Russia bans VPN services

Russia passed an amendment to the federal law ‘On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection’. The law, which will come into force on 1 November 2017, will prohibit virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy services which let users access banned websites. This will affect anonymization tools like Tor, I2P, Freenet etc. Internet providers will have to block websites hosting these tools. The amendment is primarily targeted on extremism content but may have a negative impact on freedom of expression in Russia.