Russia Reaches The Censorship Endgame: Banning VPNs, Tor And Web Proxies

from the ghouls,-all-gathered-in-one-place dept

We have been tracking for some time the increasingly repressive measures that the Russian authorities have brought in to censor and control the Internet. Of course, Techdirt readers know that an easy way to circumvent both censorship and control is to use tools like VPNs and Tor. Unfortunately, the Russian authorities also know this, and are now calling for action against them, as TorrentFreak reports: Speaking at Infoforum-2015, Russian MP Leonid Levin, who is deputy head of the Duma Committee on information politics, indicated that access to anonymization and circumvention tools such as TOR, VPNs and even web proxies, needs to be restricted. Levin also called for Roskomnadzor, the state agency that oversees communications and the Internet, to be given more powers to intervene. If the views of Vadim Ampelonskogo, Roskomnadzor's chief press officer, are anything to go by, that is likely to have serious consequences for online freedom: Describing the Tor network as a "den of criminals" and "ghouls, all gathered in one place", Ampelonskogo said Roskomnadzor would find a solution to block anonymous networks if it was supported by a relevant regulatory framework. What's troubling about this latest call for even tighter control is that it was entirely predictable. Once governments start blocking sites and restricting freedom of speech online, people inevitably respond by using VPNs and Tor to circumvent these measures. And that means that if governments want their laws to be effective, at some point they will take direct action against circumvention tools. That's why it's particularly worrying that Western governments have started down this road: it implies that they, too, might one day try to ban VPNs and Tor.

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Filed Under: censorship. vladimir putin, free speech, leonid levin, proxies, roskomnadzor, russia, tor, vpns