Kaspersky To Kill Its VPN Service In Russia Next Week (bleepingcomputer.com) 53
Kaspersky is stopping the operation and sales of its VPN product, Kaspersky Secure Connection, in the Russian Federation, with the free version to be suspended as early as November 15, 2022. BleepingComputer reports: As the Moscow-based company informed on its Russian blog earlier this week, the shutdown of the VPN service will be staged, so that impact on customers remains minimal. Purchases of the paid version of Kaspersky Secure Connection will remain available on both the official website and mobile app stores until December 2022. Customers with active subscriptions will continue to enjoy the product's VPN service until the end of the paid period, which cannot go beyond the end of 2023 (one-year subscription).
Russian-based users of the free version of Kaspersky Secure Connection will not be able to continue using the product after November 15, 2022, so they will have to seek alternatives. BleepingComputer emailed Kaspersky questions regarding its decision to stop offering VPN products in Russia, but a spokesperson has declined to provide more information. Russia's telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, announced VPN bans in June 2021 and then again in December 2021. "The reason for banning 15 VPNs in the country was because their vendors refused to connect their services to the FGIS database, which would apply government-imposed censorship in VPN connections, and would also make user traffic and identity subject to state scrutiny," reports BleepingComputer.
"Ever-increasing controls are strangling VPN usage in Russia. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Digital Transformation requested all state-owned companies to declare what VPN products they use, for what purposes, and in what locations."
Russian-based users of the free version of Kaspersky Secure Connection will not be able to continue using the product after November 15, 2022, so they will have to seek alternatives. BleepingComputer emailed Kaspersky questions regarding its decision to stop offering VPN products in Russia, but a spokesperson has declined to provide more information. Russia's telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, announced VPN bans in June 2021 and then again in December 2021. "The reason for banning 15 VPNs in the country was because their vendors refused to connect their services to the FGIS database, which would apply government-imposed censorship in VPN connections, and would also make user traffic and identity subject to state scrutiny," reports BleepingComputer.
"Ever-increasing controls are strangling VPN usage in Russia. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Digital Transformation requested all state-owned companies to declare what VPN products they use, for what purposes, and in what locations."
Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
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They got a thick guise of religion and "traditional values" instead. So, no.
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Capitalism/Socialism should appreciate Maslow https://archive.is/Sltpn [archive.is]
Who in their right mind (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
Well, Russia just proved that isn't true.
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IIUC, the "kids shipped off to die" aren't generally the kids of Russians. They're from some attached region, often in Siberia. Russia is just one small part of the areas governed from Moscow, but it's the part that gets a large proportion of the benefits, and a small proportion of the costs.
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This is incorrect on several levels. For starters, Russia is populated mostly by Russians, even in regions that are nominally minority national republics (500+ years of colonization tends to skew demographics like that). Thus, while it's true that troops are mostly mobilized from the regions rather than Moscow and Saint Petersburg, most of them are still ethnically Russian. Units that are not, tend to be highlighted for both sides for propaganda reasons - Russia does it to highlight its "internationalist" c
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True, however it does seem that Kapersky is kicking back against government attempts at turning them into an instrument of the state.
So I support them in principle (And I think we ought support *anyone* fighting back against a totalarian government, which is why the only ukranian war thing I donate to is refugees and independent press in russia who refuse to tow the state line [moscow times in particular]), because if the vietnam war tells us anything, even the greatest army in the world cant defeat the com
Re:Who in their right mind (Score:5, Informative)
Eugene Kaspersky is Russian and has publicly claimed that only diplomacy can end the Ukraine war. A demand for diplomacy from the attacking country can only be interpreted as a profound absence of guilt acceptance. Kaspersky is losing foreign customers. Consider that this is an attempt to slow the loss of reputation. True defiance would be to keep offering the VPN service without censorship or moving the company out of Russia. However, Kaspersky Employees Say They Were Asked To Resign Because They Wanted To Leave Russia [slashdot.org]
Re:Who in their right mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Kaspersky's self-proclaimed perspective on the war is that diplomacy is the way to end the war. What diplomacy does he think is possible? The war ends when Russia at the very least leaves Ukraine and Ukrainian territorial integrity is restored, which includes the Crimean peninsula. Calling for diplomacy while your country is invading, pillaging and razing another country and killing their people is a terrible position. Kaspersky could have kept his mouth shut, but he chose to speak and remove all hope that he disagrees with the motive for war. He just doesn't want to be seen as a kill-hungry war-monger.
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Would purchase a VPN system sold and maintained inside a totalitarian regime?
Every time we get a discussion on a topic like this someone says "the US government monitors me too" which can be true though mostly isn't and then say "China's government doesn't care about me whilst the US government can harm me" which definitely isn't. People working against the US government (legitimately or not) might use similar arguments. I think it's pretty clear that now that that is an unwise argument for anyone who's even vaguely loyal to their country, even if not to the government.
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Sounds reasonable, but in a working democracy, whether they know it or not, the people in charge are the voters. That means it would make sense to stay loyal to a group of voters.
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Would purchase a VPN system sold and maintained inside a totalitarian regime?
The only reason I can picture using a Russian VPN at this point is for the purpose of delivering malware to Russia...
vendors refused to connect services to FGIS (Score:5, Interesting)
reason for banning 15 VPNs in the country was because their vendors refused to connect their services to the FGIS database, which would apply government-imposed censorship in VPN connections
No shit. Privacy and the associated escape from government imposed content filtering policies are some of the major features that customers are looking for when they sign up for a VPN provider. It's never been solely about streaming entertainment that a content provider doesn't offer within your region for licensing reasons, that's a sheeple-level consumerism viewpoint.
Oh well. Not my country, not my problem. I wish the citizens of Russia the very best of luck.
Re:vendors refused to connect services to FGIS (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't your country yet. I wouldn't be surprised if it will be your country soon. There isn't a government, corporation or religious organization anywhere in the world that doesn't want to spy on people under its power, and make it impossible for them to evade its supervision.
Re:vendors refused to connect services to FGIS (Score:4, Insightful)
Online privacy is far too nebulous an issue for people to care deeply about, it's hardly cracking the list of important issues for American voters because for 99% of people it isn't an issue, especially from the government. Really most folk are more concerned with the big tech firms control of networks than what they are doing with our data because really, most people aren't doing anything important enough to warrant government attention.
Fact is no matter how much we meme about it the USA is not an authoritarian state and we can enact change by the people we choose, if anything Tuesday was proof of that with how close everything is still split.
If in 10-20 years America is looking more like modern Russia it's because a large segment of our population wants it that way.,
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Fact is no matter how much we meme about it the USA is not an authoritarian state
lol [nytimes.com]
You do know that slavery is still legal in the USA, right?
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Fact is no matter how much we meme about it the USA is not an authoritarian state
lol [nytimes.com]
You do know that slavery is still legal in the USA, right?
A few remaining states still allow slavery in their Constitution. The U.S., as a country, does not. The U.S. is not an authoritarian state (but give Republicans time),
Re:vendors refused to connect services to FGIS (Score:5, Informative)
A few remaining states still allow slavery in their Constitution. The U.S., as a country, does not.
13th amendment to the united states constitution:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Now, tell us again about how the U.S., as a country, does not allow slavery. You know you could have looked this up before you proved you know fuck about shit, right?
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The U.S. is not an authoritarian state (but give Republicans time),
And yet, they're the ones calling of censorship of certain kinds of speech and labeling it as either racist or hate speech, they want to take our guns away, and they spent nearly two years locking us all down during a pandemic.
Tell me again who the authoritarians are again? Because it sure looks like the Democrats are. Now, don't get me wrong, the Republicans are assholes too but that's why I identify as more Libertarian than anything else. My thoughts are that as long it doesn't hurt me or anyone else, you
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You know you can talk about guns and not be a Republican. Right? I just want the freedom to be able to do whatever the hell I want, and I want no government standing in my way of doing whatever the hell I want to do. Again, if it doesn't hurt me or anyone else, it should be permissible.
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And yet, they're the ones calling of censorship of certain kinds of speech
The Republicans are literally banning books, and banning teaching methods that aren't even being used. Think again, spanky.
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And banning books is a bad thing, so there's that. As for my statement of censorship of speech, look at how Twitter was handled. They were wanting people banned simply for having a different opinion.
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As for my statement of censorship of speech, look at how Twitter was handled. They were wanting people banned simply for having a different opinion.
You do know content from people self-identifying as Nazis has quadrupled on Twitler, reich?
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Once you ban or censure someone for one reason or another, a very slippery slope starts making for other reasons. Free speech must be upheld, no matter what. I would go as far as to say free speech is a human right.
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Look, I'd love to go twelve rounds with you about which phase of the grief process Elon is in, but I've got nose hairs to style so ima have to go, soz
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The U.S. is not an authoritarian state (but give Republicans time),
There is one party that is aggressively and continuously advocates for the expansion of the federal government, federal government control of everyday life, and, more recently, federal censorship and fascist-like control of the digital public square and it is not the Republicans.
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Republicans just want to take over the government in a coup. Nothing bad there.
Absolutely false. Presumably, you are talking about the Jan 6 riot, which has been soundly denounced by Republicans.
They want to take away your right to vote.
Absolutely false. No idea where you get this. Citation needed.
It's OK votes are rigged anyway, right Trumper?
Absolutely false. No idea where you get this. Citation needed.
They've only taken away the rights of women to have abortions.
Finally, you actually have a valid argument. However, what the Supreme Court has said is that this is not a guaranteed right (which the rest of the world seems to agree upon) and that restrictions should be left to the states. Completely reasonable and certainly
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They want to take away your right to vote.
And that's bad. You know you can be a Republican and not agree with everything that they stand for.
They've only taken away the rights of women to have abortions.
As a person who is religious, I have to agree. If you decide to have sex, you better be ready to live with the consequences of doing said act. If you don't want a child, keep your pants zipped and that goes for men AND women.
As for situations like rape and incest, yes... abortion should be freely available. I don't agree with that idea that if someone is raped they need to carry the child to term. That's just
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The U.S. is not an authoritarian state (but give Republicans time),
There is one party that is aggressively and continuously advocates for the expansion of the federal government, federal government control of everyday life, and, more recently, federal censorship and fascist-like control of the digital public square and it is not the Republicans.
WTF are you smoking? Republicans are literally saying, in the truest sense of the word, they want to control people's everyday lives. They've already started by insinuating the government in between a woman and her doctor, they have passed laws or edicts prohibiting certain words or topics from being discussed in school, inlcuding any mention of the mass murders and rapes committed during our formative history, they have entire lists of books they want banned, and have literally said, in the truest sense o
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And as for that diatribe, I must admit that religion needs to get the hell out of politics. Hell, the government needs to get out of the business of marriage all together.
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Exactly! I want LESS government in my life. Fewer laws and rules. With fewer laws on the books, you wouldn't need such a massive bureaucracy like what this government is right now and oh yes, you wouldn't need as many taxes because you'd have fewer government bureaucrats to pay.
The best kind of government is one that governs the least.
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I have to agree with you, unfortunately. Both your country and mine are full of useful idiots who hold the view that, "If you're not doing anything wrong, why should you worry". Privacy is not a symmetrical thing. Every time, the alliance of idiots like these, other idiots who simply don't care, and organizations that gain from trampling privacy trump the rights of people who are willing to give privacy to others, but expect it for themselves, too.
Kaspersky was already suspect a decade ago. (Score:5, Insightful)
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How is UK or NZ different? (Score:5, Interesting)
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In the UK you can use any VPN service you like. I use one based outside the UK and it is not censored or blocked in any way.
Inside the UK there is a system called Cleanfeed. It's not mandatory, although all the large ISPs and some of the smaller ones use it. Australia uses a similar system.
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Would you trust any Russian company ? (Score:3)
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It depends what your goals are...
Are you concerned about censorship or spying by *your* government?
If you live in the US and are concerned about the US government censoring or spying on your communications, why not use a VPN service from Russia? The Russians are certainly not going to cooperate with the US government.
As a US citizen with no ties to government or the defence industry, it's unlikely the Russian government have any care about your activities whatsoever. If you are working against the US govern
Wonder who uses Kaspersky (Score:3)
In Mother Russia... (Score:1)