1
What happened?
A bill has been introduced to the Duma prohibiting blocking bypass services from giving Russians access to prohibited sites. We are talking about all sorts of intermediaries that allow you to enter prohibited pages through foreign servers. In addition, the document prohibits search engines from providing links to prohibited pages.

2
Banning anonymizers? And how will it work?

The idea is pretty simple. The law will clearly state that various services (for example, anonymizers), networks (for example, VPN) and programs (for example, Tor and Opera) should not give Russians access to prohibited sites. Roskomnadzor will monitor such services and networks. If the department discovers that some services, networks or programs allow Russians to access blocked pages through foreign servers, employees will send a request to the owners - please make sure that Russians cannot access such and such prohibited sites. If the owners do not fulfill the requirements within a month, Roskomnadzor will begin to block their servers, with the help of which users bypass the locks, and the sites where they install the desired program... And if they agree, they won't. The department will create a special list of prohibited resources and give access to it to the owners of anonymizers and VPN networks, so that they themselves can monitor whether they allow Russians to watch something forbidden.

3
What about search engines?

It's simple. Now "Yandex", "Google" and other search engines are not prohibited from providing links to blocked pages. Now they want to ban them from showing such links to users on the territory of Russia. They will also be given access to the list of prohibited pages, which will be maintained by Roskomnadzor. For violations of the owners search engines will be fined in the amount of 500 to 700 thousand rubles.

4
We have a VPN at work. Will the problems begin now?

Not. The bill makes an exception for companies that use their own VPN and other blocking circumvention tools, if these tools are available only to employees.

5
They say the coolest is Tor. Can you block it too?

Yes, Tor is also covered by the bill. Authorities can block public servers to which users connect. This list is open to everyone, and there is nothing difficult to close access to it.

6
And what to do? Locks can no longer be circumvented?

One way or another, the locks can be bypassed, it just might become more difficult. Now it is difficult to answer this question clearly, because we do not know in what form the bill will be adopted (and we have no doubt that it will be adopted) and how it will be implemented. But there are ways to get around it. For example, Tor, in addition to the public list of keys, has a constantly updated list of servers through which you can access the necessary sites. You can find out more about how Tor works and how to use the network if public nodes are blocked in our cards.

There are other ways to bypass blocking - for example, you can use not just a VPN, but a double one. Let's say you connect to a server in, say, Holland, and then - also via VPN - to a server in Denmark. And the Danish server will consider you a user from Holland, although in fact you are viewing a resource from Russia. This scheme will work even if both VPN services comply with Russian law and restrict access for Russian customers. After all, the Danish service will consider the user Dutch.

A few days ago, a rather important event took place - in the first reading, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a bill "banning anonymizers and VPN". After the introduction of the register of prohibited sites and blocking of various resources, many wondered - how soon will the schemes bypass these blockings be banned? It turned out that it took not so much time - only some 5 years.

June 8, 2017 - it was on this day that it was officially decided to make the Runet a semblance of the Chinese network segment. Despite the fact that the law has not been formally adopted and a number of procedures must go through for its adoption, there is no doubt about the final result. Carthage will still be destroyed, and users who want something strange in the form of finding a job on LinkedIn or communicating with their clanmates on some MMORPG from South Korea in Line, if they want to, they won't be able to do this. In general, remember this tweet (s).

So, what have the legislators prepared for us? They prepared us a bill for a couple of dozen pages entitled "On Amendments to the Federal Law" On Information, information technology and on the protection of information "". It was introduced by three deputies from different parties, but their and even party affiliation does not play any role. Recently, laws that, in one way or another, limit the network space, have been adopted almost unanimously.

It will take effect 90 days after its entry into force, so that a new reality after passing all 3 readings and the president's signature will come quickly enough.

How it will be

The bill introduces a new key article numbered into the law on information 15.8 ... Officially, the article has a long and obscure title "Measures to counter the use of Russian Federation information and telecommunication networks, information systems and programs for electronic computers to gain access to information resources, including sites and (or) pages of sites on the Internet, access to which on the territory of the Russian Federation is limited in accordance with this Federal Law. " The article describes exactly the prohibition of blocking bypass means and how this prohibition is planned to be implemented.The article consists of 17 parts written by a seasoned clerk, so without a bottle we have simplified everything to the terms used in the industry.

The first part of the article right off the bat prohibits any service that operates on the territory of Russia from providing access to information that is prohibited on the territory of Russia in accordance with the law. In order to stop attempts to circumvent the bans, a number of new functions will be entrusted to Roskomnadzor:

First, the supervisory service will create and maintain a list of resources prohibited in the country. Note that such a list is already underway, so nothing has changed in this regard.

Secondly, Roskomnadzor will have to develop and approve a methodology in accordance with which it will monitor the network space in order to find services that offer the opportunity to gain access to blocked resources.

Thirdly, having found such resources, Roskomnadzor will have to identify the hosting providers (or any other persons) who have hosted these resources.

Fourthly, after the definition of hosters, they are sent requests (in Russian and English) with the requirement to provide information that will help identify those who contain services to bypass blocking. What information we are talking about is not explained. Most likely, for individuals it will be the full name, address of residence and the like, and for legal entities - the name of the company, location, possibly bank details. The date of such a request will be fixed.

Here we digress a little and allow ourselves to note that if hosters in Russia have to fulfill all the requirements, then foreign hosters will hardly fulfill the requirements of Roskomnadzor like this. For it is one thing when companies themselves give their data to the register of organizers of information dissemination, and quite another when a hoster will have to give out their client's data to the government of other countries. In addition to the fact that such "openness" will lead to a catastrophic decline in reputation, the hoster will violate the law on personal data of his own country.

After the hoster has received the corresponding request, he provides Roskomnadzor with all the data requested by him within the next three days. After that, Roskomnadzor, on the basis of the data received, within three days sends a request to the block bypass services themselves, demanding that they stop violations and disable the ability to bypass blocking in Russia.

Having received the requirements of Roskomnadzor about the restriction, the services to bypass the locks on their own (options):

1. Restrict access of all Internet users to their functions (voluntarily close, if in a simple way).
2. Restrict access to their functions on the territory of Russia (they voluntarily ban on the Russian Internet, that is).
3. They send an application to Roskomnadzor with a request to provide access to the register of prohibited sites and independently begin to block resources from this register.

What if we disagree?

If someone wants to show adherence to principles and refuses to comply with the requirements of Roskomndazor to block prohibited resources, then his end will be sad - he himself will be blocked on the territory of Russia in 30 days. Within 24 hours Roskomnadzor will send a message to telecom operators with a list of the "dissenting" addresses that need to be blocked. Operators, in turn, enter the addresses into the block list within 24 hours after receiving such a message.

In general, the standard blocking mechanism, only this time will have to block VPN services, anonymizers and other similar sites.

We already agree, what to do?

If someone at first wanted to show adherence to principles, but then realized that it was costing him too much, he can take measures to block prohibited sites and report this to Roskomnadzor. After that, Roskomnadzor checks the accuracy of the information within 24 hours, and, if the resources are indeed blocked, starts the unblocking procedure. During the day, telecom operators will be required to provide access to the "cut" VPN.

How will the interaction go?

The order of interaction with VPN services, anonymizers, technological networks and other resources that will block prohibited information are to be developed by Roskomnadzor. The supervisory service will be obliged to provide access to the list of prohibited information to everyone who agrees to its requirements in accordance with the developed interaction procedure. In turn, the resources themselves will have to block prohibited information, and observe this order of interaction.

Search engines

Separate parts of the article provide for the responsibilities of the search engine operator. He, like block bypass services, will have access to the list of blocked sites and will be obliged to exclude links to prohibited sites from search results. Interestingly, the punishment in the form of blocking for search engines has not yet been clearly spelled out - it only applies to services to bypass blocking. So Google will remain accessible, unless, of course, the norm is corrected. But instead of blocking the search engines, fines were prescribed. If the operator of the search engine does not filter search results, or did not want to get access to the register of prohibited sites, then this will entail the imposition of an administrative fine:

1. for citizens in the amount of five thousand rubles;
2. for officials - fifty thousand rubles;
3. for legal entities - from five hundred thousand to seven hundred thousand rubles.

Work, and we will give you your salary with a VPN!

Apparently, having heeded the warnings that VPN is used not only to read and watch "prohibited", legislators have left the opportunity to use services for companies. They, as before, will be able to use their own technologies to bypass access denial, but only in cases where users have entered into labor agreements with them.

So now, if you want to use some kind of VPN, you will not only have to pay for access, but also conclude an employment contract with its owner. This is a new kind of business. At the same time, unemployment will decrease.

Everything has already begun

Despite the fact that the prohibition of anonymizers and VPNs has yet to be introduced into the legal field, in fact, anonymizers have already been banned de facto. The prohibition mechanism is very simple - the prosecutor's office files a claim with the court, and the latter makes a decision to prohibit the anonymizer, since it can be used to gain access to prohibited information. On this basis, in 2016, "Chameleon", the Hideme.ru website and a number of others were blocked.

During the writing of the material, another piece of news came: Roskomnadzor, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rospotrebnadzor and the Federal Tax Service issued an interdepartmental order that allows you to block any means of bypassing locks without a court decision. The reasoning is also very simple - through these resources you can play in an illegal casino, which is prohibited on the territory of Russia. Officially, everything sounds like this:

The presence on the page of the site on the Internet and (or) a program for electronic computers that allows access to the site on the Internet, the page of the site on the Internet, which contains prohibited information that meets the criteria specified in paragraphs 4.1.1.-4.1.6 of these Criteria included in the Unified Register.

Naturally, everything that gives access to prohibited information, including VPN, falls under this description. Interestingly, the order itself was registered on June 27, and released on May 18. Considering that such documents are not prepared in a day, the decision to block the VPN was made much earlier.

A few days ago, the supervisory service sent out updated recommendations for blocking Internet resources to telecom operators. Nothing special from old version the recommendations do not differ, they only contain a mention of the preferred methods of blocking in the form of DPI open software and buying already filtered traffic from an upstream provider.

Implications for the industry

For telecom operators, the changes will be minimal. Well, a few more addresses will be added to the blocking list, no big deal. There are thousands of them already. But for Runet, as a phenomenon, everything will be much more serious. In fact, a separate space is created, in which not only it is impossible to gain access to some resources, but it is impossible even to find out that these resources exist. Of course, one can argue that there are ordinary sites, forums, foreign Google versions where you can find information, links and distributions.

However, the logic of events is relentless - there should not be any prohibited information on the Runet. So the further, the poorer the Russian segment will be. One by one, foreign services will leave the market or be blocked. Just someone earlier (like Line or LinkedIn), someone later. The vacated places will start to be occupied by Russian services, which are now appearing like mushrooms after rain. We will keep silent about their quality - there is an excellent example of Sputnik, which, even with powerful competitors such as Google and Yandex, is something from the late 90s. Without the ability to fully interact with the world industry, Russian telecom and IT will degrade (even now they look disapprovingly at the successful Kaspersky), and the further, the degradation rate will increase. After all, it's all some version of "Gwangmyeong".

On the other hand, in Africa, there is no Internet at all, and no one really cares about it.

Access to websites prohibited in Russia. However, in fact, the VPN services themselves, as well as the anonymous Tor network, may be banned. found out why the state declared war on anonymity and how the law will operate.

What the law says

Owners are obliged by law special programs and applications to close access for Russians to sites banned in the country. The wording of the document is as vague as possible, so that all proxy and VPN services, special browser extensions, as well as the anonymous Tor network fall under its influence.

The management of the above services will be given access to the register of prohibited sites, and the implementation of the law will be monitored in and. If law enforcement officers notice that Russians are visiting prohibited resources through a specific application, they will report this to Roskomnadzor. He will demand to eliminate the violation, and in case of disobedience, he will block it.

In addition, the law obliges Internet service providers to contact the management of proxy and VPN services and require them to provide information that "allows them to identify [their] owners." In fact, this means that services will be required to issue registration data, that is, the address of the office and the location of the servers. Search engines will be prohibited from giving out links to prohibited resources.

The law does not apply to government agencies and departments, as well as to private companies if the means to bypass blocking are available only to their employees.

How Russia was preparing for the adoption of the law

For the first time, the development of the bill became known in April. It was argued that the Security Council was interested in it, and Roskomnadzor and the lawyers of the Media Communications Union (MKS) were involved in the development, for whom the document became a chance to strike a new blow on pirated resources and torrent trackers.

Prior to that, Roskomnadzor, according to rumors, tried to negotiate with VPN services on a voluntary restriction of access to prohibited resources. It is known that the department also negotiated with the developers Opera browser whose Turbo mode allows you to automatically bypass blocking thanks to its built-in proxy.

Why VPNs and Tor will be hit

Almost all proxy and VPN services are foreign companies that rarely comply with the requirements of Russian legislation. They are unlikely to voluntarily monitor the register of prohibited Roskomnadzor sites and restrict access to them for Russian clients, and they are not too afraid of the threat of blocking in the country.

The situation with Tor is even more complicated: it is led by the Tor Project development team. Most of the project's employees consider themselves to be part of the so-called cypherpunk movement, which means they consciously resist any restrictions on the Internet and openly oppose cooperation with the authorities.

As a result, the management of VPN services and Tor will most likely refuse to restrict access to sites banned in Russia and will be the first to be blocked by Roskomnadzor.

Is it possible to restrict access to Tor and VPN

This has happened with VPNs before. In January, Roskomnadzor blocked the website of the VPN service HideMe by a decision of the district court of Ufa, but it continued to work, simply changing the address to Hidemy.name and turning on redirects. Restricting access to the site does not directly affect the operation of the VPN service, but complicates access to the payment page and downloading the program itself.

Roskomnadzor may also achieve the removal of VPN services from the AppStore, which will hit iPhone and iPad owners - unlike those with Android smartphones, they cannot download third-party installation files.

It is possible to block technical domains and server addresses of VPN services, causing connection interruptions. Roskomnadzor already has experience in restricting access to the infrastructure of the RuTracker torrent tracker: the agency hit the bt servers that were responsible for distributing files, thereby partially blocking the ability to download them.

In addition, Internet service providers may be required to install special DPI equipment (Deep Packet Inspection) that monitors transmitted data packets by their content. These tools are able to distinguish VPN traffic from regular HTTPS traffic and are used to identify and block VPN services in China. However, the purchase and implementation of such equipment costs a lot of money, and the costs of installing it will fall on the operators themselves.

Most probably not. Roskomnadzor is unlikely to be able to force foreign VPN services and the Tor Project to restrict Russians' access to prohibited sites and will be forced to block them. However, this is unlikely to cause significant damage to them and will not be able to prevent the inhabitants of the country from bypassing the blockages.

While the struggle for the Internet continues in Russia, more and more users are learning to use the means of bypassing the Roskomnadozar bans: they are mastering VPNs and proxies, saying thanks to the supervisory authority for the incentive to do computer literacy... However, the question arises as to how legal it is to use these services, and since the country has so zealously set about blocking 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 have even been stories on social media that saleswomen in stores are teaching how to use circumvention tools.

Sergey Vasilievich