Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram • Hacker News Board

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#191

Post by learningto » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

konart wrote: post #69

Beltiras wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to take those people a hot 15 seconds to find another provider and switch.

Not only Telegram still working here, but it was a great experience yesterday. Imagine the following: a manager in a supermarket explaining how to setup a proxy to a customer so that she (a woman in her 60s) could use their bot again. Or a woman with a kid who is asking what the are going to do: "It's okay, we'll ask dad and he's going to do proxy-something". Cyberpunk is now.

Similar things long going on in Crimea for the same reasons established by the other side (whatsapp and viber are blocked by whatsapp and viber owners correspondingly). When I was there, everyone seemed to have a vpn on their phones and getting it installed was none of a problem. Smarter people are better!

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#192

Post by lostmsu » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

MrDisposable wrote: post #162

Russian here. Good job Roskomnadzor. You just taught quite a few people to use VPN -- including me. And, as a side benefit, you created another image problem for Putin's regime (as if he needed any more of that). I already had Bitlocker on all my PCs, 2FA everywhere, moved from Gmail to Fastmail, and VPN was one of the last privacy-related things I procrastinated on. Now I have VPN on all my desktops and on my phone,…

Here's the thing: there should be rioting. But there isn't.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#193

Post by y_molodtsov » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:31 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #155

Keloo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually Russia don't play that smart. Wondering how would they replace those services.

It would actually seem like an ideal way to force the adoption of native cloud service replacements (regardless of quality or competitiveness of the offering). Russia has tended to go that way with most things, whether Mail.ru, VK or Yandex. Russia has a very long history of being insular like that and the powers that have dominated Russia the last century have a vested interest in keeping it that way.

I wouldn't say the Russian government cares a lot about its main players, like Chinese do. Actually, they've spent millions building Sputnik — a government owned search engine that nobody used.

If they were just being protectionist, I'd be able to understand them in some way. But it's deeper.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#194

Post by y_molodtsov » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

nstart wrote: post #178

craigds wrote: post #26

Why block Telegram and not .. all the others? Whatsapp, Signal, Viber, ... Are they objecting to the use of encryption? Because everyone uses encryption almost all the time for everything everywhere. The cat has been well and truly released from that bag. Are they just going to turn off the internet altogether?

So much misinformation in the replies here. Russians do make up a huge list of telegrams overall userbase. But most importantly, whatsapp and viber are end to end encrypted. Whatsapp uses signal. Viber uses a signal inspired encryption format. The common ground between both is that every single message is encrypted using a different secret key that is deleted after the message is received and decrypted on the device.…

Just wanted to note that Telegram still supports E2EE in their secret chats. It's just less convenient.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#195

Post by lostmsu » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

Here's what the article should be: Russia bans lots of AWS and GCP IPs to see no riot.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#196

Post by banana_giraffe » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

Interesting to see which regions they're blocking, and how much they're blocking in each region. For IPv4 addresses only:

    Region          Desc                        IPs       Blocked   % Blocked
    ap-northeast-1  Asia Pacific (Tokyo)         1984800    786451     39.62%
    ap-northeast-2  Asia Pacific (Seoul)          459024    131073     28.55%
    ap-northeast-3  Asia Pacific (Osaka-Local)     65808         0      0.00%
    ap-south-1      Asia Pacific (Mumbai)         524560     65542     12.49%
    ap-southeast-1  Asia Pacific (Singapore)     1067552    425990     39.90%
    ap-southeast-2  Asia Pacific (Sydney)        1147168    163852     14.28%
    ca-central-1    Canada (Central)              196880         3      0.00%
    cn-north-1      China (Beijing)               231456         0      0.00%
    cn-northwest-1  China (Ningxia)               100368         0      0.00%
    eu-central-1    EU (Frankfurt)               1049888    787013     74.96%
    eu-north-1      EU (North tba)                 65808         0      0.00%
    eu-west-1       EU (Ireland)                 3757344   1966319     52.33%
    eu-west-2       EU (London)                   393488    131087     33.31%
    eu-west-3       EU (Paris)                    131344         1      0.00%
    sa-east-1       South America (Sao Paulo)     491808     65536     13.33%
    us-east-1       US East (N. Virginia)       10317600   4260203     41.29%
    us-east-2       US East (Ohio)               1179920    131079     11.11%
    us-gov-east-1   AWS GovCloud (US, East)        65552         0      0.00%
    us-gov-west-1   AWS GovCloud (US)             131088     32768     25.00%
    us-west-1       US West (N. California)      1311536    196642     14.99%
    us-west-2       US West (Oregon)             4917552   1769549     35.98%
                    Total                       29590544  10913108     36.88%

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#197

Post by y_molodtsov » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #37

craigds wrote: post #26

Why block Telegram and not .. all the others? Whatsapp, Signal, Viber, ... Are they objecting to the use of encryption? Because everyone uses encryption almost all the time for everything everywhere. The cat has been well and truly released from that bag. Are they just going to turn off the internet altogether?

Because the Russian government can read all non-E2EE conversations (so 99% of them) on Telegram and is hoping to drive adoption overseas with this PR stunt. None of the other messengers you mentioned are designed to work like this (not 100% sure about Viber), the ability of operators to read most of the conversations on the platform is very much unique to Telegram. It's really not a coincidence that the Russian gover…

Do you have any proof?

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#198

Post by y_molodtsov » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

konart wrote: post #77

p2t2p wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally! As a Russian who immigrated recently I’m endlessly tired of Russia this, Russia that. There is no Russia. There is Putin and Putin only.

Putin is just a face of FSB. You or they can remove him any time - nothing will change simply because of this.

It definitely change, although I can't say to which direction. He makes the system legitimate, so any successor would have either to be more open and earn some political trust in a normal process or just close the country even more (deploy martial laws, etc.)

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#199

Post by y_molodtsov » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

StreamBright wrote: post #90

pmlnr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not much. We need mesh networks across every device - routers, smartphones, long distance repeaters, etc - ASAP to avoid it.

Until you create a true point to point channel between households without any corporate or government equipment, this is just a dream. Many people are mistaken about the internet, they think it cannot be easily filtered but this is not true at all. Every country has few major telcos that own the equipment where 100% of the internet traffic flows through. This is why banning IP ranges is super easy for them.

Until SpaceX launches its low-orbital fleet of internet satellites... That would be fun to watch.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#200

Post by drdaeman » Tue, Apr 17, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #195

Here's what the article should be: Russia bans lots of AWS and GCP IPs to see no riot.

It's rather "Russia bans lots of AWS and GCP IPs just because they can." There is no chance of riot happening.

A power play - sure. It's not the first (and surely not the last, unless something unthinkable happens) time our Tsar and his boyars introduce "countermeasures" against "foreign agents" that barely affect anyone abroad, but are essentially showing the world what kind of enforced restrictions Russian serfdom can tolerate for "national security" reasons - if any reasons at all.

When the Soviets had dissolved, Russia had its internal power struggles and was late to this game - but as we've entered this era of stabilnost' (cf. Harmonious Society) we're catching up fast.