entranceThe law on anonymizers came into force. What do you need to know about him? Regular users will not pay fines for using VPN and "anonymizers" & nbsp Penalty for anonymizers 5000 from November 1
From May 5, 2019, all exchange services instant messaging who work in Russia must check phone numbers upon registration.
In theory, they should send a request to the carrier. They check whether there is such a number in the database, and only if the answer is positive, you can register and send messages. And if there is no number or the user cannot confirm that this is his phone, registration should be prohibited, and it will not be possible to receive messages.
Government decree of 27.10.2018 No. 1279
This procedure was approved in the fall of last year, but it will come into force only now. It is not clear whether all this will work in practice and how it will affect the use of instant messengers.
Services for the exchange of instant messages that operate in Russia are required to verify the user's phone number with the database of telecom operators. If there is no number or the user cannot confirm that this is his phone, they will refuse registration and prohibit communication.
A comment: it's unclear if this will work. It can turn out as with a ban on buying a SIM card without a passport: it seems impossible, but in the transitions they are still distributed. But the verification procedure is approved and can be applied.
About VPN
All proxy and VPN services, as well as the anonymous networks Tor, I2P and Freenet, are potentially subject to the law. Their owners are invited to restrict access to sites included in the register of prohibited sites of Roskomnadzor.
Employees of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will be engaged in tracking anonymizers, Tor and VPN services that provide access to sites blocked in Russia.
The document also prohibits search engine operators provide links to resources blocked in Russia. (It is unclear how Yandex should handle this. And Google will be banned too?)
Changes have appeared in the law on the protection of information. They were adopted to restrict access to prohibited sites. The provisions for bypassing blocking will take effect on November 1, 2017.
The order says that only sites that allow access to gambling will be included in the register, and not any VPN service. If I do not break the law, will I be prohibited from anything?
Very much even banned. There are no criteria to segment the VPN destination. Traffic encryption channels are used for different purposes. Someone to work on the marketplace or to use social networks without breaking anything. And someone connects through a VPN to play in a casino - this is a violation.
The Federal Tax Service may decide to block a site with such services, even if there is just information about options for bypassing blocking of online casinos and lotteries. And even more so if there you can download some kind of program or connect a service to go to a prohibited site.
This means that any site about VPN access is at risk, even if you are not going to violate anything. If it works now, then in a week it may not work.
I need a VPN for work, not play. What can you do to avoid getting blocked?
Nobody knows which specific sites are threatened with blocking in the near future. If you literally understand the wording of the order, then even information sites can be included in the register.
If you are using a VPN for work or protection from hackers and do not gamble on the Internet, look for different legal options to access anonymizers just in case. Or consider how to work without a VPN.
Do not hope that it will carry you through, as with the "Telegram". This order was signed by the heads of four departments, and now they will be obliged to execute it.
I am a regular user. Sometimes I use a VPN, but I don't visit prohibited sites. Does something threaten me?
Nothing threatens you. You can use anonymizers for work, dating sites or computer games and visit any sites that are in the public domain.
If a VPN service you are used to suddenly stops working, it means that it did not want to comply with the law and helped bypass the blockages. You will find another - there are many of them.
If it suddenly turns out that the site is blocked by the decision of Roskomnadzor or the work has stopped due to the fact that the messenger or VPN does not work, you can lose money or even your entire business.
A lot of noise in the network was raised by the Federal Law of 27.06.2018 No. 155-FZ "On Amendments to the Code Russian Federation on administrative offenses ", which introduced a penalty in the form of a fine for anonymizers and VPN. Many myths and misconceptions have already appeared around these amendments to the Administrative Code. In this publication, we will tell you whether there is a penalty for a VPN in Russia for Internet users, and whether there is any punishment for anonymizers on the Runet.
What are anonymizers? There are several types of anonymizers. network technologies and software, for example: proxy servers, VPN (Virtual Private Network), Tor (The Onion Router - a proxy server system that allows you to establish anonymous network connection protected from eavesdropping) and any other services that allow you to bypass the blocking of access to one or another online content.
Recall that in the summer of 2017, the Federal Law of July 29, 2017 N 276-FZ "On Amendments to the Federal Law" On Information, information technology and on the protection of information ”, which prohibited the owners of anonymizers and VPN services from providing an opportunity to use them in Russia to gain access to blocked sites (sections or certain pages of sites). This "Law on the prohibition of anonymizers" came into force on November 1, 2017 and obliges the owners of anonymizers (including the owners of VPN / proxy services) to block access of Russian users to resources that are blacklisted by Roskomnadzor. The same law instructs search engines (Yandex, Poisk.Mayl.ru, Sputnik, Google, etc.) to stop displaying links to prohibited sites in their search results.
What fines are introduced by the new amendments to the Administrative Code?
Since the fall of 2018, the Federal Law of 27.06.2018 No. 155-FZ "On Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation" came into force, according to which fines were introduced into the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation
- search engine penalties(citizens and legal entities) for displaying links to prohibited information resources (sites or separate pages sites) - article 13.40 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation;
- penalties for hosting companies(citizens and legal entities) for hiding proxy servers running on the capacities of these hosters - article 19.7 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation.
According to Federal Law No. 155-FZ of June 27, 2018 maximum fine for violation of the "law prohibiting anonymizers" will be 5,000 rubles for citizens, 50,000 rubles for officials, but legal entities can be fined up to 700,000 rubles.
Will regular users be fined for VPNs?
Let's see if new fines for using anonymizers (VPN, Tor, proxy, etc.) threaten ordinary users in Russia? What happens if an ordinary citizen (Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook or Twitter) links to VPN or any other anonymizers and proxy services?
No, ordinary users do not face fines for using anonymizers! You will not be fined for VPN, Tor, or other proxies!
The punishment in the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation is provided only for those who directly own VPN-services, who provide their support and ensure the functioning of these anonymizers. Penalties, as we already wrote above, can also be applied to search engines, if they, in turn, do not stop displaying links to sites that provide anonymous access to information resources, which is on the black list of Roskomnadzor, bypassing the blocking.
The user will not be fined for the fact that he posted links to a proxy server or VPN on pages in social networks to view prohibited sites. Although in the past there have been initiatives to punish Internet users or proxy servers / anonymizers, such ideas have not found support from the deputies.
Can anonymizers work in Russia legally?
Yes they can! There is no total ban on anonymizers, and such a service can work in Russia legally if it fulfills a number of requirements established by the new Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”.
To function legally, the owners of the anonymizer are required to connect to the federal state information system (FSIS), the operator of which is Roskomnadzor. The owners of the anonymizer can connect to the FSIS RKN on their own, or within 30 days after receiving the order from the RKN. After connecting to the FSIS, the owners of the anonymizer must, within 3 days, "ensure compliance with the prohibition to provide the ability to use on the territory of the Russian Federation" of programs and other technical means to gain access to prohibited sites.
Image copyright Silas Stein / DPA / TASS Image caption Owners of VPN services and "anonymizers" are obliged to block access to prohibited sites
In Russia, on November 1, a law came into force obliging owners of VPN services and so-called anonymizers to block access to prohibited sites.
The new law affects all known tools for bypassing blocking and achieving anonymity on the Internet, including extensions for browsers and anonymous browser Tor. President Vladimir Putin signed the package of amendments in July 2017.
"There are 25-30 proxy and VPN services in Russia that are popular among the population. Among them are cameleo.ru, 2ip.ru and others. They all expressed their readiness to comply with the law," the head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, told RBC.
However, he admitted that there are hundreds of thousands of small VPN services that are much more difficult to block. "But the law is focused primarily on the most popular services among citizens," Zharov said.
Many users fear that the ban will tighten internet censorship in Russia. After the signing of the law, the human rights organization Amnesty International said that the amendments were "a serious blow to Internet freedom" in Russia.
How will the new ban work?
To implement the amendments, the federal state information system (FSIS) is being launched in Russia. At the request of the police, Roskomnadzor will identify providers that provide access to VPN services and anonymizers.
Providers will be required to connect to the FSIS and provide information about the owner of the anonymizer, which will also have to connect to the system. After that, the owner of the service will be required to close access to sites included in the list of prohibited. If the owner refuses, the anonymizer will be blocked.
- Foreign VPN provider leaves Russia due to "Yarovaya package"
The amendments also include restrictions for search engines. If the services show links to sites from the list of prohibited sites, they will be fined.
Are the owners of anonymizers ready for the new law?
Roskomnadzor announced on October 31 that the regulator is completing testing of the system of interaction with the owners of anonymizers.
In preparation for the entry into force of the ban, Roskomnadzor employees met with market participants and explained how the amendments would work.
"In general, the testing was successful. It was attended by: Kaspersky Lab, Opera Software AS, Cameleo, 2ip, Mail.ru, Yandex, Sputnik," the BBC was told in the department. for a list of blocked Internet resources), including in an automated mode, as well as launching a filtering mechanism for users of blocked sites. "
Can you block Tor?
Roskomnadzor will not be able to completely close access to Tor. This browser uses not only public network addresses, but also private ones, which are almost impossible to block. Tor issues them at the request of the user.
Belarus is trying to block Tor. As of December 2016, censors have blacklisted about 6,000 of the 7,000 public Tor addresses operating around the world.
The number of non-public users network addresses in this country after the start of blocking has grown from 250 to 3 thousand people, reported "European Radio for Belarus". At the same time, the number of users of public addresses fell from 3 thousand to 2.6 thousand people.
What side effects can there be?
The Association for European Businesses warned in October that a new ban could include corporate VPN services that are used for industrial purposes.
The ban does not apply to such VPN services, but experts say that distinguishing corporate network from the public is impossible.
It is also unclear how the law will work in the case of Google and Apple, whose stores sell third-party VPN services. The head of the Roskomsvoboda project, Artem Kozlyuk, said earlier that Roskomnadzor is trying to negotiate with Google and Apple to remove such services from their stores.
Roskomnadzor told the BBC that they are not experiencing difficulties in working with Google and Apple. "We have been cooperating for a long time in terms of removing illegal applications from these stores," the regulator noted.
What's with Crimea
The ban on anonymizers will adversely affect the residents of Crimea and Sevastopol, warned ROCIT CEO Sergei Grebennikov. On the peninsula, due to sanctions, the services of some Internet companies are unavailable.
For example, many people do not work in Crimea Google services, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal. The inhabitants of the peninsula got access to them through anonymizers and VPN.
"Half of the Crimean residents now use VPN services, because many sites are inaccessible to them due to sanctions, and the introduction of this law may for some time leave Crimean residents without the services they are used to using on a daily basis," Grebennikov said. at a meeting of the State Duma in June.
"Crimes are committed not on the Internet, but offline, and the Internet serves only as a way. It is necessary to catch criminals offline. The prohibitions that are proposed to be introduced will lead to the development of the Darknet, that is, we continue to fight against windmills," he noted CEO of ROCIT.
In the current version of the law, no exceptions have been made for citizens, Sergei Grebennikov told the BBC Russian Service. "Thus, the only option for them is to use a corporate VPN or buy and configure the service on their own," the expert added.
Roskomnadzor noted in this regard that the amendments do not prohibit VPN services and anonymizers, but simply oblige their owners to close access to blocked resources.
In the final reading, the bill banning means for bypassing Internet blocking, which also covers VPN services and anonymizers, is in its final reading. If such services refuse to block access to prohibited content, they themselves will be blocked by Roskomnadzor. If approved by the Federation Council and President Vladimir Putin, the law will enter into force on November 1, 2017.
The Village figured out which services will be subject to restrictions, how they will be blocked and how this will affect users.
What will be blocked
The new law establishes a ban on the use of information systems and programs for gaining access to Internet resources blocked in Russia. The law covers not only proxy and VPN services, but also anonymous networks such as Tor and I2P. In addition, the document prohibits search engines like Google and Yandex from displaying links to blocked resources.
However, the list of resources available for restriction does not end there, since the sites that post information about blocking bypass tools are heterogeneous. These include any resources with lists of VPN services and even app stores, including App Store and Google play... Software platforms like operating systems and their technical portals, such as the Microsoft support portal describing VPN setup in different Windows versions... It is also possible to limit the work of popular browsers that offer built-in ways to bypass blocking. Similar options are available in various flavors in Opera, Chrome or Safari. Lists of VPN services and instructions for setting them up are also distributed by social networks and messengers.
At the same time, the law provides for an exception for own VPN companies, if these funds are available only to employees. In turn, the Internet ombudsman under the President Dmitry Marinichev, who called the bill "madness", noted the impossibility of separating a VPN used for commercial purposes from a VPN used to bypass blocking.
How to block
Anonymizers and VPN services can be blocked in two ways - by IP addresses or by type of traffic.
If the first technology already tested in Russia is used, Roskomnadzor will enter all domain names and the IP addresses of the official VPN sites where you can purchase the product. Also, by IP, you can block public Tor servers to which users connect.
To use the second technology, it is necessary to install DPI equipment on the networks of all operators for deep traffic analysis, which is able to detect VPN traffic and distinguish it from other encrypted HTTPS traffic. DPI equipment is quite expensive, therefore, given the large number of operators in Russia, it will take a lot of time and money to use this technology. This method has already been tested in China, where there is a constant arms race between the authorities and developers.
What users should do
The experience of Asian countries such as China, where the Golden Shield content filtering system has been operating since 2003, shows that limiting the operation of means to bypass Internet blocking does not completely restrict users' access to VPN services, Tor exit nodes and other traffic proxying tools.
Clients of VPN services will not notice any changes for themselves before the implementation of DPI equipment. Unlike sites with software distributions, it is extremely difficult to block a VPN itself, which will require a deep understanding of the principles of operation of each individual service and the structure of the network. In addition, the VPN service can quickly restructure the network, and everything needs to be done again. At the same time, the restructuring procedure can be automated - in this case, the VPN provider can create new IP addresses at least every minute. For users, it will look like automatic update extensions.
There are many VPN services around the world today, and new ones are constantly emerging. The competition in the VPN market is quite high, and it is impossible to block all circumvention tools in a short time. In addition, all setup files Users will be able to receive VPN applications on forums, by mail or in instant messengers. According to the head of Roskomsvoboda, Artem Kozlyuk, 80-90% of services will remain available to Russians.
In addition, the ability to use a dual VPN will remain and probably will develop - where a user connects to a server in one country (for example, in Canada), and from there to a server in another (for example, in Norway). Then the final, Norwegian service will perceive the Russian user as a Canadian and will not apply locks from the Roskomnadzor list, even if both VPN services comply with Russian law.
Another option is to set up your own VPN by renting a place on a foreign hosting, which will require a small investment. And in some mobile devices For example, in smartphones on Android, there is a built-in VPN function, and in the case of pre-installed programs, it is simply impossible to block any VPN resource. In addition, as noted earlier, blocking will officially allow you to bypass corporate VPNs used by company employees.
As for Tor, the network, in addition to the public list of keys, has a constantly updated list of servers through which you can access the desired sites. In the case of blocking public Tor nodes to connect to the network and access prohibited sites, you can use bridges that were specially invented to bypass the blockings using hidden relays. Users can use the built-in browser bridging options or get new addresses.
Violators of the law on anonymizers will receive fines for administrative offenses - the State Duma adopted a draft law on this on Tuesday in the third reading. The text of the document is posted on the State Duma document portal.
The bill prohibits the search results of prohibited sites. First of all, fines will be received by operators of search engines who have not connected to the FSIS (the federal state information system, where all websites prohibited in Russia are collected). Individuals for failure to comply will be fined 3,000-5,000 rubles, officials - 30,000-50,000 rubles, legal entities - 500,000-700,000 rubles. Search operators will receive the same penalties if they do not remove prohibited resources from their search results.
According to the law on anonymizers search engines are obliged, at the request of Roskomnadzor, to connect to the FSIS in order to timely block prohibited resources. In early May, only Mail.ru and Sputnik were connected to the FSIS and successfully filtered traffic, a representative of Roskomnadzor told Vedomosti at the time.
With technical experts from Google and Yandex, Roskomnadzor, as reported by its representative, is testing the interface of information systems. Representatives of Yandex and Google declined to comment. In the first lines of Google and Yandex search results, the Vedomosti correspondent still receives direct links to several resources banned in Russia.
In an interview with RT, the head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, promised that search engines would agree to comply with the law on anonymizers. According to him, Roskomnadzor worked with Yandex, and it was "obvious that browsers will comply with this law." “How Google will behave - we'll see. This is a foreign company, and they did not participate in the experiment, ”Zharov said at the time.
In more than six months since the law came into force, not a single VPN service and not a single anonymizer have connected to the FSIS, a representative of Roskomnadzor admitted in May. According to the procedure described in the law, the agencies that are engaged in operational-search activities should advise Roskomnadzor which anonymizers and VPN services should be connected to the system. For the entire period of the law, such appeals have not yet been received, says a representative of Roskomnadzor.
Under the new law on fines for non-compliance with the law on anonymizers, a hosting provider or another person who places anonymizers and VPN services on the network must, at the request of Roskomnadzor, provide the department with information about the owners of these anonymizers and VPN services in time. Otherwise, they will also be fined: individuals - 10,000-30,000 rubles, legal entities - 50,000-300,000 rubles.