That is, it is quite possible that we will see protocol blocking soon, but it is also quite possible that we will never see it happen or will not see it for several months. Blocking private servers can be achieved through protocol blocking, but right now the technology is only being tested on individual TSPUs, and we do not know the results of these tests yet. There is no evidence that private servers are being blocked, only public servers, while protocol blocking remains in the testing stage. Meanwhile, IP addresses and domains are blocked on all TSPUs.Īuxiliary domains are being blocked, as is the case with a ProtonVPN domain used to allocate server IP addresses to clients. What are the Russian authorities doing now: are they blocking hosts or services individually, or attempting something more ambitious?Ĭurrently, IP addresses and the domains of some VPN services are blocked, while more sophisticated attempts at TSPU blocking are being tested in some regions. These devices perform deep packet inspection and can slow down or completely block user traffic. ‘technical means of countering threats’) are Roskomnadzor devices that Russian internet providers are required by law to install at their facilities in order to allow for user traffic control. The observer cannot read the contents of the packets, but can deduce which website the user is contacting and the data exchange protocol. Since information is transmitted over the internet in short blocks of data called packets, there are methods to analyse their content, even if it is securely encrypted. Thanks to this, VPNs are widely used to bypass censorship restrictions: if you establish a direct connection to an internet access point located in another country, the provider will not know the sites you visit, and therefore will not be able to block access.ĭPI (deep packet inspection) is a technology to analyse user traffic. The VPN connection itself is encrypted, so only encrypted traffic is visible to the ISP.

This can be used, for example, to create a single space for branches of one company.

The technology itself allows to connect computers via the internet into a ‘private’ network, as if they were connected directly, even if they are far away from each other.

After the war in Ukraine started, Roskomnadzor blocked dozens of media pushing the audience of VPNs into tens of millions in Russia. VPN (virtual private networks) have become popular in Russia over the past couple of years due to intensified online censorship campaign.

Protonvpn access blocked content