6 ms·

The only (probably) good thing here is that one can at least try to apply Russian experience at circumventing the censorship, where it's currently way more seve

The only (probably) good thing here is that one can at least try to apply Russian experience at circumventing the censorship, where it's currently way more severe, up to the point when entire companies have their workflows disrupted because remote workers can't connect through the VPN (which is blocked). Maybe that will help.

Andrew_nenakhov 3mo ago
You see, the problem is that all exit points of our VPNs are in Europe. These too can be banned quite easily. Where to will we run next, given that this cancer tends to spread?
- dryarzeg 3mo ago
  Change the protocols, I guess? Move to some kind of self-hosted or community-run infrastructure? Because to block all of that (EDIT: to block that reliably, I mean), you will have to block the entire EU network sector, and we're likely not in "V for Vendetta" or full-blown 1984 scenario for this to be possible.
  - malfist 3mo ago
    Literally, tor.
    - dryarzeg 3mo ago
      Which will get blocked and go down, like, in no time. That's literally what happened in Russia - Tor is mostly unusable, you can't even bootstrap properly without some "tricks", so to speak.
      - yurish 3mo ago
        Don't know, I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable. The only problem I see is how to get initial distribution since the tor site is blocked.
        dryarzeg 3mo ago
        Hmm... That's interesting. Maybe that depends on ISP, because my friends have told me they can't use Tor because they can't even bootstrap, even if they're using bridges.
        yurish 3mo ago
        I changed ISPs when moved from one city to another, no difference. Yes, there were several episodes when connecting required about half an hour of playing changing setting but eventually I could connect. Nowadays it seems that the government abandoned their efforts to block Tor traffic and mainly focused on blocking VPN and Telegram.
        dryarzeg 3mo ago
        Now that (abandoning the efforts to block Tor so now it mostly works) sounds like some good news to me! Can you please share your settings or what exactly you use that works for you? Perhaps they will help my friends, too, because previously, they relied on Tor to circumvent the "network blockade", but it just stopped working for them at some point. And yes, they tried to play with settings as well but it didn't really help. By the way, the level of ban enforcement can also vary from region to region regardless of ISPs (at least that's what I heard from some people), but anyway...
        yurish 3mo ago
        I use bridging. Not going to disclose the address, sorry. I had to try several bridges obtained via Tor itself and via telegram before one worked.
        dryarzeg 3mo ago
        Well, that makes some sense. My friends tried some bridges as well, but some of them didn't work from the beginning, while others got blocked (probably; the exact reason why they don't work anymore is unknown) later.
  - alexjameson 3mo ago
    Let me tell you how it has been in Russia during last 15 years. WE saw targeted blocks that apply after cease and desist letters. Later they learned to block outgoing OpenVPN and wireguard for everybody except firms who applied to a special registry. Then they learned to cut Vless and Trojan and blocked all sites behind freaking Cloudflare due to ECH v3.0 enforced. Here also go proxies (specifically for Telegram'm MTProto) and other stuff like Quic. The point is if they start — they can proceed way further than you can imagine now.
    - dryarzeg 3mo ago
      I know all of that. I'm a native Russian speaker and I have quite a lot of Russian friends, I'm pretty well aware of the situation. Nevertheless, despite all the government’s efforts and the enormous amount of money invested in this, there are still - at least for now - ways to bypass the blocks even there. I suspect that as long as they don’t physically cut the cables, there will always be ways to circumvent censorship. And yes, I’m not talking about carrier pigeons :) So I hope that in the UK and other European countries, by drawing on Russia’s existing experience, people will be able to adapt to these restrictions before they become too severe. Of course, the government could also adopt Russia’s approach right away, but that’s unlikely, as it would provoke far too much resistance from citizens - they aren’t used to that level of restriction. If Europe does indeed continue moving in this direction, everything will happen gradually, just as it did in Russia; no one will roast a frog with a flamethrower - they’ll cook it according to the classic recipe, so to speak.
      - alexjameson 3mo ago
        OK, got it. But it's important to remember that avoiding restrictions gets harder and harder every year. You have to juggle several protocols, have backup proxies, think about TLS nuances, keep in mind that you are being tracked after all. Lots of casual users just gave up. It's not like we find a solution and it just works — one has to adapt to new restrictive measures continuously. I just don't understand why some other people in such discussions still think that its only about children and weigh pro and cons when they have an actual example of all these things being implemented.
- CamperBob2 3mo ago
  Run to the Kremlin, with torches in your hands.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 3mo ago
    Yeah right, that worked out for Iranians quite well all these times.
    - bryan_w 3mo ago
      Isn't putin begging y'all to get in tanks for Ukraine? Just find a like minded group of recruits and turn the tanks around
      - CamperBob2 3mo ago
        They thought of that. The Chechens, who were previously trying to kill Russians for free, are now paid by the Russians to do it [1]. 1: https://torontosun.com/news/world/russian-execution-squads-hunting-demoralized-deserters-defectors https://torontosun.com/news/world/russian-execution-squads-h...
- oceanplexian 3mo ago
  One solution is that United States radically supports free speech and provides Starlink access to Europeans as a humanitarian act. It would be similar to Radio Free Europe which was broadcast to the former Soviet States.
  - dryarzeg 3mo ago
    > United States radically supports free speech Sounds like some kind of utopia to me, given the current circumstances /s
  - CamperBob2 3mo ago
    It would be more like WWII-era Deutsche Welle, given who runs Starlink. Sites offensive to the Minister of Mechapropaganda might find themselves filtered.
subscribed 3mo ago
You seriously think the government has a clear, honest reasons, as stated? Companies will be exempt (with remote employees having to identify linking their IP and computer's fingerprint with their real identity), and the next step, after using the law to silencing dissent, will be penalisation.
- dryarzeg 3mo ago
  > You seriously think the government has a clear, honest reasons, as stated? What made you think that I think so?
  - subscribed 3mo ago
    I inferred this from the attempt at looking at the positive outcomes of that.
    - dryarzeg 3mo ago
      Then I should assume that your "inference" ignores common sense, because nowhere in my comments was I praising some governments, either Russian or European, for their action. I merely pointed out that now, probably, some people from Europe may try to apply Russian experience at circumventing censorship, bans and "network blockades". That's a good thing in the context of this whole situation, because you don't have to figure everything out on your own, from the ground up - you already have some practical examples, researches, and, what's more important - allies. Maybe I'm dramatizing a bit here, but the way was already paved out - you just have to follow the path. Now could you, please, show to me where exactly was I saying something positive about governments? From my personal point of view and from my own experience, you have to look for positives if it's possible. The fact that you're still alive is already a positive, even if you're underground taking cover from bombshells and thinking that you may die tomorrow. If you're not looking for positive, you will loose your will to live and, eventually, you will die. Maybe that's making me look too optimistic, but for me that's literally the matter of survival. Sorry if my position was not clear from the beginning.

Andrew_nenakhov 3mo ago

You see, the problem is that all exit points of our VPNs are in Europe. These too can be banned quite easily. Where to will we run next, given that this cancer tends to spread?

dryarzeg 3mo ago
Change the protocols, I guess? Move to some kind of self-hosted or community-run infrastructure? Because to block all of that (EDIT: to block that reliably, I mean), you will have to block the entire EU network sector, and we're likely not in "V for Vendetta" or full-blown 1984 scenario for this to be possible.
- malfist 3mo ago
  Literally, tor.
  - dryarzeg 3mo ago
    Which will get blocked and go down, like, in no time. That's literally what happened in Russia - Tor is mostly unusable, you can't even bootstrap properly without some "tricks", so to speak.
    - yurish 3mo ago
      Don't know, I use tor every day in Russia. Without it Internet would be unusable. The only problem I see is how to get initial distribution since the tor site is blocked.
      - dryarzeg 3mo ago
        Hmm... That's interesting. Maybe that depends on ISP, because my friends have told me they can't use Tor because they can't even bootstrap, even if they're using bridges.
        yurish 3mo ago
        I changed ISPs when moved from one city to another, no difference. Yes, there were several episodes when connecting required about half an hour of playing changing setting but eventually I could connect. Nowadays it seems that the government abandoned their efforts to block Tor traffic and mainly focused on blocking VPN and Telegram.
        dryarzeg 3mo ago
        Now that (abandoning the efforts to block Tor so now it mostly works) sounds like some good news to me! Can you please share your settings or what exactly you use that works for you? Perhaps they will help my friends, too, because previously, they relied on Tor to circumvent the "network blockade", but it just stopped working for them at some point. And yes, they tried to play with settings as well but it didn't really help. By the way, the level of ban enforcement can also vary from region to region regardless of ISPs (at least that's what I heard from some people), but anyway...
        yurish 3mo ago
        I use bridging. Not going to disclose the address, sorry. I had to try several bridges obtained via Tor itself and via telegram before one worked.
        dryarzeg 3mo ago
        Well, that makes some sense. My friends tried some bridges as well, but some of them didn't work from the beginning, while others got blocked (probably; the exact reason why they don't work anymore is unknown) later.
- alexjameson 3mo ago
  Let me tell you how it has been in Russia during last 15 years. WE saw targeted blocks that apply after cease and desist letters. Later they learned to block outgoing OpenVPN and wireguard for everybody except firms who applied to a special registry. Then they learned to cut Vless and Trojan and blocked all sites behind freaking Cloudflare due to ECH v3.0 enforced. Here also go proxies (specifically for Telegram'm MTProto) and other stuff like Quic. The point is if they start — they can proceed way further than you can imagine now.
  - dryarzeg 3mo ago
    I know all of that. I'm a native Russian speaker and I have quite a lot of Russian friends, I'm pretty well aware of the situation. Nevertheless, despite all the government’s efforts and the enormous amount of money invested in this, there are still - at least for now - ways to bypass the blocks even there. I suspect that as long as they don’t physically cut the cables, there will always be ways to circumvent censorship. And yes, I’m not talking about carrier pigeons :) So I hope that in the UK and other European countries, by drawing on Russia’s existing experience, people will be able to adapt to these restrictions before they become too severe. Of course, the government could also adopt Russia’s approach right away, but that’s unlikely, as it would provoke far too much resistance from citizens - they aren’t used to that level of restriction. If Europe does indeed continue moving in this direction, everything will happen gradually, just as it did in Russia; no one will roast a frog with a flamethrower - they’ll cook it according to the classic recipe, so to speak.
    - alexjameson 3mo ago
      OK, got it. But it's important to remember that avoiding restrictions gets harder and harder every year. You have to juggle several protocols, have backup proxies, think about TLS nuances, keep in mind that you are being tracked after all. Lots of casual users just gave up. It's not like we find a solution and it just works — one has to adapt to new restrictive measures continuously. I just don't understand why some other people in such discussions still think that its only about children and weigh pro and cons when they have an actual example of all these things being implemented.
CamperBob2 3mo ago
Run to the Kremlin, with torches in your hands.
- Andrew_nenakhov 3mo ago
  Yeah right, that worked out for Iranians quite well all these times.
  - bryan_w 3mo ago
    Isn't putin begging y'all to get in tanks for Ukraine? Just find a like minded group of recruits and turn the tanks around
    - CamperBob2 3mo ago
      They thought of that. The Chechens, who were previously trying to kill Russians for free, are now paid by the Russians to do it [1]. 1: https://torontosun.com/news/world/russian-execution-squads-hunting-demoralized-deserters-defectors https://torontosun.com/news/world/russian-execution-squads-h...
oceanplexian 3mo ago
One solution is that United States radically supports free speech and provides Starlink access to Europeans as a humanitarian act. It would be similar to Radio Free Europe which was broadcast to the former Soviet States.
- dryarzeg 3mo ago
  > United States radically supports free speech Sounds like some kind of utopia to me, given the current circumstances /s
- CamperBob2 3mo ago
  It would be more like WWII-era Deutsche Welle, given who runs Starlink. Sites offensive to the Minister of Mechapropaganda might find themselves filtered.

subscribed 3mo ago

You seriously think the government has a clear, honest reasons, as stated? Companies will be exempt (with remote employees having to identify linking their IP and computer's fingerprint with their real identity), and the next step, after using the law to silencing dissent, will be penalisation.

dryarzeg 3mo ago
> You seriously think the government has a clear, honest reasons, as stated? What made you think that I think so?
- subscribed 3mo ago
  I inferred this from the attempt at looking at the positive outcomes of that.
  - dryarzeg 3mo ago
    Then I should assume that your "inference" ignores common sense, because nowhere in my comments was I praising some governments, either Russian or European, for their action. I merely pointed out that now, probably, some people from Europe may try to apply Russian experience at circumventing censorship, bans and "network blockades". That's a good thing in the context of this whole situation, because you don't have to figure everything out on your own, from the ground up - you already have some practical examples, researches, and, what's more important - allies. Maybe I'm dramatizing a bit here, but the way was already paved out - you just have to follow the path. Now could you, please, show to me where exactly was I saying something positive about governments? From my personal point of view and from my own experience, you have to look for positives if it's possible. The fact that you're still alive is already a positive, even if you're underground taking cover from bombshells and thinking that you may die tomorrow. If you're not looking for positive, you will loose your will to live and, eventually, you will die. Maybe that's making me look too optimistic, but for me that's literally the matter of survival. Sorry if my position was not clear from the beginning.