Putin bans VPNs in Russia from Nov 1
According to a statement from Russia's news agency RIA, Russia is introducing a new ban to its citizens, the plan is to prohibit the use of VPNs.
The reason? To make it impossible for people to view internet sites that have been banned by the government.
"[Putin does not] introduce any new restrictions and especially no censorship. My colleagues only included the restriction of access to information that is already forbidden by law or a court decision," said Leonid Levin, chairman of a parliamentary committee on information policy and communications.
In reality, however, as Amnesty International said in their statement, it's the "latest blow in an assault on online freedom."
What's a VPN?
A VPN or Virtual Private Network is a method that can be used to add security and privacy to both private and public networks such as Wifi and the Internet in general. VPNs are mainly used by companies to protect sensitive data, but it can also be used to disguise the source of internet traffic, which allows people like you and me view websites that are banned in our home countries. But not only, when you look at it logically, a VPN gives you a chance to actually have some privacy in the internet, meaning that websites you go to and such are not able to correctly track you.
In addition to other things, what Russia is actually doing is taking away your optional protection option against hackers when using a public WiFi hotspot. Some people would actually say that people who are not using a VPN in 2017 are simply dumb, especially if you're working remotely and need to access sensitive data and need to do it from an unsecured public wifi.
