The law on anonymizers will come into force on November 1, 2017 - it allows you to block online services that give access to sites blocked at the request of Roskomnadzor. One of these services is the Tor network browser, which is used by more than 200,000 Russians daily.
The Tor user leaves no traces on the Internet - personal data, visited sites, sent messages. The system is based on the onion routing principle. For each message, a route is randomly chosen through one of three nodes - by analogy with an onion: each next node encrypts the previous one. Onion routing was developed in 1995 by programmers David Goldschlag, Michael Reid, and mathematician Paul Siverson.
The secret is in the knots
Goldschlag told Vedomosti about the way the regulator can block the service. After the user in the browser enters the address of the site to which he wants to get, his request is encrypted and transmitted to the first, input node - with his own IP address. There are two types of nodes - public and non-public, says Goldschlag, Russian Tor users most often connect to public ones. The IP addresses of public nodes are in the public domain and, he continues, the regulator can add these IP addresses and the IP addresses of sites with the .onion extension (available only in Tor) to the registry of prohibited ones and restrict access to Tor at the provider level. It's difficult, this is how all providers should work, but technically possible, says the developer.
According to Goldschlag, a good example of how this is done at the national level is China, restrictions at the provider level exist in many countries, including the United States.
IP address as evidence
On April 10, 2017, mathematician Dmitry Bogatov was arrested. According to the investigation, from his IP address a certain Airat Bashirov posted texts on the Internet calling for terrorist attacks. The investigation believes that Bogatov used Tor to hide the traces of his presence on the Internet. The defense points out that out of 104 IP-addresses around the world from which Bashirov entered the network, the only one that was tied to a computer in Moscow was selected.
It is much more difficult to block the connection through non-public nodes: their IP addresses are not publicly available, and the addresses are transmitted in encrypted form, explains Karen Kazaryan, an analyst with the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, and to use a non-public node, it is enough to reconfigure the browser.
Roskomnadzor in its own right
In five years, the number of Russian Tor users has tripled, Goldschlag reports, and refuses to discuss the regulator's plans for Tor. The profile official does not yet know whether Roskomnadzor plans to restrict access to the service.
Roskomnadzor will have enough law on anonymizers to block Tor entry nodes, believes Artem Kozlyuk, head of the public organization Roskomsvoboda, but this may not happen until mid-December: the agency should ask the service not to provide access to prohibited sites, wait 30 days and, if there is no answer will, start to identify the input nodes. Kozlyuk doubts that Roskomnadzor will decide to block the .onion domain zone, where millions of Tor pages are used by the media, scientific communities and social networks.
Operators against
If operators block Tor's publicly known nodes, it would be easy to shut it down in Russia, says Alexei Lukatsky, Cisco security consultant. Users can bypass this ban with a VPN, so you need to block Tor while limiting VPN services, he warns.
Once again, the inhabitants of Russia are forced to endure the inconvenience and restriction in the free use of the World Wide Web. This time, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning VPN. The supporting document was published on July 30 on the pages of the official Internet portal containing significant legal information. According to this law, almost all changes will come into force on November 1, 2017, but some of them have become relevant since the signing of the decree. Now the prohibition of VPN and TOR in Russia has already taken place at the legislative level.
VPN and TOR ban
As mentioned above, now all anonymizers that were previously freely available and had no reason for blocking and bans will become prohibited for use. According to the established requirements of Roskomnadzor, if such programs (TOR browser, Opera, etc.) do not restrict access to unwanted sites, their action will also be limited and prohibited. TOR falls under these rules in the first place.
Passport messengers and VPN ban
Since the introduction of the VPN ban and the adoption of this law by the State Duma, a number of requirements have been imposed on providers. The main one was that instant messengers operated by citizens would succumb to forced blocking in the event of an outright refusal to identify the user by his existing phone number. In addition, the bill banning anonymizers and VPN services directly obliges proxy services to restrict access to prohibited pages and pages containing potentially objectionable content prohibited by censorship.
In fact, thanks to the coming into force of the bill, VPN services themselves and various anonymous networks may be banned. As well as browsers that ensure user anonymity, such as TOR or Yandex browser.
Let's take a closer look at how the VPN law will work and why such categorical measures have been taken in Russia to deprive citizens of anonymity. After all, the ban on the use of software such as TOR is still nonsense for Russia.
The law banning anonymizers and VPN in Russia: we carefully read the text
According to the Law on the prohibition of anonymizers and VPN publication.pravo.gov.ru, adopted on 21.07.2017, in which the idea is traced in red line that providers undertake to deny access to sites on the Roskomnadzor blacklist and block access to them under any pretext. Anonymous networks and programs (the same TOR) will be allowed to use if they confirm their consent to cooperate with the state and will strive to support the policy of preventing viewing of Internet resources prohibited in Russia.
It should be noted that the ban on the use of VPN and TOR browser in Russia directly affects all residents of the state, not only commercial users. After all, many consumers are accustomed to making purchases on American or any other foreign sites using TOR, from which goods are not sent to Russia and payments are not accepted from it. This is due, first of all, to the increased number of fraud with data and bank cards. Therefore, an excellent way out in solving this issue was the use of anonymous networks and special browsers such as TOR, which issued a different IP address of the user, thus making it possible to purchase the necessary product for a relatively low price. This, in turn, was not profitable for local boutiques selling similar goods with a 1.5-fold markup. So there are more commercial reasons for the TOR ban.
What is the threat of a VPN ban in Russia?
By adopting this law, citizens will receive round-the-clock surveillance from the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, who will monitor compliance with the obligations imposed on providers. If some service refuses to cooperate and will stimulate access to Internet resources included in the prohibited list of Roskomnadzor within a calendar month, it may be legally banned. Also, they will have the full right to add such a site to the list of those already banned in Russia. By the way, this list already has more than 80 thousand unwanted sites, so adding a few additional hundreds to it will not radically change the situation.
It should be noted that in China it has been a practice to ban all unwanted sites, proxy and VPN servers for a long time.
This is done so that foreign information portals do not disturb the souls and minds of many Chinese bright minds, cultivating dissent and lack of patriotic feelings in them. Around the clock, more than two million Chinese citizens monitor the network for "wrong" thoughts and carefully eradicate them from the Internet.
It is quite logical that many Russian users of the anonymous Internet browser Tor are concerned about its legality. Indeed, at one time, the news constantly flashed a law stating its official ban along with all kinds of anonymizers, as well as VPN services. So let's figure it out is Thor banned in Russia, or is it not true at all?
And we will start, perhaps, with legal information, because it is from it that we should build on in the first place. In the news, the “Federal Law of July 29, 2017 No. 276-FZ” was forced (you can familiarize yourself with its electronic version). If we simplify everything, then it says about the prohibition spreading any means to hide the identity of people on the network.
Accordingly, it concerns various sites where anonymizers, VPNs and programs or utilities similar in function are published, and search engines that show resources with prohibited content in the search results.
But the direct private use of such funds at the moment (this text was written on 03/08/2019) is not yet prohibited, but only difficult.
findings
Strictly speaking, the question "Is Tor allowed in Russia?" so far has a positive answer. Users need not be afraid to maintain their anonymity on the Internet using this web browser. Moreover, there were no court precedents in this regard.
But we want to draw your attention to the fact that all of the above applies only to persons who use for "good" purposes, that is, do not violate the law. But violators (if they are identified) may well be subject to legislative sanctions. 
Bottom line: you won't get anything for using the Torah if you don't break the law. But this rule is valid until the relevant legislative acts are applied at the state level. For example, news is often circulating in the news that the Russian Internet will be localized within the country and cut off from the world, and access to it will be provided only with documents that prove a person's identity.
In any case, we can only wait for the changes. We very much hope that they will be favorable and will benefit the law-abiding residents of the country, but to the detriment of violators.
While the struggle for the Internet continues in Russia, more and more users are learning to use the means of circumventing Roskomnadozar's bans: they are mastering VPNs and proxies, thanks to the supervisory authority for the incentive to engage in computer literacy. However, the question arises as to how legal it is to use these services, and since the country has begun to block the Internet so zealously, will they not be punished for circumventing the bans.
When Roskomnadzor began (trying) to block Telegram, users only joked about the department and. There have even been stories on social media that saleswomen in stores are teaching to use circumvention tools.
Sergey Vasilievich
Now I drove to the nearest "Vkusville" for fruit drinks, there at the checkout a saleswoman of about 45 years old tried to explain to a customer about 60 years old how to set up a proxy in a cart in order to use the store's bot further.And although not everyone believed in such stories, the number of people who started using proxies and VPNs increased dramatically. As the owners of three services to bypass blocking told the BBC, at least half of Telegram users (about 8 million people) continued to use the messenger through their services after the official blocking.
It is not yet known exactly how many people began to use circumvention tools after Roskomnadzor began massively blocking IP addresses, but on April 12, cybersecurity specialist Alexander Litreev told Vedomosti that his proxy service alone had a client base that grew from nine thousand up to one and a half million. Also, according to Kommersant, the number of entries from the territory of Russia to the TOR network has increased by 20 percent.
However, some users began to have questions: is it legal at all to use means to bypass blocking.
Mary
Before installing a VPN, I first became concerned with the question of whether I could be jailed for this as a repost. I can't go to jail now (The question is quite reasonable, because back in November 2017, a ban on bypassing blocking via VPN, TOR and anonymizers came into force. However, it has its own nuances. This law prohibits the owners of such services from providing access to blocked resources. For refusal to obey, VPN services promised to block, which happened in early March. Then the RKN blocked 18 servers with which it was possible to use Telegram.
Can users be held accountable for bypassing blocking? Not yet. The law, passed in 2017, states that the responsibility for providing access to prohibited sites lies with the "owner of the hardware and software access", that is, the owners of VPN and proxy services. They are threatened with blocking for failure to comply with the law. As for TOR, according to experts, it is almost impossible to block it (although they are trying in Belarus).
For the average user, this law can be compared to the law banning the sale of cigarettes to minors. If a teenager buys cigarettes, the seller will be punished, not the buyer.
On April 16, the head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov, who himself, according to him, installed a VPN on his smartphone, said in Rossiyskaya Gazeta that ordinary users are not going to be held liable for using blocking bypass services.
When it comes to VPNs, you can't block them all. In Russia, there are hundreds of thousands of them, both commercial and self-made. Is it possible to block individual VPNs - you definitely can. We will see what they are using, whether they are massively used, whether it makes sense to restrict access to VPN. But VPN, like any other Internet program, has a set of characteristics, IP addresses.
The fact that ordinary users will not be punished for using circumvention means was also told to RIA Novosti by a lawyer and specialist in criminal law Alexey Sinitsyn.
For users, liability for the use of such services and networks is not provided for by Russian law.
Before the “war” with Telegram, the law banning blocking bypass services was generally called useless. Despite the fact that the FSB was supposed to monitor the owners of the services and prevent the provision of access to prohibited resources, for three months from the beginning of the document's validity, the special services have never turned to Roskomnadzor with a demand to restrict the work of anonymizers, wrote
Residents faced government blocking in 2016, according to the latest FOTN report from Freedom House 37 countries of the world and that's not counting the states that did not participate in the study.
But in almost all of these countries, there are many people who can go to prohibited sites without any problems. The authorities of most states turn a blind eye to anonymizers.
But there are a few exceptions, one of which could theoretically be Russia. A few days ago, there was even news on the Internet that a bill was submitted to the State Duma to ban Tor and VPN.
Many Russians reacted to this news with a question: "And how are the authorities going to implement this?" To answer it, let's turn to the experience of countries in which there is already a war against VPN and Tor.
Fighting method # 1. Block specific IP addresses
In neighboring Belarus and Kazakhstan, laws on blocking Tor and VPN have already entered into force. In practice, they are simple to execute: the addresses of Tor entry nodes, VPN providers' servers, and sites with information about blocking bypassing are blacklisted and blocked by the providers.
At first glance, this is pretty pointless. After all, instead of blocked public Tor nodes and VPN servers, new ones appear.
The effectiveness of this method can be judged by the dynamics of the number of Tor users in Belarus. Over the year, the number of "regular" connections to Tor (downloaded the browser and launched it without changing the settings) decreased three times from 9000 to 3000 users per day.
But the number of people who connect to Tor through "bridges" (entry nodes, whose addresses are not in the public domain) has increased dramatically. If before the law against anonymizers, a couple of hundred people used this method, then in 2017, on average, about 2,000 per day.
Now let's compare the total number of Tor users in Belarus (the number of direct connections + the number of bridges to Tor) before and after blocking the entry nodes. In 2015-2016, there were, on average, just over 9,000 daily, and in 2017 there were about 5,000.
As you can see, even this clumsy blocking method has an effect. Those who really need to continue to use Tor anyway. But almost half of the people were either afraid of the ban, or simply did not bother with the bridging settings.
Fighting method # 2. Intelligent traffic analysis and blocking system
In China, issues of Internet censorship were taken up in the late 90s and in 2003 they created the "Golden Shield" for total control over information on the Internet. Since then, the Great Firewall of China has become a complex and multifunctional system.
Thanks to the unique DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) traffic analysis technology, the Golden Shield is able (not always) to detect VPN / Tor traffic and block the communication channel over which it is transmitted, and at the same time make exceptions for license holders to use VPN from the Ministry of Industry and Informatization.
But this technology is imperfect, like the entire Golden Shield. Since 2012, there has been periodic news about the massive blocking of VPN providers in China, but the local population still has the opportunity to visit prohibited sites.
The fact is that a few days after such incidents, there are reports that someone from VPN providers has already come up with a new method of DPI masking and is working again.
Such efficiency is fully justified. After all, a market of 90 million Chinese VPN users (2014) is worth fighting for.
Fighting method # 3. Blocking all "unnecessary" network protocols
This method is used in closed and conservative Turkmenistan, where the IT infrastructure and communication with the outside world are paid a minimum of attention (unlike China), and the level of Internet censorship is only slightly inferior to North Korea. The paragraph below is hard to believe, but the information in it is confirmed by several sources at once.
From the comments on linux.forum.org, habrahabr.ru and the Roskomsvoboda website, you can find out that in Turkmenistan in recent months, some users stupidly do not work with many network protocols necessary for VPN and other anonymizers: OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP, IPsec , Tor. And some providers blocked SSH and HTTPS.
But for some readers of our site from Turkmenistan, the VPN works without problems.
Fighting method # 4. Disconnecting a country from the Internet
No Internet - no Vpn and Tor ;-) This method is still used only in North Korea, where access to the World Wide Web requires a good reason and personal permission from the head of state, and for the broad masses there is an internal Gwangmyon network.
Is it possible to just take and disconnect from the Internet a country that already has tens of millions of Internet users?
Such a case took place on January 27-28, 2011 in Egypt (the country's population is about 80 million, Internet penetration at that time is 25%). The government simply called all Internet and mobile providers one by one, asking them to turn off the Internet.
The graph of the disappearance from the network of Egyptian providers clearly shows that the whole process took about an hour and a half... Only one provider remained in working order, which ensured the availability of the stock exchange and servers for government needs.
Also, cases of sudden temporary disconnection of an entire country from the Internet took place in Libya, Syria (the result of a hacker attack on the country's largest provider) and Sudan.
Struggle method # 5. Penalties
Some countries use IP blocking and traffic filtering in conjunction with mild psychological pressure.
In August 2016, news emerged that the UAE would now impose jail terms and fines for up to half a million dollars for using a VPN. But the real application of this law of information was not found.
In February 2017, a massive 14-month campaign against VPNs began in China, and in March fines of up to 15,000 yuan ($ 2,000) were imposed for using the technology without a government license. How they will fine 100 million people is somewhat difficult to imagine :-)
So can VPN and Tor be banned?
Completely ban only in combination with a huge blow to the economy and the severing of most ties with the outside world (see paragraphs about Turkmenistan and North Korea), or by investing huge amounts of money in creating a much more perfect analogue of the Chinese "Golden Shield".
But significantly reducing the number of users is easy.
You just need to organize a couple of obstacles when using locks (remember the example with configuring Tor in Belarus from the first paragraph). And to consolidate the effect, you can scare with a fine or prison.
And then most people will think: “Do I need this Facebook, YouTube, Google to bother and take risks? Me and Odnoklassniki have norms. "
