7 ms·

Incidentally nobody in Russia can read that article because they already banned the BBC and 80 other EU media outlets. And Facebook. And Instagram. And Twitter.

by ch2026 10mo ago

Incidentally nobody in Russia can read that article because they already banned the BBC and 80 other EU media outlets. And Facebook. And Instagram. And Twitter. And Discord. This is standard Russian censorship of western media and news.

Andrew_nenakhov 10mo ago
Everybody in Russia who is not a complete idiot already has a VPN that allows to circumvent censorship (for now). Source: I'm in Russia now. In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses, and that will indeed insure that nobody would be able to access banned resources.
- grishka 10mo ago
  > In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses I already had this idea of tunneling traffic through the voice/video calls in the Max messenger app. No one has done it in practice, yet, but I see no reason why it should not be possible. Обход блокировок, который ловит даже на парковке ;)
  - throwaway290 10mo ago
    great idea. use the app tied to your passport and gosuslugi to make sure they know who is the genius when they detect it. edit: didn't know they allow anything except belarus, cool... as long as you can anonymously register that number
    - grishka 10mo ago
      I don't think they would care as long as you don't do something stupid that would show up on their dashboards. But if you're paranoid, you can use phone numbers from, for example, Armenia or Kazakhstan. There are 8 countries besides Russia whose numbers they allow.
  - 14 10mo ago
    That does not seem like a good idea at all. Even if you are “not doing something stupid” the fact that you would be circumventing their app to bypass censorship they may deem you treasonous and a possible risk. Who knows what they could arrest you for.
    - culebron21 10mo ago
      Law enforcement in Russia works differently than in the US, especially in politically charged fields. An exapmel: in the US, one man was charged of breaking construction codes because he was doing chemical experiments in the basement of his single-family house, in a block zoned accordingly. I understand this is extreme, but a good illustration. He was doing something on his own, and was charged. Such enforcement is extremely unlikely in Russia even in todays situation. For instance, a recent law explicitly banned _searching_ for extremists materials, e.g. Navalny's party website (they're labelled as extremists ex-court by the Interior or the Justice ministry, I don't remember). But there's been just 1 court case since then. You can search whatever you want as long as you're not public about it. As soon as you get enough publicity, you do get on the radar. Same kinds of examples: in the 1950's USSR some musicians were shadow-banned (there was no legal ban on them), and not published. A man made a lathe and carved disks with their music on used x-ray films. He was arrested when he got enough publicity and sold good deal of copies. He was charged not for copying them -- there was no ban on this -- but for illicit enterpreneurship, or speculation as it was called back then. Had he been doing this alone, he'd probably have not got under arrest. I actually, think it's roughly the same as dealing with Torrent and trackers in the Western world nowadays.
      - grishka 10mo ago
        Technically, the act of bypassing censorship by itself is still not even illegal. They did make it recently such that writing about VPNs is grounds for blocking wherever you've written about it. https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2024-11-22_v_rossii_zapretili_publikovat https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2024-11-22_v_rossii_zapretili_...
        throwaway290 10mo ago
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway290 10mo ago
  "everybody who is not a complete idiot" not true. looks like you're in your tech bubble and you think everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot. using VPN for circumventing censorship is illegal in Russia. fine is worse if if you promote it. for people who can't afford to spend a few thousands it's enough. some people don't care about fines, but new ISP equipment detects and ban VPNs quickly so people always need to keep trying new servers. so people get used to not using VPN more and more because it's annoying and unstable.
  - coryrc 10mo ago
    > everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot. Looking at your dictator's approval levels and the number of people willingly signing up to die while killing innocents, that sounds correct. You all need help breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma.
    - throwaway290 10mo ago
      you are offtopic, but I will entertain your comment because I'm so confused/amused by what you say and what means "idiot" in your world. - are you saying people forced to sign up for the war by force or rapists who do it to get out of jail in Russia are idiots? - are you saying being pro putin/pro war is like being an idiot in Russia? - are you saying russians in tech are saints and all like one are "not idiots" against the war? maybe you need a reminder about unit 26165 and APT28 - are you saying "everyone in russia/china/israel/iran/north korea/republican party is an idiot"? then allow me to congratulate you on such nuanced understanding of the world, enough said!
      - coryrc 10mo ago
        I'm saying the vast majority of people who support Putin are idiots, just like the vast majority of people who support Trump are idiots, and the religious rural fundies of Iran are mostly idiots. There's a lot of idiots out there and they don't like to think. It causes them pain to think hard. So they like people who tell them simple lies. Others are immoral or evil smart people. Unless you're working to undermine your dictator, that might be you.
- woctordho 10mo ago
  There are plenty of ways to circumvent whitelists, such as domain fronting. Some are already battle-tested in China and we'd be happy to share them with the rest of the world.
- Lapsa 10mo ago
  I would argue use of VPN is idiotic
  - Lapsa 10mo ago
    for (likely corrupt) down voters - one argument would be that it's basically a subscription to browser fingerprinting. vpn providers even openly state when such doings will begin
grishka 10mo ago
Yes, we have to use censorship circumvention tools to make the internet usable. Especially when it's mobile data. About a year ago I got fed up enough that I bought an OpenWRT router and installed Zapret on it. Now, at least while at home, I can mostly forget that internet censorship is a thing.
- Alex2037 10mo ago
  Zapret isn't good enough, because a lot of random websites geoblock RU via Cloudflare. you'd be better off with a VPN running on a cheap VPS.
  - johncolanduoni 10mo ago
    VPNs on cheap VPSes are blocked quite a lot too.
  - grishka 10mo ago
    Of course I also have a VPN that I selectively route traffic through, in just these kinds of situations.
SanjayMehta 10mo ago
Russia Today et al are banned in the EU. This is standard European censorship of Russian media and news.
- jan_g 10mo ago
  It's not banned. I am within EU and can normally access RT website. I can also access yandex, etc. Without VPN or proxies. SO, how is this "standard European censorship"? Don't believe Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots.
  - lenkite 10mo ago
    Yes, it is officially banned (along with Sputnik and other Russian media). It is sad that you don't know this as an EU citizen and think that formal directives of your union are Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots "On 2 March 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a measure suspending the broadcasting activities of RT (and another Russian outlet Sputnik) in the EU" https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/03/02/eu-imposes-sanctions-on-state-owned-outlets-rtrussia-today-and-sputnik-s-broadcasting-in-the-eu/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022... "Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine: Council bans broadcasting activities in the European Union of four more Russia-associated media outlets" https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/17/russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-council-bans-broadcasting-activities-in-the-european-union-of-four-more-russia-associated-media-outlets/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024...
    - jan_g 10mo ago
      Yeah, I know about that. But it's not been implemented, so RT is in practice accessible. As are other Russian websites. I don't know what is sad about it, I'm just saying what is in real life, not what is on paper.
      - SanjayMehta 10mo ago
        In real life, European hypocrisy is off the charts. BBC got caught manipulating videos featuring Trump. 12000 people were detained in the UK for thought crimes. In one year. One little old lady was arrested for praying silently. France went after Durov. Russia media IS banned, hiding behind ISP incompetence doesn't count. Come on. Wake up. We who have lived under actual socialist dictators can see what's happening.
itroot 10mo ago
I'm from Russia (currently in Moscow), and I can read your comment just fine without VPN. BBC won't open... which is fine, as I jump straight to comments as many do here :))) . Also do not miss twitter and facebook. Youtube is working (so far) with no ads. Also stuff like WaPo is perfectly acessible. Sometimes I skim through it (also mostly comments), then check ZeroHedge to get the opposite view. So a lot of info is acessible. Quite a few of resources are blocked on the other side though. I surely can use VPN but prefer not to unless that required for more intellectual activity then reading news.
- seattle_spring 10mo ago
  > check ZeroHedge to get the opposite view Can you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinion, it's mostly made-up nonsense. Even calling it pseudoscience would be generous.
  - GaryBluto 10mo ago
    > Can you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinion People's worldviews define their opinions, no matter how bizarre or fantastical a worldview may be.
  - itroot 10mo ago
    Yeah, I see it as a radical anti-establisment resource. I would not call it a complete nonsence though, for me it's a place where you can "get" thinking of folks who are opposing "the System". So there is some value. I'm not political or activist of any kind. However sometimes it makes sense to get understanding how other people think, so sometimes I read comments here and there. HN has its own bias as well. Usually the quality of discussion here is quite high though.
    - r721 10mo ago
      FYI: ZeroHedge is a project of two pro-Kremlin Bulgarians, a father and son: https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-trojan-horse https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-tr...
lenkite 10mo ago
Right now, if you wish fully non-censored media, you need to live in a third world nation! All the high-and-mighty, old Europe powers are busy censoring a lot of stuff.
- boston_clone 10mo ago
  This is news to me! Could you share an example of some censored media in the US that's available elsewhere?
  - lenkite 10mo ago
    My bad - I thought Tiktok (and other Bytedance apps) were banned in the US but apparently not since President Trump reversed the US Supreme Court decision. Huh, so it is mainly the European powers who are the culprits. Changed my claim.
    - boston_clone 10mo ago
      All good, it can be a ...chore to keep track of what decisions and reversals the current administration is making. To support your original claim - when I was in the military, we were explicitly forbidden to look at anything Snowden leaked as it was still classified and would be a violation of our clearances as we did not have either the appropriate level (e.g., TS-SCI) or need to know. Kind of understandable, but still.
      - buggeryorkshire 10mo ago
        I was working at a place in the UK where I only had BPSS but everybody else in the office had top clearance as they worked on military stuff, this was when The Guardian were doing the Snowden stuff. It was easily the best way of clearing the office for some peace - mention the front page of the newspaper and everybody would lock their laptops, pick up their papers and walk. From what I can gather the fact you know something you shouldn't, even though it's in the national news, it causes problems when renewing your clearances, so...
    - 10mo ago
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

by ch2026 10mo ago

Andrew_nenakhov 10mo ago

Everybody in Russia who is not a complete idiot already has a VPN that allows to circumvent censorship (for now). Source: I'm in Russia now. In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses, and that will indeed insure that nobody would be able to access banned resources.

grishka 10mo ago
> In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses I already had this idea of tunneling traffic through the voice/video calls in the Max messenger app. No one has done it in practice, yet, but I see no reason why it should not be possible. Обход блокировок, который ловит даже на парковке ;)
- throwaway290 10mo ago
  great idea. use the app tied to your passport and gosuslugi to make sure they know who is the genius when they detect it. edit: didn't know they allow anything except belarus, cool... as long as you can anonymously register that number
  - grishka 10mo ago
    I don't think they would care as long as you don't do something stupid that would show up on their dashboards. But if you're paranoid, you can use phone numbers from, for example, Armenia or Kazakhstan. There are 8 countries besides Russia whose numbers they allow.
- 14 10mo ago
  That does not seem like a good idea at all. Even if you are “not doing something stupid” the fact that you would be circumventing their app to bypass censorship they may deem you treasonous and a possible risk. Who knows what they could arrest you for.
  - culebron21 10mo ago
    Law enforcement in Russia works differently than in the US, especially in politically charged fields. An exapmel: in the US, one man was charged of breaking construction codes because he was doing chemical experiments in the basement of his single-family house, in a block zoned accordingly. I understand this is extreme, but a good illustration. He was doing something on his own, and was charged. Such enforcement is extremely unlikely in Russia even in todays situation. For instance, a recent law explicitly banned _searching_ for extremists materials, e.g. Navalny's party website (they're labelled as extremists ex-court by the Interior or the Justice ministry, I don't remember). But there's been just 1 court case since then. You can search whatever you want as long as you're not public about it. As soon as you get enough publicity, you do get on the radar. Same kinds of examples: in the 1950's USSR some musicians were shadow-banned (there was no legal ban on them), and not published. A man made a lathe and carved disks with their music on used x-ray films. He was arrested when he got enough publicity and sold good deal of copies. He was charged not for copying them -- there was no ban on this -- but for illicit enterpreneurship, or speculation as it was called back then. Had he been doing this alone, he'd probably have not got under arrest. I actually, think it's roughly the same as dealing with Torrent and trackers in the Western world nowadays.
    - grishka 10mo ago
      Technically, the act of bypassing censorship by itself is still not even illegal. They did make it recently such that writing about VPNs is grounds for blocking wherever you've written about it. https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2024-11-22_v_rossii_zapretili_publikovat https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2024-11-22_v_rossii_zapretili_...
      - throwaway290 10mo ago
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
throwaway290 10mo ago
"everybody who is not a complete idiot" not true. looks like you're in your tech bubble and you think everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot. using VPN for circumventing censorship is illegal in Russia. fine is worse if if you promote it. for people who can't afford to spend a few thousands it's enough. some people don't care about fines, but new ISP equipment detects and ban VPNs quickly so people always need to keep trying new servers. so people get used to not using VPN more and more because it's annoying and unstable.
- coryrc 10mo ago
  > everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot. Looking at your dictator's approval levels and the number of people willingly signing up to die while killing innocents, that sounds correct. You all need help breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma.
  - throwaway290 10mo ago
    you are offtopic, but I will entertain your comment because I'm so confused/amused by what you say and what means "idiot" in your world. - are you saying people forced to sign up for the war by force or rapists who do it to get out of jail in Russia are idiots? - are you saying being pro putin/pro war is like being an idiot in Russia? - are you saying russians in tech are saints and all like one are "not idiots" against the war? maybe you need a reminder about unit 26165 and APT28 - are you saying "everyone in russia/china/israel/iran/north korea/republican party is an idiot"? then allow me to congratulate you on such nuanced understanding of the world, enough said!
    - coryrc 10mo ago
      I'm saying the vast majority of people who support Putin are idiots, just like the vast majority of people who support Trump are idiots, and the religious rural fundies of Iran are mostly idiots. There's a lot of idiots out there and they don't like to think. It causes them pain to think hard. So they like people who tell them simple lies. Others are immoral or evil smart people. Unless you're working to undermine your dictator, that might be you.
woctordho 10mo ago
There are plenty of ways to circumvent whitelists, such as domain fronting. Some are already battle-tested in China and we'd be happy to share them with the rest of the world.
Lapsa 10mo ago
I would argue use of VPN is idiotic
- Lapsa 10mo ago
  for (likely corrupt) down voters - one argument would be that it's basically a subscription to browser fingerprinting. vpn providers even openly state when such doings will begin

grishka 10mo ago

Yes, we have to use censorship circumvention tools to make the internet usable. Especially when it's mobile data. About a year ago I got fed up enough that I bought an OpenWRT router and installed Zapret on it. Now, at least while at home, I can mostly forget that internet censorship is a thing.

Alex2037 10mo ago
Zapret isn't good enough, because a lot of random websites geoblock RU via Cloudflare. you'd be better off with a VPN running on a cheap VPS.
- johncolanduoni 10mo ago
  VPNs on cheap VPSes are blocked quite a lot too.
- grishka 10mo ago
  Of course I also have a VPN that I selectively route traffic through, in just these kinds of situations.

SanjayMehta 10mo ago

Russia Today et al are banned in the EU. This is standard European censorship of Russian media and news.

jan_g 10mo ago
It's not banned. I am within EU and can normally access RT website. I can also access yandex, etc. Without VPN or proxies. SO, how is this "standard European censorship"? Don't believe Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots.
- lenkite 10mo ago
  Yes, it is officially banned (along with Sputnik and other Russian media). It is sad that you don't know this as an EU citizen and think that formal directives of your union are Facebook and Twitter propaganda bots "On 2 March 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a measure suspending the broadcasting activities of RT (and another Russian outlet Sputnik) in the EU" https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/03/02/eu-imposes-sanctions-on-state-owned-outlets-rtrussia-today-and-sputnik-s-broadcasting-in-the-eu/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022... "Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine: Council bans broadcasting activities in the European Union of four more Russia-associated media outlets" https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/17/russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-council-bans-broadcasting-activities-in-the-european-union-of-four-more-russia-associated-media-outlets/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024...
  - jan_g 10mo ago
    Yeah, I know about that. But it's not been implemented, so RT is in practice accessible. As are other Russian websites. I don't know what is sad about it, I'm just saying what is in real life, not what is on paper.
    - SanjayMehta 10mo ago
      In real life, European hypocrisy is off the charts. BBC got caught manipulating videos featuring Trump. 12000 people were detained in the UK for thought crimes. In one year. One little old lady was arrested for praying silently. France went after Durov. Russia media IS banned, hiding behind ISP incompetence doesn't count. Come on. Wake up. We who have lived under actual socialist dictators can see what's happening.

itroot 10mo ago

I'm from Russia (currently in Moscow), and I can read your comment just fine without VPN. BBC won't open... which is fine, as I jump straight to comments as many do here :))) . Also do not miss twitter and facebook. Youtube is working (so far) with no ads. Also stuff like WaPo is perfectly acessible. Sometimes I skim through it (also mostly comments), then check ZeroHedge to get the opposite view. So a lot of info is acessible. Quite a few of resources are blocked on the other side though. I surely can use VPN but prefer not to unless that required for more intellectual activity then reading news.

seattle_spring 10mo ago
> check ZeroHedge to get the opposite view Can you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinion, it's mostly made-up nonsense. Even calling it pseudoscience would be generous.
- GaryBluto 10mo ago
  > Can you elaborate here? ZeroHedge isn't an opposing viewpoint nor opinion People's worldviews define their opinions, no matter how bizarre or fantastical a worldview may be.
- itroot 10mo ago
  Yeah, I see it as a radical anti-establisment resource. I would not call it a complete nonsence though, for me it's a place where you can "get" thinking of folks who are opposing "the System". So there is some value. I'm not political or activist of any kind. However sometimes it makes sense to get understanding how other people think, so sometimes I read comments here and there. HN has its own bias as well. Usually the quality of discussion here is quite high though.
  - r721 10mo ago
    FYI: ZeroHedge is a project of two pro-Kremlin Bulgarians, a father and son: https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-trojan-horse https://newrepublic.com/article/156788/zero-hedge-russian-tr...

lenkite 10mo ago

Right now, if you wish fully non-censored media, you need to live in a third world nation! All the high-and-mighty, old Europe powers are busy censoring a lot of stuff.

boston_clone 10mo ago
This is news to me! Could you share an example of some censored media in the US that's available elsewhere?
- lenkite 10mo ago
  My bad - I thought Tiktok (and other Bytedance apps) were banned in the US but apparently not since President Trump reversed the US Supreme Court decision. Huh, so it is mainly the European powers who are the culprits. Changed my claim.
  - boston_clone 10mo ago
    All good, it can be a ...chore to keep track of what decisions and reversals the current administration is making. To support your original claim - when I was in the military, we were explicitly forbidden to look at anything Snowden leaked as it was still classified and would be a violation of our clearances as we did not have either the appropriate level (e.g., TS-SCI) or need to know. Kind of understandable, but still.
    - buggeryorkshire 10mo ago
      I was working at a place in the UK where I only had BPSS but everybody else in the office had top clearance as they worked on military stuff, this was when The Guardian were doing the Snowden stuff. It was easily the best way of clearing the office for some peace - mention the front page of the newspaper and everybody would lock their laptops, pick up their papers and walk. From what I can gather the fact you know something you shouldn't, even though it's in the national news, it causes problems when renewing your clearances, so...
  - 10mo ago

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]