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As a Russian, I hate it when people do this. It's extremely annoying when you just click some random interesting-looking link from HN or Reddit or Twitter only

As a Russian, I hate it when people do this. It's extremely annoying when you just click some random interesting-looking link from HN or Reddit or Twitter only to be greeted by a 403 or a connection timeout. Then you turn your VPN on, and magically, it loads just fine.

mistrial9 2y ago
people here are not thinking in whole systems-- roads have dual purpose.. there is security AND there is trade .. a world without trade is a poor world.. that includes the intellectual arts, civilian institutions cooperating, common issues like Climate. The voices here that say "I block everyone, don't bother me with your whining" .. it is a security practice.. OK. security is not the whole story of civilizations; obstinate thinking leads to ignorance, not evolution. The topic is SSH, an administrative and secured access. Yes security applies. to be on-topic
- grishka 2y ago
  Of course one can obfuscate and secure their own SSH access as much or as little as they want. Run sshd on a different port, require port knocking, ban IPs after failed login attempts, all that kind of stuff. I'm, however, specifically talking about public-facing services like HTTP(S), which also get blocked with this "I'll just indiscriminately blacklist IPs belonging to countries I don't like" approach.
  - phsau 2y ago
    Malicious traffic is not limited to ssh and comes from the same usual suspects. Automated attacks against web applications is constant. I wouldn't say it's indiscriminate, it's practical.
    - tmcdos 2y ago
      There are bad people on both side of the border - don't be fooled that they are more on the "other" side of the border because there might be ones that you are not seeing (yet). Blocking the whole "other side" is simply the "path of least resistance" or the "low hanging fruit". Creation and all other good things ALWAYS require more energy than destruction and other bad things. But creation/invention is the only activity that leads to progress and evolution - everything else is stalling, regression, devolution ... Internet was created BY military FOR military - but it evolved into THE only thing in the world that connects people. ALL people. References at the bottom. The most general problem in Internet are not the malicious people - botnets can infect insecure devices ANYWHERE in the world. The main problem is that some (many) of the ISPs at the last mile allow outgoing IP packets with source IP address which is outside of the IP range(s) these ISPs operate/own. Larger ISPs on the upper layer can not prevent this because otherwise IP routing will break. So it all depends on the "last mile" ISPs. And it is quite possible for the "status quo" to live for many years .... https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/2022/impact-of-ukraines-requests-to-block-russias-access-to-the-internet/ https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/2022/impact-of-ukr... https://labs.ripe.net/author/athina/how-sanctions-affect-the-ripe-ncc/ https://labs.ripe.net/author/athina/how-sanctions-affect-the... https://labs.ripe.net/author/farzaneh-badiei/sanctions-and-the-internet-a-report/ https://labs.ripe.net/author/farzaneh-badiei/sanctions-and-t... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596123001258 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030859612... https://labs.ripe.net/author/moritz_muller/internet-sanctions-on-russian-media-diverging-actions-and-mixed-effects/ https://labs.ripe.net/author/moritz_muller/internet-sanction...
  - tiberious726 2y ago
    Yeah exactly, try running an esp VPN on a different port and see how well that works.
__turbobrew__ 2y ago
For many services, the expected value of letting people from Russia access their service is negative. The reality is that Russia contributes a large portion of hacking attempts while providing very little to no revenue for the service. At the end of the day it is just business, and sometimes letting countries access your service is bad for the bottom line.
- pcthrowaway 2y ago
  I think you and the person above you can both have valid concerns at the same time. If someone said "~50% of theft is from <insert minority group> while they only account for 5% of my business, so I'm not going to let them in the door", assuming the absence of social and legal consequences which would realistically occur, it could be argued that it's the right move for their "bottom line" or whatever. Does that mean it's right, or good, or equitable? Of course at the same time, if you hold yourself to a much higher standard than what's socially or legally acceptable, there's the inevitable fact that your competitors aren't. So it's a fine balance.
  - tracker1 2y ago
    If <minority group> is covered by the same jurisdiction as <business>, then it's not close to a 1:1 comparison. It's perfectly reasonable to not do business with people in countries that support piracy. And I'm referring to the Arrg/EyePatch type and the Buh/KeyboardWarrior type. In the end, it's a choice. If you don't have a legal means to deal with illicit activity, and blocking mostly works, there you go.
NicoJuicy 2y ago
Had a reddit clone. The amount of Russian spam coming in was nuts. Blocking the ru language blocked all spam. And since it didn't have Russian users, it was an easy choice to make.
snapplebobapple 2y ago
Your annoyance is a feature, not a bug. You are supposed to get annoyed enough as a group to lobby your government to fight the internal problem
- nullifidian 2y ago
  Ah, yes, the remaining English speakers in Russia will overthrow the literal millions of the silovik class whose entire job is to repress (with violence) any independent political activity. There is no "lobbying" in Russia, if you didn't know. If you hate all Russians just say you hate all Russians. No need for this "lobby your government" euphemistic BS.
  - sqeaky 2y ago
    We in the west can't change your government to ban hacking requests. We can block whole countries and make a practical reduction in hacks. Sorry that you got caught in the middle and feel you have no options. Maybe someone who does have options and makes their money from non-hacking will be inconvenienced and ask for change instead.
  - wredcoll 2y ago
    So political change in russia is literally impossible and everything will be exactly the same 50 years from now? Obviously not. Is such change easy? Again, obviously not, but the only way countries change is their own citizens wanting to make the change.
    - grishka 2y ago
      Oh we do want to make this change. Desperately. The only minor issue with that is that we lack any means to do so. I'll be sure to do my part as soon as the window of opportunity opens.
      - firesteelrain 2y ago
        Sure hope your govt is not monitoring your posts
tiberious726 2y ago
Your country is a bad global citizen. If they started taking action against the groups trying to break into my systems every minute of every day then I wouldn't need to block the entire jurisdiction. Geoblocking all sanctioned countries was the best thing I ever did
egorfine 2y ago
> It's extremely annoying Now imagine how annoying is russian traffic to world's sysadmins. Then could you please point your finger to who's more wrong here: your government or sysadmins of the world?
EasyMark 2y ago
I think it’s harmless though if say it’s a business site or mail site that is only meant to do business with a subset of people, like a country or region. That said, I think it’s of highly limited value though because any hacker above Lvl 1 will know how to use a bot, remote box, or VPN from a more local IP.

mistrial9 2y ago

people here are not thinking in whole systems-- roads have dual purpose.. there is security AND there is trade .. a world without trade is a poor world.. that includes the intellectual arts, civilian institutions cooperating, common issues like Climate. The voices here that say "I block everyone, don't bother me with your whining" .. it is a security practice.. OK. security is not the whole story of civilizations; obstinate thinking leads to ignorance, not evolution. The topic is SSH, an administrative and secured access. Yes security applies. to be on-topic

grishka 2y ago
Of course one can obfuscate and secure their own SSH access as much or as little as they want. Run sshd on a different port, require port knocking, ban IPs after failed login attempts, all that kind of stuff. I'm, however, specifically talking about public-facing services like HTTP(S), which also get blocked with this "I'll just indiscriminately blacklist IPs belonging to countries I don't like" approach.
- phsau 2y ago
  Malicious traffic is not limited to ssh and comes from the same usual suspects. Automated attacks against web applications is constant. I wouldn't say it's indiscriminate, it's practical.
  - tmcdos 2y ago
    There are bad people on both side of the border - don't be fooled that they are more on the "other" side of the border because there might be ones that you are not seeing (yet). Blocking the whole "other side" is simply the "path of least resistance" or the "low hanging fruit". Creation and all other good things ALWAYS require more energy than destruction and other bad things. But creation/invention is the only activity that leads to progress and evolution - everything else is stalling, regression, devolution ... Internet was created BY military FOR military - but it evolved into THE only thing in the world that connects people. ALL people. References at the bottom. The most general problem in Internet are not the malicious people - botnets can infect insecure devices ANYWHERE in the world. The main problem is that some (many) of the ISPs at the last mile allow outgoing IP packets with source IP address which is outside of the IP range(s) these ISPs operate/own. Larger ISPs on the upper layer can not prevent this because otherwise IP routing will break. So it all depends on the "last mile" ISPs. And it is quite possible for the "status quo" to live for many years .... https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/2022/impact-of-ukraines-requests-to-block-russias-access-to-the-internet/ https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/2022/impact-of-ukr... https://labs.ripe.net/author/athina/how-sanctions-affect-the-ripe-ncc/ https://labs.ripe.net/author/athina/how-sanctions-affect-the... https://labs.ripe.net/author/farzaneh-badiei/sanctions-and-the-internet-a-report/ https://labs.ripe.net/author/farzaneh-badiei/sanctions-and-t... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596123001258 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030859612... https://labs.ripe.net/author/moritz_muller/internet-sanctions-on-russian-media-diverging-actions-and-mixed-effects/ https://labs.ripe.net/author/moritz_muller/internet-sanction...
- tiberious726 2y ago
  Yeah exactly, try running an esp VPN on a different port and see how well that works.

__turbobrew__ 2y ago

For many services, the expected value of letting people from Russia access their service is negative. The reality is that Russia contributes a large portion of hacking attempts while providing very little to no revenue for the service. At the end of the day it is just business, and sometimes letting countries access your service is bad for the bottom line.

pcthrowaway 2y ago
I think you and the person above you can both have valid concerns at the same time. If someone said "~50% of theft is from <insert minority group> while they only account for 5% of my business, so I'm not going to let them in the door", assuming the absence of social and legal consequences which would realistically occur, it could be argued that it's the right move for their "bottom line" or whatever. Does that mean it's right, or good, or equitable? Of course at the same time, if you hold yourself to a much higher standard than what's socially or legally acceptable, there's the inevitable fact that your competitors aren't. So it's a fine balance.
- tracker1 2y ago
  If <minority group> is covered by the same jurisdiction as <business>, then it's not close to a 1:1 comparison. It's perfectly reasonable to not do business with people in countries that support piracy. And I'm referring to the Arrg/EyePatch type and the Buh/KeyboardWarrior type. In the end, it's a choice. If you don't have a legal means to deal with illicit activity, and blocking mostly works, there you go.

NicoJuicy 2y ago

Had a reddit clone. The amount of Russian spam coming in was nuts. Blocking the ru language blocked all spam. And since it didn't have Russian users, it was an easy choice to make.

snapplebobapple 2y ago

Your annoyance is a feature, not a bug. You are supposed to get annoyed enough as a group to lobby your government to fight the internal problem

nullifidian 2y ago
Ah, yes, the remaining English speakers in Russia will overthrow the literal millions of the silovik class whose entire job is to repress (with violence) any independent political activity. There is no "lobbying" in Russia, if you didn't know. If you hate all Russians just say you hate all Russians. No need for this "lobby your government" euphemistic BS.
- sqeaky 2y ago
  We in the west can't change your government to ban hacking requests. We can block whole countries and make a practical reduction in hacks. Sorry that you got caught in the middle and feel you have no options. Maybe someone who does have options and makes their money from non-hacking will be inconvenienced and ask for change instead.
- wredcoll 2y ago
  So political change in russia is literally impossible and everything will be exactly the same 50 years from now? Obviously not. Is such change easy? Again, obviously not, but the only way countries change is their own citizens wanting to make the change.
  - grishka 2y ago
    Oh we do want to make this change. Desperately. The only minor issue with that is that we lack any means to do so. I'll be sure to do my part as soon as the window of opportunity opens.
    - firesteelrain 2y ago
      Sure hope your govt is not monitoring your posts

tiberious726 2y ago

Your country is a bad global citizen. If they started taking action against the groups trying to break into my systems every minute of every day then I wouldn't need to block the entire jurisdiction. Geoblocking all sanctioned countries was the best thing I ever did

egorfine 2y ago

> It's extremely annoying Now imagine how annoying is russian traffic to world's sysadmins. Then could you please point your finger to who's more wrong here: your government or sysadmins of the world?

EasyMark 2y ago

I think it’s harmless though if say it’s a business site or mail site that is only meant to do business with a subset of people, like a country or region. That said, I think it’s of highly limited value though because any hacker above Lvl 1 will know how to use a bot, remote box, or VPN from a more local IP.