(Newswire.net — July 25, 2019) — In March 2019 Roskomnadzor, the communication watchdog of the Kremlin handed out letters to some of the top VPN providers warning them they had to comply with laws in Russia or their services would be blocked. VPN providers who received the warning included ExpressVPN, NordVPN, VyprVPN and Kaspersky Secure Connection, among others. So is it still possible to use a VPN in Russia?
What laws were providers asked to comply with?
VPN providers were told they would have to connect their VPN services to the FGIS, which is the Federal State Information System.
The FGIS contains all information prohibited in Russia. What this means is that customers who use the VPN in the country would no longer be able to gain access to content that was restricted by using a VPN.
Overcoming geo-restrictions and gaining access to blocked content is a popular way of using a Virtual Private Network, but not the only reason.
Did VPN providers comply with demands?
A spokesperson said that they had sent out ten notifications to VPN providers but only one of the providers had complied and had connected to the FGIS registry. This was Kaspersky Secure Connection. The spokesperson went on to say that other providers made it known on their websites that they would not be complying with the demand.
If providers fail to comply, the end result means the VPN providers will be blocked in Russia.
So, is it still possible to use a VPN in Russia?
Right now, it is still possible to use a VPN in Russia, although ExpressVPN, NordVPN, IPVanish and others have said that they will stop hosting Russian servers but will continue to offer servers outside of Russia to those who want to use them.
IPVanish talked about the imposing ban saying that it was just another wave of the censorship agenda of Russia. This is something that has dated back to 2017 when the government put into force a law that forbid the use of VPNs in the country to gain access to web sites that are blocked.
Russia has a huge list of websites and services banned in the country, being second only to the heavily imposed censorship of China. This includes any site or service that is linked with terrorism, child abuse, gambling, drugs, religion and other topics.
Over 15 million interest addresses associated with cloud services belonging to the likes of Google and Amazon have been blocked, leaving business users having to deal with collateral damage that is widespread.
Due to the censorship, many citizens and visitors to Russia went behind VPNs to overcome the bans.
VPN providers react to the Russian ban
Several VPN providers reacted defiantly to the laws and upcoming ban with VyprVPN saying that the censorship and oppression imposed by Russia was one of the deciding factors in not offering servers based in the country. TorGuard along with others removed their Russian servers.
This does not mean they have removed their VPN services though as people in Russia can, right now, still connect to a server outside of Russia via a VPN.
Russia will more than likely continue trying to block people from connecting to outside servers of VPNs in the country but the VPN providers will probably always remain one-step ahead with their technology.
Whether Russia will have more success than China in blocking VPN providers, and their server’s, remains to be seen. In the past, we have constantly seen that if people want to overcome censorship and oppression they find a way and means and this may prove true with the use of Virtual Private Networks.