The Open Source VPN Out-Maneuvering Russian Censorship (wired.com) 16
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The Russian government has banned more than 10,000 websites for content about the war in Ukraine since Moscow launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The blacklist includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and independent news outlets. Over the past year, Russians living inside the country have turned to censorship circumvention tools such as VPNs to pierce through the information blockade. But as dozens of virtual private networks get blocked, leaving users scrambling to maintain their access to free information, local activists and developers are coming up with new solutions. One of them is Amnezia VPN, a free, open source VPN client.
"We even do not advertise and promote it, and new users are still coming by the hundreds every day," says Mazay Banzaev, Amnezia VPN's founder. Unlike commercial VPNs that route users through company servers, which can be blocked, Amnezia VPN makes it simple for users to buy and set up their own servers. This allows them to choose their own IP address and use protocols that are harder to block. "More than half of the commercial VPNs in Russia have been blocked because it's easy enough to block them: They do not block them by protocols, but by IP addresses," says Banzaev. "[Amnezia] is an order of magnitude more resilient than a typical commercial VPN." Amnezia VPN is similar to Outline, a free and open source tool developed by Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Google. Amnezia was created in 2020 during a hackathon supported by Russian digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda. Even then, "it was clear that things were moving toward stricter censorship," says Banzaev. [...]
It is unclear how many users the service has, since the organization doesn't have a way to monitor user numbers, Banzaev says. However, Amnezia offers a Telegram bot called AmneziaFree, which shares VPN configurations that help users access blocked platforms and news; it has almost 100,000 users. The bot is currently struggling with overload, and users are complaining about spotty service. Banzaev says the Amnezia team is working to add new servers on a limited budget, and that they are also working on a new version of the service. "Amnezia is not only used in Russia," notes Wired. "The service has spread to Turkmenistan, Iran, China, and other countries where users have been struggling with free access to the web."
"We even do not advertise and promote it, and new users are still coming by the hundreds every day," says Mazay Banzaev, Amnezia VPN's founder. Unlike commercial VPNs that route users through company servers, which can be blocked, Amnezia VPN makes it simple for users to buy and set up their own servers. This allows them to choose their own IP address and use protocols that are harder to block. "More than half of the commercial VPNs in Russia have been blocked because it's easy enough to block them: They do not block them by protocols, but by IP addresses," says Banzaev. "[Amnezia] is an order of magnitude more resilient than a typical commercial VPN." Amnezia VPN is similar to Outline, a free and open source tool developed by Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Google. Amnezia was created in 2020 during a hackathon supported by Russian digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda. Even then, "it was clear that things were moving toward stricter censorship," says Banzaev. [...]
It is unclear how many users the service has, since the organization doesn't have a way to monitor user numbers, Banzaev says. However, Amnezia offers a Telegram bot called AmneziaFree, which shares VPN configurations that help users access blocked platforms and news; it has almost 100,000 users. The bot is currently struggling with overload, and users are complaining about spotty service. Banzaev says the Amnezia team is working to add new servers on a limited budget, and that they are also working on a new version of the service. "Amnezia is not only used in Russia," notes Wired. "The service has spread to Turkmenistan, Iran, China, and other countries where users have been struggling with free access to the web."
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Over in the US we're getting ready to ban VPNs and most people's response to the RESTRICT Act is "Huh duh TikTok sucks!"
Not going to happen. To many businesses use VPNs. Then there is the whole 1st amendment issue to deal with.
Re: Meanwhile (Score:2)
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Maybe instead of taking it offline, they've silently infiltrated it?
Many TOR nodes are run by TLAs. They can't read the encrypted packets, but they can use traffic analysis to figure out who is talking to whom.
Re: (Score:2)
They can't ban the protocols, they'll ban certain service points and carriers.
Not by name, only by banning or limiting a class of behavior.
A law limiting particular named individuals (including corporations-as-pseudopersons) is a "Bill of Attainder" and prohibited by the Constitution (as Rand Paul has already pointed out in the Senate debates). If they still pass it and try to enforce it the courts are almost certain to knock it down.
Ronald Reagan (Score:3)
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.
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or.... just use socks proxy over ssh to VPS (Score:5, Informative)
So this Amnezia thing seems kinda cool. But you have to obtain/rent a remote server (eg VPS) if you don't already have one.
Once you have your remote server, Amnezia makes it easy to setup a VPN that forwards all connections. And it asks for your root login + password via ssh to do so. Kinda sketchy, a lot of trust there. Also it doesn't appear at first glance to support ssh pubkey login -- though I might be wrong about that.
But for basic web browsing, one can make do with a simple Socks Proxy over ssh. eg: `ssh -D 127.0.0.1:1234 `. The drawback is that every app including web browser must be individually configured to use the proxy. The nice thing is that one doesn't have to install an extra piece of software or trust the Amnezia devs, or audit the Amnezia source code.
so yeah, it seems a good tool to know about, but not super necessary for anyone that already has a remote server and is comfortable with ssh.
Re: (Score:3)
It sounds more like it is more of a VPN broker client.
Re: (Score:1)
Which is fine. Technical users already know how to tunnel traffic through an encrypted connection to a remote system (if they have a remote system they can use for it, like a VPS or whatever). End users don't necessarily know how to do that, so a tool that walks them through it, isn't a bad thing. I personally don't need it: I could just use stunnel or whatever. But that's because I'm (moderately) technically inclined.
Why use it over Wireguard? (Score:2)
I use Wireguard every day for work. Don't have to pay anybody and don't have to give anybody my root credentials. Very fast. Very reliable. And trusted. Why would I want this instead?
Re: (Score:2)
> Why would I want this instead?
>> This allows them to choose their own IP address and use protocols that are harder to block.
#include <configurators/openvpn_configurator.h>
#include <configurators/cloak_configurator.h>
#include <configurators/shadowsocks_configurator.h>
#include <configurators/wireguard_configurator.h>
#include <configurators/vpn_configurator.h>
#include <core/servercontroller.h>
'shadowsocks' looks like ssh socks probably.
Multiple users.. (Score:2)
I browsed the site, it looks like it can used by multiple users, which may be a better way for groups... cheaper* too.
Not too techy on that side of things though.