Tag: russia

Russia’s Telegram Ban Is a Fiasco, and It’s Rendering Millions of IP Addresses Inaccessible

Russia officially began implementing its Telegram ban on Monday, and it has gone about as poorly as could be expected. Far from just blocking Telegram, which incurred the ire of Russia’s censors for refusing to provide intelligence agencies with encryption keys that would allow them to access private user data, Ars Technica reports that Russian … Continue reading “Russia’s Telegram Ban Is a Fiasco, and It’s Rendering Millions of IP Addresses Inaccessible”

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  • Apr 14, 2018 |
  • Josiah Wilmoth |
  • General Privacy News, Governments, VPN,

Pavel Durov: A VPN Does Bypass Russia’s Telegram Ban

Telegram users in Russia will now need to install a VPN to ensure that they have uninterrupted access to the popular encrypted messaging app. On April 13, a Russian court levied an official ban against Telegram for refusing to hand over the service’s encryption keys to government intelligence services, which would have compromised the privacy … Continue reading “Pavel Durov: A VPN Does Bypass Russia’s Telegram Ban”

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  • Nov 6, 2017 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • General Privacy News, Governments, Social Media, Surveillance,

US Senate hearing confirms Facebook is the perfect surveillance machine: what can we do about it?

Last week’s hearings before US lawmakers has provided us with new insights into the workings of companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter, and how they have been subverted by Russia to further its political aims. In his opening remarks, the Vice Chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Mark Warner, said that 120 Russian-backed pages on … Continue reading “US Senate hearing confirms Facebook is the perfect surveillance machine: what can we do about it?”

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  • Oct 16, 2017 |
  • David Meyer |
  • General Privacy News, Governments,

Telegram is preparing to fight the Russian authorities over crypto keys

The encrypted messaging app Telegram continues to have a tough time in Russia. Having previously been threatened with blockage for not providing operational information, Telegram has now been hit with a significant fine – and ordered to hand over the encryption keys that led to the fine in the first place. Early on Monday, a … Continue reading “Telegram is preparing to fight the Russian authorities over crypto keys”

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  • Jul 24, 2017 |
  • Caleb Chen |
  • Censorship, General Privacy News, Governments, VPN,

Thousands march in Moscow, Russia to support Internet Freedom, protest VPN ban

Over 2,000 protestors marched in Moscow, Russia over the weekend to protest the recent VPN ban and the tightening grip of internet censorship in Russia. The protest was in response to the anti VPN and proxy bill that passed in the State Duma on July 21st, and was officially allowed by Moscow City Hall. The … Continue reading “Thousands march in Moscow, Russia to support Internet Freedom, protest VPN ban”

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  • Jun 29, 2017 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • Copyright, General Privacy News,

Global publishing giant wins $15 million damages against researcher for sharing publicly-funded knowledge

It’s not every day that one of the world’s largest publishing companies is awarded $15 million in damages for copyright infringement against a site set up by a Kazakh neuroscientist. That makes the almost total lack of wider coverage of Elsevier’s win in New York against Sci-Hub surprising. But it is only the latest development … Continue reading “Global publishing giant wins $15 million damages against researcher for sharing publicly-funded knowledge”

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  • Apr 30, 2017 |
  • Caleb Chen |
  • General Privacy News, Governments,

Russian telecom may have intentionally hijacked internet traffic bound for Mastercard, VISA, and more

On April 26, 2017, Rostelecom, a Russian telecom, hijacked large amounts of sensitive network traffic from over a dozen financial institutions including Mastercard and VISA. Rostelecom, one of the big four telecoms in Russia, did this by inaccurately announcing 36 network blocks as theirs through border gateway protocol (BGP) tables. This type of inaccurate announcement of network space and … Continue reading “Russian telecom may have intentionally hijacked internet traffic bound for Mastercard, VISA, and more”

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  • Apr 20, 2017 |
  • Caleb Chen |
  • Censorship, General Privacy News, VPN,

Russia drafts bill to ban VPNs and proxies; force search engines to remove search results

Russia will soon see a new bill before the Duma that aims to ban VPNs and proxies that do not comply with the Roskamnadzor, Russia’s online censorship machine. Though the bill is still largely under wraps, the draft bill has been seen by Vedomosti (link in Russian), a Russian news organization. This is the latest development in … Continue reading “Russia drafts bill to ban VPNs and proxies; force search engines to remove search results”

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  • Apr 20, 2017 |
  • Caleb Chen |
  • Censorship, General Privacy News, Governments, Social Media,

As Russian internet censorship grows, Twitter reportedly agrees to move some user data to servers in Russia

Twitter has reportedly agreed to comply with Russia’s Big Brother law – which forces tech companies to store data on Russian soil. Russia’s Big Brother laws, passed in July of 2016, force companies like Twitter to store all of the personal user data they have on Russians, in Russia.  While Twitter declined to make any … Continue reading “As Russian internet censorship grows, Twitter reportedly agrees to move some user data to servers in Russia”

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  • Apr 17, 2017 |
  • Caleb Chen |
  • Censorship, Cybersecurity, General Privacy News, Governments, VPN,

Russia threatens to ban VPNs and proxies that don’t censor whatever the government wants

Censorship in Russia may soon be aided by the very websites and services often used to bypass it. Russia censors its Internet through the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications aka the Roskomnadzor. When Russia wants to block a site or a service, said site or service gets added … Continue reading “Russia threatens to ban VPNs and proxies that don’t censor whatever the government wants”

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