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Russia Orders Major VPN Providers To Block 'Banned' Sites (torrentfreak.com)
Russian authorities have ordered ten major VPN providers to begin blocking sites on the country's blacklist. "NordVPN, ExpressVPN, IPVanish and HideMyAss are among those affected," reports TorrentFreak. "TorGuard also received a notification and has pulled its services out of Russia with immediate effect." From the report: During the past few days, telecoms watch Roscomnadzor says it sent compliance notifications to 10 major VPN services with servers inside Russia -- NordVPN, ExpressVPN, TorGuard, IPVanish, VPN Unlimited, VyprVPN, Kaspersky Secure Connection, HideMyAss!, Hola VPN, and OpenVPN. The government agency is demanding that the affected services begin interfacing with the FGIS database, blocking the sites listed within. Several other local companies -- search giant Yandex, Sputnik, Mail.ru, and Rambler -- are already connected to the database and filtering as required.
"In accordance with paragraph 5 of Article 15.8 of the Federal Law No. 149-FZ of 27.07.2006 'On Information, Information Technology and on Protection of Information' hereby we are informing you about the necessity to get connected to the Federal state informational system of the blocked information sources and networks [FGIS] within thirty working days from the receipt [of this notice]," the notice reads. A notice received by TorGuard reveals that the provider was indeed given just under a month to comply. The notice also details the consequences for not doing so, i.e being placed on the blacklist with the rest of the banned sites so it cannot operate in Russia. The demand from Roscomnadzor sent to TorGuard and the other companies also requires that they hand over information to the authorities, including details of their operators and places of business. The notice itself states that for foreign entities, Russian authorities require the full entity name, country of residence, tax number and/or trade register number, postal and email address details, plus other information.
"In accordance with paragraph 5 of Article 15.8 of the Federal Law No. 149-FZ of 27.07.2006 'On Information, Information Technology and on Protection of Information' hereby we are informing you about the necessity to get connected to the Federal state informational system of the blocked information sources and networks [FGIS] within thirty working days from the receipt [of this notice]," the notice reads. A notice received by TorGuard reveals that the provider was indeed given just under a month to comply. The notice also details the consequences for not doing so, i.e being placed on the blacklist with the rest of the banned sites so it cannot operate in Russia. The demand from Roscomnadzor sent to TorGuard and the other companies also requires that they hand over information to the authorities, including details of their operators and places of business. The notice itself states that for foreign entities, Russian authorities require the full entity name, country of residence, tax number and/or trade register number, postal and email address details, plus other information.
Their answer will be "lol no".
Just great! They blocked my VPN provider. Now how am I going to, um, hmmm, ... ah, never mind.
On a serious note I hope that something happens that the people of Russia can start getting their freedoms back.
In most cases, I agree with you.
With regard to VPNs, however, I must disagree. VPNs are a valuable tool in subverting censorship and giving those who live in censored countries access to the information they need to make changes.
I spent 6 years behind the Great Firewall. I know what it's like to be in a country that controls the internet with a heavy hand. If all the VPNs pulled out it would just bolster the power of the oppressive governments.
We don't want "echo chambers". We want free and open discourse, the exchange of ideas, and mutual understanding between countries and cultures. The way to overthrow oppressive regimes is to give the citizens access to information, insight, and opinion and let them make their own decisions.
Maybe you don't realize that The Guardian is a private institution from Britain. Their rights to free speech on their own platform overrides that of their user base. The same also applies in most Western nations including the US. Private institutions, while not acting very nice, can censor as much as they want.
You are free to create your own platforms, where your free speech overrides that of the users. If enough people like your opinions, the free market will run its course and your platform may become very popular, possibly rivalling platforms like The Guardian.
As a half Westerner you ought to know that it's different when governments start to censor however, or if they pressure private institution to censor.
Then the government starts to censor it will be difficult for you to create your own platforms where you can exercise your rights, since there's no competition to be had with the government. If you compete with them through speech they deemed illegal, they can brand you a criminal for speaking your opinions. They can shut you up by jailing and convicting you. Private institutions can't just do that.
This makes censorship pushed by the government highly abusable and a lot more concerning than voluntary censorship by private institutions.