Russia To Spend $646 Million To Block VPNs (yahoo.com) 67
An anonymous reader shares a report: Russia's communications watchdog Roskomnadzor plans to spend 59 billion rubles ($644 million) over the next five years to upgrade its internet traffic-filtering capabilities, the Russian edition of Forbes reported on Tuesday. The money will be used to upgrade hardware used to filter internet traffic, as well as block or slow down certain resources, Forbes reported, citing documents.
Russia passed a law in 2019 to enable the country to cut itself off entirely from the internet, in what it calls a campaign to maintain its digital sovereignty. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin forced out several foreign social media and internet companies, although many services remain accessible via virtual private networks, or VPNs. The system upgrades will allow Russian authorities to better restrict access to VPNs, according to the document. New equipment has been purchased yearly since 2020 as traffic volumes grow, Roskomnadzor's press service said, according to Forbes.
Russia passed a law in 2019 to enable the country to cut itself off entirely from the internet, in what it calls a campaign to maintain its digital sovereignty. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin forced out several foreign social media and internet companies, although many services remain accessible via virtual private networks, or VPNs. The system upgrades will allow Russian authorities to better restrict access to VPNs, according to the document. New equipment has been purchased yearly since 2020 as traffic volumes grow, Roskomnadzor's press service said, according to Forbes.
Digital sovereignty, right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Digital sovereignty, right (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Digital sovereignty, right (Score:5, Interesting)
Neither China nor Russia block VPNs effectively
Indeed. I have friends and co-workers in China who use VPNs. It's technically illegal, but no one cares as long as they don't cause trouble.
The goal isn't to stop all web traffic. China wants to stop many-to-many communication channels that can be used to organize unrest.
China doesn't care much about one-to-one traffic. Email is not blocked. They also don't care about Chinese people communicating with foreigners on monitored services such as WeChat.
Sites that don't allow posting in Chinese are also not blocked. Slashdot is available in China.
But Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, X/Twitter, etc. support Unicode and uncensored group chats, so they are banned.
Re:Digital sovereignty, right (Score:5, Insightful)
If you block the ability to have private networks you essentially force many foreign businesses to close down operations. In the case of China, that's undesirable and would only be undertaken if necessary to ensure the CCPs control. In the case of Russia, all of the foreign businesses have already left.
It would not be technically difficult for Russia to MiTM all traffic and block all VPN. Or, as the OP says, just sever all links and jail anybody who manages to get a Starlink terminal.
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Sites that don't allow posting in Chinese are also not blocked. Slashdot is available in China.
But Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, X/Twitter, etc. support Unicode and uncensored group chats, so they are banned.
So the fact Slashdot does not support unicode still to this day is actually a feature and not a bug?!
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So the fact Slashdot does not support unicode still to this day is actually a feature and not a bug?!
I consider the lack of Unicode to be a feature.
The PTB at Slashdot likely feel the same. Unicode support would be trivial to implement. The decision not to do so appears to be deliberate.
Re: Digital sovereignty, right (Score:2)
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I'd probably say almost every country is wanting their own GFC right now. Russia, even before the Ukraine invasion, was looking at a way to make their own firewall and cut themselves completely off from the Internet. Same with Iran, and a number of European nations.
This is just their stuff going into practice. I'm sure China will sell them this, and I'm sure Russians will find some way to bypass it, even it means meaning an infrared comms laser point to point for many kilometers to a foreign Internet POP
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Which is why you should be worried when politicians start trying to shut down specific networks people use to get information.
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How is it the same. We can, and do, criticize our politicians openly and without reprisals. It is even our patriotic duty to mock our leaders, in order to keep them humble. Nobody is falling out of windows over this.
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We can, and do, criticize our politicians openly and without reprisals... Nobody is falling out of windows over this.
You mean nobody is falling out of windows right now. That could change in the future depending on who gets elected.
Putin is ex KGB (Score:2)
If you go look up the YouTuber Adam something you will find a very very strange video about Russian science fiction literature. It's all extremely weird pro-government propaganda. This is just one example but he's pretty much got a to
Got to keep the "Feindsender" out! (Score:5, Insightful)
Like any good fascism. Cannot have the population know how the world outside really looks.
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Why a people elect a government that seeks to control them is always beyond me.
Because the ballot has only one "choice" on it: the party, and if you don't vote correctly, you will be killed? (Or some effectively equivalent scenario.)
What's not to understand, Comrade?
Are you so confused you need re-education?
We can accommodate you!
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That is the "afterwards" scenario.
Re:Got to keep the "Feindsender" out! (Score:5, Insightful)
The before scenario is to have people vote for you because they're scared, or because they believe your lies that you'll improve the economy and deal with that nasty problem of . Or various other reasons. It's once they're in office that they then start locking it all down; banning journalism media that disagrees with them, banning political parties that disagree with them, finding a hive of bogeymen and banning them, etc.
"Sure, the brownshits are roughing up the Jews and Roma, but we didn't like them, and they were roughing up the socialists but they're probably all traitors, but we swear that they never once roughed up me or decent people like me! Therefore I'll vote for his party! Besides he has a few good ideas, and the opposition is just a bunch of limp wristed weaklings..."
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Well, the comment I responded to sounded entirely like an excuse. In a democracy, there are no valid excuses for voting yourself a totalitarian regime. None at all.
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Well, the excuse is either they wanted a totalitarian regime, a distinct possibility, or more likely they wanted a strong regime without realizing it would turn into a totalitarian one. Most dictators got that way by first appealing to the voters without appearing to want to become dictators, it was only over time that they strengthened their hold over the instruments of power.
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Most dictators got that way by first appealing to the voters without appearing to want to become dictators, it was only over time that they strengthened their hold over the instruments of power.
[Citation needed]
If you ask 100 random people to name the worst dictators of the past 120 years, the most frequent answers are going to be men who got their power by leading violent factions in countries whose political system was already highly unstable and were already experiencing internal civil war and/or were still reeling from a recent major external war.
I think people have watched too much dramatized history as well as fiction like Star Wars and Game Of Thrones where that kind of long-con plotting ma
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Ok, I didn't go through all dictators. I went off of a recent series on Netflix explaining how several dictators got where they were. But even in the case where there was a revolution, presumably the revolution was not performed by just a small group of people but that there was a significant backng of the revolutionaries. At which point the backers supported the leader, up until the point that the purges started (ie, such as with Saddam Hussein). Some other times it was a civil war to oust the colonial
Putin doesn't bother killing off the voters (Score:2)
The problem with the dictatorship is you can vote one in but you can't vote one out. We Americans would do well to remember that in November.
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Why a people elect a government that seeks to control them is always beyond me.
Probably because it gives them the warm, fuzzy feeling that there is some higher authority that takes care of them and their needs and they do not have to make decisions or understand anything or take responsibility for anything. Just follow the rules and they are good. Incidentally, this is more prevalent in conservatives, who are deeply afraid of change of any kind. And, not by coincidence, this is also why the deranged idea of "organized religion" is so successful. Same principle if more abstract.
Re:Got to keep the "Feindsender" out! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there's neo-cons who want lots of change, just the changes they want and not the other kind of changes. Sort of conservative but instead of keeping things how they are, they want to restore to a fictitious view of how they think things were in the past. Not conservative per se, but reactionary.
Re:Got to keep the "Feindsender" out! (Score:4, Interesting)
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
Wonder what he means by
Trump said: "Christians, get out and vote, just this time. "You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians."
He added: "I love you Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote," Trump said.
Says the "Christian" who has several divorces and paid women to fuck him.
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Trump only believes in Trump. Obviously he forgives himself even for the most obvious and most direct lies.
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Says the "Christian" who has several divorces and paid women to fuck him.
There were Roman Popes who did the same, only without bothering to marry or divorce. You don't get much more Christian than that...
Re:Got to keep the "Feindsender" out! (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, but it's all in how you phrase it. This tight control over the population just has to be labled as "freedom" and they'll vote for it. Because it's freedom for us but not for them. They're just trying to ban all the false religions instead of the one true religion which will retain its freedom. They're just banning all the unpatriotic parties, meaning all of them except for the one true political party, because only that one party will guarantee freedom. They're just banning all the news outlets that lie constantly about Dear Leader, but proper subservient news outlets will retain the freedom to say exactly what they're expected to say. Anyone who disagrees with this wonderful system of freedom is clearly an enemy agent of a foreign power and needs to be harshly dealt with.
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You mean like "the chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams"? Well. People _are_ stupid in general, no question.
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Like any good fascism. Cannot have the population know how the world outside really looks.
They've always been at war with Eastasia.
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Yes.
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I can't quite pin the moment I realized that was bull
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When I was a kid I had the general impression that the rest of the world lived in mud huts.
I am not sure when you were a kid, but this isn't entirely wrong.
Hailing from the former Soviet Union (born in late 70s), technology levels were certainly abysmal. To have a good VCR in the 80s, even late 80s, you had to have access to "international stores" which wouldn't accept rubles or you had to go to East Germany.
My dad came from the area (near border with China) where indoor plumbing wasn't common not just when he was growing up in the 50s but even later. Obviously indoor plumbing situation was be
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What really scares me is how little many Westerners know about the world outside their own country. The endless accusations about the EU are a great example, or the denial of how well things are going in Scandinavian countries.
Except... (Score:2)
Every loser tyrant always builds his own prison. (Score:2)
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And this doesn't even begin to touch on the tens of thousands of Russians killed invading Ukraine, or the hundreds of thousands wounded, captured, or just plain missing for what was supposed to be a two week operation.
Any c
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Putin's control isn't an illusion (Score:2)
Every few years Putin allows someone to run against him and then has that person killed.
The thing you have to understand is you can vote a dictator in but you can't vote one out. And you can't use violence to get rid of a dictator anymore because modern surveillance and militaries and police forces will knock you out e
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This catastrophe is against a much smaller and poorer neighbor that it invaded un
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Unfortunately, the people that need the blocking (intelligence assholes, scammers, hackers, phishers, etc.) all have trusted ways out which the government is not interested in closing up, because those same people are doing the government's bidding.
Just don't feel too smug (Score:3, Insightful)
The USA is heading down this same path, we're just a few steps behind.
Blocking foreign social media? Yep, TikTok's ban takes effect sometime after the election, and Telegram is probably next in the government's crosshairs.
I've said it before, a global internet was nice while it lasted.
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Banning a hostile country's propaganda division is not "overreach". Just like banning armed Russian soldiers from Ukranian soil is not considered being harsh on migrant workers.
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Banning a hostile country's propaganda division is not "overreach".
I'm sure Russia is using exactly the same justification.
States have every right to protect themselves from attacks by hostile foreign powers.
"TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022."
https://www.odni.gov/files/ODN... [odni.gov]
Russian state media openly admitting to waging massive propaganda campaigns as weapons of war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Just because it is possible to invoke bullshit pretexts to justify literally anything doesn't change or detract fr
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Not at all. However, we should all be very, very careful when this just also happens to be convenient for the currently sitting vice-president and the running candidate for the next president.
And if "Putin talking points" == "Right wing talking points" then why did Putin even need to bribe these pundits in the first place?
The obvious answer is they wouldn't have arrived at them organically otherwise. It's one thing to see analogues of make peace with Hitler, America first...etc.
Quite a different matter to see right wing whack-nuts peddling very specific Russian propaganda related to Ukraine attacking Christianity and executing priests. Jewlenskyy's yachts, Jewlenskyy the Jewish Nazi, Maidan was a US orchestrated coup to overthrow the Ukrainian government, Bucha was a Ukraninazi op, Moscow concert hall = Ukraine.
I don't re
Re:Just don't feel too smug (Score:4, Insightful)
TikTok has a way to not be banned. They are refusing to avail themselves of it.
I don't find the need to shed a lot of tears for them.
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TikTok has a way to not be banned. They are refusing to avail themselves of it.
Yeah, they can do exactly what Starbucks was forced to do in Russia. How ironic.
This is precisely how these things happen in Russia. From their perspective, it's all perfectly reasonable because at the end of the day, nationalism is still nationalism.
Filtering with hardware made in the West (Score:1)
If they want to (Score:4, Insightful)
Although they’ve already leaked about a million Russians, most of them young, large numbers of them educated, fleeing the war. . And most of them are NOT gonna go back.
Re: If they want to (Score:3)
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59 billion rubles ($644 million) (Score:2)
I disagree that 59 billion rubles is $644 million. 59 billion rubles has no value outside of Russia. Not even China or India want to touch rubles.
It is more accurate to convert the rubles into eggs you can buy from Russia and say that they are going to spend 4985915493 eggs (large) on this.
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The ruble is the means of exchange by which Russia sells petroleum to China and India in exchange for sanctioned goods.
There is still a Ruble/dollar exchange. Even if Rubles only have value inside of Russia, they still have value. Foreign tourists still visit Russia and exchange currency. Likewise for Russians who travel overseas.
The te
What's Russian for Whack-A-Mole? (Score:2)
money will go to the elite (Score:1)
Like when ... (Score:2)
Musk is probably rubbing his hands together in anticipation of a bunch of more StarLink customers. And before someone says location blocking, we can't very well do that if you people keep messing with GPS. We'll know when the jamming is turned off when we send a drone to the coordinates of that Black Sea palace and it reports back successfully.