Column by Yuri Litvinenko about the risks of banning information about bypassing blocking

Roskomnadzor has not yet started blocking pages about ways to bypass the Internet restrictions it has set, as the Ministry of Digital Development proposed in early September, but the market is already preparing for new regulation. Thus, by the beginning of the week, articles describing setting up access to the Internet through the popular VPN providers Surfshark and Xeovo disappeared from the help section of the website of router manufacturer Keenetic.

These help sections, according to surviving copies, consisted of technical instructions and did not explicitly describe that the settings would help bypass Roskomnadzor blocks. The links are still available on Google, but when you try to visit their site, it asks for your Keenetic account information and then denies access. The company told Kommersant that the materials are closed “for editing and processing because their content is no longer applicable and relevant.” This is not typical for Keenetic – the manufacturer usually saves even articles related to old equipment.

Considering that users from Russia previously complained about problems with the operation of VPN services Surfshark and Xeovo, it cannot be ruled out that the articles will indeed simply be edited – at least in part of the listed services. But there is also a chance that the Ministry of Digital Development’s proposal will take the form of a law, and the router manufacturer does not want to take risks. In this case, a rather sad picture emerges: administrators of sites and forums on technical topics, for example, Habr, fearing blocking of the entire site, can play it safe and prohibit any discussion of VPN (a completely legitimate technology, by the way, originally intended for creating corporate networks) or other block bypass technologies.

By the way, Roskomnadzor is not always behind the latter. Many product and service providers themselves block any connections from Russian clients (see Kommersant, July 21) – be it a system administrator who needs to receive software updates blocked in Russia, or a gamer trying to restore access to online games. They are the main readers of technical instructions, such as those that were removed from the Keenetic website. But will their intentions be taken into account by Roskomnadzor employees, who need to identify as many banned pages as possible, and by the owners of Russian websites trying to protect themselves from officials?

Meanwhile, clearing the Internet of descriptions of ways to bypass blocking is unlikely to seriously affect the circulation of information among ordinary people. Many Russians are already well aware that a VPN – no matter what or how it is configured – will help bypass the blocking, and then the first link from the search in the application store will be enough.