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We'll Never Legalize Bitcoin, Says Russian Minister (siliconangle.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In yet another backflip worthy of the Moscow Circus, a Russian minister has said that the country will never legalize bitcoin, just seven months after another government minister said it was considering making it legal. Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolai Nikiforov made the statement this week, saying that "bitcoin is a foreign project for using blockchain technology, the Russian law will never consider bitcoin as a legal entity in the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation." Recognizing that blockchain technology is separate to bitcoin, Nikiforov went on to say that "I think that it is quite possible to use blockchain technology and the use of various digital tokens." Those tokens may constitute a Russian-issued cryptocurrency. TASS reported that "Russia's Communication Ministry has submitted to the government the document containing technical details related to cryptocurrencies adoption."
Snowden showed the conflict between prior public perception of the utility of most internet related communication tools and what the government really thought of their effectiveness. And that was a government with at least half a historical foot in the liberty and free speech game. If I were a russian citizen I sure as hell wouldn't trust my personal safety to tor/vpn/encryption. Maybe those are the kinds of things you use for a Snowden level moment-in-history data transfer to journalists, but definitely nothing I'd feel secure in using day to day. Day to day a government has fair to say plenty of opportunity to work around some relatively minor obstacles. When such a government encounters real obstacles, buildings get burned down, the earth gets salted, etc. If the Russian government doesn't want its citizens using Tor or VPNs or encryption, I'm guessing that's pretty much exactly what is going to happen. The real dissident movements against totalitarianism aren't going to really be using Tor or VPNs for their day to day typical communication needs. Except in so far as to blend in with the crowd they'll use them exactly as much as the average person. In fact they are probably most useful at counterintelligence, i.e. knowing they are not actually secure, and filling those pipes with information they want the authorities to think they are trying to hide.
Bitcoin and other blockchain systems have one use: as a perfect money laundering vehicle. Yes, it's an 'asset' bubble, but the ones doing the most transactions don't care, and since it's not tied to something with a real value, like land, they can let it inflate infinitely. It is in effect the perfect fiat currency, completely imaginary. Russia knows what it is and will only allow a blockchain variation which they have modified to be trackable so that they can get a cut.
Are all already banned in Russia. ISPs are madated by law to prevent the use of Tor/proxies/VPNs because they can be used to access 'extremist material'.
It's really descriptive of just how totalitarian the country has become that they're hard at work at out-Chinaing China itself when it comes to the control of the internet.
This is not to say there won't be those who still have access to Tor and VPNs, especially to those who're friends of the right people, but for the common folk this makes it really hard.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead