Submitted by Sam Bocetta
On November 1st, a law signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin went into effect, one that heavily regulates the use of virtual private networks and other technologies that enable individuals to search the internet anonymously.
While this may have seemed to indicate that Russia was taking a page from other countries like Saudi Arabia, who have taken measures to beef up cyber security and prevent cyber warfare, in reality, it’s simply Putin’s latest attempt to thwart any form of media that doesn’t amount to propaganda.
Restrictions on VPN use are nothing new, of course. Other countries like China have placed similar regulations on the public use of anonymous proxy servers. The Great Firewall relies on vague laws to justify government attempts at blocking Internet Service Providers, gateway connections, and more.
But even in those countries where laws about VPN use exist, there are clear indicators that using a VPN remains legal, so long as the individual on the private network does not use it for malicious purposes. There are examples of nations that try to censor online content, such as Angola, but even that country does not prohibit the use of VPN technology.
Here in the United States, the president himself has even used “special equipment” to unblock China’s Twitter ban and get around their firewall.
In the case of Russia, it is obvious that the government doesn’t want its citizens using VPNs for any reason whatsoever. Perhaps more alarmingly, the new law calls for VPN providers to closely cooperate with Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor and to comply with any and all of its requests.
For VPN providers to do so runs counter to the mission statement of most VPN services. The chief allure of the best VPNs is their firm “no logs policy” which promises that users’ personal information and communications will not be collected by the company behind the proxy server nor disseminated to any third party.
Russia’s law clearly calls from VPN providers to break their promise to their customers for the purpose of gathering intel on the public’s online activities.
Although the head of the Russian State Duma’s information policy committee has said that the law is meant solely to block access to “unlawful content,” the involvement of Roskomnadzor suggests otherwise.
The new law comes at a strange time for Russia as they have been suspected of testing cyber warfare on the nation of Latvia and there have been reports that Russian hackers had intended to carrying out a cyber attack on a conference in Washington, D.C.
Then we have Russia’s use of social media during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election which has also been referred to as cyber warfare by U.S. lawmakers like Senators Dianne Feinstein and Angus King.
If Russia’s new law sounds a bit hypocritical given these reports of cyber warfare, that’s because it most certainly is. Banning VPNs amounts to a double standard, one where the government is sending a strong message to the public that they cannot be trusted to use the internet anonymously while that self-same government carries out the kinds of cyber attacks that would be harshly penalized if they were committed by a civilian.
Perhaps even more mind-boggling is the fact that most Russian cyber criminals are not attacking their own country. The U.S. arrested or indicted seven Russians on U.S. cyber crime charges in 2017, suggesting that America is one of their biggest targets.
In the U.S., VPN use is legal because our lawmakers understand the value of surfing the web anonymously (at least on paper – though times are a changin’). The primary things that attract users to VPNs are the privacy and security they provide. Further, most popular VPN services have low latency (they don’t slow down browsing speeds) and attentive customer support, making them easy to use for people of all ages. Outside of the U.S., people typically use VPNs to unblock the U.S. Netflix library, since Netflix is unable to share all of their content internationally due to region-specific licensing restrictions.
By and large, people are not using VPNs maliciously. In the case of those living in Russia, using a VPN would be the only way to watch anything that isn’t pro-Putin. As late night funnyman Stephen Colbert discovered when he took a week-long sojourn to the Kremlin, Russian television is every bit as limited as internet content.
Nobody is allowed to joke about the government, much less question the policies of those in power. When you watch programs like Colbert’s Russia Week or HBO comedian John Oliver’s interview with Edward Snowden, you get the impression that those on camera are being watched, not just by their own camera crew but a government obsessed with surveillance.
This surveillance extends well beyond Russia’s borders. If you’ve heard of the UKUSA Agreement, you know that global surveillance has been a concern for quite some time and efforts to build a massive international network persist to this day.
The Fourteen Eyes is a collective of fourteen countries that collect and share intelligence on private citizens the world over. This is just one of the reasons why it is imperative that the public be able to secure their sensitive personal data.
VPNs enable the average citizen to protect their information by utilizing military-grade encryption to maintain discretion and security while they communicate with friends and colleagues, stream their favorite television shows or download some good music.
They also protect us against malware, ransomware, and other common cyber threats while warding off snoops and spies. Which goes far towards explaining why Putin may not be in favor of them. After all, Russia’s penchant for spies is notorious, to say the least.
Among the many documented incidents of the Kremlin sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong, there is the time that they tried and failed to bug Congress and the House Armed Services Committee. One even attempted to get hired by a major Democratic donor in order to get closer to a U.S. presidential candidate.
We’ve seen for ourselves the “clear, existential threat” that an authoritarian Putin regime might pose to the US, but their own people are obviously slogging through that very same mire thanks to the Russian government’s meddling in internet privacy law.
When you’re dealing with such a regime who so heavily censor what the public can see or do while simultaneously launching cyber attacks on the rest of the world, it’s evident that you’re dealing with a government that instructs its subjects to “do as I say, not as I do.” And when this is the case, it’s of paramount importance to shield yourself against their scrutiny.
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” If Putin has his druthers, the people won’t have the option of possessing safety nor will he ever grant them any liberty.