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Evgeny Kuznetsov wrote in IT society site metaFor quite some time now, my website — this one — has issues loading for those who browse it from Megafon1 networks. Most probably, it’s just a side-effect of the “black boxes”2 blocking Digital Ocean3.
I think I will do nothing about it. I could move to another hosting provider (and cut some costs), but fuck it, really. I will move this website to another hosting provider when I — personally — cease to be satisfied with Digital Ocean’s services. The Russian authorities being dissatisfied with these services is not a valid reason.
Naturally, the thought of influencing someone who doesn’t even bother to set up access to the blocked websites4 is flattering, but let me be a lazy realist for once. I’m not a propaganda outlet, not even for common sense propaganda.
And the lawlessness in Russia5 will end one day. Perhaps, it will end sooner that this blog will.
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Megafon is one of the Russian “big three” mobile providers. I, for one, have been a user of their services for over 20 years (and counting). ↩︎
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To legally operate an Internet provider in Russia, you need to install what is known as ТСПУ (Technical Measure for Countering Threats). It is basically a box that you connect three cables to: the one going to your uplink, the one going down to your network, and the third one going right to the State Security offices. It’s illegal to route any traffic circumventing this box, and no one without clearance knows for sure what exactly the box does to the traffic that is routed through it (we can infer and guess, of course). ↩︎
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All cloud service providers that serve Russian citizens are legally required to have an office in Russia, to cooperate with the Russian authorities, and to store any and all data concerning Russian citizens within the Russian borders. Digital Ocean, the cloud provider I use for several of my projects, including this website, apparently, does not qute abide (and, supposedly, doesn’t even have anything to do with Russia; how they manage to charge my account for the Russian VAT monthly is beyond my imagination, but they do). ↩︎
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A healthy percent of Russians systematically use a variety of measures (all sorts of VPNs, mostly) to access Facebook, Instagram, and other services the Russian authorities block. Still, a surprizinggly large number of people don’t. ↩︎
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The Russian Constitution explicitly forbids censorship and allows anyone to freely search for, access, create and disseminate information (article 29). The Russian Criminal Code explicitly describes punishment for usurping power and enforced changes to the Constitution (article 278). ↩︎