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Censorship The Internet

Millions of Russians are 'Tearing Holes in the Digital Iron Curtain' Using VPNs (msn.com) 96

Posted by EditorDavid from the routing-around-censorship dept.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, "VPNs have been downloaded in Russia by the hundreds of thousands a day," reports the Washington Post, "a massive surge in demand that represents a direct challenge to President Vladimir Putin and his attempt to seal Russians off from the wider world.

"By protecting the locations and identities of users, VPNs are now granting millions of Russians access to blocked material...." Daily downloads in Russia of the 10 most popular VPNs jumped from below 15,000 just before the war to as many as 475,000 in March. As of this week, downloads were continuing at a rate of nearly 300,000 a day, according to data compiled for The Washington Post by the analytics firm Apptopia, which relies on information from apps, public data and an algorithm to come up with estimates. Russian clients typically download multiple VPNs, but the data suggests millions of new users per month. In early April, Russian telecom operator Yota reported that the number of VPN users was over 50 times as high as in January, according to the Tass state news service.

The Internet Protection Society, a digital rights group associated with jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, launched its own VPN service last month and reached its limit of 300,000 users within 10 days, according to executive director Mikhail Klimarev. Based on internal surveys, he estimates that the number of VPN users in Russia has risen to roughly 30 percent of the 100 million Internet users in Russia. To combat Putin, "Ukraine needs Javelin and Russians need Internet," Klimarev said....

In the days before the war, and in the weeks since then, Russian authorities have also ratcheted up pressure on Google, asking the search engine to remove thousands of Internet sites associated with VPNs, according to the Lumen database, an archive of legal complaints related to Internet content. Google, which did not respond to a request for comment, still includes banned sites in search results.... Although downloading a VPN is technically easy, usually requiring only a few clicks, purchasing a paid VPN has become complicated in Russia, as Western sanctions have rendered Russian credit and debit cards nearly useless outside the country. That has forced many to resort to free VPNs, which can have spotty service and can sell information about users.

Vytautas Kaziukonis, chief executive of Surfshark — a Lithuania-based VPN that saw a 20-fold increase in Russian users in March — said some of those customers are now paying in cryptocurrencies or through people they know in third countries.
One 52-year-old told the Post that downloading a VPN "brought back memories of the 1980s in the Soviet Union, when he used a shortwave radio to hear forbidden news of dissident arrests on Radio Liberty, which is funded by the United States."

"We didn't know what was going on around us. That's true again now."
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Millions of Russians are 'Tearing Holes in the Digital Iron Curtain' Using VPNs More

Millions of Russians are 'Tearing Holes in the Digital Iron Curtain' Using VPNs

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  • I wish them well (Score:3)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Saturday May 07, 2022 @12:40PM (#62511994)

    I wouldn't think it would be that hard for Russia to enforce VPN bans. In many countries in the middle east you can get fined ($50K i think) and imprisoned for using one. Their government's motivations are more financial than political -- with VPN you can make phone/video calls without paying the horrific international rates of the nationally run phone company. (Usually owned by some relative to someone in the government.)

    If Putin's goons can arrest people for holding up an invisible sign, I am pretty sure they would have no compunction for doing the same for anyone associated with an IP address using a banned protocol.

    Arnold was right to call the Russian protesters his new heroes.

    • If Putin's goons can arrest people for holding up an invisible sign, I am pretty sure they would have no compunction for doing the same for anyone associated with an IP address using a banned protocol.

      Putin and the Russian Government will probably end up just arresting everyone. Of course, that'll pose a prison housing issue. Perhaps they can just build a wall, or maybe a curtain-like structure, around the entire country, maybe made of iron, to keep everyone imprisoned there.

      • Putin *has* publicly stated he wants to bring back the old soviet union.

        • Putin *has* publicly stated he wants to bring back the old soviet union.

          Yup, starting with the forced annexation of Ukraine. I wonder how that's going ...

        • Putin *has* publicly stated he wants to bring back the old soviet union.

          When?

        • He wants to bring back the Russian empire, not the soviet union.

        • Send him a plane ticket to California. He'll feel right at home.

    • They can't ban VPNs because they're also using VPNs to evade western sanctions.

    • I wouldn't think it would be that hard for Russia to enforce VPN bans. In many countries in the middle east you can get fined ($50K i think) and imprisoned for using one. Their government's motivations are more financial than political -- with VPN you can make phone/video calls without paying the horrific international rates of the nationally run phone company. (Usually owned by some relative to someone in the government.)

      If Putin's goons can arrest people for holding up an invisible sign, I am pretty sure they would have no compunction for doing the same for anyone associated with an IP address using a banned protocol.

      Arnold was right to call the Russian protesters his new heroes.

      I suspect VPN usage is ubiquitous amongst the elite so there's probably a ton of resistance to outlawing it.

      Sure, they understand the law wouldn't be enforced against them, but it's still another bit of leverage the regime has over them and so they're going to resist it. Not to mention the more you piss off the public the more you risk additional protests or even a revolution.

    • *clap* *clap*

      Nice performance. Oh those awful Putin-controlled telcoms? Do you know that Russians pay some of the lowest rates for cellphone and landline in the world? WTF are you on about? They can use skype or facetime like any other person to talk to people around the world.

      You seem to be a character from cold war.

  • "We didn't know what was going on around us" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Saturday May 07, 2022 @12:53PM (#62512008)

    This is such an alarming aspect of a regime that is effectively a dictatorship, but it does make you stop and think...

    Do those of us in more open democracies really know what is going on around us?

    You could make an argument that by being bombarded with multiple points of view, citizens of supposed free and open democracies - the US, Europe etc. - aren't that much better off.

    The modus operandi is just different - mindsets are swung by those who hold most of the media power - and it is in very few hands indeed.

    Sure, we DO have the rights to seek out information from wherever we wish (at least, for now), but we can see what happens when those rights are assumed to have gone too far by democracies - wiki leaks for example.

    We only need look to the polarisation of opinion in our democracies, to see just how complicated "fact" and "truth" are.
    Where I live, in the UK, we had the Brexit nonsense - and currently are lumbered with an atrocious government.

    In the US, the polarisation is even more stark - Trump was a byproduct of this, but boy, did he ever stir up that hornets nest.

    It's reached a point, as far as I'm concerned, where it is very difficult indeed to know exactly what is the truth, what the facts really are.
    And that's in democratic nations, not in heavily controlled countries like Russia or China.

    • ... and yes, I know that Russia and China meddle with democracies - just as our democracies meddle with their tightly controlled regimes.

    • The difference between what RT does and what Fox does is only a matter of degree.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rantrantrant ( 4753443 )
        The thing is, in its heyday, RT won awards for journalism. I don't know about now but the quality of their journalism was pretty good & they hired western journalists with excellent reputations but selectively, i.e. those that were critical of their respective governments. We can't say the same of Fox's quality of journalism, if we can even call it journalism.

      • You have to be kidding. I believed RT America more than I believe what FOX says.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jwhyche ( 6192 )

          I don't watch American news anymore. It's ether "all Trumps fault, all Trumps fault, all Trumps fault!" or "Biden is going to get us all killed!!!" Fuck that noise.

          Youtube has some good foreign channels like France 24, Skynews, or Al Jazeera. I've been able to keep up with world affairs much better without the left or right slant that American news seems to have.

    • Re:"We didn't know what was going on around us" (Score:5, Informative)

      by slashdot_commentator ( 444053 ) on Saturday May 07, 2022 @01:22PM (#62512060) Journal

      It's reached a point, as far as I'm concerned, where it is very difficult indeed to know exactly what is the truth, what the facts really are.

      Its because the West's media in power cares too much about achieving its goals in molding public opinion, than scrupulously reporting the truth. So now we can't completely trust newspapers and cable news.

      And that's why autocrats like Putin and Trump lie constantly and unconvincingly. Its not about trying to persuade people to their "truth". Its about making people incapable of discerning what is the truth. Normally, the response should be to disbelieve everything they say, and just believe the parties that contradict them. But because news media and policy partisans are willing to mislead to get their way, people can't be lazy and just believe Trump's opponents. The result is Putin and Trump neutralize the information sources they don't control, because no one knows what to believe.

      • It's more about making people apathetic about the truth.

        Hey, it works even here. With the amount of lies being told, do you still care what's true? With some topics, I just don't care anymore.

      • The West's media cares about selling eyeballs to advertisers. Let's not pretend it's anything else. You choose an audience and you play for that audience. Because if you suddenly started reporting something that audience doesn't want to hear, they would leave. Instead, you cater to their wims, tell them what they want to hear and you have eyeballs to sell to your advertisers.

      • It's reached a point, as far as I'm concerned, where it is very difficult indeed to know exactly what is the truth, what the facts really are.

        Its because the West's media in power cares too much about achieving its goals in molding public opinion, than scrupulously reporting the truth.

        I think it's less manipulative than that. The problem is the truth is a lot more complicated than you suggest.

        There's simply too many facts out there, and getting an accurate picture of the world, ie "the truth", requires filtering those facts because you don't actually get that many words to communicate what's happening.

        For instance, in the Russian invasion of Ukraine I'm sure there's been some instances where a Ukrainian soldier has committed atrocities against a Russian soldier or even a pro-Russian civi

        • There's simply too many facts out there, and getting an accurate picture of the world, ie "the truth", requires filtering those facts because you don't actually get that many words to communicate what's happening.

          No, that's mainstream media's BS excuse for their shoddy product. Nothing stops them from setting up a "panel" segment where one of the hosts mention it, they dismiss it, all without that powerful video to move viewers.

          Mainstream media is too lazy, mindlessly suppressing the lab leak theory for the benefit of the NIH science leadership mafia. And outright dismissing/denying the Hunter Biden laptop story. When you see this stuff happen, one can only suspect media worked with the CIA to destroy Gary Webb's

          • There's simply too many facts out there, and getting an accurate picture of the world, ie "the truth", requires filtering those facts because you don't actually get that many words to communicate what's happening.

            No, that's mainstream media's BS excuse for their shoddy product. Nothing stops them from setting up a "panel" segment where one of the hosts mention it, they dismiss it, all without that powerful video to move viewers.

            I think you're vastly underestimating just how many irrelevant facts are out there.

            Mainstream media is too lazy, mindlessly suppressing the lab leak theory for the benefit of the NIH science leadership mafia. And outright dismissing/denying the Hunter Biden laptop story.

            The lab leak story is something that sounds persuasive when you look at the facts as a layman, but then you find that scientists in the field range from skeptical to dismissive. That's a pretty strong signal that a full understanding of the facts would also make you skeptical of the lab leak story, and the media should try to communicate that.

            The Hunter Biden laptop story on the other hand is just weird, the "Hunter Biden dro

            • > but then you find that scientists in the field range from skeptical to dismissive.

              "Gee, I wonder why research specialists that depend on the hundreds of thousands of dollars of research grants would want to contradict the story that the guy giving out the grants wants to be put out there." Life is always going to be a mystery to you.

              The Hunter Biden laptop story on the other hand is just weird, the "Hunter Biden dropped off his laptop to a blind Trumpy IT guy forgot it,

              Can't imagine why a guy known for a drug habit would lose track of his laptop, or want to get it fixed. Meanwhile, we'll just conveniently ignore the contents, like email

              • The truth is not that hard to come by. But people need to bother to look for it.

                We all know that a bat corona virus suddenly appeared fully functional with in the city that was 1000 miles from the relevant bats but just happened to have the world's leading laboratory for bat coronaviruses and had been proudly publishing their excellent results genetically engineering such viruses, but recently deleted their public virus database due to "hackers". We also know that all virologists have a vested interest in

                • The tragedy should be that not even American children are raised to collect and discern information, along with how the world works. But it isn't.
                  The tragedy is that even conscientious people who work for a living and raise a family don't have a lot of time available to track "important" news.
                  Its incumbent to a functioning society to have a news media that takes the effort to collect factual information, accurately report the event, and process it into intelligible, honest discourse, not the one that best

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mmell ( 832646 )
      So you don't consider yourself able to do research and form your own conclusions? I had no idea the UK was governed by a totalitarian regime!
      Yes, you are correct to observe that both the UK and the USA were stricken with leaders whose hair was only fractionally as ridiculous than the individuals growing it (and correct in observing that these men weren't so much the problem as they were human litmus paper). You are even correct that they both revealed deep and intransigent flaws in our respective societi

      • So you don't consider yourself able to do research and form your own conclusions? I had no idea the UK was governed by a totalitarian regime!

        Yes, you are correct to observe that both the UK and the USA were stricken with leaders whose hair was only fractionally as ridiculous than the individuals growing it (and correct in observing that these men weren't so much the problem as they were human litmus paper). You are even correct that they both revealed deep and intransigent flaws in our respective societies.

        If you believe a comparison between either the UK or the USA and Russia is appropriate at this time in history, I can only assume you're either drunk, an idiot, or a Russian mole left over from the USSR. Go find a news source you can trust, or find enough data sources to let you compare data and arrive at a (hopefully) intelligent conclusion.

        Of course I'm able to do research - and I added that in my original post, FFS!

        You are really trolling here - putting words in my mouth.
        I said nothing about comparing UK/US to a totalitarian regime - jesus!

        READ what I said again and stop trying to read between lines that aren't bloody well there, making your own assumptions.

        We absolutely have a naive assumption in western democracies, that we are always fed "the truth" by the powers that be - and sure, we absolutely CAN do some research - and in that, we are

        • READ what I said ...

          You must be new here. :-)

          ... again.

          *Really* new. :-)

          • READ what I said ...

            You must be new here. :-)

            ... again.

            *Really* new. :-)

            Nah, been around the block - each to their own.

            These days, very few people actually read anything properly - as they start reading, they immediately form assumptions, skim read the rest and knee-jerk into ... being a jerk.

            Fine with that, but I will respond if presented with an argument that is at least well written and intelligible - regardless of how wrong it is.

          • radical-liberals made /. what Elon Musk will try to do with Twitter :D

        • >> We absolutely have a naive assumption in western democracies, that we are always fed "the truth" by the powers that be - and sure, we absolutely CAN do some research - and in that, we are lucky.

          Not a single country on Earth can be said to have 100% truth told all the time. But in general the majority of whats 'fed' is true, unlike Russia where its batshit multiverse crazy shit made up by drunk insane people.

          >> But how many people do?

          People have busy lives, at least they rather be busy making

      • Able to do my own research? In the fields I do have enough fundamental knowledge about, certainly. In most others? How? How the hell would I be able to do my own research in, say, agriculture? I know very close to nothing about it.

        I know that today "doing your own research" means "looking for YouTube videos that support the narrative you like to hear", but I refuse to accept that terminology.

        • I know that today "doing your own research" means "looking for YouTube videos that support the narrative you like to hear", but I refuse to accept that terminology.

          This

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mmell ( 832646 )
          Seriously. You're asserting an inability to think for yourself and draw your own conclusions on any subject where you don't personally have expertise? Sadly, I suppose there is a chance that's actually true. Many followers of religion exhibit this trait throughout their lives.

          • When you read, hear or see something reported, how do you determine whether it's true or whether someone is trying to bullshit you into believing their story? How many people will actually go to the length of finding the source of the information (if you can, that is... very few news outlets these days, even reputable ones, will show you the source of their information), verifying whether the conclusions drawn by the reporter are actually valid, hell, how many actually have the necessary education so they a

            • Most things are not that complex, and it is pretty obvious if arguments are at least credible. Weapons of Mass Destruction was never credible.

              Likewise the Lab Leak. A bat corona virus suddenly appeared fully functional with in the city that was 1000 miles from the relevant bats but just happened to have the world's leading laboratory for bat coronaviruses and had been proudly publishing their excellent results genetically engineering such viruses, but recently deleted their public virus database due to "h

              • When you have a wet market with a questionable reputation in the city, anything goes. Quite frankly, why would you think they release that virus at home? At least send your infected to the country you want to spread the virus in instead of letting them spread it in your own country.

                You say that you don't have to be an expert. Probably true. But it would help to at least look at the whole picture instead of just the bits and pieces that you want to see. But I guess even that is already asking too much.

      • ... I can only assume you're either drunk, an idiot, or a Russian mole left over from the USSR

        what a lovely argument, my darling! You made all of it only by yourself? What a classy argument!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mmell ( 832646 )
          Thank you.

          I wish I could say the same thing for your arguments, but, well . . . the fact is, sir, you're a dullard; and your posts are quite uninteresting. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.

    • It's reached a point, as far as I'm concerned, where it is very difficult indeed to know exactly what is the truth, what the facts really are.

      Maybe because critical thinking skills are no longer taught. Without the mental weapons needed the truth can't be defended.

      • It's reached a point, as far as I'm concerned, where it is very difficult indeed to know exactly what is the truth, what the facts really are.

        Maybe because critical thinking skills are no longer taught. Without the mental weapons needed the truth can't be defended.

        Republican state legislatures are effective banning that; they don't really want an electorate that can think critically, or for themselves, or know why things are the way they are ...

      • Re:"We didn't know what was going on around us" (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday May 07, 2022 @02:50PM (#62512206)

        Well, critical thinking skills were never really taught. The difference, and what is new, is that until the advent of the internet, it wasn't exactly easy for enemy states to infiltrate the information distribution system of a country and disseminate convincing lies without the population immediately noticing whose tune they're listening to. And people, in general at least, understood that there are countries that are enemies of their own, and that these countries would just love to destabilize their own country by dividing the country apart.

        Today, what you have is con men in the purest sense of the word, they gain these people's confidence and tell them convenient lies that are readily believed because they tell these people what they want to hear.

        The people 30 years ago also had no education worth the name that would enable them to tell lies from truths. But back then it was much harder for liars to get to their ears.

        • Well, critical thinking skills were never really taught.

          This is the #1 problem in American politics today, if not in America generally.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mmell ( 832646 )

          . . . critical thinking skills were never really taught.

          Uh, the public schools I attended in Chicago and Los Angeles taught us critical thinking, as well as research skills - and that was before TCP/IP was invented. You look like you're about my age - where'd you go to school growing up?

        • Critical thinking / logic must be taught to everyone exposed to "free information" so that they will be in a better position to understand when something does not make sense. Or seems like a lie.

          • Well... yeah, would be nice, doesn't happen, though. Why do you think people run around drinking piss to fight Covid?

            Ok, "run around" isn't exactly the correct phrase...

    • I absolutely understand the difference between a regime where freedom of speech is none-existent (I lived in one for decades) and a democracy where you are able to ... apparently ... exercise freedom of speech.

      This does not mean that millions of people living in such ... luxury? ... actually know what is happening in the world, anymore than someone in Russia does.

      Sure, it does mean they can find out - right?
      That's what freedom of speech is there for, that we have multiple points of view that can be openly s

    • The difference is that we could know what's going on around us, if we cared enough.

      Or... do we?

      When you look around our news, you'll find that the "independent" news are few and far between. You don't even have to go to the blatant examples of partisan reporting (not going to name any, you know them anyway), at the end of the day, our news outlets are dependent on advertising. Advertising means they need to get money from advertisers. Who in turn will pay mostly those outlets that tell their viewers what th

    • You could make an argument that by being bombarded with multiple points of view, citizens of supposed free and open democracies - the US, Europe etc. - aren't that much better off.

      You could make that argument.

      If you look at it from a significant distance you could point out the similarities. Once you get out into the real world and talk to actual people you would find that the argument does not hold up. The reality of daily life is very different.

      Put less charitably: Your disingenuous bullshit is nothing but an attempt to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It is an example of information warfare: attempting to spread discontent and mistrust while distracting us from the horrors

    • It's reached a point, as far as I'm concerned, where it is very difficult indeed to know exactly what is the truth, what the facts really are. And that's in democratic nations, not in heavily controlled countries like Russia or China.

      I don't agree. With a fairly modest level of critical thinking skills, education about history and civic affairs, and a little guidance and practice on when/where and to what extent to trust media sources, it is not hard to discern truth from fiction.

      The problem is that the right wing in this country has learned how to exploit the lack of ability in the population to leverage huge electoral advantage. There is no end of surveys showing some majority of Republicans who believe something which it is easy

    • Dude, just look at Alex Jones, who if in Russia would be in jail instantly.

      Every country yes has state secrets and security but thats to protect it against bat shit countries like Russia/China.

      Yeah there are some dodgy USA politicians with dual connections to industry which is not in the interest of the people, like the USPS fiasco and not getting EV trucks and mail made slow on purpose, and dodgy JUDGES in some states that force some PATENT hearing to be done in some remote area . What Austin Myers doco on

    • I agree with everyting you said but I’ll have you know Julian is in fact not the hero everyone thinks he is. I used to run in the same circles back in the 90s and everyone I’ve gotten back in touch with hates him or at best has mixed feelings.

  • Funny thing... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by slashdot_commentator ( 444053 ) on Saturday May 07, 2022 @01:10PM (#62512046) Journal

    One 52-year-old told the Post that downloading a VPN "brought back memories of the 1980s in the Soviet Union, when he used a shortwave radio to hear forbidden news of dissident arrests on Radio Liberty, which is funded by the United States."

    As a 9 year old born in the US, I remember listening to Radio Moscow on my shortwave radio. They used to broadcast out of Canada (Montreal? Toronto?). What people too indoctrinated in US "right think" didn't realize was that it was unintentionally a hilarious thing to listen to, back in 1974(?). They were just so bad at being "genuine", even a 9 year old wasn't going to believe their crap. (Also, back then, we didn't have a 100 channels on cable TV. Just "Over The Air" CBS, NBC, ABC, PIX, and PBS. The absurdity of Radio Moscow's propaganda was actually entertaining.)

    My only striking memory was a segment when supposedly someone won a free trip to Moscow in an essay writing contest. So the program host had the winner read the essay (or maybe just his thanks). The guy sounded like he was lobotomized and then droned in a monotone for 10(?) minutes about the glories of Soviet Communism. I still wonder to this day whether the contest was a lie, to save money on programming, or the whole event was actually true (which I lean towards)

    Ironically, RT was a much more effective successor to the job Radio Moscow tried to do.

    • I wonder if this "contest winner" was some poor sap that was headed to the Gulag. Or shot behind the studio. :-\

  • Best way to tear holes in an iron curtain is to use a giant magnet.

  • Now, instead of being exposed to propaganda from state-controlled news media, Russians can instead be exposed to propaganda from corporate-controlled news media like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mmell ( 832646 )
      Yeah, but at least none of them are actively trying to obliterate a nation. RT's parent corporation is doing just that right now.

      • none of them are actively trying to obliterate a nation

        [citation needed]

      • The links between corporate America and the US military are deep and stretch back well over a century. During that time, the United States has obediently spent the blood and treasure of citizens to carry out the agenda of any number of corporations. If you don't know that, you don't even know your own history.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by twosat ( 1414337 )

          “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benef

          • I can't thank you enough for that quote. I think I may have read it years ago, but I had long since forgotten it (to my discredit).

            Again, thank you!

    • Why do you think that this is different?

      Russia has shown time and again that they can and do spend money on buying news outlets and even political parties in the West. Why do you think this hasn't happened here?

      • Russia doesn't buy news outlets, at least not many. They certainly buy influence. But most news in the so-called "Free World" is corporate news. At most, Russia is a month-to-month tenant in a building owned by people with real power.

  • Recommended reading (Score:3, Informative)

    by Beerismydad ( 1677434 ) on Saturday May 07, 2022 @02:12PM (#62512138)
    https://www.nationalbook.org/b... [nationalbook.org] A few years ago, Russian-born Masha Gessen wrote "The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia". I strongly recommend this book as context to understand why events are unfolding so tragically.
  • I believe the problem with VPN's in Russian is paying for one that works reasonably. I think the West should subsidize the cost of VPN's.
  • Wow! Joe Rogan must be really popular in Russia! Or maybe it's the Fox News or GQP congress critters that they love so much.
  • "Vytautas Kaziukonis, chief executive of Surfshark — a Lithuania-based VPN that saw a 20-fold increase in Russian users in March — said some of those customers are now paying in cryptocurrencies or through people they know in third countries."

    Always and forever so we may spit in the eye of the agents of tyranny and authoritarian oppression. sic semper tyrannis Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, Socialists.

  • Will it do any good?

    Putin controls who counts any votes in whatever theater elections get held and he also seems to have a pretty solid control of the military.

    Given that Putin has been "re-elected" several times in the past is anything going to change without a full on armed revolution by the Russian people?

  • Heroic russians, breaking the digital iron curtain. They had VPN before and there was no digital curtain before 2/24/22. Moreover, most of them were well aware of Putin's plans for Ukraine and were kind of OK with that, as long as it were to be done quickly and quietly. Oops...

    There are two choices, immigrate immediately, and bear the status of a 2nd class citizen in the EU, or sabotage the system. Anything else is cooperation with a murderous regime. There'll be trials at the end of this rainbow.

  • If you visit dissident websites/ do dissident things on the Web, use Tor. Trust me, you may remember this comment in prison or hospital bed if you do otherwise. It is a bit slow but totally bearable with news sites/twitter etc.

    Speaking of Twitter, Russia or Ukraine doesn't have a lot of Lithium right?

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