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.

Comments

Re:This is a good thing

[Kierthos]

You really haven't been paying attention to the Trump administration, have you?

Re:21st century fascism

[hyades1]

It wasn't "the left" that said China would democratize, you jackass. If you claim to remember that, you're either lying or a fool.

It was corporations like Apple and Google and a bunch of others that couldn't wait to get their hot corporate hands on all that lovely Chinese money. The whole "we'll make them free" argument was just a sop to willfully-credulous Congressmen and Senators on both sides of the aisle who needed an excuse to turn a blind eye while their corporate masters helped build "The Great Firewall of China".

Those corporations ran their PR-as-news stories in every publication they could beg or bribe to publish it. It works like this: a corporation provides a nice, long article or video, complete with pretty pictures, accurate descriptions of technology and all the bells and whistles, and they do it for free. Oh...and it contains an interview with some techy-looking pseudo-geek who explains how China will have no choice but to let information run free in the Brave New Infoworld they're building. News media owners are delighted to get this crap, because it's free and it looks good. Publish enough of it and you get to lay off a real reporter who might dig down enough to figure out what's really going to happen when you turn all that lovely technology and software over to a brutal totalitarian government.

No sane person on either the left or the right believed China would do anything but enlist those corporations in their efforts to utterly control their subjects' access to information, and threaten them with expulsion if they even made a whimper about "free information".

Smarten up

Re:Soviet Union 2.0

[WheezyJoe]

I am *not* dead wrong. Russia has a terrible position. They're no Soviet Union. They're surrounded, where are they going to go?

Uhh, Crimea, for a start? They have Syria, too.

The US won't allow anything to happen to its captive vassal states in Europe.

I think the people of Ukraine would disagree with you on that.

The European Union is already strong enough to defend against Russia

So far, they've been strong enough to impose some sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine and the taking of Crimea. But it's kinda over... nobody believes Russia is going to just pack up and leave. Re-draw the maps: Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation.

Don't fall for the old "blame the dirty foreigners" line, it's the oldest trick in the book.

Unless the dirty foreigners are actually playing dirty. They play dirty in Ukraine, they play dirty in Syria. They play dirty on the high seas. They have vast oil wealth, hold real estate interests worldwide, and maintain the largest nuclear stockpile in the world, which Putin said (over dinner) could destroy America in a half-hour or less.

And then there's that whole internet hacking thing. If the shoe fits, wear it.