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VPN Provider Removes Russian Presence After Servers Seized (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Stack: VPN provider Private Internet Access has pulled out of Russia in the wake of new internet surveillance legislation in the country. The company claims that some of its Russian servers were seized by the government as punishment for not complying with the rules, which ask providers to log and hold all Russian internet traffic and session data for up to a year. Upon learning of the federal action, the company immediately removed its Russian availability and announced that it would no longer be operating in the region. "We believe that due to the enforcement regime surrounding this new law, some of our Russian Servers (RU) were recently seized by Russian Authorities, without notice or any type of due process," wrote Private Internet Access in a blog post. The company advises users to update their desktop clients. They also noted that its manual configurations now support the "strongest new encryption algorithms including AES-256, SHA-256, and RSA-4096." Putin has given Federal Security Agents two weeks to produce "encryption keys" for the internet.
Do as the Romans. You need to follow the laws of the country you are in, otherwise, there are consequences.
Why would you need to ever VPN into a server in Russia anyhow?
It's ok, they choke connection 85% of the time that 14,4 dial up would be faster.
They are stopping absolutely nothing by doing this, it is merely for show. If you wanted to connect to Russia it is nothing different you just use a different gateway. Zero change. Nada. This story just pleads the case that the American Government are not the only power-hungry spy agencies. The difference is myriad between USA and Russia however. America is bankrupt and has to expand as an Empire or fall as an Empire. The CIA are responsible for this, as well as the President and the vast majority of Congress. The other 3 letter agencies as well as many technology corporations are involved. Even the media and Israel are connected "for their own self-serving purposes".
Literally nothing is changed by closing PrivateInternetAccess's VPN gateways in Russia. Nothing.
So much exposure of the corruption of USA / CIA / Google / Microsoft / Facebook / Markmonitor lately, people are waking up.
the real story here is putin's absurd demand or all of the internet's encryption keys.
That is absurd to twilightzone levels.
Oh darn Putin, I guess you will mad that I didnt give you my exclusive access (only given in person to close friends) 4096bit public key. I mean, it is clearly evil of me to deny plotsylvania access to my correspondence concerning internet cat pics and jokes. A real loss to your nation's intelligence agency, i am sure.
no, I wont give you a copy. Not even if you ask nicely.
When it comes to Russia, we all prefer to remain anonymous.
IOT now stands for Internet Of Thugs.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Vlad, the Internet Impaler - this was my original comment on the Putin Gives Federal Security Agents Two Weeks To Produce 'Encryption Keys' For The Internet story. I got 'flamebait' moderation on that one :)
I want to see how deep does the rabbit hole go...
Putin and his very small hands... He wants 'the Internet encryption keys' in his small hands.
OK, so that is funny. But consider that in the last year Putin increased the police force by a large number in Russia and he signed a law that would require the country to build him his own 'national guard', everybody sees it the same way: he is scared of a coup and he wants his own army around him at all times. Him and his small hands, he is scared to be overthrown and as a KGB operative he knows that he can be overthrown and he decides he needs a couple hundred thousand body guards.
This move against encryption of all sorts is based on the same fear. He is scared of everything, scared he will not find out about a gathering of people somewhere and won't jail them in time before they make it to any news that still exists (and journalism is the most dangerous activity in that country, journalists murdered and beaten by the government). He is afraid to end up in the same way Quadaffi and Hussein ended up in. He should be scared, people are very tired of him. The majority of people in Russia wouldn't move a finger to get ridbof him, but it doesn't take a majority, only a few determined people and that is what he is afraid of most.
Needless to say there are other business interests that are government owned and that would love to have access to all communications that would prevent any competition against them.
Also FSB has their google like search servers installed at every ISP and every communications company in Russia, searching for stuff and recording what matches specific parameters, but the new law also imposes an obligation to all communications companoes to record all traffic and all communications for a minimum of 6 months.
The companies are saying this will cost them billions and will cause rate hikes, the government officials are replying that is nonsense, it will cost nothing and any rate hike because of it would be a money grab. Right, because it costs nothing to record 6 months of internet traffic.
As to this requirement to the FSB to get all of the encryption keys, I wonder who Putin wants to fire 2 weeks from now, because it sounds like an old Russian fairy tale of a tsar telling his servant to go some place that cannot ne found and to get him something that does not exist and if he fails to deliver his head is coming off...
You can't handle the truth.
Remove their personnel also, for their own safety. But couldn't they still offer a VPN client that connects to a server outside the country with a "dynamic" IP of sorts to keep it from from being blocked by the ISP? Shouldn't we be helping the Russians/Chinese/Iranians/Brits/Americans circumvent surveillance and censorship by any and all means possible? We need some good news, and we just aren't getting any yet.
The same mass surveillance laws are being rolled out in the UK too. Theresa May's snoopers charter, (our new unelected Prime Minister).
There's zero difference between what Putin is doing spying on everyone, and what Theresa is doing spying on everyone.
Putin has his elite group, protected from it, Theresa has MPs, in an elite group not subject to the surveillance, except they are really. If ever they flagged which IPs are MPs IP, GCHQ and NSA will be watching those addresses particularly closely.
All leaders 'elected' in fake or dubious circumstances are doing exactly the same thing.
So discussion of an issue is equal to opposition of an issue ? Quit trying to cryptic and cool and deal with reality. Any society that purports to be free MUST have room for argument, debate, and a wide variety of ideas of what is correct and what isn't. But you appear to only see black and white, your way or nothing. All I did was express an opinion, which you declared as wrong and proved yourself as a narrow minded fool.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
They also yanked all certificates (or will soon). Customers will have to download the new ones if they use OpenVPN or something of the like.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Russia's new law is draconian, authoritarian, and invasive.
It is also right up front, in your face, brutally honest.
Rather different from the Americansky approach, which consists of disinformation, subterfuge, and barely hidden illegality.
How are those never-denied secret NSL's working out for you?
seized by Russian Authorities, without notice or any type of due process
In Soviet Russia, due process does not apply to YOU.
What about Australia?
We got our data retention laws last year (2015).
Boobietrap your servers with explosives, have commies loose few limbs
When doing private things use multiple VPNs. Using Russian VPNs is still perfectly good if you want to hide stuff from the USA. The trick is to use multiple VPNs located in a different countries that arnt friendly with each other.
What does Edward Snowden have to say about this?