04-03-2019 , 02:46 PM
Russia twists the arm of VPNs – here’s their response
In all seriousness though, this is only the latest of a series of developments that occurred within the latter years in Russia. President Putin — maybe somewhat shaken by reports of his popularity slightly diminishing — started to come down hard on online freedom of speech a few years back. In 2014, the government passed the so-called Blogger’s law, which was aimed at regulating what bloggers in the country could and could not write. During the summer of 2016, Russia passed a data-retention law that forced communications providers to help the state decrypt people’s messages.
Closer to us, in the spring of 2018, Russia banned the Russia-born and popular encrypted messaging app Telegram. That effort, though, was maybe one step too far and it seems to have slightly backfired as the government still struggles to find a way to enforce that ban, causing the tech world to mock the giant state. But who knows how long the Telegram app really has left to live in its country of birth?
Read more
In all seriousness though, this is only the latest of a series of developments that occurred within the latter years in Russia. President Putin — maybe somewhat shaken by reports of his popularity slightly diminishing — started to come down hard on online freedom of speech a few years back. In 2014, the government passed the so-called Blogger’s law, which was aimed at regulating what bloggers in the country could and could not write. During the summer of 2016, Russia passed a data-retention law that forced communications providers to help the state decrypt people’s messages.
Closer to us, in the spring of 2018, Russia banned the Russia-born and popular encrypted messaging app Telegram. That effort, though, was maybe one step too far and it seems to have slightly backfired as the government still struggles to find a way to enforce that ban, causing the tech world to mock the giant state. But who knows how long the Telegram app really has left to live in its country of birth?
Read more