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Ukraine implementing censorship of Russian websites
Just got from one of our UA ISPs that the decree 133/2017 will be effective now/shortly, which blocks a bunch of Russia based websites - mostly VKontakte, mail.ru and Kaspersky.
We'll see what is added in the future, from the website this seems due to Crimean annexation and support of the war in East Ukraine/West Russia.
Шановний замовник! Інформуємо Вас, що згідно виконання Указу Президента України 133/2017 від 15.05.2017 http://www.president.gov.ua/documents/1332017-21850 про введення в дію рішення РНБО від 28 квітня 2017 року "Про застосування персональних спеціальних економічних та інших обмежувальних заходів (санкцій)", можливе блокування доступу до інтернет-ресурсів vk.com, ok.ru, mail.ru, yandex.ru, yandex.ua, drweb.ru, kaspersky.ru та ін. (згідно Додатку 2 до Рішення) з боку аплінка. Приносимо свої вибачення за незручності. Вы получили данное письмо, поскольку адрес x является контактным для услуги компании Колокол: - колокейшин (x)
Comments
Discussed before
Not yet in effect for VK:
Yandex is on Giganet exchange in UA, not censored yet either:
VK resolves on ISP DNS as well:
All tested from BGP and direct by ISP IPs.
I hope all RU sites are blocked too for the support of war in Syria
Where? No ISP in UA implements this yet, and this is one of the largest DCs.
I would rather go to Contabo which hosts the Syrian gov ISP in DE.
and the USA ? Franch , DE, Romanian , etc etc ? this is more complicated to judge....
I don't want to generate more drama but its obvious who is supporting Assad with chemical weapons and air/navel support.
he is still around because of Russian support and its clearly obvious too that the Russians have killed the Syrians dream of freedom.
It was deleted as it got political quickly...
This already become so let's see what happens ;-).
Congratulations, you are officially on the BuzzFeed level now.
Hey, hey. I've got a number of Russian domains.
Enjoy these are pictures of terrorists being bombed by Russia and Assad.
Edited by @trewq: Removed very inappropriate images.
Had to dump the thread, unfortunately.
I understand that relations between the two respective nations are heated. If people want to discuss politics, it's most likely suited for the cesspit.
That said, Ukraine blocking Russian websites does somewhat intersect the interests of the forum whilst being political, so... we'll see how this goes.
Naivety is cute if you're under 10 yo, otherwise it's really ugly.
If you fail to see the irony in deleting a thread about a country censoring another...
But yea, that turned Syria quickly, despite absolutely zero relation... how unexpected actually, expected more Russia STRONK Crimea РОССИИ sentiment, weird.
Also, in basic - this affects me right in the moment it is implemented and my customers in UA as well, not just general thread.
What has that got to do with me?
Yeap, I can fully appreciate the hypocrisy, but as you can see... things get off-topic fairly quickly - That's the real concern. It's not in my intention to censor, although it can be perceived that way.
Ah, give it a few hours. You know how these things go.
Precisely why I want this thread to be open.
I've just banned @MacPac. Posting pictures of deceased people, especially children, will not be tolerated.
We have not many Russians, and they tend to be not very nationalistic, might be the cause that it is less prevalent. Not many Ukrainians either.
Sent ticket now in when this comes precisely in effect - Weird also: like many in UA this ISP has only a Russian website, however the email is Ukrainian except the signature (Russian again), which is probably as it would be just weird to get that mail in Russian...
I'd be interested to see how it'll be implemented - Is it directed for eyeball ISPs to block clients (DNS blocking or similar)? Or will all ISPs be forced to drop AS47542 connectivity?
I heard that this block is already in place with many residential ISPs, though.
I didn't really expect them to push it that hard with banning it on all Ukrainian AS.
I wonder how they block it? Just dropped VK and others from DNS or drop all routes to VK AS? I doubt that UA can do some sophisticated and fancy DPI magic like China
As it is not just a single AS (Kaspersky is not on VK) i suspect single IP bans - DNS censorship is unlikely as no one uses his ISPs DNS anyway (so need DNS interception and so on...).
After that i am more worried what happens to:
The mail.ru block is interesting, as mail.ru is very popular in UA - VK also but that is not THAT critical as your personal and maybe only email is...
Kaspersky block might block virus scanner signature updates - if implemented consequently they have to do that, which has other issues obviously...
There is not really a major transit provider in UA, sure, you have Ukrtelecom but you are not limited to them in pretty much any DC, Retn has things in nearly any larger city from Kiev to Odessa.
Ukraine is nice for that - everyone has a looking glass
IT Systems still has a route, they are mixed residential/business/DC:
They have a direct peering in Kiev, then backhaul by Yandex to MSK:
Topnet (mostly residential) seems to not have any routes from UA pops, but not from Moscow or Frankfurt either so i suspect the LG is merely broken - http://lg.topnet.ua/lg/
The Russian language is not banned in Ukraine -- so it's not surprising that both languages are used interchangeably. Although Russian news likes to promote everything is due to issues against Russian speakers -- the fact is that over half of Ukraine speaks Russian as their primary language. Cities like Dnepro, Kharkiv, Zaparoja, which are very patriotic to Ukraine, use Russian as their primary language... Heck, even the primary language in the Ukrainian army is Russian!
I lived in Crimea for 10 years, and left after the annexation... Ukrainian (other than in school and television) was hardly used at all... It was simply Russian...
The big question is what will happen to citizens in Crimea? Are they going to be affected -- it's still part of Ukraine, but under Russian control...
I bet your information is outdated by now.
Crimean users should not get routed through Ukrainian carriers anymore. Maybe some still do on small ISPs, so yes, those might be affected. But only for a few hours, as those ISPs will turn off all remaining Ukrainian transit faster than you could say "referendum".
Obviously not, however this ISP solely uses Russian. For everything. Never Ukrainian. Always, since always. Based in Kiev, not East.
This is extremely weird to use Ukrainian now and then have even the signature and all automatic added links in Russian... political for sure.
Russia already built a mobile network and from what i know also landline access, so no, unlikely to be affected at all.
As the tartars cut power lines all fiber is likely either cut or shut down from UA side also.
EDIT:
Yep, much over RU now, with some having still UA backup links listed.
https://bgpview.io/asn/201776#peers-v4 <- Rostelecom local company in Crimea
https://bgpview.io/asn/48004#peers-v4 <- Random ISP having both
This one changed already pretty much to solely RU, including geo and address:
https://bgpview.io/asn/42896#info
However, still with Dataline upstream from UA:
https://bgpview.io/asn/42896#upstreams-v4
I am curious as well.
I know that people can't be effectively restricted. Manipulatively guided - yes, explicitly barred - no.
Anyhow, restrictions have consequences.
Side note: In some parts of Ukraine you can attach a directional antenna to a GSM modem and use Russian internet.
Decree No. 133/2017 doesn't specify anything technical - and I don't think the relevant ministry(-ies) have told any ISP how to do it. And that's very appropriate, too. Modern governments don't micromanage spheres in which they don't specialize.
Ukraine doesn't really care about ordinary hobbyists circumventing the block. And I doubt the intention is to block information either, as Russian-leaning professionals and amateurs will infiltrate UA internet anyways. It's about making Russian-owned services (e.g., VKontakte, yandex) less convenient for the general population to use.
Thing is, there's literally no "UA internet" to speak of. They don't have any popular social networks, forums, even mail services of any significance of their own. Everyone in the Ukraine just used those Russian ones.
4 out of the top 10 most visited sites are those which are now banned. If you don't count technicalities such as Google, Wikipedia and Privatbank (banking), that's more than half of what the average UA user needs on the internet.
https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?start=2017-02-18&end=2017-05-19&country=ua&events=on
Almost 100 thousand new Tor users in the Ukraine overnight. (to the recently discussed topic of "what Tor is most used for")