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>Mr Soldatov says ... that Russia has not outlawed the use of secure browsing protocols, https, used by Facebook, Gmail, and other sites with sensitive personal

>Mr Soldatov says ... that Russia has not outlawed the use of secure browsing protocols, https, used by Facebook, Gmail, and other sites with sensitive personal data. But he says that some ISPs have already been approached by Russian security agencies and told to prepare for such a possibility. Is this as batshit insane as it seems? Does even China block https connections?

ihsw 14y ago
There was some news a while ago about encryption being banned in Pakistan, and ISPs being required to notify the government of any VPNs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/30/pakistan-bans-encryption-software http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/30/pakistan-bans-en...
- shardling 14y ago
  I can find no followup at all to that news story -- almost every article about it was published within a few days of each other, and no news in the last year. Pakistan blocked youtube more recently, and I can see several folk suggesting that using the https site as a workaround for that block. That loophole was closed later, but it seems unlikely to me they actually went ahead with the blanket block on encryption. e: There seem to be two points of origin for this story. First, in July, this tweet by "privacy international". https://twitter.com/privacyint/status/96852484936564736 https://twitter.com/privacyint/status/96852484936564736 There's not really any source given there. Then, in late August, the following story that cites an unnamed source in an ISP. http://tribune.com.pk/story/240736/virtual-watchdog-internet-users-banned-from-browsing-privately-for-security-reasons/ http://tribune.com.pk/story/240736/virtual-watchdog-internet... The stories are at least consistent, but Pakistan never made an open declaration of their intent to block https or VPNs, and probably abandoned it as unworkable. I'd assume that it'll play out much the same in Russia.

ihsw 14y ago

There was some news a while ago about encryption being banned in Pakistan, and ISPs being required to notify the government of any VPNs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/30/pakistan-bans-encryption-software http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/30/pakistan-bans-en...

shardling 14y ago
I can find no followup at all to that news story -- almost every article about it was published within a few days of each other, and no news in the last year. Pakistan blocked youtube more recently, and I can see several folk suggesting that using the https site as a workaround for that block. That loophole was closed later, but it seems unlikely to me they actually went ahead with the blanket block on encryption. e: There seem to be two points of origin for this story. First, in July, this tweet by "privacy international". https://twitter.com/privacyint/status/96852484936564736 https://twitter.com/privacyint/status/96852484936564736 There's not really any source given there. Then, in late August, the following story that cites an unnamed source in an ISP. http://tribune.com.pk/story/240736/virtual-watchdog-internet-users-banned-from-browsing-privately-for-security-reasons/ http://tribune.com.pk/story/240736/virtual-watchdog-internet... The stories are at least consistent, but Pakistan never made an open declaration of their intent to block https or VPNs, and probably abandoned it as unworkable. I'd assume that it'll play out much the same in Russia.