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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.
Why would you need to ever VPN into a server in Russia anyhow?
Obey every law without question. Civil disobedience is violence. Do not test us.
Obey every law without question. Civil disobedience is violence. Do not test us.
You go on and try that in Putin's Russia. Let me know how it works out for you, K?
Are we honestly going to pretend that an American VPN provider is secure and does not do exactly what they're told by American authorities?
Russia is quite capable of destroying itself without any outside help. Any problem, large or small, is always blamed on the US. If the economy tanks in the US how many US citizens blame Russia? It's a good strategy on Russia's part because they know it's gives them a pass on anything they do. Russia invades a sovereign country and all you hear is that the US does it and that's the end of the debate. Russia blows up a few hospitals in Syria and all you hear is that the US does it and that's the end of the debate. Russia routinely invades other countries airspace and all you hear is that the US does it and that's the end of the debate. Russia provides anti-aircraft weapons and they get used to blow up a civilian jet and all you hear is that the US does it and that's the end of the debate. Russia passes a law requiring back doors to any encrypted devices and data traffic and all you hear is that the US does it and that's the end of the debate. Except in this case there is no such law in the US but that doesn't matter because after all the other accusations and false equivalencies the slow witted have already been indoctrinated to the Russian party line. There are only two countries in the world that are responsible for every wrong in the world and that is the US and Israel. Everyone else gets a free pass.
you mean the same demands that US/UK/AU governments etc are making? They aren't the first to push for this, nor will they be the last.
Obey every law without question.
When you are a COMPANY yes. A company doesn't have a right to civil disobedience. A company may challenge the law in courts it cannot and SHOULD NOT choose which laws to follow.
IOT now stands for Internet Of Thugs.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Russia is a gas station. Want to see them implode? Stop buying their product.
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.
dandy donald wont get his fat fingers on my key either. even if he asks really nice.
A company doesn't have a right to civil disobedience.
[citation needed]
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
They don't agree with the law so they stopped doing business there. Where is the problem with that? The nature of their business demands not operating there while a theoretical petition is filed.
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 ?
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? [snip] We need some good news, and we just aren't getting any yet.
They do. That is the good news. Here's the summary...
Private Internet Access owns about 3,000 servers in 34 countries. You pay $7/month, and you set up a PPTP/IPSEC/OpenVPN client with the credentials they specify. When you log into your account on their website, you can pick which country you want your data to be originating from, and that is your endpoint. If they have a server in France, then your traffic is VPN'd from your computer to their servers in France. If you connect to their VPN and then head over to IPChicken, you'll see a French IP address from the block of IPs they own from that region. If tomorrow you want your traffic to come from Kansas, you pick your server there, and your IPChicken will reflect that IP instead. Meanwhile, those IPs are used by dozens of other users, so it's neigh impossible to tell exactly which user was responsible for a given piece of traffic...unless you explicitly configure those server to log which users were logged in and sent what traffic where, which is what Russia is looking for.
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.
A company is a person.
In America.
Thanks to a spelling checker changing the law.
Really? Show me one article about, or even better yet -- an official letter sent to a company executive, from the US government asking for encryption keys that will allow decryption of any data the company handles.
I won't hold my breath while I wait, but I certainly hope you do while you're looking.
various definitions, but they all revolve around the right of an individual or group of individuals or a citizen.
http://legal-dictionary.thefre...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Civil disobedience is usually defined as pertaining to a citizen's relation to the state and its laws, as distinguished from a constitutional impasse in which two public agencies, especially two equally sovereign branches of government, conflict. For instance, if the head of government of a country were to refuse to enforce a decision of that country's highest court, it would not be civil disobedience, since the head of government would be acting in her or his capacity as public official rather than private citizen"
Generally, you are right. For a very extended meaning of "laws". In Russia, it means bribing administrative clerks, doing favor to "politicians" and always being ready to surrender your business to someone with power. Doing business in Russia means being forced to break both Russian written laws and your domestic laws (if you are foreigner and your domestic laws apply, and for US or EU citizens a lot of them DO apply).
So when you cannot comply, you close.
"log all traffic" Do you think any site that gets more than a few dozen hits is going to be able to do that?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Reality is they had no choice but to pull out. Basically what will happen is selected foreign companies, suspect companies (suspected of passing info to the North American Territorial Occupation farce) will be targeted for the most onerous requirements and they will be forced to operate at a loss or shut down and pull out from Russia (also not to forget, foreign companies competing against insider Russian companies). So the laws are purposefully tough and have been purposefully written so as to be legally selectively applied, not all companies have to adhere with the laws, unless they have been instructed by Russian regulatory authorities to do so. If they refuse once they have been directed to do so, wham, bye, bye servers, and then of course bye, bye, Russia as they are forced to leave or go bankrupt trying to stay or operate at a lost funded by a foreign government and be extremely suspect. Want to blame anyone blame the NSA because that is who they are kicking out and any suspect foreign corporations they can be in the slightest way, associated with them. Much like patent trolls, they will start with small companies and with precedence set, work their way up to larger companies. In light of the NSA's criminal foreign activities, a sound response. More countries will follow suit, seeking similar selective laws, to shut down foreign internet companies. The US government was really dumb waffling on about fighting a cyberwar on the internet. This is the direct result of that stupidity and it will get worse.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Of course you are aware that legally a corporation is a person?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I believe they're London-based. Same concern applies, perhaps more so in the UK.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
God. Just hand him some random key string, and when he complains that it doesn't work say "you're doing it wrong."
What does Edward Snowden have to say about this?