Russia prohibits anonymous web surfing

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that basically prohibits anonymous web surfing in his country.

In fact, with 1 in November, it bans the forms of technology that allow anonymous access to prohibited websites in Russia. This prohibition covers services that allow people to use the internet anonymously, such as virtual private networks (VCPNs) and proxies, and requires internet service providers to block websites that host these services.

Leonid Levin, Russian chairman of the parliamentary committee on information and communication policy, told the news agency RIA Novosti that the law 'includes only the restriction of access to information already prohibited by law or by a judicial decision'.

Russia's black list of websites, which was introduced in 2012, was originally intended to be used on websites containing illegal drugs, child pornography, and suicides, but 2013 was extended to any "suspected extremism" content. The amendment allows a flexible interpretation, leaving Russia to ban any material that criticizes the views of the governor, or seems to weaken the government's authority.

2015, for example, Russia banned briefly Reddit and Wikipedia along with pages that have content for drug use. At that time, Nikolay Kononov, editor-in-chief of DigitalMag.ru, said that these moves were less relevant to the content of the web pages and more were done to show that they can ban what they want, whenever they want. It's a show of intimidation. "

Russia is not the only country that banned tools for anonymity Web surfing, such as VPNs. This month China announced that it would restrict unauthorized VPNs, and recently, all VPN applications have moved away from the Apple App Store version in China.