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Comment by Andrew_nenakhov | Hacker News Reader

Everybody in Russia who is not a complete idiot already has a VPN that allows to circumvent censorship (for now).

Source: I'm in Russia now.

In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses, and that will indeed insure that nobody would be able to access banned resources.

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> In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses

I already had this idea of tunneling traffic through the voice/video calls in the Max messenger app. No one has done it in practice, yet, but I see no reason why it should not be possible.

Обход блокировок, который ловит даже на парковке ;)

great idea. use the app tied to your passport and gosuslugi to make sure they know who is the genius when they detect it.

edit: didn't know they allow anything except belarus, cool... as long as you can anonymously register that number

I don't think they would care as long as you don't do something stupid that would show up on their dashboards. But if you're paranoid, you can use phone numbers from, for example, Armenia or Kazakhstan. There are 8 countries besides Russia whose numbers they allow.

That does not seem like a good idea at all. Even if you are “not doing something stupid” the fact that you would be circumventing their app to bypass censorship they may deem you treasonous and a possible risk. Who knows what they could arrest you for.

Law enforcement in Russia works differently than in the US, especially in politically charged fields. An exapmel: in the US, one man was charged of breaking construction codes because he was doing chemical experiments in the basement of his single-family house, in a block zoned accordingly.

I understand this is extreme, but a good illustration. He was doing something on his own, and was charged. Such enforcement is extremely unlikely in Russia even in todays situation. For instance, a recent law explicitly banned _searching_ for extremists materials, e.g. Navalny's party website (they're labelled as extremists ex-court by the Interior or the Justice ministry, I don't remember). But there's been just 1 court case since then. You can search whatever you want as long as you're not public about it. As soon as you get enough publicity, you do get on the radar.

Same kinds of examples: in the 1950's USSR some musicians were shadow-banned (there was no legal ban on them), and not published. A man made a lathe and carved disks with their music on used x-ray films. He was arrested when he got enough publicity and sold good deal of copies. He was charged not for copying them -- there was no ban on this -- but for illicit enterpreneurship, or speculation as it was called back then. Had he been doing this alone, he'd probably have not got under arrest.

I actually, think it's roughly the same as dealing with Torrent and trackers in the Western world nowadays.

Technically, the act of bypassing censorship by itself is still not even illegal. They did make it recently such that writing about VPNs is grounds for blocking wherever you've written about it.

https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2024-11-22_v_rossii_zapretili_...

> Technically, the act of bypassing censorship by itself is still not even illegal

Seeking extremist materials is illegal as of September. If that is not "bypassing censorship" then what is?

By the way. Extremist materials is a big list of thousands of things that no one can always know. What it means for a normal person? If you use VPN you can be finding extremist materials, if you don't = then you don't (because they are all helpfully blocked)

After 3 months there is one guy with a case for looking up Azov for example https://meduza.io/amp/cards/mvd-vpervye-popytalos-oshtrafova...

There are plenty of ways to circumvent whitelists, such as domain fronting. Some are already battle-tested in China and we'd be happy to share them with the rest of the world.

I would argue use of VPN is idiotic

for (likely corrupt) down voters - one argument would be that it's basically a subscription to browser fingerprinting. vpn providers even openly state when such doings will begin

"everybody who is not a complete idiot" not true. looks like you're in your tech bubble and you think everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot.

using VPN for circumventing censorship is illegal in Russia. fine is worse if if you promote it. for people who can't afford to spend a few thousands it's enough.

some people don't care about fines, but new ISP equipment detects and ban VPNs quickly so people always need to keep trying new servers. so people get used to not using VPN more and more because it's annoying and unstable.

> everybody else who is a regular person is an idiot.

Looking at your dictator's approval levels and the number of people willingly signing up to die while killing innocents, that sounds correct.

You all need help breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

you are offtopic, but I will entertain your comment because I'm so confused/amused by what you say and what means "idiot" in your world.

- are you saying people forced to sign up for the war by force or rapists who do it to get out of jail in Russia are idiots?

- are you saying being pro putin/pro war is like being an idiot in Russia?

- are you saying russians in tech are saints and all like one are "not idiots" against the war? maybe you need a reminder about unit 26165 and APT28

- are you saying "everyone in russia/china/israel/iran/north korea/republican party is an idiot"? then allow me to congratulate you on such nuanced understanding of the world, enough said!

I'm saying the vast majority of people who support Putin are idiots, just like the vast majority of people who support Trump are idiots, and the religious rural fundies of Iran are mostly idiots. There's a lot of idiots out there and they don't like to think. It causes them pain to think hard. So they like people who tell them simple lies.

Others are immoral or evil smart people. Unless you're working to undermine your dictator, that might be you.

idiot by definition is abnormal. if there is more idiots than non idiots then you have a wrong understanding of idiot. if almost everybody except you is an idiot then look in the mirror.

americans voted for trump because they are tired of democrats looking down on them. in other words, people with your attitude are to blame. until you seriously start trying to understand people and why they do stuff (it is not because they are idiots) you will keep making them do the opposite of what you think is good.

> idiot by definition is abnormal

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/idiot "1 Informal., an utterly foolish or senseless person." Nope, no abnormality needed.

There was (and still is in some places) a lot of lead poisoning. That more people are dumber than their genetics would otherwise dictate doesn't make them not idiots in my obviously-informal ranting.

> americans voted for trump because they are tired of democrats looking down on them.

Please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Thought_They_Were_Free

Nope, still the same. If everyone else is "foolish and senseless" from your personal view then that's baseline, sorry to inform you

an american wrote a book about germans? why do I want to read it? but thanks for reminding me, as far as I know it was similar when hitler came to power, weimar was falling apart and people felt disrespected due to reparations and nazi preyed on that.

Lol, the dictator's approval rating is so high that he bans, forces to exile or kills any opposing candidate, never risking elections vs anyone not fully controlled by him.

Every time someone like Bukele flexes that his approval rating is higher than Putin's, I laugh -- the guy clearly doesn't understand that this isn't the flex he thinks it is.

I used to be rosy eyed like you for a while

I think if you talked to more fellow russians you would be surprised how many support him unironically)

by my estimate more than 50% (of people who have an opinion)

control of information is a magical thing

I mean the whole thing about perverting statistics is we can't know the truth, since anecdotal surveys are useless (which I realized as a child in 2004 when Bush won despite everyone I knew hating him) and anything big enough to be meaningful is corrupted.

Even if they didn't massage the stats after asking people, I doubt everyone is fully comfortable sharing their honest opinions.

So...we can't know. We likely never will know, at least how people at large felt in this precise moment.

I know from talking to people outside of my friend circle. Sure it's not reliable statistics but it's what I have. Try talking to taxi drivers and so on.

Putin's approval rating is genuinely that high, around 80%. Nobody cares about opposing candidates, because Russia has had one or two free elections in its entire history. Far more important is that Putin has flooded the lower classes with money. People who were used to surviving on a few hundred dollars a month are now receiving tens of thousands in sign-up bonuses alone, plus military wages and compensations. Absolutely life-changing money for them. It is comparable to flooding a troubled area like West Virginia with military sign-up bonuses ranging from hundreds of thousands to a million per enlistment, with additional money flowing into communities from injury and death compensations.

This is absolutely delusional, but Putin thanks you for serving his cause.

Regarding your claim that Putin flooded the lower classes with money, this is simply false. What percent of the population do you think signed up for war? Do you really think that 0.5% (optimistic estimate) that did sign up had spread their wealth with anyone else?

Just last week I stayed in the hospital with 2 men, 72y.o and 64y.o. One has pension of 19k RUB, another one 23k RUB. That's fewer than $300. Showered with money, Yay!

contractors are getting paid VERY good money relatively. Imagine you live in a village, your education is so so. You live in an old house with parents. How much do you earn? Anything?

But now you go to war and you/your family gets 200000 monthly. You can buy a cheap car for that money AND buy a flat in a city (first mortgage payment) after first month. Not counting signup bonus.

How many contractors do you think there are relative to the size of population, so that the previous poster was claiming that was flooded with wealth?? This is just plain nonsense. Mercenary payments have extremely limited impact on the overall 'lower class' wealth.

(And you somehow forget about the little insignificant downside of a mercenary career that you might be a bit dead or maimed, oops)

if you consider that almost all contractors are from poorer families it affects them disproportionately, you need to exclude upper middle class and up from your percentage calc.

I agree that "flooded lower classes with wealth" is an exaggeration but I think it is not completely wrong.

Of course, it is true. If you are not a complete idiot, you won't be content with being blocked from the information you seek, so you'd find someone technical to help you out. I personally give access to my vpn server to ~100 users for free, and so far the access is stable enough. I have little doubts that in the future it'll be more difficult, but we'll see about that when we get there.

Calling people "complete idiots" because they follow the law, because they don't have $$$ to spend on fines, because they are unlucky to be doing a job society actually needs like a teacher or cleaner or bus driver instead of vibe coding ai saas, will not help you convince people about the change you want to see

A normal person follows the law. It's bad when that law is forced by dictator but you should get off your high horse sometimes. If you think of regular public as complete idiots you should not be surprised when they vote for putin. Similar thing happened in america where democrats alienated as many people as possible by looking down on them like they're stupid

And why it is logically not true: an idiot is by definition a person with abnormality. If you are saying 90% of people are abnormal... idk what to tell you

> I personally give access to my vpn server to ~100 users for free, and so far the access is stable enough

yeah I often talk to a friend who does the same. depending on your region it won't be too stable for long.

> you won't be content with being blocked from the information you seek

You don't know what you don't know. If you don't know it is, you don't seek it. That's why censorship works

You aren't from Russia, aren't you? Yes, anyone in Russia who still doesn't have VPN access IS a complete idiot. This is the reality on the ground that I observe every day. Nannies in kindergartens have them, teachers at school have them, salespersons in perfume store have them, all students have them, schoolchildren have them.

And it has nothing to do with the law — currently, using vpn isn't breaking any laws.

Where is that, Moscow? I guess you aren't from Russia)

No, Chelyabinsk. You want a photo proof of me standing in the street?

Must be nice. Now imagine living not so close to "center" (the mostly white west of the country). They test more advanced blocking in the regions first because people don't complain so much. Same logic with contractors, most people are recruited to the war from these regions. Why? because they are poor and watch tv. What even is VPN? another ploy by anglo-saxons?;)

Basically I'll tell you it's like this:

60% chance you have some VPN apps, if you are not old or if you have a child to explain it to you. The main use: whatsapp or telegram which are semi blocked, and if you are young and fashionable or your fashionable son sends you these links then youtube-instagram-tiktok which are blocked. Regularly VPN fails (ISPs block them fast) so you turn on another one and keep doing like this until one works. Fun fact, paid ones are blocked faster so it is more reliable to use free VPN. (Remember that you won't hear about VPN by random people or teachers at school because it is very illegal)

And you should know that outside of tech bubble the most popular media in the country is by far VK, Telegram and maybe Whatsapp. Youtube/instagram/tiktok are minority. Telegram/whatsapp are legit why many people use VPN, but it is not required (probably the only reason they are not fully blocked is to discourage VPN use). And even then only until everybody switch to Max which is already required by many schools and in all budget jobs. Remember that most most people in Russia support the government and do what they are told.

So ask yourself how many people have a reason to bother with all this. And actually who of them is bigger idiot, who is using free VPN (safe like used condom) or who is not using VPN.

But OK, you can call everybody complete idiots, that's fine. Just don't expect people to take you very seriously while you are looking down on them.

> Now imagine living not so close to "center" (the mostly white west of the country)

You seem to have a very limited understanding of Russia.

First, nobody in Russia ever thinks of its population in racial terms like 'white'. At most, there are ethnic terms like 'russians', 'caucasians' [0], 'tatars', 'yakuts', etc. -- there aren't even any genuine Asians here but the students from China.

And no, thanks to the soviets, the cultural influence between most of these ethnic groups is next to unexistent.

More, you say 'the white west' of the country, but this is again a misconception: the closer you get to the 'west' (or, more correctly, to the center, like Moscow and Saint Petersburg), the less 'russian' it is. The percent of ethnic russian population is far higher in eastern parts of the country and on the outskirts than in Moscow, where the percent of ethnical russians is the lowest.

> Remember that most most people in Russia support the government and do what they are told.

Yeah, Putin once again thanks you for your service. You have no idea what real Russia looks like, as I've proven above when I disproved your misconceptions, yet, you go out of your way and still spread Putin's narrative how popular he is.

In reality, Putin stays in power because he has an army of paid thugs who'll kill anyone who opposes him. If Putin would participate in any honest elections vs just about anyone who is not one of his cronies, he'd lose such elections in a landslide. That's why he will never do the Lukashenko's mistake of allowing even a simple housewife to run against him, which ran, and won, so Lukashenko had no blatantly falsify the election results and suppress the protests to stay in power. Genuinely popular leaders do not need such precautions. Putin knows he is deeply unpopular, Russians know he is deeply unpopular, and only unwitting Putin's henchmen from the West spread Putin's narrative that he is a very popular leader. Lol.

[0]: No, not 'caucasians' as americans understand the term, but people from actual Caucasus region, like Chechnya, Dagestan, Armenia, Georgia -- the actual Georgia, not the one which is next to South Carolina :-D

I think you are living in a different Russia.

There is a good reason to use the term "white" and that is because non-whites (you know what I mean) are discriminated. I have various stories but I won't go in detail. I don't blame you, I didn't really think about it in that way for most of my life.

And if you talk to more normal people you may find out that it's not just force, many people follow "party line" because they think the government says truth. Control of information is a magical thing

You repeat this mantra 'Control of information is a magical thing', but it doesn't become true just because you repeat it. USSR controlled the information far more tightly, yet, nobody believed the government and laughed at them -- I'm old enough to remember that. See, propaganda has a hard time competing with an empty fridge and empty stomach, and in the end, empty stomach prevails. People see quite clearly that living in Russia becomes harder every day, and of course they link it to the unchangeable leadership of the country. After 25 years, people are simply tired of Putin, so any claims that he has 80% approval rating are simply laughable.

Regarding your other point, no, 'Non-whites' are not really discriminated. In fact, Russians themselves are the most underrepresented ethnic group in all levels of power in Russia -- and it always has been that way. It was so in Russian Empire, in Soviet Union, and stays true in Putin's Russia as well. What you're referring to is the cargo-cult practice by some ppl who try to mimic modern Western political tactics. Many have noticed that claimed victimhood is beneficial in the modern-day West, so they try to emulate that by pretending to be a victim of some oppression -- that's where your stories originate from.

> USSR controlled the information far more tightly

Not at the end. Also back then US had USAID

> Regarding your other point, no, 'Non-whites' are not really discriminated

I think you are not qualified to say that. Talk to more yakuts who live in the "center". I'm not basing my words on nothing.

> well. What you're referring to is the cargo-cult practice by some ppl who try to mimic modern Western political tactics

No I don't. This is based on real life data. you are sheltered from it. Good for you.

> Not at the end. Also back then US had USAID

1960s and 1970s are the end to you, really? USAID, really? You have already proven that you have a very remote understanding of Russia/USSR, please stop trying to bring this point even further.

> I think you are not qualified to say that.

I actually am.

> Talk to more yakuts who live in the "center".

By pure chance, I do have such contacts, they laugh at this decolonization crap. Also by chance, I knew Russians who lived in Yakutia in 1990s, and they did tell me stories of discrimination from the locals. Same as stories of discrimination of Russians in Kazakhstan, Baltic republics, etc -- both in soviet and post-soviet times.

> 1960s and 1970s are the end to you

USSR ended around 1989-90

> I actually am.

Citation needed

> By pure chance, I do have such contacts, they laugh at this decolonization crap.

What is "decolonization"? Tell us more.

Also I said discrimination against non white Russians. Actually I literally talked about this with Russian citizen who doesn't look fully Russian the other week, she was called черножопая a couple years ago interviewing for a job and for that reason didn't get it (this is not america so good luck complaining about it). So go ask your fellow yakuts, great you know multiple so you have a sample size more than 1, about racial unfairness they encountered living in the west of Russia? and come back here to tell us.

> Also by chance, I knew Russians who lived in Yakutia in 1990s, and they did tell me stories of discrimination from the locals.

I guess you should learn what Russians did there way before 1990s.

Keep pushing your agenda I am amused)

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