What if you become the target of Russian censorship? The actual situation of cat-and-mouse between the VPN service and the government is revealed



In 2019, the Russian government succeeded in ``

experimenting to disconnect the domestic network from the Internet' ', and since it started invading Ukraine, it has blocked access to SNS and news services, regulating the Internet. We are increasing surveillance and restricting free access. The New York Times summarizes Proton 's fierce battle to circumvent such government censorship and provide free Internet access.




Inside the Face-Off Between Russia and a Small Internet Access Firm - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/technology/russia-internet-proton-vpn.html

In Russia, where restrictions on free Internet access are progressing, networks that are not affected by government blockades and censorship are built in the country, and systems that avoid censorship by applying highly confidential message apps are operated. There is a movement to regain the freedom of the Internet.

There is a movement to build a censorship avoidance network in Russia where Internet censorship is progressing - GIGAZINE



Based in Geneva, Switzerland, Proton offers free software that hides your identity and source online when you access the Internet. As a result, Russian users can bypass domestic access restrictions and open access by disguising themselves as logging in from the Netherlands, Japan, or the United States. In the weeks since Russia built the digital barricade in March 2022, the number of daily Proton users has increased from about 25,000 to about 850,000 in Russia alone.



However, such Proton boom will end at the end of March 2022 when the Russian government finds a way to block Proton. For nine months, a team of 25 engineers working at Proton was under pressure from the Russian government, repeatedly tweaking to avoid the block, all of which was countered by government censorship. After that, when Proton fixed it and continued the service, the Russian government took further censorship measures, and the so-called cat-and-mouse battle continued.

``The fight against digital censorship has reached an 'inflection point,''' said Grant Baker, a technical analyst at

Freedom House , an international NGO that works to protect freedom. Freedom House reports that global internet freedom has declined for the 12th year in a row, with internet censorship set to hit a new high in 2022.

Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen said: 'We want to raise awareness about how increasingly sophisticated government censorship in Russia and elsewhere is preventing citizens from reaching the open web. I'm thinking,' he said, showing his willingness to fight Internet censorship by the government. By June 2022, Proton was seen as a threat by Russian internet regulators, with Yen saying, 'We are gearing up for the long haul. Everyone wants this fight to have a happy ending.' but it's not guaranteed, in fact we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if we don't do it, no one else may act, so we keep going ' said.

Demand for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) , which encrypt Internet connections, is rapidly increasing in Russia, and the number of downloads in March 2022 is said to have increased by about 2.7% compared to the previous month. Since then, it seems that VPN has become a daily thing, such as needing to open VPN just to read news or post photos. According to Kenneth Roth, former executive director of the international human rights NGO Human Rights Watch , a quarter of the Russian population uses VPNs to circumvent censorship, hence the government's We see companies that offer VPNs as a threat.




Proton was also very popular as a VPN provider in such a society, but it was blocked by censorship for the first time at the end of March 2022. At this time, the engineer immediately restored the system, but he said, ``I thought a stronger censorship was imminent.'' According to Yen, networks of people within the government, telecommunications companies and civil society groups help Proton operate in Russia, provide access to local networks and how the censorship system works. It seems that they shared information about However, Yen says that those connections began to darken as the government crackdown tightened, becoming a composition like 'spy vs. spy'.

Then in June, Proton, which had more than 1.4 million daily users in Russia, abruptly shut down after another round of government censorship. Proton concluded that 'the Russian government has introduced more sophisticated filtering software that can identify when users attempt to connect to Proton's VPN service.' Due to this censorship, Proton was flooded with complaints from Russian users, and negative reviews in the app store surged to a suspicious level, and search rankings etc. dropped significantly.

“The Russian government was clearly studying us,” said Antonio Chesandro, an engineer working on the VPN project at Proton. About two weeks after being censored, Proton countered the block by creating another complex workaround that sent internet traffic to servers in different regions. That fix worked for six weeks before an even more sophisticated system of censorship created by Russian censors essentially rendered Proton's service unusable.

Despite working around the clock until August, the following month after being blocked again, Proton conceded defeat and removed the VPN-related app from Russia. However, even after that, Proton spent several months developing a new mechanism to make it difficult to identify the VPN service, successfully tested it in Iran, and reintroduced it in Russia, and the use of Proton's VPN is increasing again. .



“The reintroduction of VPN apps with the new system probably wasn’t a long-term solution either,” Yen said. We think we'll find new ways and the game will continue from here.'

In December 2022, Proton launched an encrypted cloud storage service, Proton Drive , in addition to VPN restrictions and encrypted internet connections. Proton Drive uses end-to-end encryption to ensure that shared files can be safely shared only with the intended party. It is consistent with Proton's mission to make it easy to use and freely available,' he says about the new initiative.

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