Russia Seeking To Ban Tor, VPNs and Other Anonymizing Tools 215
An anonymous reader writes Three separate Russian authorities have spoken out in favor of banning online anonymizing tools since February 5th, with particular emphasis on Tor, which — despite its popularity with whistle-blowers such as Edward Snowden and with online activists — Russia's Safe Internet League describes as an 'Anonymous network used primarily to commit crimes'. The three authorities involved are the Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, powerful Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor and the Safe Internet League, comprising the country's top three network providers, including state telecoms provider Rostelecom. Roskomnadzor's press secretary Vadim Roskomnadzora Ampelonsky describes the obstacles to identifying and blocking Tor and VPN traffic as "difficult, but solvable."
This is (sort of) good news for Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything the evil former Commies do now is held up as a destroyer of freedom. If someone here proposes a similar law, half of Congress will (hopefully) stand up and say "That's something the Russians would do to suppress Freedom(TM)."
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Can't tell if Putin is an asshole or if Obama is wagging the dog...
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Both?
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the greeks can start using rubles for all I care. saves them the trouble of printing the money themselves.
oh and if you don't think that he's an asshole... how is he not? his policies are just asshole policies through and through. he's not cleaning up street level corruption in russia and only taking things into his own fold, pisses on the elections, parliament and freedom of expression and rights of the people, annexed a part of another state after his puppet got overthrown and is supplying weapons and tro
Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
oh, so Putin invaded three countries immediately following the world trade centre incident on the pretext of finding the one man they held responsible? No wait, that was the United States.
Putin bombed Serbia? No, wait, that was the United States.
Putin aided in bloody coups against legitimately elected Governments in Liberia, Haiti, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Egypt? No, all the United States.
Who's the asshole?
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oh, so Putin invaded three countries
You mean, Georgia, Ukraine and (brewing) Moldova? With functional takeover of a number of ex-USSR countries as well (Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova differ only by daring to stand up to Russia)? And aiding bloody coups elsewhere?
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I'll see your former Soviet states and raise you a Columbia, Panama and Zaire.
I could do this all fuckin' day,
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I'll see your former Soviet states and raise you a Columbia, Panama and Zaire.
I could do this all fuckin' day,
The number of assholes isn't limited to one. In addition: You aren't automatically the good guy if there are worse people.
Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll see your former Soviet states and raise you a Columbia, Panama and Zaire.
I could do this all fuckin' day,
Gentlemen, gentlemen,
Both countries have small penises. Can we please move on.
(bdum tish) (Score:5, Funny)
Both countries have small penises. Can we please move on.
I dunno, Alaska and Kamchatka are both sizable peninsulas.
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You know...now that I'm thinking about it. The US must have some serious peninsula envy if it keeps taking them from other countries...
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Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
I could do this all fuckin' day,
Yep. Of course you can do it all day. Because you can live in a country where you can do that without fear of retribution.
But. Y'know. Keep fighting the good fight, comrade.
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oh, so Putin invaded three countries
You mean, Georgia, Ukraine and (brewing) Moldova? With functional takeover of a number of ex-USSR countries as well (Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova differ only by daring to stand up to Russia)? And aiding bloody coups elsewhere?
Moldova got already invaded - Putin took Transnistria already. In fact, that was his first invasion.
Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans (Score:4, Informative)
The civil war in Transnistria happened when Putin was just a suitcase carrier for the then-mayor of St. Petersburg.
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that's a damn impressive effort for an intelligence officer stationed in Dresden. Would love to know how he managed that one.
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For now, Transnistria is only occupied, what's brewing is full annexation.
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Don't forget Chechenya. That war basically brought Putin into power.
Moscow apartment bombings were executed to get a pretext for invading Chechenya (2nd war). FSB even got caught planting one of the bombs. Guess who was leading the FSB back then? Guess who blamed it all to Cheche
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How come, in Litvinyenko's name, ladoga's post got moderated "troll"? Comrades, didn't you get the memo? The First Secretary is ok with people knowing that. He would use a speeding car or a dose of that invisible "100% natural cardiac event" poison, rather than polonium you can't get without being a state actor. Instead, the message sent means "yes, we did it, and if you fuck with us the same can happen to you".
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Like in little-league sports these days, that contest can have many "winners."
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oh, so Putin invaded three countries immediately following the world trade centre incident on the pretext of finding the one man they held responsible? No wait, that was the United States. Putin bombed Serbia? No, wait, that was the United States. Putin aided in bloody coups against legitimately elected Governments in Liberia, Haiti, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Egypt? No, all the United States.
Who's the asshole?
Putin invaded the following after 9-11-2001, although his reasons had nothing to do with those events.
Georgia, Moldova (arguable whether Russian troops were involved at first, but they're in Transnistria now), Ukraine
Those invaded areas are for all practical purposes under the control of Russia. In Georgia and Ukraine, you might as well redraw the map and give them to Russia.
How many counties the "evil" US invaded does it control? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Are you a Russian apologist? You sh
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What? Legitimately elected? Syria, Egypt, Libya? Really?
Is this Vodka or pot overdose?
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I can't talk about Ukraine because I am not fully informed about it as I am about the other countries I listed. But from a cursory look, Russia accepted an independent vote from the Crimean penninsula, and annexed it based on that. If it is good for Crimea, then it is good for the rest of Ukraine.
But as I said, Ukraine is not what I can/want to discuss. I am specifically astonished to you characterizing these three Arab countries as having 'legitimately elected government" while the facts completely contrad
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So, um, not to detract from your rant or anything...
Putin invaded several countries, just to refresh your memory I will specifically name Georgia and Ukraine. Putin aided numerous bloody coups, you just do not hear about them because everyone, yourself included, is so focused on what America is doing.
Or should we move on to China and some of their imperialistic maneuvers too?
You speak like if we could just destroy America, everything would go back to being peaches and cream. Definitely a naive viewpoint.
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you're repeating. I'll give you three more, DIFFERENT ones:
Columbia
Cuba
Argentina.
Not enough? Here's THREE MORE:
South Korea
Vietnam
Panama.
Well, shit. This'll keep you occupied in typing out those same three former Soviet states over the weekend: Three more:
Grenada
Lebanon
Dominican Republic.
You are beginning to look fucking stupid now.
Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who has works with people from Russia, the best description of how the country is run would be similar to Chicago with the Mafia in charge. There is just enough order so that things can function, and not much else past that.
One example are Russian cars. By law, they have to have sets of cameras on them... because there will be no other way to find who is at fault if a wreck happens. The police don't have enough resources to find who is at fault, so one has to "pack their own parachute" in order to get insurance money if there is a wreck.
Is Putin another Stalin? No. Russia has its issues, mainly underpopulation, and thousands of miles of borders with countries that would love to nick off some Russian territory. Plus, here in the US, Islamic extremist aggression makes the news often. There, border skirmishes by combatants is common, and there is a sizable death toll.
Another part of it is that Putin has to be an asshole. He has to run the country with an iron grip or else separatists will fracture the country... and if this happens, it would have far reaching and severe consequences.
The real truth is that Putin is an ass... but there is a lot worse that could be running the country. However, Russia has only to gain in future years. Oil prices are going back up, and will be at three digits a barrel by Memorial Day due to OPEC production cuts. While fracking has depleted US reserves, Russia still sits on incredible deposits, which are only going to be worth more as everyone else runs dry.
Re:This is (sort of) good news for Americans (Score:5, Informative)
By law, they have to have sets of cameras on them... because there will be no other way to find who is at fault if a wreck happens.
Dashcams are a good idea. I live in America, and I have one. I bought it for $39 from Amazon. It hasn't recorded an accident yet, but I did record a robbery that occurred in front of my car in a parking lot. I emailed the video to the cops, and they said it helped them nail the guy. The victim was an Indian woman. They are often targeted by muggers because they wear a lot of solid gold jewelry.
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that is probably true, but even so it is a very sad indictment on American society.
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One example are Russian cars. By law, they have to have sets of cameras on them
I don't know who told you that, but there's no law in Russia that requires having dashcams. Nor is it a prerequisite for getting insurance - having a car insurance is obligatory, and the companies are required to provide it with certain minimum conditions satisfied.
What it does is make it easier to prove your insurance claim should you have to make one. And also, in some cases, keep you out of jail, by proving your innocence (e.g. in a faked pedestrian hit).
He has to run the country with an iron grip or else separatists will fracture the country
Oh? And who are those separatists exactly, and whi
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Oil prices are going back up, and will be at three digits a barrel by Memorial Day due to OPEC production cuts.
I'd just like to point out that if this Anonymous Coward knew this as fact, he could be a multi-millionaire by Memorial Day with ease.
If you agree with him, then so could you.
Good luck with that.
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Prince Alwaleed agrees with you.
https://secure.marketwatch.com... [marketwatch.com]
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Oil prices are going back up, and will be at three digits a barrel by Memorial Day due to OPEC production cuts.
There is absolutely no indication that this is happening or will happen. OPEC is not cutting production at all, and Saudi Arabia is happy to keep pumping which keeps the US shale and Iranian markets suppressed. There is no way that the price per barrel will hit 3 digits in the first half of this year, because even if production gets reduced, everyone's reserves are completely topped up now.
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He can't. Revolution in Ukraine happened on anti-corruption ground and put his rule to serious danger. So everything was done to destabilize Ukraine, to show failure of anti-corruption revolution to Russian people. Ukrainian success will destroy current ruling party and opposition will win in Russia. And he can't afford that, that means d
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Putin is a poison murderer and responsible for the death of many women and children. So yes, that qualifies him as an asshole.
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I think thousands of wounded/displaced Ukrainians would disagree, and the dead ones if they could talk. Plus the families of the people on the downed airliner [businessinsider.com].
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That didn't work the last time. Remember the '80s? Oh, how we laughed at the KGB, Stasi et al. and their invasive ways. Listening to everybody, having half the population on the payroll and informing on the other half, reading all mail etc.
How superior we felt, with our freedoms.
Now look where we are.
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That is the irony of Capitalism: it can only work as long as it has another system to compete against. As soon as Communism fell, Capitalism became a monopoly in the marketplace of political options, and like all monopolies, it became bloated and lazy. And now it's falling due to resulting internal problems. It'll be intersting to see what system will replace it.
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You mean the way they've been attacking said dictators?
Oh wait.
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/vid... [cc.com]
Great idea! (Score:1)
Will all of the VPN traffic that originates from Russia to steal data out of US homes and companies finally end?
Awesome!
We need a distributed Tor immedietly (Score:5, Interesting)
We need a distributed VPN/Proxy.
We need a ubiquitous p2p proxy that is both a client and server. It needs to be ridiculously easy to set up, as in download it, click a few buttons and you are browsing the web through random onion routing and allowing others to do the same. 100s of millions of server/clients cannot be shut down if they run over https.
Lantern may fit the bill. https://www.getlantern.org/ [getlantern.org] If there are others they need to get funding and widespread publicity as quickly as possible.
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why are you only talking about authoritarian/totalitarian governments. VPN, Tor and anonymous proxies have been under government attack from the UK, USA, Australia as well. this isn't just coming from the "so called" bad governments.
Re:We need a distributed Tor immedietly (Score:5, Insightful)
Those three governments qualify.
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The U.S. government invented tor.
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Totalitarians aren't perfect.
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Classic case of arming foreign rebels to undermine your enemy, and then being dismayed when the weapons make their way into the hands of people you'd like to suppress yourself.
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Tor *is* a distributed, anonymysing proxy.
Re:We need a distributed Tor immedietly (Score:5, Funny)
"China started assaulting VPNs recently as well."
China has been blocking VPNs since 2011. It seems like an annual ritual. Here is a typical article from back then:
http://www.theguardian.com/tec... [theguardian.com]
Eventually the blocking eases, or people figure out another way around. It becomes a game of "whack-a-mole".
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This misses the point. The crackdown on VPNs has been getting tougher. (I live in China.) Yes, there are ways around it, but the bottleneck is that most people use a VPN provider, and the VPN providers have a limited number of IP addresses. If the government blocks the IP addresses of known VPN providers, it prevents most VPN access while not blocking terribly much of the traffic it considers acceptable. Allowing VPN traffic to flow through a significant fraction of the net's IP addresses requires a la
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Thanks for the feedback. I've been to China once (several years ago) and back then, while the "Great Wall" was evident, it was not omnipresent. Since then I have been blocked by "Great Walls" imposed by hotels and conference sites (all in the US) that were far more oppressive, and which got me into looking at VPNs. I now have 5 VPNs to choose from (none of them from a commercial provider) but I understand what you are saying - given enough time, the mole-holes will get filled in.
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I have not dealt with the Great Firewall, but I've seen some quite restrictive stuff here at home. One coffee shop near me actually tries to MITM traffic to my E-mail provider with a bogus SSL key coming from 192.168.168.168, and the people there have zero clue on it, and say it is corporate's decision.
I've seen other crap as well on store Wi-Fi networks, be it ads inserted in-flight (www.google.com doesn't have Flash ads, nor does it try to install "securityupdate.apk" files if on Android), as well as exe
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I chose a bulgarian provider for its semi european presence
a distro is needed that that sets up VPN server , encrypted cloud sync/storage , email server . TOR relay etc that is auto updated and can be set up via an easy GUI
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You need to address the agents that provide your internet service. As long as you have to go through them, there is going to be trouble. Anybody can be shutdown. Even Slashdot, by a *faulty disk*
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It's only a matter of time (Score:1, Interesting)
Incorrect text in the summary (Score:5, Informative)
"Vadim Roskomnadzora Ampelonsky" -- the second word is not part of the name, that's the organization name he is working for. It should be "Vadim Ampelonsky".
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I am not even a Russian speaker, and that one jumped off the page at me. Unless the Organization Man begins to use an organizational patronymic.
This sounds vaguely familiar ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... oh, here it is. [slashdot.org]
“If we find evidence of a terrorist plot and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or email address, we can’t penetrate that [encryption], that’s a problem,” Obama said. He said he believes Silicon Valley companies also want to solve the problem. “They’re patriots.” ...
Emphasis mine.
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This is an overall problem in the USA, and it doesn't matter who you vote for.
Of course it does. If you limit yourself to the Republicans or the Democrats it doesn't matter which one you vote for, but any vote for a third party makes a difference.
You don't need a majority of the votes make your voice heard, not when the major parties only cares about power. If a third party get the number of votes that makes the difference between them then they represent a large enough group of voters to remove the power from one party and give it to the other. That is sufficient to make them both l
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Remember the clipper chip?
Democrats are no more friends of privacy than right wingers are.
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Obama believes Silicon Valley companies also want to solve the problem. “They’re patriots.” ...
A patriot is "a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors." Corporations run to whatever country will shelter them. They have no allegiance unless it empowers them financially or otherwise.
Snowden would qualify as a better patriot than any corporation since he is 1) a person (and not in the deluded SCOTUS sense either), and 2) he is prepared to defend it against ITSELF. The setback for him is his country will not let him back without sitting i
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End to end encrypted communications are definitely troubling to purveyors of mass surveillance, but Tor is not that. We don't care (that much) about Tor, because we have the resources to compromise it, so this really says more about the limits of Russian electronic surveillance than anything else.
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Except encryption.
Cliche time! (Score:2)
When encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption!
When privacy is outlawed, only oligarchs will have privacy!
When free speech is outlawed, Tor is "an anonymous network to commit crimes"!
And last but not least...
In Soviet Russia, VPN watches you!
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In Soviet Russia, VPN watches you!
I would have gone with:
In Soviet Russia, VPN connect to you.
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I would have gone with:
In Soviet Russia, VPN connect to you.
It was a little weak, I admit. My muse failed me, what can I say.
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To be fair, it was decided that some terrorists might have muses so all muses have been blocked.
Back in line, Citizen Unit #3858375.
strange that the only source for this (Score:2)
is a technology magazine based in an urban industrial sublet in Kensington.
Swell (Score:3)
The same wonderful country that have brought us Russian Mafia Cyber Criminals is now going to break the net wide open for government criminals.
I expect the Russian Mafia will continue to have the benefit of government protection and enjoy Tor and VPN while Russian opposition is going to get assfisted. Hail Putin.
Dictator's Internet Guide to Power Retention (Score:3)
the irony... (Score:1, Troll)
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In USA, he can live the rest of his life in a prison cell that's 6' by 8'.
In Russia, he can live the rest of his life in a prison cell that's 6,600,000 square miles wide.
Which one would you choose?
OTOH, they'll give Snowden a pass (Score:1)
The Russians won't block it if you've paid them the right amount.
Given that Snowden traded US intelligence information for his life, he will only be subject to the law when he can no longer pay off the Russians.
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Where is your source for all this - either you are leaking top secret information yourself or are making up shit.
Occum's razor (Score:2)
Since it embarrasses the USA for nearly no effort on Putins part, what do you think?
It may be boring and not Biggles meets Bond, but sometimes life's not like the movies.
We're not going to make it (Score:2)
It was a nice try. Perhaps the cockroaches or yeast will succeed where we failed.
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Perhaps the cockroaches or yeast will succeed where we failed.
My money is on the raccoons. They already have the opposable thumbs.
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This is one of the more meta troll-posts I've seen on /. If you had only posted it anonymously it would have been perfect.
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I'm pretty sure I'm being trolled here... and he used a nick instead of his real name, foiled again. Now that you do mention it, it would be useful... what's your name and address again?
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Poe's law.
The sad thing is that I've seen articles from people who really believe this. Long rants...
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Actually, I like Asperger with hollandaise sauce and stuff.
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Your pee smells funny
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lol. True.
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No, he doesn't. That was just some bogus analysis by people who have never directly observed him to reach a diagnosis: http://www.forbes.com/sites/fayeflam/2015/02/09/stories-claiming-putin-has-aspergers-reveal-more-about-pathology-in-media-than-in-russian-leader/ [forbes.com]
My son has Asperger's Syndrome (actually diagnosed by a medical professional who spent 6 hours directly observing my son). I deal with actual-Asperger's every day. You don't get a diagnosis from someone watching some news clips. If Putin sees
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If you're gonna stop people from freely communicating, why have internet connections at all? Why not simply ban sales of all cables and telecom equipment?
Because the object is to keep tabs on what's going on, not push it underground.
In $INSERT_COUNTRY Tor watches YOU!
Re: Cue the delusional "legitimate use" posts. (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you define "crime" properly, pretty much _everything_ anybody does on the Internet is criminal."
Well said, and correct, Anonymous poster. "Criminal" has no meaning, or any meaning they wish.
In Russia, criticizing the Orthodox Church will see them slam you in prison, and calling out Putin as a pedo will get you and half a restaurant radioactively poisoned with polonium, which only comes from government nuclear reactors.
In Israel, trying to leave your ghetto may get you killed, tortured, or dumped in prison, or all three.
In Saudi Arabia, pretty much anything is "criminal" (except, of course, anything royals choose to do, including creating and running Al Qaida).
Everything and nothing is a crime. Bedspreads are golden sprinkler cookie clowns. See? So much fun when words mean nothing at all.
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Ultimately, all traffic that is not clear text in a language understood by the sensors will have to be banned.
Because blocking port 21 or 22 would not stop ssh, you can agree with the server to user any port for that protocol..
That means, no more movies, pictures, or any digital content that is not written in cyrillic and approved by tsar putin.
Welcome to the 1880's internet.
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err... Wait a minute..
In soviet Russia, government watches you using TOR!
Wait. That isn't news... For Russia maybe... hmm...
In Soviet Russia, you watch the government!
That about right...? I'm confused.
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Wrong in both cases - it's already the past.
Decades ago I noticed a lot of large jpgs that have the visual quality of tiny jpgs... That implies that all of the low bits aren't correlated with the visual data.