Russia Says it Will Soon Begin Blocking Major VPNs

[The AchieVer]

Russia Says it Will Soon Begin Blocking Major VPNs

 

Back in March, ten major VPN providers including NordVPN, ExpressVPN, IPVanish and HideMyAss were ordered by Russian authorities to being blocking sites present in the country's national blacklist. Following almost total non-compliance, the country's telecoms watchdog says that blocking nine of the services is now imminent.

When it comes to site-blocking, Russia is one of the most aggressive countries in the world.

Thousands of pirate sites are blocked on copyright grounds while others are restricted for containing various types of “banned information”, such as extremist material.

 

The domains of these platforms are contained in a national blacklist. Service providers of many types are required to interface with this database, in order to block sites from being accessible via their systems. This includes VPN providers, particular those that ordinarily provide censorship workarounds.

 

Back in March, telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor wrote to ten major VPN providers – NordVPN, ExpressVPN, TorGuard, IPVanish, VPN Unlimited, VyprVPN, Kaspersky Secure Connection, HideMyAss!, Hola VPN, and OpenVPN – ordering them to connect to the database. Many did not want to play ball.

 

NordVPN, for example, flat-out refused to comply, stating that doing so would violate service agreements made with its customers. IPVanish also rejected any censorship, as did VPN Unlimited, VyprVPNand OpenVPN.

 

The VPN services in question were given a limited time to respond (30 days) but according to Roscomnadzor, most are digging in their heels. In fact, of the companies contacted with the demands, only one has agreed to the watchdog’s terms.

 

“We sent out ten notifications to VPNs. Only one of them – Kaspersky Secure Connection – connected to the registry,” Roscomnadzor chief Alexander Zharov informs Interfax.

“All the others did not answer, moreover, they wrote on their websites that they would not comply with Russian law. And the law says unequivocally if the company refuses to comply with the law – it should be blocked.”

 

And it appears that Roscomnadzor is prepared to carry through with its threat. When questioned on the timeline for blocking, Zharov said that the matter could be closed within a month.

 

If that happens, the non-compliant providers will themselves be placed on the country’s blacklist (known locally as FGIS), meaning that local ISPs will have to prevent their users from accessing them. It is not yet clear whether that means their web presences, their VPN servers, or both.

In the case of the latter, it’s currently unclear whether there will be a battle or not. TorGuard has already pulled its servers out of Russia and ExpressVPN currently lists no servers in the country. The same is true for OpenVPN although VyprVPN still listsservers in Moscow, as does HideMyAss.

 

Even if Roscomnadzor is successful in blocking any or all of the non-compliant services, there are still dozens more to choose from, a fact acknowledged by Zharov.

 

“These ten VPNs do not exhaust the entire list of proxy programs available to our citizens. I don’t think there will be a tragedy if they are blocked, although I feel very sorry about it,” Zharov concludes.

 

 

 

Source

[steven36]

You don't need a vpn to use torrents in Russia  even while they block  the big Russian sites like RU.tracker some search engines  that mirror there magnets are not blocked ,  They don't  block BitTorrent only the sites .  I read on reddit   pirates in Russia  say that  while there really hard on Piracy  in Moscow  in the rest of Russia there  really not  and it's like day and night it sounded like to me its more enforced in the capital than anywhere else .

 

 

Source

https://old.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/bvcbo3/how_is_piracy_viewed_in_other_countries_from_a/epopfbq/

 

It's like VPNs are blocked in China and piracy  releases leak from there every week and every week do 1xbet ad ridden  cams leak from Russia  . But i would expect  no less from a website who sponsors are  VPNs to  try to say it will affect  piracy  when it don't .  Blocking innocent sites  and privacy is more of a issue  that they may would want a vpn in Russia

 

7 hours ago, The AchieVer said:

It is not yet clear whether that means their web presences, their VPN servers, or both.

 It  already affected  there VPN servers that started a few  years ago when  the FSB raided  some  Russian data center a few well know VPNs used so they stop using them ,  and not long ago a bunch more Well known ones pulled  the plug  on there Russian servers .

 

VPN providers pull Russian servers as Putin's ban threatens to bite

https://www.zdnet.com/article/vpn-providers-pull-russian-servers-as-putins-ban-threatens-to-bite/

 

As far as VPN presence  all the vpns   still are sold to Russians  even if they could not get them per legal means I'm sure they could buy activation on the black market but any vendor they block   would be rendered useless unless the VPN  makes some kind of software to get around the block. Give TF and big F ! Do they even do any research at TF ?  i been following this for years because i have friends in Russia that i know for years. From my uploading /software testing days . Some cracked games  and others i uploaded with.

 

[namek]

Just give it some time. If people won't stand up, Russia is going to be fully police state again.