Is it true that VPNs and anonymizers have been banned in Russia? Law on anonymizers: How they will be blocked and what to do about it Law on the restriction of anonymizers and vpn

Politically ban means another hopeless attempt to block the ability to access "forbidden" sites. Technically- additional, but quite surmountable difficulties. legally there is no total ban, just as there is no ban for ordinary users to continue using VPNs, anonymizers or Tor.

According to media reports, the new "ban" directly concerns only the Internet services themselves. It is forbidden to provide Russian users with access to sites "blocked" in the Russian Federation. Identified "violators" (some firm in the US, Europe or, say, Korea) will be warned and required to eliminate the "violations". And if it doesn’t eliminate it, then Roskomnadzor will “block” it to the best of its ability. That is, the legislator is trying to shift the obligation of blocking to the VPNs themselves or anonymizers. Russian companies will have to comply with the ban and it is better to forget about them (except for corporate VPN).

"Regular user" can overcome the difficulty immediately in several ways.

If he works for a company that has corporate VPN, which does not provide services to unauthorized individuals, then such VPN is not subject to the new restrictions. If at the same time the employer himself does not prohibit the access of employees to the Internet, then from the workplace it will be possible to visit anything.

There are so many anonymizers and VPN services that most won't block- won't even try. As a rule, they themselves know nothing about the laws of the Russian Federation and do not want to know. At least not to spend money on their execution. Thus, you can always find an unlocked option.

Tor can't be blocked., although they will probably try. But China has been blocking it for a long time, blocking it, and the Chinese are using it and using it. In addition to "public" exit points, the network also has non-public ones - and go find them all and block them. But the speed may further decrease, and Thor is not fast anyway.

Technically Roskomnadzor will not be able to block any major foreign VPN service. She has a lot of IP-addresses, about whose belonging to this service outsiders simply do not know. The site of the "violator" and part of its IP will be blocked. Registered users will still use the VPN and, in many cases, at the same speed. New users will have to somehow bypass the blocking of the official site in order to register on it.

Can create your own VPN on a rented foreign site. This, of course, is already for programmers and other "non-dummies".

Well, the funniest one is using two "law-abiding" VPNs/anonymizers. If they are not Russian, then they will block the "ban" only for their Russian clients. Through one service we go to another (it is not "blocked" by Roskomnadzor!). For another, you are no longer from the Russian Federation, but from Holland, for example. Therefore, through it, you freely visit everything where Roskomnadzor does not want to let you in.

It must also be borne in mind that search engines are ordered not to issue a "ban". From now on, you can simply forget about Yandex. It would probably be better to go to Google via VPN / anonymizer / Tor (and it would be nice - not to "Russian" google.ru, but to "international" google.com / "German" google.de / "Ukrainian" google.com .ua ; everyone can search - including in Cyrillic, but the results of the issue may differ: google.de, for example, ceteris paribus, will put higher sites in German or from German-speaking countries, and "Ukrainian" may in the future have restrictions in part of issuing "anti-Ukrainian" links). Well, in general, there are a lot of alternative search engines in the world (for example, duckduckgo.com, which basically does not follow users and does not distort the results depending on their location or personality) and meta-machines (for example, international metacrawler.com, German metager. de , which basically does not register user data, metacrawler.de , with the option to choose between "German" and "international" searches, Swiss etools.ch). Metamachines will probably also have results from Google in the search results, but without distortion to please Roskomnadzor.

UPD. Meduza in early June on how to bypass the current new block: meduza.io

It mentions, in particular, the ability to remove applications for android from the google market(at least for Russian users). There is also a "cure" for this: download apk from alternative sources (without registration). I myself do this, albeit for other reasons (I don’t want to inform Google or another market about what I use, and I don’t want to allow the range to be limited at the whim of Google or another market).

Here three reliable apk sources(there are, of course, others):

www.apkmirror.com almost everything is here and in all versions

m.apkpure.com is more convenient here and there is a lot, but not everything

f-droid.org here only free applications with open source and do not require extra permissions; if anonymity and security are important, it is better to try to find something suitable here first (sometimes the size of the application is quite small, with normal functionality)

VPNs and anonymizers, like everything else, are free and paid. For example, the anonimouse.org web anonymizer allows you to visit http for free and without registration, but https - only for registered paid users. And some others (I don’t immediately remember which ones) - to everyone and on https. In a VPN, freeness is usually limited by time and / or the number of megabytes, speed. Paid services cost, it seems, no more than $ 10 per month (I didn’t use it myself and talk about the usual speeds and volumes of traffic) - then faster and without restrictions (or with less). There is a VPN without registration in some browsers (turbo mode in Opera, for example) and God knows if they will cave in under the Russian Federation. Opera presents the possibility of VPN without registration and payment for all programs on the computer, but you need to download and install Opera VPN (it seems that the program is called; it is also available as an application for Android). In the end, any foreign anonymous proxy from regularly updated lists on the Internet allows you to bypass all Roskomnadzor "blocks" for free and without registration. And if the proxy is on https, then here's a free VPN without registration. Just an hour or a day later, as a rule, you will have to reconfigure to another proxy.

Politically ban means another hopeless attempt to block the ability to access "forbidden" sites. Technically- additional, but quite surmountable difficulties. legally there is no total ban, just as there is no ban for ordinary users to continue using VPNs, anonymizers or Tor.

According to media reports, the new "ban" directly concerns only the Internet services themselves. It is forbidden to provide Russian users with access to sites "blocked" in the Russian Federation. Identified "violators" (some firm in the US, Europe or, say, Korea) will be warned and required to eliminate the "violations". And if it doesn’t eliminate it, then Roskomnadzor will “block” it to the best of its ability. That is, the legislator is trying to shift the obligation of blocking to the VPNs themselves or anonymizers. Russian companies will have to comply with the ban and it is better to forget about them (except for corporate VPN).

"Regular user" can overcome the difficulty immediately in several ways.

If he works for a company that has corporate VPN, which does not provide services to unauthorized individuals, then such VPN is not subject to the new restrictions. If at the same time the employer himself does not prohibit the access of employees to the Internet, then from the workplace it will be possible to visit anything.

There are so many anonymizers and VPN services that most won't block- won't even try. As a rule, they themselves know nothing about the laws of the Russian Federation and do not want to know. At least not to spend money on their execution. Thus, you can always find an unlocked option.

Tor can't be blocked., although they will probably try. But China has been blocking it for a long time, blocking it, and the Chinese are using it and using it. In addition to "public" exit points, the network also has non-public ones - and go find them all and block them. But the speed may further decrease, and Thor is not fast anyway.

Technically Roskomnadzor will not be able to block any major foreign VPN service. She has a lot of IP-addresses, about whose belonging to this service outsiders simply do not know. The site of the "violator" and part of its IP will be blocked. Registered users will still use the VPN and, in many cases, at the same speed. New users will have to somehow bypass the blocking of the official site in order to register on it.

Can create your own VPN on a rented foreign site. This, of course, is already for programmers and other "non-dummies".

Well, the funniest one is using two "law-abiding" VPNs/anonymizers. If they are not Russian, then they will block the "ban" only for their Russian clients. Through one service we go to another (it is not "blocked" by Roskomnadzor!). For another, you are no longer from the Russian Federation, but from Holland, for example. Therefore, through it, you freely visit everything where Roskomnadzor does not want to let you in.

It must also be borne in mind that search engines are ordered not to issue a "ban". From now on, you can simply forget about Yandex. It would probably be better to go to Google via VPN / anonymizer / Tor (and it would be nice - not to "Russian" google.ru, but to "international" google.com / "German" google.de / "Ukrainian" google.com .ua ; everyone can search - including in Cyrillic, but the results of the issue may differ: google.de, for example, ceteris paribus, will put higher sites in German or from German-speaking countries, and "Ukrainian" may in the future have restrictions in part of issuing "anti-Ukrainian" links). Well, in general, there are a lot of alternative search engines in the world (for example, duckduckgo.com, which basically does not follow users and does not distort the results depending on their location or personality) and meta-machines (for example, international metacrawler.com, German metager. de , which basically does not register user data, metacrawler.de , with the option to choose between "German" and "international" searches, Swiss etools.ch). Metamachines will probably also have results from Google in the search results, but without distortion to please Roskomnadzor.

UPD. Meduza in early June on how to bypass the current new block: meduza.io

It mentions, in particular, the ability to remove applications for android from the google market(at least for Russian users). There is also a "cure" for this: download apk from alternative sources (without registration). I myself do this, albeit for other reasons (I don’t want to inform Google or another market about what I use, and I don’t want to allow the range to be limited at the whim of Google or another market).

Here three reliable apk sources(there are, of course, others):

www.apkmirror.com almost everything is here and in all versions

m.apkpure.com is more convenient here and there is a lot, but not everything

f-droid.org here only free applications with open source and do not require extra permissions; if anonymity and security are important, it is better to try to find something suitable here first (sometimes the size of the application is quite small, with normal functionality)

VPNs and anonymizers, like everything else, are free and paid. For example, the anonimouse.org web anonymizer allows you to visit http for free and without registration, but https - only for registered paid users. And some others (I don’t immediately remember which ones) - to everyone and on https. In a VPN, freeness is usually limited by time and / or the number of megabytes, speed. Paid services cost, it seems, no more than $ 10 per month (I didn’t use it myself and talk about the usual speeds and volumes of traffic) - then faster and without restrictions (or with less). There is a VPN without registration in some browsers (turbo mode in Opera, for example) and God knows if they will cave in under the Russian Federation. Opera presents the possibility of VPN without registration and payment for all programs on the computer, but you need to download and install Opera VPN (it seems that the program is called; it is also available as an application for Android). In the end, any foreign anonymous proxy from regularly updated lists on the Internet allows you to bypass all Roskomnadzor "blocks" for free and without registration. And if the proxy is on https, then here's a free VPN without registration. Just an hour or a day later, as a rule, you will have to reconfigure to another proxy.

VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a virtual private network created over the main network, such as the Internet.

In turn, a VPN service is a service that provides VPN access to customers through its servers.

VPN access is used to connect to resources that are only available in a specific country, unlock resources blocked by a network administrator in the workplace, as well as hide the real IP address and additionally encrypt traffic when working on unsecured public Wi-Fi networks. Commercial VPN services, which the new law is intended to combat, provide the ability to “tunnel” traffic through their servers in different countries, thus deceiving the server and gaining access to prohibited pages and sites.

But this is only a special case of using VPN technology. The scope of VPN technology is very wide. For example, VPNs are often used to connect several network segments, for example, to link several company offices into a single network or to allow clients to access the corporate network outside the office. In this case, there is nothing wrong with it and, of course, it is not subject to blocking.

What is an anonymizer?

Anonymizer is any technology that hides the real IP address of the client for the requested resource.

In relation to our topic, anonymizers are called web proxies - sites that help anonymously (hence the name) visit other sites. As a result, using the anonymizer, the user visits the site not from his IP address, but on behalf of the IP address of the web proxy. An anonymizer has a narrower scope than a VPN, but they are similar in principle.

What is a static and dynamic IP address?

An IP address is the unique address of a node on the Web. As applied to our topic, we mean the address of a specific device connected to the Internet. On the Internet, IP addresses are either static or dynamic. A static IP is an unchanging IP address that is assigned by the user in the settings or by the network when connected to it and is not used further by other devices.

Thus, the user is always visible on the Web under the same identifier.

On the contrary, a dynamic IP address can change either every time you connect to the Internet (for example, when you restart your router or computer), or after some time has elapsed, for example, once a day. When you use the mobile Internet, you almost always use a dynamic IP address.

At the same time, all mobile operators offer the possibility of obtaining a static IP as a paid service. For home Internet providers, depending on the policy of the company, by default, the IP address can be either static (that is, once and for all allocated to a specific client) or dynamic, that is, assigned from a certain set each time you connect to the Network.

Providers that provide a dynamic address by default have a paid static IP service. From a security point of view (unless, of course, you are a hacker and are not afraid of being caught), a static IP address is more reliable. Usually, providers and systems are more loyal to the owners of a static IP, since the owner is uniquely defined, and such users have more rights on the Web.

It is also safer to use online financial services from a static IP.

What exactly does the new law prohibit?

Federal Law No. 276 “On Amendments to the Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” comes into force on November 1, 2017. Contrary to rumors circulating on the Web, it is worth noting that the entry into force of this law in itself is not a ban on the use of VPN services and anonymizers.

It is not the activities of such services that fall under the ban, but only the provision with their help of access to information resources (websites and services), to which access is limited in accordance with the law. The law defines the procedure for interaction between the federal executive body (in this case, Roskomnadzor) and the owners of VPN services, so that the use of the latter takes place in the legal field and is not a tool for accessing prohibited resources on the Internet.

Roskomnadzor develops and determines the procedure for identifying sites and services to which measures to restrict access should be applied, requirements for methods (methods) for restricting such access, as well as requirements for posted information about restricting access to sites and services.

In practice, a situation may arise similar to the introduction of a single registry of prohibited domain names, when inclusion in such a registry led to the fact that the site owner transferred the site to another, non-prohibited domain name, thus leveling the efforts of the legislator and regulatory authorities.

Can my home Internet be blocked from November 1 if I search for a site blocked in the Russian Federation?

Of course not. The law, which comes into force on November 1, 2017, does not contain grounds for blocking the home Internet when searching for prohibited sites. In accordance with the law under discussion, the protection of Internet users from prohibited information will be provided at the level of search engine operators.

It is they who are responsible for stopping the issuance, at the request of users, of sites or resources to which, according to the FSIS, access is limited on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Entering the address or name of a prohibited site in the search bar is not an offense and cannot serve as a basis for restricting access to the Internet.

What will happen to search engines, will Google and Yandex be blocked?

The law requires search engine operators to stop issuing prohibited sites.

Search engines, in accordance with the law on information, are the organizers of the dissemination of information and, in case of non-compliance or non-compliance with the requirements of the state regulator, may be held administratively liable.

As follows from Article 15.4, the law on information provides for a certain procedure for restricting access to the information resource of the organizer of the dissemination of information on the Internet.

Thus, the law does not bear the danger of blocking Google and Yandex search engines.

While the struggle for the Internet continues in Russia, more and more users are learning to use means to bypass Roskomnadozar's bans: they are mastering VPNs and proxies, thanking the supervisory authority for the incentive to engage in computer literacy. However, the question arises whether it is generally legal to use these services, and since the country is so zealously undertaking to block the Internet, will they not be punished for circumventing the bans.

When Roskomnadzor began (trying to) block Telegram, users only joked about the department and. There were even stories on social networks that saleswomen in stores taught how to use bypass tools.

Sergey Vasilyevich ‏