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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.
Is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?
I can see the deep thought behind it; just like they killed the Lycos MP3 search engine and napster and gnutella p2p - no one shares files anymore. If you can do that to file sharing why not VPN? -BAN ALL VPNs!
I'm just tunnelling this information via encrypted link end to end. TOTALLY DIFFERENT TO VPN.
Time to start using MAID - encryption via mutli-port-multi-protocol distributed means. VPN is a joke.
Thank you to China for starting this process and for Russia to accelerate it. I hope more countries follow suit.
What's the point anyhow? Putin throws whoever he wants in jail regardless of wrong doing and makes rich people "share" their wealth with him. -call it the loving embrace of a bear.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
No it doesn't. The West’s authoritarians are falling over themselves to follow Russia and China’s lead when it comes to surveillance and oppression. And just like Putin, they claim it’s all about “extremism.”
Well, we had a good run, 30 years or so for the old-fashioned global internet. But having that much information available is simply too threatening to powerful people. We the commoners are supposed to keep our heads down and do their work for them, not crowdsource cases of corruption and essentially solve them, nor correctly point out where the ruling class is totally full of shit.
Right now, all of that is happening on Youtube/Facebook/Twitter/etc. Trump's election was a severe shock not just to American elites but to ruling classes the world over. The writing on the wall is clear: if you want to remain ruling class, don't let the proles know the real story. Youtube is ruthlessly demonetizing, Facebook is censoring, Twitter is deleting accounts and governments are blocking off the outside world. The future will be national networks with limited access to the outside, like China's today. In February a VPN ban will go into effect in China and that will be the end of that. So there will be a Chinese network, a Russian network, and increasingly fragmented networks the world over that don't really connect to each other. Good try internet, you did some good there for a while, but you were just too threatening to allow to continue to exist.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
First, see what kind of social and economic mischief you can carry out in the West by way of "anonymous" activity on the Internet - do it cheap, like get kids to help out, and take note how hard it is to trace back to the culprit.
(in parallel, see how much actual damage can be carried out, using Ukraine as a guinea-pig).
Next, notice well it all worked, beyond all reasonable expectations, even to the extent of swaying elections of public officials in the U.S. (they're holding Congressional hearings about us!), and encouraging open revolt against the state and inflaming street unrest.
Third, in view of the fact that Russian officials do not tolerate street unrest and open revolt against the state, conclude that this "research experiment" has proven without question that the Internet is a danger to the Motherland and its beloved leader, Valdimir Putin.
Fourth and finally, take pre-emptive action based on this valuable research to crush this threat and make sure it don't never happen here (Russian military take note... could be useful someday; continue research).
P.S.: President Xi says to Putin in his heavy Chinese accent, "way ahead of you."
P.P.S.: Kim Jong-un says it was all my idea.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
VPN servers will be blocked intra-Russia. So Russian might still be able to use other VPNs from Europe and the US.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
That's what Putin wants, and if you can't believe that at this point in time then you're either not paying attention or your powers of denial are wizard-level strong. Putin wants to bring back the Soviet Union, resurrected in his own image, and denying his own citizens as much free access to the Internet outside of Russia proper is just one item on his to-do list.