Russia forcing all businesses to relocate away from Internet in 5 days
twitter.com
twitter.com
Is there anything that can be done now to ensure that the access remains after this block goes into the effect? Internet is my only way to contact my father living there, and today I was walking him through a VPN setup. But now that I’ve read these news, I am not even sure if this will help.
The only reason i am asking here is because the time is ticking, and once the block goes into the effect, me and him will be completely cut off, with me having zero way to assist him or even make sure he is still alive. So it is pretty much either pre-emptively taking care of it or being stuck hoping that he will figure something out on his own. And I would rather leave as little as possible to a chance here, given what's at stake.
If that's too extreme, anecdotally the Russian govt seems pretty dependent on Telegram. They've backed down from banning it in the past, albeit in less serious situations. As long as you neither of you ever send anything political on telegram or join any political channels that might be your safest communication option.
On this specific post: I don't speak Russian. Someone on Twitter who claimed to speak Russian said the top of the document makes it clear they're only requiring official government websites to switch to fully domestic hosts. (Don't think this helps much, because who knows what will change in a week)
[I'm not at all an expert]
Hard to not take this personal since this is literally about me. However, I don't see the thread containing "a lot of people calling out a potential state actor", I only see one user making that accusation twice in the thread you speak of (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30582330)
For what it's worth, I left you a comment that can help you to keep in contact with your dad. I agree with the general idea that general skepticism should be applied everywhere on the internet, but you shouldn't also rush to conclusions and believe that because one user wrote something many times, that makes it more true.
No hard feelings, and I really appreciate your help.
> she can make an international call to us.
One question about this, if you don't mind. What's the best way to do place international calls there in terms of convenience/cost/quality and just as an overall package? My mind jumped first to Google Voice, because that's something I've used with success before. But I don't have much of an idea about alternatives, so I wouldn't know if there was something much better suited for the purpose.
[Not an expert]
Anecdotally the Russian govt seems pretty dependent on it for their own communication. They've backed down from banning it in the past, albeit in less serious situations. As long as you neither of you ever send anything political on telegram or join any political channels that might be your safest communication option.
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Oh the horror.
I've personally have been seeing Russian endpoints disappearing one and one and DNS records slowly disappearing too, from the outside while watching Russian infrastructure since day one of the invasion. Seems they are so overpowered by all the attacks happening on their infrastructure, that they opt for just shutting of most connections at this point.
However, as long as you have a route into Russia (Tor with Russian exit node, VPN on dedicated server in Russia or "Acquired" residential/company computers) that you can use, this change won't do much to stop the attacks. Although it'll get rid of the constant ddos many beginner "hackers" are currently performing against them.
The only reason i am asking here is because the time is ticking, and once the block goes into the effect, I wont even be able to relay to him any useful info on how to go around it. So is it pretty much either pre-emptively taking care of it or being stuck hoping that he will figure something out on his own?
Tor will most likely continue to work, as long as there is a route to an entry node, your father would be able to navigate the web. However, they can try to stop Tor, and I'd advise you to read through the Troubleshooting steps from Tor preemptively: https://tb-manual.torproject.org/
Also try to lookup ways to still use Tor even if the usage is blocked. There are a couple of ways that could help him in that situation.
If you do end up losing contact with him (because of internet blockage), I can try to do my best to get you two in contact again, one way or another. My email is in my profile if you want to reach out.
Seems a little suspicious for a 2 day old account. Almost like… propaganda
To put in another perspective, nothing in Russian IT infrastructure has to change in order to control who sees what on the "Russian" internet. So if it was all about "controlling people's mind", then this would be overkill.
But if you're getting hit by constant attacks from outside the country, this move makes a lot of sense in order to stop the attack, although also overkill but if you're not very skilled, it would probably stop many attacks.
It is also discussed on HN in [1] where I provided some context.
Also it should be noted what nexta_tv shouldn't had the problem understanding the second line in that document, where it is clearly stated to whom it is addressed (only government agencies). Considering the tone of their tweet it was a deliberate... twist of the message.
[0] https://nitter.net/nexta_tv/status/1500553480548892679#m
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