Putin Outlaws Anonymity: Identity Verification For Online Services, VPN Bypass Advice a Crime * TorrentFreak
Putin has signed new laws that will decimate online anonymity by denying access to online services pending state-approved user ID checks.
The paranoia is starting to ramp up, now with drones and missiles hitting inside Russia.
My guess is they will crack down hard on anyone trying to talk about the actual reality of what's going on vs the party line.
They already do. This just removed more ways to hide.
A classic move by authoritarian tyrants, suppress the spread of information, outlaw the free exchange of ideas.
This is why Tor and other privacy preserving technology is so important. People's lives and wellbeing depend on them. We must not forget there are people in this world who are being harassed, tortured, and killed because they dare to question their government, dare to criticize their leaders, dare to think for themselves.
"While the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power." -V for Vendetta
Actually this isn't much different from extreme control over financial transactions in civilzed parts of the world. Rather it's just natural extension of that control, which is scary
Lmao Russia moment.
Afraid of a civilian uprising. Also RIP classic warez “.ru” pages like old-game.
Bwah, plenty of them have alternative domains and hosting not in Russia.
Old-game has a fuck ton of ancient abandonware and not so abandoned but still ancient warez.
I expect Western governments are looking at this and saying "gee, I wish we had that".
The US is already trying to do it with KOSA
welp. they have to catch up with north korea eventually
Expect this to come to the EU in a few years.
But you see, it is only bad if it is done by authoritarian regimes, but we are states of law and democracy, so there is nothing bad about it. And we are states of law because trust me bro
-European conservatives and "social democrats"
Why? If anything the EU tends towards pro-privacy/anti-authoritarianism and has mostly avoided this kind of security theater seen in other countries.
Chat control though
It will happen first in the USA, UK and Australia before all the EU countries approve such bullshit.
I don't understand why we're constantly told that Russia and China are the biggest threats to democracy, because we keep stealing their ideas.
Republicans would love the freedumb of living in Russia
That's gonna truly suck. VK has good videos unavailable elsewhere. I've had an account there for a long time. I wonder what that'll mean for access to rutracker. edit: whois says rutracker is registered in the Bahamas :)
Man, this makes me rethink my whole idea of online anonymity.
There's a lot of reasons why requiring identity verification could be a good thing, but holy shit now I realize how quickly something like that could slip into authoritarianism.
I still think we need a identity verification service for things like online games and social media (to thwart ban evasion), but it has to be something decentralized.
It doesn't have to be decentralized, it has to be anonymous. You want to have an online identity in the number of one per citizen, but not tied to the real identities.
There's a way to do this by using regular digital ID and anonymizing it with zero-knowledge cryptography, but AFAIK noone tried this yet
It may need to be in some way decetralized though, even if some kind of certification authority needs to be in some coherent trust chain.
It makes me think of inrupt solid, although it's not quite the same.
Also I seem to remember some dutch (or used in there) online idenity management infrastructure which allows to make some authorithative claims without getting entire identity revealed. Sadly I can not find it now.
Eh, then if your online ID is compromised you're in trouble. Can't just burn it and start over.
🤔 A blockchain with a private key tied to your palm print would work. It would guarantee proving uniqueness in a way that no human could differentiate who is what, only the blockchain itself could, and because palm prints are extremely difficult for other people to fake, it would guarantee the ability for websites to actually enforce rules in a meaningful way.
While decentralized identity verification is a good idea, this approach is not.
Piracy is allowed there anyway since the war the will not punish it, they even promote it with an emergent law
This particular law is not meant to discourage piracy. But actually, for an authoritarian state, it's better if everyone is both breaking the law and if they can easily track those people doing so. That means they can simply arrest anyone under the pretense of legitimate law enforcement.
piracy is not discouraged, because with games and such it helps easily to escape the war and have easy fun without paying.
I think this will lower hacker problems by half atleast lol
I doubt that. They'll probably get a free pass, just like the north korean ones.
North Korean hackers don't have a free pass. They straight work out of government offices
Are there identities of russian Babushkas for sale anywhere?
/s but not really
No, all the babushkas use TOR
This will have a huge impact on free speech in Russia. Also, information we receive from Russia may not be genuine after this measurement will be implemented, as it will be politically in terms of Russia - as we know it from China right now. In order to spread the REAL things that are going on, people will need to risk their freedom.
Given how easy it is to set up a Docker-based wireguard server on a small remote VM, I suspect this will achieve very little.
Deep packet inspection is a thing, AFAIK people in China uses a software called v2ray to counter that.
It would be better to use a time gated version of Manx to produce a stack elevated free server.
Putin saw Arkansas, Virginia, Utah, and Mississippi were getting ahead of killing anonymity online and couldn't let that happen.
With the military Russia brought to Ukraine, they might also be running old ass verification tech that might just be key gen capable.
In einem Authoritaeren Staat ist das die einzige Moeglichkeit Herr der dinge zu werden, sieht man ja auch in China.
“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
— Princess Leia Organa
If you watch Andor, this is exactly what one of the lead characters Luthen is trying to accomplish. He's afraid that if the Empire tightens too slowly that by the time people are upset with the changes it will be too late. So he wants the rebellion to very loudly and publicly attack the Empire to force them to tighten their grip faster which inspires more rebellion.
🤷♂️ and you talking about Russian propaganda, while doing the same
Uh?