VPNs Are Now Banned in Russia

Megalith

Megalith

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Putin has signed a law prohibiting the use of VPNs in Russia, which should make accessing websites banned in the country much more difficult. The legislation, which will come into force on Nov. 1, is being described by parliament as a means of blocking access to "unlawful content,” and that the intention is not to impose restrictions on law-abiding citizens.

The law, already approved by the Duma, the lower house of parliament, will ban the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) and other technologies, known as anonymizers, that allow people to surf the web anonymously. It comes into force on Nov. 1. Leonid Levin, the head of Duma's information policy committee, has said the law is not intended to impose restrictions on law-abiding citizens but is meant only to block access to "unlawful content," RIA news agency said.
 
A good one for all the people unconcerned with supporting open tech, freedom, and privacy on the internet.

"I don't care, I'll just use VPN and TOR."

*Makes VPN and TOR illegal."

"Fuck!"
 
I don't really understand how can you achieve the banning of VPNs technically? I can operate a VPN on any port I want, how can they ban it targetedly? Or will they ban every traffic outside of basic port 80 ?
 
This will just force the locals to make their own 'secondary' internet sooner than expected. I don't see how you going to keep Russian hackers at bay. They have always been a very smart bunch.
 
This will probably affect IPsec and Tor, but not SSL VPN. A lot of businesses rely on VPN. It does not make sense to ban all VPN.
 
M76 said:
I don't really understand how can you achieve the banning of VPNs technically? I can operate a VPN on any port I want, how can they ban it targetedly? Or will they ban every traffic outside of basic port 80 ?
Click to expand...
The law was created by people who dont understand what VPN's are. They just heard the term, were told what it can do, and then assumed they could "ban it!" like you could with any number of other basic services in this world.
 
M76 said:
I don't really understand how can you achieve the banning of VPNs technically? I can operate a VPN on any port I want, how can they ban it targetedly? Or will they ban every traffic outside of basic port 80 ?
Click to expand...

There are different 'version's of VPN types that occur at various levels of the OSI stack ... Example: They might be able do some kind of filter on L2TP/IPSec, but things like SSTP or PPTP (which is broken and susceptible to man in the middle/replay attacks) are above the network layer... They might just lock down everything except well known service ports, including some of those too. TOR would be meaningless under this scenario.
 
You have 2 roads of information 1 road is able to be monitored, 1 road is not.
they have just made the latter illegal.

They don't care about what ports you use or programs you use. its all about information control.

(this "law" will be in the US with in 5 years)
will there be any riots in the streets? no probably not

Do you own a CB radio or Ham Radio?
better buy one before the government says they cause cancer and bans them.
 
I don;t think it is actually possible to completely ban the use of such things.
 
It wont be long before you will need a licence to operate a VPN. And then there will have to be a reason (business, government or security work) for obtaining the licence.

The US and UK will do this. The internet as we know it will be a fond nostalgic memory in 10 years.
 
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