The head of the Russian department responsible for identifying threats to the “stability, security and integrity” of the internet, has revealed the extent of the Kremlin’s VPN crackdown. Former FSO officer Sergei Khutortsev, a central figure in Russia’s ‘sovereign internet’ project, confirmed that 167 VPN services are now blocked along with over 200 email services. Russia is also reported as stepping up measures against protocols such as OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard.
Late March 2023, Russia augmented its long-burning VPN crackdown with a series of PSAs claiming that using a VPN for security is actually much worse than not using a VPN at all.
One of the ads warned that VPNs somehow obtain users’ passport details, plus their names, addresses, and dates of birth. Another suggested that since VPNs in Russia know everything about their users, spouses might learn about secret affairs, a high price for accessing a social network blocked in Russia, the PSA added.
Just a few months later, those fairly light-hearted ads can be seen in a whole new light.
Russia’s ongoing VPN crackdown appears to be going in one direction; the end of any VPN service that refuses to play ball, consequences for those who dare to discuss them, and potentially anyone who knowingly uses them. The latter may take some time to emerge but in the meantime, Russia is attempting to remove as many as possible from the market.
According to Interfax, during a presentation to the ‘Spectrum-2023’ forum in Sochi last week, the head of the ‘Center for Monitoring and Control of the Public Communications Network’ (TsMU SSOP) revealed the extent of the Kremlin’s VPN crackdown.
Sergei Khutortsev, a former FSO officer and now a central figure in Russia’s ‘sovereign internet’ project, confirmed that 167 VPN services are now actively blocked after failing to comply with government requirements. Also subject to blocking are more than 200 email services.
Want the list of the 167 banned ones. Those are obviously the ones that won’t cave to the pressure.
Yeah I would love to know which ones…
Just in time to snatch a subscription with blackfriday discounts.
I wonder if mullvad is on that list
mullvad has been banned in march yeah
spouses might learn about secret affairs
Threat to your “stability, security and intergrity” = Your wife finds out you’re cheating on her.
Eerie echoes of inspecting international mail in Soviet times.
Soo…no more libgen?
don’t be silly! https://annas-archive.org
Woah, why did I know about this before? This is awesome
Thank you! This is amazing, I’m really out of the game lately.
Anna’s Archive is an incredible resource. The best thing to come out of the zlib crackdown. I just hope they can resist the pressure as they grow.
Excuse my ignorance, but why would this affect libgen?
Isn’t it Russian? I was told long ago so could be wrong?
The domain is .rs which is Serbian, but I dunno about their actual hosting.
It’s still up today, anyway. 🤞
But libgen depends on vpns? Shouldn’t that only matter for users?
The Fediverse, Matrix servers and Bluesky servers might be the next target.
i sincerely doubt it lol
twitter and reddit were already not popular over here, the replacements for them even less so
and matrix… it’s a messenger, the government doesn’t care about messengers at all lately (eg whatsapp was left after facebook was banned on the premise there’s no mass media functionality)
How long will it take to Russians to kick Putin’s ass ?
They won’t. For most of its history, Russia has been ruled by dictators. Democracy is viewed as chaotic and unpredictable.
Yeah but they do also have a history of murdering the old dictator to install a new better dictator. Let’s root for that.
how long will it take any nation to do anything about a technologically advanced police state lol
Yeah… people think it only happends to their neighbors… until it’s too late 🤔!
