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Russia has blocked access to GitHub after finding a text file in a repository entitled 'suicide.txt'. Surely this is pretext for Russia's continuing move towards isolation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692584
Techcrunch has Russia Blacklists, Blocks GitHub Over Pages That Refer To Suicide
Developers in Russia are putting up their feet today — that is, after they have finished stomping around in frustration for a little while. It’s emerged that Russia’s regulator RosComNadzor has blocked GitHub after the popular software and coding collaboration platform was found to be hosting content related to suicide — specifically, see this file that details 32 ways to kill yourself.
The “block” effectively amounts to an order to ISPs to restrict access to the site. And because GitHub works on HTTPS, providers can only comply by restricting access to the entire site, rather than individual pages. According to Russian blog Meduza, several leading ISPs have already complied with the order, including Beeline, MTS, MGTS and Megafon.
The block reignites the debate over how Russia’s government decides what is and what is not appropriate Internet content for people in Russia. The country’s firewall, when it was originally raised in 2012, was controversial not only because of concerns that it would be used against freedom of speech (especially in cases when that speech was critical of the state), but also because it was deemed to be too heavy-handed in how it would get implemented.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05 2014, @12:07AM
I can access github just fine.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05 2014, @12:23AM
Maybe now. But an overseas co-worker couldn't develop yesterday because of it. Tell my boss that its bullshit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Geotti on Friday December 05 2014, @12:40AM
Tell your boss, he's an idiot for not investing 15 minutes of your admin to set up a VPN.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Friday December 05 2014, @01:03AM
Tell your boss, he's an idiot for not investing 15 minutes of your admin to set up a VPN.
Maybe they don't allow that either?
Lots of those devs don't have bosses.
I suspect the powers that be will soon be made to realize that the value of projects on GitHub are of more use to the country
than "protecting" people from a stupid bit of text that probably nobody was looking at anyway.
I suppose project members could set up an in-house GitHub and sync that via some vpn or ssh connection.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05 2014, @01:27AM
I just spent 7 months in Russia working remotely for an American company. No issues at all.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday December 05 2014, @05:51PM
Maybe they don't allow that either?
Who, the company? I hope that you don't seriously believe that VPNs are (or can be) blanket blocked in Russia, because if you do, you're wrong.
Lots of those devs don't have bosses.
This one -apparently- has one ;)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday December 05 2014, @07:18PM
Who, the company?
No the authorities.
I hope that you don't seriously believe that VPNs are (or can be) blanket blocked in Russia, because if you do, you're wrong.
Is Russia so hopelessly behind the times that they can't manage to block VPNs? [wikipedia.org] Maybe they can get some help from the Chinese or Iranians. They have the process down pat.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday December 06 2014, @04:24PM
From your own Wikipedia link:
as the Chinese government began using deep packet inspection to identify VPN protocols, Golden Frog began scrambling OpenVPN packet metadata for its popular VyprVPN service in an attempt to avoid detection.
(Here's the product page, btw: http://www.goldenfrog.com/vyprvpn/chameleon [goldenfrog.com] .)
Also, you can use steganographic tunnels (also linked to from your link), and here's some more practical advice (that beats DPI used by golden shield):
http://www.greycoder.com/how-hide-vpn-connections/ [greycoder.com]
Also, well, just use an SSH tunnel.
To answer your question, Frojack, apparently it is you, who's hopelessly behind.
One can't reliably block VPNs short of unplugging the net or switching to a carefully vetted whitelist, same as one can't reliably use copy-protection mechanisms for music/software/etc, just that in this case, governments have to beat the encryption and not the users.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05 2014, @04:12AM
It takes far, far more than 15 minutes to set up a VPN that is not a security screen door. Depending on the overall system, it may be impossible to do properly. Look outside your locally-centered worldview and see the implications of actions, not just the solutions they may bring.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday December 05 2014, @05:48PM
And it takes far, far less than 15 minutes to set up an account on an already existing VPN, which they should have, if they have remote people. Thats 1st. Second, this should have been primarily a tunnel. Third, if you need "far, far more than 15 minutes to set up a VPN" properly, get another job.
(Score: 1) by radu on Friday December 05 2014, @09:17AM
FTFY