Russia Orders Major VPN Providers To Block 'Banned' Sites

Russian authorities have ordered ten major VPN providers to begin blocking sites on the country's blacklist. "NordVPN, ExpressVPN, IPVanish and HideMyAss are among those affected," reports TorrentFreak. "TorGuard also received a notification and has pulled its services out of Russia with immediate effect." From the report: During the past few days, telecoms watch Roscomnadzor says it sent compliance notifications to 10 major VPN services with servers inside Russia -- NordVPN, ExpressVPN, TorGuard, IPVanish, VPN Unlimited, VyprVPN, Kaspersky Secure Connection, HideMyAss!, Hola VPN, and OpenVPN. The government agency is demanding that the affected services begin interfacing with the FGIS database, blocking the sites listed within. Several other local companies -- search giant Yandex, Sputnik, Mail.ru, and Rambler -- are already connected to the database and filtering as required.

"In accordance with paragraph 5 of Article 15.8 of the Federal Law No. 149-FZ of 27.07.2006 'On Information, Information Technology and on Protection of Information' hereby we are informing you about the necessity to get connected to the Federal state informational system of the blocked information sources and networks [FGIS] within thirty working days from the receipt [of this notice]," the notice reads. A notice received by TorGuard reveals that the provider was indeed given just under a month to comply. The notice also details the consequences for not doing so, i.e being placed on the blacklist with the rest of the banned sites so it cannot operate in Russia. The demand from Roscomnadzor sent to TorGuard and the other companies also requires that they hand over information to the authorities, including details of their operators and places of business. The notice itself states that for foreign entities, Russian authorities require the full entity name, country of residence, tax number and/or trade register number, postal and email address details, plus other information.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:

[mark-t]

And how are they supposed to do that, when the services are within Russia, and under Russian jurisdiction?

Re:

[rtb61]

To run a VPN efficiently, you should run the company in as many countries as possible. So from Russia, you VPN to your American subsidiary VPN, so traffic is VPN to VPN, it is cheaper because the in country traffic is cheaper. So the local VPN links to no one but their VPN subsidiaries in other countries, who then establish actual traffic. Technically you are only ever establishing network traffic with your offshore subsidiary and they are adhering to the law at that location.

All you need is one person at

Re:And if they are any good...

[mark-t]

These companies have servers in Russia, and each will individually either have to comply or cease operations in Russia. It's worth noting that after receiving the notice, TorGuard, one of the ten companies mentioned in the article, has already responded to this,and left Russia of its own accord, since they consider the compliance terms unacceptable for their use case.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

And it won't matter to them one bit, if they're doing the VPN shell game right.

Re:

[mark-t]

... But in the end, they are still forced to comply or cease operations in that country, wiping their servers and ceasing all physical server presence in Russia. Presumably, they will go through the steps of leaving Russia rather than comply, but they have very little time to do so. That's going to matter at least somewhat to some of them.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

Then it would be their fault for deciding to set up an a so obviously backwards country in the first place.

Re:

[mark-t]

I can't tell.... were you just pretending to sound like a xenophobic asshole to troll me, or are you truly as ignorant as you just made yourself sound?

Re:

[Kyr Arvin]

Suspecting nutso Russian government crackdowns is being a xenophobic asshole? Yeah, no, I don't recommend anyone operate in Russia either.

Re:

[infolation]

Users don't need a VPN provider to use a VPN, they need a single-core VPS which can be obtained for the around monthly cost of a VPN and without making a traceable payment.

Scripts like streisand [github.com] mean that a user can put together their own VPN server (and Tor OBFS4 private bridge) on a cheap VPS paid with monero.

How can countries who claim to 'ban VPNs' ever hope to ban every VPS provider in the world?

Need a Score Card

[jmccue]

You need a score card to keep up with thier laws these days. I thought VPNs were outlawed in Russia and you had to use the state sponsored one

Re:

[jellomizer]

And those State Sponsored VPNs are now blocking banned sites.
Just remember that before you sign up to a free VPN service, thinking your data is going to be so much more secure.

Re:

[elrous0]

We're just getting started. China and Russia have already banned most VPN's. You can bet that New Zealand will be the next to ban them (purely to protect their citizens from white supremacy, of course), followed by an EU-wide ban. Canada and Australia will follow. How long after that before some opportunistic politicians in the U.S. try to follow suite?

New Zealand

[Kunedog]

Meanwhile, NZ has already had a blacklist of sites blocked for a while.

Re:

[Frank Burly]

Ah, the infamous "What about New Zealand!" I would have lost a drinking game.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention the EU and upload filters.

Now your whataboutism may only get to +4 Insightful.

Re:

[king neckbeard]

It's also important to keep in mind the original purpose of whataboutism: to use foreign actions to excuse domestic actions. New Zealand actually is a more sensible focus in some respects, because they are part of the anglosphere, and theoretically share more of our supposed values.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Many countries do. The UK has the secretive "Cleanfeed" system, and the list of blocked sites is not published.

Re:

[mjwx]

Many countries do. The UK has the secretive "Cleanfeed" system, and the list of blocked sites is not published.

Such a system however, is stupidly easy to bypass.

Not even China with all their resources has successfully managed to stop people from reaching banned material.

Given the current state of things here in the UK, we've got bigger problems to worry about though.

Re:

[Kyr Arvin]

I think we might be overstating a bit the success that the Chinese people have had against the filters.

Re:

[jellomizer]

Most countries do not have free speech and the right to bare arms, as a Constitutional Amendments. While many countries may have these as rights on the book, they are not fundamental to the government so the governments are allowed more leeway for good or for ill.
Free Speech and bearing arms The United States 1st and 2nt amendment respectively. Are the two most dangerous things people can have as a right. It isn't unreasonable to think other countries would want to have more control over these. As well m

Re:

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

That is separate from government spying. They are blocking VPNs without a back door for the dictator, which has nothing to do with the level of viciousness of "fightin' words".

Re:

[Luckyo]

I'm sure the Mueller and leftist US mainsteam news media will deliver to you your salvation from evil republicans and Russians they're colluding with. Any day now.

Re:

[Kyr Arvin]

There's a Jew-hating Democrat

Criticism of Israel and Israel's lobbying practices is not antisemitism.

Re:

[Luckyo]

The walls are still closing in!

Any day now.

OTIP VPN

[UperPoti]

Does a list of VPNs that support OTIP [thinkmind.org] IPv6 exist?

Re:TorGuard pulled services

[BlazeMiskulin]

In most cases, I agree with you.

With regard to VPNs, however, I must disagree. 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.

I spent 6 years behind the Great Firewall. I know what it's like to be in a country that controls the internet with a heavy hand. If all the VPNs pulled out it would just bolster the power of the oppressive governments.

We don't want "echo chambers". We want free and open discourse, the exchange of ideas, and mutual understanding between countries and cultures. The way to overthrow oppressive regimes is to give the citizens access to information, insight, and opinion and let them make their own decisions.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you don't realize that The Guardian is a private institution from Britain. Their rights to free speech on their own platform overrides that of their user base. The same also applies in most Western nations including the US. Private institutions, while not acting very nice, can censor as much as they want.
You are free to create your own platforms, where your free speech overrides that of the users. If enough people like your opinions, the free market will run its course and your platform may become ve

Re:

[Kyr Arvin]

I agreed until the utopic free market, free to start your own services, bit. Sure you "can", until everyone colludes to ruin you.

This is the downside of free speech. Sure, you have "free speech." But "freedom of association" also means people can make judgments about you from your speech and decide you're the sort of person they want to have no interaction with.

Re:

[DNS-and-BIND]

We tried that. We got Brexit and Trump. Why do you think deplatforming and censorship is so popular today?

They Blocked My VPN

[CanadianMacFan]

Just great! They blocked my VPN provider. Now how am I going to, um, hmmm, ... ah, never mind.

On a serious note I hope that something happens that the people of Russia can start getting their freedoms back.

Re:They Blocked My VPN

[jfdavis668]

Maybe they will have a revolution next October.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

Lol, no your freedoms are long gone buddy. Does America feel 'GREAT' yet?

Re:

[fustakrakich]

A crypto, P2P, onion routing network that's able to escape any gov lists and bans.

Still has to go through your ISP. They can block the protocols, ports, etc.

Re:

[AHuxley]

Governments will just do more and more "pirate domains" bans.
Now VPN services have to accept national gov ban lists?
NZ has its sites to ban.
The internet needs something better to get past nations bans.

Re:

[fustakrakich]

The internet needs something better to get past nations bans.

Yes it does. Whaddawe gonna do?

Re:

[fustakrakich]

Eh, legislation works, when you have guns. We need to support the engineers to develop robust technology to accompany that legislation. Then maybe we can drop the guns.

Re:

[William Baric]

ISP have blocked ports and protocol in order to stop piracy or other illegal communications between individuals since the 90s. It never worked. What makes you think they will be able to block someone from accessing a particular website? Look at a site like the Daily Stormer. Pretty much everyone is banning it. It doesn't change that anyone interested can still access it without any difficulty.

For now, blocking websites kind of work because very few people care to use solutions to bypass those blocks. Howeve

Re:

[fustakrakich]

The ISP can use whitelists to pass through authorized communications and block everything else. The public relations issues holding them back is but a speed bump. Bypassing the ISP entirely is our only hope for open secure communications. We have to make our own, a real P2P and multicast network, well distributed for robustness against all interference.

Re:

[Kyr Arvin]

Well, if you're going to use the utilities, you're going to have to go through an ISP.
Unless you think you're going to do this over wireless, in which case any robust network will be easily traceable, and you'll find yourself on the wrong side of the FCC really quickly.

Re:

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, we'll need decoys and mobility. Extreme circumstances [wikipedia.org] will call for extreme countermeasures.

Re:

[SuricouRaven]

They can, but then the circumvention systems switch to modes which disguise their traffic as something legitimate. Eventually the only way to stop the people circumventing filtering is to make that filtering so strict that over-blocking becomes commonplace, at which point even those who do not care to view subversive material will start to complain that their perfectly legal activities are frequently being blocked.

Re:

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

We know you have to comply with a dictator in a dictatorship. That's the whole problem, and why things like VPN and TOR exist.

DNC take note!

[Just A Gigolo]

Maybe you should ask if you can get your email-servers on that blacklist too? :)

Important function

[fluffernutter]

This underscores how it is a good thing that we have VPN providers to protect us from nations like this. Shut down in Russia, open in Malaysia, no problem!

Serial commenter

[fluffernutter]

Also, how long before people flock to the other unmentioned VPN services? Then by the time those get blocked there will be another set of new services yet.