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Russia Goes After VPNs As 'Great Crackdown' Gathers Pace (yahoo.com) 103

Posted by BeauHD from the game-of-cat-and-mouse dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Russia is going to further clamp down Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which are used by millions of Russians to get around internet controls and censorship, Russia's digital minister said. In what has been cast by diplomats as Russia's "great crackdown," the authorities have repeatedly blocked mobile internet and jammed major messenger services while giving sweeping powers to cut off mass communications. "The task is reduce VPN usage," Digital Minister Maksut Shadayev said on state-backed messenger MAX late on Monday, adding that his ministry was trying to impose the limits with minimal impact on users. He said decisions had been taken to restrict access to a number of unidentified foreign platforms without giving details.

Russia Goes After VPNs As 'Great Crackdown' Gathers Pace More | Reply

Russia Goes After VPNs As 'Great Crackdown' Gathers Pace

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  • When Russia does it it's a "great crackdown" when we do it it's "think of the children"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Maybe you haven't been paying attention to what's been happening in ruzzia.
      Putin is getting more and more desperate to hide how badly his 3-day and also 4-year war is going.

    • Although with the trump admin you're taking large strides, you have a long way yet to get where putin is.

      • Obviously. Putler had 25 years for it. But the orange shitgibbon really tries to catch up in just four.

        • What's surprising is how far he managed to advance. I thought someone would have already broken his stride if not his legs.

    • Authoritarianism is available in many flavors throughout the world.

      The best flavor is whichever one is most compatible with a nation's culture. And by compatible, I mean keeps them pacified. Here in the good old USA, we tend to go for an approach where the majority of people are certain they live in a free country and that nobody is trying to take everything away from them. (except for those rotten immigrants)

  • different mindsets (Score:4, Insightful)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @11:49PM (#66071400) Homepage Journal

    One approach is for government to control its people, where "the people should be afraid of their government".

    Dictators, absolute monarchies, military juntas, despotisms, all tend to go with this plan.

    The other approach is for people to control their government, where "the government should be afraid of its people".

    Democracies, parliaments, and parliamentary monarchies tend to go with this other plan.

    I guess it's time for Russians to be afraid of their government again?

    • Re:different mindsets (Score:5, Informative)

      by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2026 @12:41AM (#66071456)
      The Russians have always been afraid of their government, with good reason. The secret police in Russia go back to Ivan the Terrible in the fifteen hundreds. The government has always been some sort of monarchy or dictatorship. They have only the illusion of voting and democracy, and no tradition to tell them it should be different. And do not tell me it is the same everywhere. In the US we do have real choices, sometimes both bad but real. It is our own fault if we keep electing crooks and idiots.

      • This brings to mind a classic, timeless Soviet-era joke. There are probably a dozen versions of this floating around, but here is how I remember it:

        Back in the USSR, the authorities decided to run a little social experiment. They wanted to see just how loyal the average citizen was to the State and the Partyâ"specifically, how much they would endure before they finally reached a breaking point.

        They picked a random city and a massive factory on the outskirts, and sent a high-ranking Party official down

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ras ( 84108 )

        The Russians have always been afraid of their government, with good reason.

        True. But this is not a symptom of the Russians being afraid of their government. These are the actions of a government afraid of it's citizens.

        • True. But one generally creates the other. If citizens are not afraid of their government, the government has nothing to fear from them. They still need to watch the military and the entrenched bureaucracy.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by ras ( 84108 )

            My suspicion is the Russian government isn't scared of its citizens, now. That's mostly because they have been well-behaved about the war so far, (reprobates like Prigozhin notwithstanding). Why would that change?

            I guess Putin is expecting it to change, and that's probably because he is about to do something they won't like. Such as expanding conscription. He has a history of planning and preparing these sorts of moves well in advance.

            When throwing meat waves at the front hasn't worked for 4 years, the

      • In the US we do have real choices, sometimes both bad but real.

        I can tell that you really believe what you are saying. *sigh*

        Have you ever, even once, voted for someone without an R or D next to their name? I have. Needless to say, it was a "wasted" vote.

        So you have two political parties pushing candidates at you. Those candidates are vetted for pushing the parties interests above all else before they can even get their name on the ballot.

        Tell me again, in more detail, about the real choices that we have in America.

        • One of them keeps ending up in the Senate even though he's a moron. Regardless, I've long advocated for removing party affiliations from ballots. Just a name and an office is all that a voter needs.

          • Regardless, I've long advocated for removing party affiliations from ballots.

            That would just result in Aaron Aardvark getting elected.

            • I'm sure that where you're from, that's exactly what would happen. I'd bet on it, even.

              • Your country voted in Trump so you don't really get to be on a high horse about the quality of American voters.

                • And yours is a monarchy, with the closest thing to a constitution only being a charter that only guarantees any rights at all to barons and nobles, whose descendants to this day still hold their titles and rights from ages past. The only thing it promises, but does not guarantee to you, is a jury trial. You guys sentenced Markus Meecham to jail and a fine en banc, putting a felony conviction over his head making him unemployable, over a youtube comedy that didn't involve any kind of violence or threats. The

                  • And yours is a monarchy

                    Yes and?

                    We also have a national anthem with a lightly veiled threat against said monarch. A threat we've executed before of you will excuse the pun! Keep Britain weird, that's what I say eh what.

                    Thing is your constitution doesn't mean Jack diddly squat when it comes down to it if no one's prepared to actually enforce it. Democratic laws are only as good as democratic norms. Lots of places have marvellous constitutions, and hey Putin still holds elections! You've not got widespread ger

                    • Thing is your constitution doesn't mean Jack diddly squat when it comes down to it if no one's prepared to actually enforce it. Democratic laws are only as good as democratic norms.

                      It's a system of checks and balances. For example, how do you think we got rid of school prayer when the overwhelming majority of the country was in favor of it at the time? Because the constitution explicitly gave SCOTUS the power to do so. Not the voters, not the legislature.

                      Your king holds all of the checks. You're just relying on him to exercise restraint. You can't impeach him, and you can't veto him in any way.

                  • Anyway, how is ol' Boris doing?

                    We had the good sense to not put him back in again. He's relegated to being some TV personality on crappy entertainment channels, not senile dictator in chief.

        • So you have two political parties pushing candidates at you.

          The solution to this is to join a party and get involved in the decisionmaking. It's a lot easier than you might think, and you can have a lot more influence that you might expect, precisely because not that many people do this.

      • From being the same. If you don't believe that it's because you're not paying the least bit of attention. And about 40% of the country is perfectly okay with that. Ordinarily that wouldn't be enough but with a lot of propaganda and a bit of voter suppression it's easy to pull off. Which is exactly how Russia turned away from democracy and fell into autocracy. Germany did the same thing back in the mid 1930s. I think the only reason they didn't do it again is because they had a lot of money coming in to stop
    • In America we almost no one is happy with the government. Governments increase in power until the people restrain them, and that is always via violent revolution. It is inevitable as government swells and becomes more coercive and oppressive.
    • This, the tighter the grip the more stuff oozes through your fingers.

    • The other approach is for people to control their government, where "the government should be afraid of its people".

      That is the entire reason for the USA Second Amendment to the constitution. A well-armed populace is a whole lot harder to oppress on any large scale.

  • Food shortages (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @11:50PM (#66071402)
    Trump's stupid illegal war is on track to start causing food shortages. This is Putin getting out ahead of that. No matter how much you oppress people if they're starving to death they will act against you. You can cut them down with machine guns but you run the risk of the rest of the world using that as an excuse to turn against you. At a certain point no matter how much dirt Putin has on Trump he won't be able to keep letting him bypass sanctions then.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by battingly ( 5065477 )

      Remind me again, who will stop Trump from doing what he wants to do? He's got congress and the supreme court in his pocket, so they won't lift a finger. He's working day and night to ensure we don't have free elections in this country, so those pesky voters won't be able to stop him either.

      • Re:Food shortages (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2026 @02:27AM (#66071516)

        Certainly not the brave and the free, empowered by their 2nd amendment, that much we know.

        • Re:Food shortages (Score:4, Insightful)

          by gtall ( 79522 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2026 @03:55AM (#66071556)

          Look at the judicial news. Lately, there have been a bunch of judicial orders declaring la Presidenta actions illegal and to stop, actions that have been going on since early 2025. la Presidenta and his sycophants realized long ago that court cases take time, and with no Justice Dept to speak of, they take even longer. So in the interim, he and Project 2025 get to do whatever they like. Every now and again, they get to run a case all the way up to the Nazi majority on the Supreme Court.

          • I hope that you will be able to squash the trump party at the midterms, and the former republicans will wake up and begin to cause less damage, but it is a fool's hope.

            • If the midterms occur and are not outright stolen then yes, the Republicans are getting crushed.

              But conservatives will absolutely double down on everything and it will probably work for them to regain power, because enough Americans are idiots. The Reagan-era policy of destroying our public education system (once world class, with high school students studying the classics and thereby having a chance to learn critical thinking) has paid off for the religious reich.

          • The problem with that is the judges have been too scared to find anyone in criminal contempt and order them locked up. Trump controls the doj and with it the Marshalls that would round those people up and the judges are worried that the marshals won't do the arrests and they'll have a constitutional crisis on their hands. So they're trying to hold out until the midterm elections.

          • Most of those decisions will be appealed to the supreme court, where Trump will prevail. That's the advantage of serving as president, you have the resources to appeal things indefinitely.

      • All we can do is hope American voters come to their senses and that the Democrats and the left do something about the rampant voter suppression at the county level...

        The problem is we need to hang on until the midterm elections and Trump is so insane and senile I don't know if we can anymore.

      • He's got congress and the supreme court in his pocket, so they won't lift a finger.

        Don't undersell it. Only 57% of the population (that's only a little over half) actually disapprove of Trump. 36% still actually approve. 7% are somehow undecided.

        He's got congress, the supreme court and a really substantial fraction of the population either cheering him on or standing aside.

    • Re:Food shortages (Score:4)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2026 @12:17AM (#66071434) Homepage

      You do realize people arranged revolutions before there were VPNs, right?

      There probably is no deeper meaning to why Russia is cracking down on VPNs. Fascists gonna fascist, dawg.

      • People arranged a lot of stuff before social media: Socializing, marriage, buying and selling, applying for work, watching the news. They can't seem to do any of it without social media today.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Trump wouldn't even enforce his own red lines in his own backyard with the Cuba TACO.
      Trump has been on Putin's side against Ukraine the whole war.
      What on earth makes you think Trump will do anything about Putin to save some ruzzian peasants from their self inflicted stupidity?

      Gunning them down in Moscow is the same as sacrificing them in Ukraine, but with less steps.

    • Trump's stupid illegal war is on track to start causing food shortages. This is Putin getting out ahead of that.

      This is the most improbable theory of Putler's systematic erosion of Ruzzian Internet I've ever heard. The degredation of sites, Internet blackouts and bans on hundreds of VPNs predate Trumps war of choice against the Iranian regime. Current steps are a logical progression of previously employed boiling frog tactics to replace the Internet with a state run intranet.

    • No matter how much you oppress people if they're starving to death they will act against you.

      Then why is the Kim family still in power in North Korea?

  • Coming to America (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Baloo Uriza ( 1582831 ) <baloo@ursamundi.org> on Wednesday April 01, 2026 @12:12AM (#66071426) Homepage Journal
    Courtesy of the Republicans.

    • This is actually why OS level age gates are the (slightly) saner solution when politicians open their yap about ostensibly protecting kids online. The alternate method - legislating for site/app level age checks, can be bypassed by using a VPN, and then yeah, the powers that be get to say this shit ain't working, we need to implement more draconian measures! [slashdot.org] Then, just like that, you get VPN bans.

      • This is actually why OS level age gates are the (slightly) saner solution when politicians open their yap about ostensibly protecting kids online.

        Problem: Parents are incapable of parenting
        Solution: Government mandates age flag at OS level

        Problem: Kid installs software that ignores OS flag bypassing "protecting kids online"
        Solution: Government mandates only approved software can be installed

        Problem: Kid bypasses government restriction on approved software
        Solution: Government forbids existence of unapproved computer hardware and operating systems preventing bypass

        Government mandates on operating systems are very much "the hill to die on".

        Normalizing i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Lately, no one has been coming to America. 'tis a bit short sighted seeing as the pop. has started dropping and SS won't fund itself. We can only conclude the Republicans want to kill SS. The Republicans are just plain mean. They want a dog-eat-dog society.

    • You mean Republicans like these? https://leg.colorado.gov/bills... [colorado.gov]

      Or these? https://oag.ca.gov/sb976 [ca.gov]

      Or these? https://ag.ny.gov/press-releas... [ny.gov]

      It's "protect the children" today, and "prevent anonymous communication" tomorrow. The slope couldn't possibly be slipperier.

  • They are using packet shaping (Score:5, Interesting)

    by comrade.putin ( 1235862 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2026 @02:30AM (#66071518)

    I have gone through an evolution of VPN setups to help my mother in law avoid the information blockades.
    At first, an account with a regular VPN service was sufficient.
    Then, I had to set up strong swan at my house, as ip block lists were regularly updated.
    then one day, even that stopped working. Nmap from her computer to UDP 500/4500 worked fine, but as soon as you tried to send Ike auth packet, the packet was dropped.
    Currently, sslvpn to my house is the only thing that works, but I wonder if I get a message soon that even that is now blocked.

  • Watch, Nerds! (Score:3)

    by allo ( 1728082 ) on Wednesday April 01, 2026 @05:30AM (#66071620)

    Each time some nerd says "Let them censor I have a VPN" he forgets that the next step is to crackdown on VPNs. Technical defenses against political problems only give you a bit of time, but will eventually fail.

    • Each time some nerd says "Let them censor I have a VPN" he forgets that the next step is to crackdown on VPNs. Technical defenses against political problems only give you a bit of time, but will eventually fail.

      Even worse is when they compromise the VPN operators and then monitor your usage until you do something that makes them decide to crack down on you.

      People erroneously think of VPNs as privacy protectors. They aren't, not unless you have very good reason to trust whoever is running the server. If you don't, then they're concentrators for likely subversive traffic and its origins.

  • Vladimir Putin is making the Chinese Communist Party look like good guys. That's kind of amazing.

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