Russia Tests Cutting Off Access To Global Web, and VPNs Can't Get Around It (pcmag.com) 63
An anonymous reader shares a report: Russia has reportedly cut some regions of the country off from the rest of the world's internet for a day, effectively siloing them, according to reports from European and Russian news outlets reshared by the US nonprofit Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Western news outlets.
Russia's communications authority, Roskomnadzor, blocked residents in Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, which have majority-Muslim populations, ISW says. The three regions are in southwest Russia near its borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan. People in those areas couldn't access Google, YouTube, Telegram, WhatsApp, or other foreign websites or apps -- even if they used VPNs, according to a local Russian news site.
Russian digital rights NGO Roskomsvoboda told TechRadar that most VPNs didn't work during the shutdown, but some apparently did. It's unclear which ones or how many actually worked, though. Russia has been increasingly blocking VPNs more broadly, and Apple has helped the country's censorship efforts by taking down VPN apps on its Russian App Store. At least 197 VPNs are currently blocked in Russia, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
Russia's communications authority, Roskomnadzor, blocked residents in Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, which have majority-Muslim populations, ISW says. The three regions are in southwest Russia near its borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan. People in those areas couldn't access Google, YouTube, Telegram, WhatsApp, or other foreign websites or apps -- even if they used VPNs, according to a local Russian news site.
Russian digital rights NGO Roskomsvoboda told TechRadar that most VPNs didn't work during the shutdown, but some apparently did. It's unclear which ones or how many actually worked, though. Russia has been increasingly blocking VPNs more broadly, and Apple has helped the country's censorship efforts by taking down VPN apps on its Russian App Store. At least 197 VPNs are currently blocked in Russia, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
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The rest of the world would be better for it. Cut them off, then sanction anyone who peers with their networks. Satellites know where they are and should do the same when crossing over whatever territory the ruskies decide is their's that particular day.
Honestly, if we actually believe the hyperactive reporting about Russian attacks via the internet, shouldn't this be something that already happened? If a country proves that it can't be trusted on the global network, do they deserve access to it? Or is it still more profitable for the powers that be to allow access and just deal with the constant onslaught of bad actors? I think that's a fair question. When someone is a bad actor in public, you take them out of the public. When a region or state is a bad a
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Probably not even sophisticated nongoverment bad actors like ransomware gangs for that matter. Containing any relative small, expert, well-resourced group is going to be
Re:If Russia wants to disconnect, let them (Score:4, Insightful)
not going to stop government-sanctioned agents of Russia from finding access
Correct. And also naïve. Blocking easy roads is a useful strategy: the bad actors must then use the hard roads, increasing their exposure, and the exposure of whomever is responsible for the roads that remain.
Conflict is about pressure. Applying pressure is often effective, even when it cannot deliver prefect results.
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Blocking easy roads is a useful strategy: the bad actors must then use the hard roads, increasing their exposure, and the exposure of whomever is responsible for the roads that remain.
You're skipping over a whole lot of nuance there. Blocking the easy roads always has a cost, and it has to be worth the benefits. How much harder is it to circumvent? How much is the exposure increased? What's the cost to blocking and enforcing that block?
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty certain that blocking off a country from the internet would be trivially easy to circumvent for state level actors. Especially if they've got access to space. If space was out for some reason, there are plenty of other ways
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To be clear, here are the steps involved for a Russian getting a connection to the open Internet, if the Russian government wants them to:
That's it, there are no more steps.
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Step 1) connect to a proxy in China.
There are at least four consequences to this:
1.) China takes a reputational hit on behalf of Russia.
2.) Russia becomes beholden to China to continue conducting its activity.
3.) Russia opsec is compromised to China as China can observe Russia's activity.
4.) China becomes a lever for diplomatic pressure against Russia.
Everything always has a cost. Pressure on the enemy increases their costs. Increasing your enemy's costs is winning.
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It should also happen with China, North Korea, and for phones, India.
They prey on us ad-nausium and we have not received protections from our government.
Drag the anchors (Score:3, Interesting)
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Nah, that's just silly. Dark fibre's just as dead as cut fibre, except it can be used later.
Just route all packets from Russia to the Great Bit Bucket. I imagine they'd try going through China or Iran or Belarus or something, but those can be brought onboard. They can't afford to be cut off from the West just for Putin.
It might be a lot easier to manage than the other sanctions levied against them.
Re: Drag the anchors (Score:2)
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While we're at it maybe we can do the same thing to Russia.
Russia is an enemy.
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China is useless.
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We could bring China onboard by treating them like an ally instead of an enemy. While we're at it maybe we can do the same thing to Russia. Super sneaky tactics for mitigating foreign threat actors.
Russia had a chance to be part of the civilized world but they ended up with Putin instead. When he dies perhaps they will have another chance. Hope they use that one better.
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Re: Drag the anchors (Score:2)
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You should study some history, because that tactic is what resulted in today's situation. Not that the US hasn't been fairly threatening and exploitative around the world for much longer than I've been alive, but Russia and China were never really interested in a cooperative relationship on the international stage.
I think China's the more tolerant one, though. You can deal with China (excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). Russia's just always looking for an opportunity to fuck you up in a dark alley
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Wow, collective punishment against a population is a war crime.
I did not see that coming.
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There is a grey area where the resources are being used to make war.
However, those of us who are not at war with Russia don't have an excuse.
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Wow, collective punishment against a population is a war crime.
This statement is as absurd as asserting imposing sanctions and war reparations constitute collective punishment. If Russia wants to use Internet to wage hybrid war against the rest of the world it is in no way shape or form a "war crime" to cut them off.
Some VPNs worked. For now. (Score:1)
>>> Russian digital rights NGO Roskomsvoboda told TechRadar that most VPNs didn't work during the shutdown, but some apparently did. It's unclear which ones or how many actually worked, though.
So. It was all a test to fish out the remaining working VPNs. Be assured that fewer will work the next round, and for the showdown the "selected" regions will surely be in the dark - only accessing the allowed media.
Re: Some VPNs worked. For now. (Score:2)
We should do that here (Score:1)
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That's just stupid. That would cut off all the science researchers in the U.S. from their peers and research going on outside the U.S. Why don't you just advocate firing al the scientists and replacing them with, i don't know, el Bunko cabinet appointees.
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Re: We should do that here (Score:1)
Due to conflicting guidance by SEC and CFTC, big money moved outside USA as the 'hedge fund' industry. They use offshore banks.
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We order Chinese trinkets from Amazon and Walmart, not from Chinese websites.
But how is Amazon supposed to order stuff in China for you? A bunch of phone call will not do it.
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Also How would you outsource your IT work to India? How would you sell your products overseas.
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Yeah... I'm not saying no one should be able to access the global Internet. I'm saying I would be happy with a tiered choice that would let me select a USA region only Internet. I'm not trying to take choice away from the anyone but add choices for everyone.
Maybe college's that do research would want to be on a global Internet but little mom and pop business that has a website that's basically advertising itself doesn't need the International audience.
It's never going to happen anyway.
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You can already accomplish this, just set your router to block all international IP address ranges. Easy peasy.
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Ah, the Russians have good idea, yes comrade? Chinese too with great firewall. USA should also protect citizens!
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Da! Also all media should be state owned and operated. In these tumultuous times we simply can not afford foreign threat actors poisoning the minds of the people.
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Why stop there? All industries should be state owned, so that we can make sure they operate only in the interests of the people! And of course, not only foreigners can get wrong ideas. It is our humanitarian duty to re-educate citizens who fall victim to wrong ways of thinking.
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Sounds kind of like phone service back in the 90's, where you had to pay for "long distance" service when calling outside your city, and "international" rates for calls to other countries. I don't exactly have fond memories of those days.
And let's not give ISPs excuses to charge us more than they already do. They pay zero more for those international connections, than they do for the connection across town.
In America, people use ad blockers (Score:3)
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Is Starlink available in Russia? (Score:3)
Were embassies/consulates blocked too? Were phones blocked?
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Of course, there will always be workarounds. But what this effectively does is raise the *price* of connecting outside the country. And that will be enough to prevent most from having access.
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Were embassies/consulates blocked too? Were phones blocked?
Embassies from the larger countries will have satellite communications available (either their own nation's birds, of from a contracted 3rd party such as intelsat), although those, too, can be blocked if it is deemed necessary at some future time.
some regions (Score:2)
Just not the ones doing the state sponsored ransomware thing.
Easy Workaround (Score:2)
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If you roll your own https://www.wireguard.com/ [wireguard.com] server there shouldn't be a problem circumventing such blocks.
If you block the endpoints by IP address or null route the subnets outside of the country there is zero way for a VPN to work. It has to have something to connect to on the other side and a route path to get there.
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If you block the endpoints by IP address or null route the subnets outside of the country there is zero way for a VPN to work.
True. But TFS said that residents of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia were blocked. Not all of Russia. So there's a chance that the authorities didn't try to fire wall the entire country (can't have our favorite ogliarchs unable to contact their Western bankers and stock brokers). So, if an ISP in Moscow (for example) ran a VPN service on the q.t., Moscow wasn't inside the blocked zone and people in these selected provinces could still reach Moscow networks, then the VPNs would work.
in soviet russia we cut you off! (Score:2)
in soviet russia we cut you off!
Doubtful (Score:4, Insightful)
Either it wasn't fully cut off or no VPN's worked.
There's no way for any VPN to work if the client can't reach an endpoint.
It sounds like they just blocked some ports.
another way around internet blockage (Score:2)
Known VPN services have identifiable server addresses that can be blocked. Instead, you can set up a cheap raspberry pi (or other) at your home and use an encrypted SSH connection to that [raspberry pi] from far away. Then turn on your SOCKS proxy (part of WiFi Details on Macintosh) and check to see that your IP address shows to the world you access as that of your raspberry pi. I do this all the time, including right now. It also helps to watch sports events.
how do we know this was intentional? (Score:2)
my read between the lines would ask - How do we know this was intentional on the part of Russia? it does nothing to realistically help them. They rely on the tech for communications propaganda, and control.
This really does sound like the connection/access was interrupted by an outside party, Russia can't acknowledge that, so they are spinning it as their own actions. The regions affected just so happen to be outcasts by the main Russia, with a very disenfranchised population. Stoking the flames by cutting