• Shizu@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There are numerous VPNs still working great inside mainland China. I have multiple friends who I talk to over Signal which is normally blocked. It’s just a matter of finding the right provider. Also hosting a VPS outside China as your own VPN can work nicely too - and doesn’t come with the performance hit when using Tor.

    • Spore@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      No it can not. It is needed to connect to a VPN first in order to reach the tor network from China.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You’re still using a proxy to connect to Tor. It’s technically not a VPN, but I’m also using a proxy in China myself.

          It’s not Tor that avoids the censorship, it’s the proxy you use to connect to Tor since Tor IS blocked

        • Spore@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Thanks for the info. I still wouldn’t consider these as long-term solutions bc they tend to be frequently blocked and/or are really slow.

    • dudeami0@lemmy.dudeami.win
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      1 year ago

      “From March 1, 2024, an order will come into force to block VPN services providing access to sites banned in Russia,” Sheikin was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA.

      I assume this means it’s regarding outgoing communications, for censorship purposes most likely. I’d be surprised if they were blocking incoming VPN traffic, and I don’t think the Russian government has an issue with Yandex operating.

      • free@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        tx bud. hopefully we can still connect to Russia from our VPN not being in Russia 🤞

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Demand for VPN services soared after Russia restricted access to some Western social media after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

    Senator Artem Sheikin said an order from the Roskomnadzor watchdog would come into force on March 1 that would block VPNs.

    “From March 1, 2024, an order will come into force to block VPN services providing access to sites banned in Russia,” Sheikin was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA.

    Phone calls to the number listed by Roskomnadzor as its press service were answered by a voice message with the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.

    Sheikin said that it was particularly important to block access to Meta Platforms (META.O), which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

    “I would like to note that it is especially important to restrict citizens’ access to the products of Meta which is recognised as an extremist organization,” Sheikin added.


    The original article contains 216 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 30%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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      1 year ago

      Usually this bot is pretty good, but this time the paragraph

      Phone calls to the number listed by Roskomnadzor as its press service were answered by a voice message with the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry Be Happy”.

      comes out of nowhere, while the original article does provide context.

  • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Most popular VPNs were getting blocked here at the same pace as in Iran, official websites to get them are banned too. Some editions claimed this move is about making Apple\Google restrict them on respective appstores by themselves because siloviki can’t deny getting these apps without fucking up the whole platform. And they don’t want to bring unnecessary discomfort to agreeable masses who use these markets to download apps daily.

    Corporate and goverment networks won’t be affected, obviously. Troll farms too. Only a minority of those not invested enough to find other loopholes. I don’t see if it matters to those outside of Russia. For locals? Not a surprise, really, snd I don’t feel they’d block youtube and telegram, both are still availiable to get information if one wants it.

    Timing of that act doesn’t say anything either. They want to sanitize the internet before presidential elections, and do it that way? It doesn’t make sense. It won’t affect those who already downloaded such apps, or those using other sources. Seems like a coincidence that this part of closing the iron dome happened to fall there, not the first, not the last. Or, equally possible, elderly officials don’t know how it works kek.

  • evlogii@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    March 1st? Right before the presidential elections? No way they’re that stupid. Right after the elections, though, it’s gonna be inevitable. If people will vote for Putin one more time, Russia will quickly turn into North Korea.

    • StreetLamp@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Bro really thinks there are fair elections in Russia that ruling party can lose. They can do whatever the fuck they want any time of the year and the only thing we can do is cry about it

    • neutronst4r@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      You seriously think elections in Russia are not fraudulent? At this point, the only thing that can remove Putin is violence, either through combined effort of the people or by internal power struggle. That later will probably just result in an equally horrible replacement.

      • Deiskos@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They had anywhere from 115 months to 19 months, depending on where you start counting, to make up their minds about who’s at fault in this war. If this much time isn’t enough…

        • Queue
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          1 year ago

          Oh yeah a nation that spies on everything and arrests anyone who disagrees with Putin sure is gonna revolt.

          Blaming a nation of people who are unable to change their government with voting or revolution doesn’t help them. It makes you look like someone who’d blame all Japanese in America for Pearl Harbor.

          Their options are not express free thought to a nation that kills its state officials when they are done being useful, or be buried near those officials in an unmarked grave.

          The same logic applies to Americans in 2004. Not every american agreed with the Iraq invasion, but I guess Bush did all Americans must be removed from the Great equalizer of the Internet.

          • Deiskos@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Hey, I’m not blaming all Japanese in America for Pearl Harbor, I’m blaming all Japanese in Japan for Pearl Harbor.

            If you cannot express your opinion under the threat of death (but more likely, if you are a normal person and not a politician, a slap on the wrist or in worst case jail time), does your opinion really matter?

            I have nothing to say about Iraq invasion except that one invasion for dumb reasons and shitty intelligence make all invasions for dumb reasons justified I guess.

        • Queue
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          1 year ago

          Also, please explain how you want people to question the government, but support that very same government banning ways to find info to question it?

          • Deiskos@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You in your other comment say “a nation of people who are unable to change their government with voting or revolution”.

            Under this definition, questioning government is going to achieve what, exactly?

            • Kissaki@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              I’m confused whether you see the entire people as only one individual? Very extreme view to say “if they can’t dominate forget anyone opposing or evading oppression, as well as chances for contrary information transmission”.

              Continuing to question is important for when chances arise. There’s also activism and guerilla sabotage. That’s more than ineffective questioning.

              How does VPN blocking that you support help? It does the opposite.

      • Deiskos@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Less good russians online whining how “sanctions and entry restrictions to EU are bad for those who don’t support the war, actually”.

  • bblfrnz@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Well, most of popular in the world VPN services are already blocked. Even such simple things like Cloudflare’s warp doesn’t work, although it still possible to use it if you generate wireguard config and change endpoint, but there’s a possibility that the wg protocol will be blocked in the future. The best way to bypass censorship in Russia right now is to use Chinese solutions for gfw circumvention such as shadowsocks/vmess/vless/trojan/etc. Or one can use self-hosted VPN servers, but it’s very hard to find a way for paying for cloud services that are located outside of Russia.

  • Timbo303@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    This should totally be the error they give you when using a vpn in russia. Its a shame russia government is so stupid they are on the brink of booming piracy this will likely stall efforts if every vpn is blocked.