Russia's communications watchdog plans to block Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) from March 1 next year, a Russian senator for the ruling United Russia party said on Tuesday.
Demand for VPN services soared after Russia restricted access to some Western social media after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Senator Artem Sheikin said an order from the Roskomnadzor watchdog would come into force on March 1 that would block VPNs.
“From March 1, 2024, an order will come into force to block VPN services providing access to sites banned in Russia,” Sheikin was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA.
Phone calls to the number listed by Roskomnadzor as its press service were answered by a voice message with the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.
Sheikin said that it was particularly important to block access to Meta Platforms (META.O), which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
“I would like to note that it is especially important to restrict citizens’ access to the products of Meta which is recognised as an extremist organization,” Sheikin added.
The original article contains 216 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 30%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Usually this bot is pretty good, but this time the paragraph
Phone calls to the number listed by Roskomnadzor as its press service were answered by a voice message with the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.
comes out of nowhere, while the original article does provide context.
March 1st? Right before the presidential elections? No way they’re that stupid. Right after the elections, though, it’s gonna be inevitable. If people will vote for Putin one more time, Russia will quickly turn into North Korea.
Bro really thinks there are fair elections in Russia that ruling party can lose. They can do whatever the fuck they want any time of the year and the only thing we can do is cry about it
You seriously think elections in Russia are not fraudulent?
At this point, the only thing that can remove Putin is violence, either through combined effort of the people or by internal power struggle. That later will probably just result in an equally horrible replacement.
They had anywhere from 115 months to 19 months, depending on where you start counting, to make up their minds about who’s at fault in this war. If this much time isn’t enough…
I’m confused whether you see the entire people as only one individual? Very extreme view to say “if they can’t dominate forget anyone opposing or evading oppression, as well as chances for contrary information transmission”.
Continuing to question is important for when chances arise. There’s also activism and guerilla sabotage. That’s more than ineffective questioning.
How does VPN blocking that you support help? It does the opposite.
Oh yeah a nation that spies on everything and arrests anyone who disagrees with Putin sure is gonna revolt.
Blaming a nation of people who are unable to change their government with voting or revolution doesn’t help them. It makes you look like someone who’d blame all Japanese in America for Pearl Harbor.
Their options are not express free thought to a nation that kills its state officials when they are done being useful, or be buried near those officials in an unmarked grave.
The same logic applies to Americans in 2004. Not every american agreed with the Iraq invasion, but I guess Bush did all Americans must be removed from the Great equalizer of the Internet.
Hey, I’m not blaming all Japanese in America for Pearl Harbor, I’m blaming all Japanese in Japan for Pearl Harbor.
If you cannot express your opinion under the threat of death (but more likely, if you are a normal person and not a politician, a slap on the wrist or in worst case jail time), does your opinion really matter?
I have nothing to say about Iraq invasion except that one invasion for dumb reasons and shitty intelligence make all invasions for dumb reasons justified I guess.
Welp, their threat doesn’t affect me. I have no care for that barbaric country.
Besides, I’ve blocked everything geo-labelled as Russia anyway, it makes for much easier firewall logs. Honestly “the West” as russians say, should flat out block the entire country to our internet.
This would stop a lot of hacking and exploiting, and they’re basically dictating everything to their people at this point, so let them just become a new N.Korea.
They want our tech, they don’t want to co-op or collab with the West and everything they have/do is inferior. Cut them off at the neck.
(Im biased, my mother’s parents were Polish and Ukraine, and I’ve been to both places many times and russia is an arsehat in general)
I understand you frustration but you are hurting everyone with this statement.
At this point, russia is still struggling for total control (not yet n korea) over their citizens. If we cut them off, we hand over the keys to everything russia to that insane individual.
This would have very dire implications.
russia would 10x their propaganda capabilities as there is no way to gain outside info for the people
russia would indeed become another nk but with 142 times the size, 6 times the population and very near the european borders
have you ever heard of the axis powers? They were tiny in comparison to russia. Now think who else would likely join that totalitarian power grab? China is already working with russia. Have you any idea how fucked we would be?
dividing the internet is actually in the interest of any propagandist in any country on earth. Far right movements anywhere would have a field day. Think of the mass murders that are first reported on the internet. They would go quietly in the future and much more successful.
Thats only what I could come up with in a couple minutes but cutting russia off is just not a good idea at all.
At this point, we should just go back to cold war footing as if Russia, China, and North Korea reformed into a new Soviet Union. They’re realigning themselves and we should get prepared for any eventualities.
After all, the Axis powers didn’t face a prepared allied force, but we now have NATO and the US’ island chain containment of China and North Korea. The former Soviet pact will have a greater uphill struggle to defeat the western world order than the Axis did.
But we’re always going to have trade with China up until the very last moment, and China likewise seems to not be keen on jeopardizing on trade, so there is hope yet that China doesn’t stick their neck out for Russia.
Oh and besides, Nazi Germany enjoyed far better parity on military technology than Russia ever will now.
This should totally be the error they give you when using a vpn in russia. Its a shame russia government is so stupid they are on the brink of booming piracy this will likely stall efforts if every vpn is blocked.
“From March 1, 2024, an order will come into force to block VPN services providing access to sites banned in Russia,” Sheikin was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA.
I assume this means it’s regarding outgoing communications, for censorship purposes most likely. I’d be surprised if they were blocking incoming VPN traffic, and I don’t think the Russian government has an issue with Yandex operating.
There are numerous VPNs still working great inside mainland China. I have multiple friends who I talk to over Signal which is normally blocked.
It’s just a matter of finding the right provider. Also hosting a VPS outside China as your own VPN can work nicely too - and doesn’t come with the performance hit when using Tor.
Most popular VPNs were getting blocked here at the same pace as in Iran, official websites to get them are banned too. Some editions claimed this move is about making Apple\Google restrict them on respective appstores by themselves because siloviki can’t deny getting these apps without fucking up the whole platform. And they don’t want to bring unnecessary discomfort to agreeable masses who use these markets to download apps daily.
Corporate and goverment networks won’t be affected, obviously. Troll farms too. Only a minority of those not invested enough to find other loopholes. I don’t see if it matters to those outside of Russia. For locals? Not a surprise, really, snd I don’t feel they’d block youtube and telegram, both are still availiable to get information if one wants it.
Timing of that act doesn’t say anything either. They want to sanitize the internet before presidential elections, and do it that way? It doesn’t make sense. It won’t affect those who already downloaded such apps, or those using other sources. Seems like a coincidence that this part of closing the iron dome happened to fall there, not the first, not the last. Or, equally possible, elderly officials don’t know how it works kek.
Well, most of popular in the world VPN services are already blocked. Even such simple things like Cloudflare’s warp doesn’t work, although it still possible to use it if you generate wireguard config and change endpoint, but there’s a possibility that the wg protocol will be blocked in the future. The best way to bypass censorship in Russia right now is to use Chinese solutions for gfw circumvention such as shadowsocks/vmess/vless/trojan/etc. Or one can use self-hosted VPN servers, but it’s very hard to find a way for paying for cloud services that are located outside of Russia.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Demand for VPN services soared after Russia restricted access to some Western social media after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Senator Artem Sheikin said an order from the Roskomnadzor watchdog would come into force on March 1 that would block VPNs.
“From March 1, 2024, an order will come into force to block VPN services providing access to sites banned in Russia,” Sheikin was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA.
Phone calls to the number listed by Roskomnadzor as its press service were answered by a voice message with the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.
Sheikin said that it was particularly important to block access to Meta Platforms (META.O), which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
“I would like to note that it is especially important to restrict citizens’ access to the products of Meta which is recognised as an extremist organization,” Sheikin added.
The original article contains 216 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 30%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Usually this bot is pretty good, but this time the paragraph
comes out of nowhere, while the original article does provide context.
deleted by creator
While it’s true that the imbeciles in our (UK) government have tried to implicitly outlaw E2EE, there are no restrictions on VPNs here.
Yet! 😁
deleted by creator
Banning vpns is an authoritarian move for a country. No matter which country.
This. It’s not either-or.
March 1st? Right before the presidential elections? No way they’re that stupid. Right after the elections, though, it’s gonna be inevitable. If people will vote for Putin one more time, Russia will quickly turn into North Korea.
Bro really thinks there are fair elections in Russia that ruling party can lose. They can do whatever the fuck they want any time of the year and the only thing we can do is cry about it
As per evidences:
Putin can do whatever he likes.
Yeah, the votes haven’t mattered there for a long time
My friend is at least 4 elections late
You seriously think elections in Russia are not fraudulent? At this point, the only thing that can remove Putin is violence, either through combined effort of the people or by internal power struggle. That later will probably just result in an equally horrible replacement.
Good
This is in no way good. It only serves to brainwash the Russian people.
They had anywhere from 115 months to 19 months, depending on where you start counting, to make up their minds about who’s at fault in this war. If this much time isn’t enough…
Also, please explain how you want people to question the government, but support that very same government banning ways to find info to question it?
You in your other comment say “a nation of people who are unable to change their government with voting or revolution”.
Under this definition, questioning government is going to achieve what, exactly?
I’m confused whether you see the entire people as only one individual? Very extreme view to say “if they can’t dominate forget anyone opposing or evading oppression, as well as chances for contrary information transmission”.
Continuing to question is important for when chances arise. There’s also activism and guerilla sabotage. That’s more than ineffective questioning.
How does VPN blocking that you support help? It does the opposite.
Oh yeah a nation that spies on everything and arrests anyone who disagrees with Putin sure is gonna revolt.
Blaming a nation of people who are unable to change their government with voting or revolution doesn’t help them. It makes you look like someone who’d blame all Japanese in America for Pearl Harbor.
Their options are not express free thought to a nation that kills its state officials when they are done being useful, or be buried near those officials in an unmarked grave.
The same logic applies to Americans in 2004. Not every american agreed with the Iraq invasion, but I guess Bush did all Americans must be removed from the Great equalizer of the Internet.
Hey, I’m not blaming all Japanese in America for Pearl Harbor, I’m blaming all Japanese in Japan for Pearl Harbor.
If you cannot express your opinion under the threat of death (but more likely, if you are a normal person and not a politician, a slap on the wrist or in worst case jail time), does your opinion really matter?
I have nothing to say about Iraq invasion except that one invasion for dumb reasons and shitty intelligence make all invasions for dumb reasons justified I guess.
How is crying for more government control good?
Less good russians online whining how “sanctions and entry restrictions to EU are bad for those who don’t support the war, actually”.
Welp, their threat doesn’t affect me. I have no care for that barbaric country.
Besides, I’ve blocked everything geo-labelled as Russia anyway, it makes for much easier firewall logs. Honestly “the West” as russians say, should flat out block the entire country to our internet.
This would stop a lot of hacking and exploiting, and they’re basically dictating everything to their people at this point, so let them just become a new N.Korea.
They want our tech, they don’t want to co-op or collab with the West and everything they have/do is inferior. Cut them off at the neck.
(Im biased, my mother’s parents were Polish and Ukraine, and I’ve been to both places many times and russia is an arsehat in general)
Mate, the Russian people aren’t our enemy, but the Russian government that opresses them is.
deleted by creator
For me both are barbaric, but I can feel sorry
I understand you frustration but you are hurting everyone with this statement.
At this point, russia is still struggling for total control (not yet n korea) over their citizens. If we cut them off, we hand over the keys to everything russia to that insane individual.
This would have very dire implications.
Thats only what I could come up with in a couple minutes but cutting russia off is just not a good idea at all.
Have a good one.
Your namaste is something to behold
Wdym?
At this point, we should just go back to cold war footing as if Russia, China, and North Korea reformed into a new Soviet Union. They’re realigning themselves and we should get prepared for any eventualities.
After all, the Axis powers didn’t face a prepared allied force, but we now have NATO and the US’ island chain containment of China and North Korea. The former Soviet pact will have a greater uphill struggle to defeat the western world order than the Axis did.
But we’re always going to have trade with China up until the very last moment, and China likewise seems to not be keen on jeopardizing on trade, so there is hope yet that China doesn’t stick their neck out for Russia.
Oh and besides, Nazi Germany enjoyed far better parity on military technology than Russia ever will now.
But you’d also be giving their governments total control of all information, to the detriment of citizens and any possible organized resistance.
rip yandex 😭
I assume this means it’s regarding outgoing communications, for censorship purposes most likely. I’d be surprised if they were blocking incoming VPN traffic, and I don’t think the Russian government has an issue with Yandex operating.
tx bud. hopefully we can still connect to Russia from our VPN not being in Russia 🤞
You know tor is still a thing? It is also used to bypass the “great” firewall of china.
There are numerous VPNs still working great inside mainland China. I have multiple friends who I talk to over Signal which is normally blocked. It’s just a matter of finding the right provider. Also hosting a VPS outside China as your own VPN can work nicely too - and doesn’t come with the performance hit when using Tor.
No it can not. It is needed to connect to a VPN first in order to reach the tor network from China.
Requiring a VPN is false see https://support.torproject.org/censorship/connecting-from-china/ Their are a few ways to bypass the firewall from tor it self. the easiest is to use snowflake.
Thanks for the info. I still wouldn’t consider these as long-term solutions bc they tend to be frequently blocked and/or are really slow.
You’re still using a proxy to connect to Tor. It’s technically not a VPN, but I’m also using a proxy in China myself.
It’s not Tor that avoids the censorship, it’s the proxy you use to connect to Tor since Tor IS blocked
Most popular VPNs were getting blocked here at the same pace as in Iran, official websites to get them are banned too. Some editions claimed this move is about making Apple\Google restrict them on respective appstores by themselves because siloviki can’t deny getting these apps without fucking up the whole platform. And they don’t want to bring unnecessary discomfort to agreeable masses who use these markets to download apps daily.
Corporate and goverment networks won’t be affected, obviously. Troll farms too. Only a minority of those not invested enough to find other loopholes. I don’t see if it matters to those outside of Russia. For locals? Not a surprise, really, snd I don’t feel they’d block youtube and telegram, both are still availiable to get information if one wants it.
Timing of that act doesn’t say anything either. They want to sanitize the internet before presidential elections, and do it that way? It doesn’t make sense. It won’t affect those who already downloaded such apps, or those using other sources. Seems like a coincidence that this part of closing the iron dome happened to fall there, not the first, not the last. Or, equally possible, elderly officials don’t know how it works kek.
Well, most of popular in the world VPN services are already blocked. Even such simple things like Cloudflare’s warp doesn’t work, although it still possible to use it if you generate wireguard config and change endpoint, but there’s a possibility that the wg protocol will be blocked in the future. The best way to bypass censorship in Russia right now is to use Chinese solutions for gfw circumvention such as shadowsocks/vmess/vless/trojan/etc. Or one can use self-hosted VPN servers, but it’s very hard to find a way for paying for cloud services that are located outside of Russia.