to Power Retention (recommended).

    --
    - David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
  9. (bdum tish) by jhantin · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    I dunno, Alaska and Kamchatka are both sizable peninsulas.

    --
    ...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
  10. Re:Putin Has Aspergers by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2

    No, he doesn't. That was just some bogus analysis by people who have never directly observed him to reach a diagnosis: http://www.forbes.com/sites/fayeflam/2015/02/09/stories-claiming-putin-has-aspergers-reveal-more-about-pathology-in-media-than-in-russian-leader/

    My son has Asperger's Syndrome (actually diagnosed by a medical professional who spent 6 hours directly observing my son). I deal with actual-Asperger's every day. You don't get a diagnosis from someone watching some news clips. If Putin sees a medical professional and actually obtains a diagnosis, I'll change my mind, but you can't declare he has Asperger's based on a couple of people who watched a clip or two of him and decided "that's kinda Aspy."

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.