back to article BBC points Russians to the Tor version of itself

Russia has reportedly blocked access to Western media outlets including the BBC to netizens within its borders, as suspicions rise that the country has begun implementing a "splinternet" plan to seal itself off from the wider internet. This morning the British state broadcaster declared it had been blocked from inside Russia, …

  1. Bitsminer Silver badge

    They should also publish on I2P

    There is more than just Tor out there.

    And I2P has a name-translation service to the base64 website name, from human-friendly.

    geti2p.net

    I2P buries actual traffic inside a varying set of encrypted and random background streams. So it's not for folk with bandwidth-capped mobiles.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: They should also publish on I2P

      No Thanks.

  2. Snake Silver badge

    Ironic

    Ironic, eh? The world was split on the question as to whether or not to de-domain Russia, yet here they are doing (some) of it to themselves. At their [governmental] convenience, of course.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ironic

      They are doing it, because as I have said elsewhere, the internet is rapidly becoming the only route for Russians to know what is going on or do anything about it. I am seriously in two minds about cutting things off our side.

      This shit only ends with Putin's mangled corpse dangling from a rope for treason.

      Or perhaps a sufficiently disgruntled Russian general putting a pistol through the brain of their criminal mastermind.

      NATO continue to be terrified of escalating the situation - perhaps deservedly so. But I can't help but think taking the no fly zone option puts Putin on the back foot for the first time in this conflict and forces him to have to make the hard decision about escalation.

      1. Roger Greenwood

        Re: Ironic

        " sufficiently disgruntled Russian general .."

        He is going to have to be a crack shot, have you seen the size of that table?

      2. bpfh

        Re: Ironic

        No fly zone = Nato has entered the conflict. A direct shooting war with a country that can hold the world hostage with 7500 nuclear warheads, and a country whose military doctrine not only not have a "no first use" policy, but calls for tactical nukes if required.

        MAD stops working if one side thinks a nuclear war is winnable.

        I'm guessing that Putin's bunkers are know.´ about and have half a dozen big bombs ready to excavate them, but that will only happen after Russian uses as they have alluded to have deployed a "dead hand" system to automate retaliation...

        And I think to myself.... What a wonderful world....

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Ironic

          “MAD stops working if one side thinks a nuclear war is winnable.”

          Mad stops working if one side becomes irrational. Such irrationality may not care if a nuclear war is winnable or not.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Ironic

            If Putin is backed into a corner where he can't save face, acting irrationally is the only logical choice.

            1. Cederic Silver badge

              Re: Ironic

              Not to mention he allegedly has cancer, sufficient to cause enough pain that he's losing control.

              Maybe he'll want to go out with a bang.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ironic

          There is reasonably credible evidence to Putin having advanced Bowel Cancer; and as such as an old guard Soviet might want to provoke such a conflict because he is dead anyway.

          As above, the only peaceable way out of this shitheap is a Russian General with access to do the right thing.

          A mass uprising is another option, 1700 arrests a day and rising, apparently, amongst protestors. Real numbers +- something from that. What's he gonna do if the whole of Russia walks out on strike. Order them all shot?

          He is quite literally, more Soviet than the Soviet Union was. And needs removing accordingly.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Modern" governments, please take note as to why Tor, anonymity and E2E are "good".

    So next time you deploy that "save the children" bullshite, just remember how fscky a nation can turn over night. Us civilians have to protect ourselves from you when you turn.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Depends whether the "Modern" governments are more worried about being in the position of Russia or Ukraine.

      1. Snake Silver badge

        Re: governments

        "Depends whether the "Modern" governments are more worried about being in the position of Russia or Ukraine."

        DING DING DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!

        Governments around the world are worried about being the former; needing to control the debate is always high on our "elected officials" daily agendas.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Big Brother

      encryption and anonymization are necessary to ensure that people remain free, particularly free of draconian surveillance and "fishing expeditions", or worse, "social credit scores" and political cancel culture. And, "modern" gummints can be JUST AS EVIL as "old school" or communist ones, In My Bombastic Opinion.

      Canadian Truckers, do you know what I mean?

      1. Graham Cobb Silver badge

        It is amazing what Putin can do. I think this is the first time I have ever upvoted one of Bob's posts.

        I am glad that those of us who disagree very fundamentally on several issues can at least agree on the need for freedom.

        1. Martin-73 Silver badge

          I was with him till the (totally not) canadian truckers thing.

      2. Golgafrinch

        The twat-O-tron redux, I guess

        @poptastic bob a.k.a spEak You’re bRanes:

        I was close to giving you an upvote, in spite of your use of "cancel culture" - if that existed why would Turdspurt Carlson be given airtime? - but your "Canajun truckers" mention blew it. Any idea what kind of fecking idjits with no two brain cells to rub together they are?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The twat-O-tron redux, I guess

          Agreed completely. Those yo-yo's were trying to compare themselves to the likes of Ghandi and their plight as being comparable to the millions KILLED in Europe in WWII. They're just a bunch of chip-on-the-shoulder spoiled children who have no idea what their "rights" really are in Canada, as evinced by one of their leaders being held without bail after spouting American Republican nonsense in a Canadian court room. *LOL*

        2. Cederic Silver badge

          Re: The twat-O-tron redux, I guess

          To recap: People violently rioted, and the Canadian Prime Minister went on one knee in obeisance to them.

          Different people held a peaceful protest, fed the homeless, cleared up their own trash and didn't cause any violence, didn't burn any buildings, didn't loot any stores, and the Canadian Prime Minister had them violently assaulted by masked thugs and froze their bank accounts.

          There's a lesson here, and Bob's trying to teach you it.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The twat-O-tron redux, I guess

            Gee, that right-wing kool-aid must be EXTRA powerful today... :(

          2. bombastic bob Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: The twat-O-tron redux, I guess

            here i was thinking of something snarky to add, but I'll say 'thanks' instead

          3. Golgafrinch

            Re: The twat-O-tron redux, I guess

            The only lesson I learned from Poptastic Bomb is that morons have a predilection for UPPERCASE.

            This being said:

            1) residents of Ottawa - not the easiest city to live in - hardly appreciated some overzealous out-of-towner truckwits making their lives even more difficult

            2) the Canadian economy, trying to recover from the the consequences of Sars-Cov-2, does not need supply chains to be disrupted by subliterate zealots blocking cross-border traffic

            3) some people appear to have suffered from a massive overdose of talk-radio (not to mention some ridiculous cable channels)

            4) P.B. does like to comment on all and sundry - i.e. Jack of all trades, master of none

            5) From your own comment history I surmise that you don't know dick about Canada (as your obsession with IR35 and the NHS would suggest). I guess you spent some time on holiday there, no more, no less; or maybe you're a sockpuppet of Letitia Montana, the hysterical Toronto tart.

            All of which reminds me of Michael Moore, decades ago, walking around the streets asking people "If you had to choose between freedom and liberty, which would you pick?"

          4. derp1

            Re: The twat-O-tron redux, I guess

            > Different people held a peaceful protest

            I will go block your driveway and prevent you to go work and grocery shopping with your car for 3 weeks.

            I am peaceful.

            P.S : blocking roads is illegal, always been. But I disagree about freezing the bank account part, canadian police can very well break a protest (see g7 summit in montebello and g20 summit in toronto)

    3. Oh Matron!

      I think pretti patel downvoted you.

  4. TimMaher Silver badge
    Meh

    .ru

    My reverse proxy recorded an inbound from a supposed bank with a .ru tld, yesterday.

    Don’t know if it was fake or even relevant. Whois was vague, as usual, and I didn’t go to the target to find out.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The nuke power station attack was not accidental

    Do you imagine that the missile attack on the largest nuclear power station in Europe, near the western border in Ukraine was somehow accidental?

    Putin hoped to explode the reactor and spread its contents across Europe. The wind was heading towards Romania, Poland, Germany and Netherlands. NATO would do nothing, clearly, and he would establish that he can attack Europe with 'near'-nuclear weapons without any response from NATO.

    I think the only thing that stopped him was that high pressure zone over Russia, the wind started to cycled down and back towards Russia. The wind stopped him, at least for now, it certainly wasn't NATO.

    So now he has the staff at that plant at gun point, and we're waiting for the wind to turn again before he blows it up again.

    NATO, where are you? In a meeting? Making some Powerpoint slides? Where? When Germany is getting plutonium rain, what is the excuse for inaction then?

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      You think Russian command and control is that effective at this point?

    2. Chris Gray 1

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      Did you read the article here on El Reg indicating that the fire has been put out, the plant folks had plenty of warning, there never was any serious issue, and there has been no release of radiation? The Russians probably want to shut the plant down to cause problems for Ukraine (apparantly it supplies 1/4 of their power). The simplest way to do that is to cause enough fuss that the Ukraine authorities shut it down themselves.

      1. Snake Silver badge

        Re: "shut down"

        Your forget that you don't just "shut down" a nuclear reactor, it takes at least 3 days to moderate to a temperature where the loss of control or coolant doesn't lead to a criticality crisis. And that's at full pump flow; if the coolant system isn't 100% operational it will take even longer.

        The Russians took a HUGE risk in attacking an active nuclear reactor.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Joke

          Re: "shut down"

          Everything's ok. I looked it up on Google Maps and when I hovered over the icon it said "Closed. Opens 7am Monday".

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "shut down"

            The war is over till Monday. I like your optimism.

            1. The commentard formerly known as Mister_C
              Trollface

              Re: "shut down"

              He's with the RAF. Don't do weekends, don'tcha know

        2. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: "shut down"

          Your forget that you don't just "shut down" a nuclear reactor, it takes at least 3 days to moderate to a temperature where the loss of control or coolant doesn't lead to a criticality crisis. And that's at full pump flow; if the coolant system isn't 100% operational it will take even longer.

          The Russians took a HUGE risk in attacking an active nuclear reactor.

          Consensus of reporting suggests that all but one reactors are shut down, the one that is still operating is to maintain the critical systems. No attack on a nuclear reactor has been reported. Light shelling on a training facility on a nuclear

          site has been reported.

          Any reports have to be considered in light of censoring and filtering.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "shut down"

            One simply does not walk into a nuclear reactor.

        3. bombastic bob Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: "shut down"

          some of that depends on the design. Usually in an emergency they would drop all control rods to the bottom and then inject a boron-rich "poison" into the coolant (typically this is part of how power levels are controlled anyway), sufficient to keep the thing from re-starting under any circumstance. Then, since civilian reactors (with lower enrichment) typicall have positive temp coefficients, as long as decay heat is removed criticality will never be reached (or if a lack of heat removal melts the core, for that matter). This can typically be done by bleeding steam if nothing else is available. For "reasons" if worse things happen (like overpressure, uncovered core, etc.) the physics would (or maybe 'should') not support criticality.

          So once the reactor is poisoned and any emergency cooling systems have been enabled, it would remain shut down. It could melt, but it wouldn't restart (unless the design really really sucked).

          Fukushima (in part) was similar to the worst case scenario. The reactors shut down but decay heat apparently caused meltdowns and Zr-water reactions (which produces hydrogen gas bubbles inside the core and whatnot), but as far as I know they did not regain criticality. The emergency shutdowns apparently prevented an uncontrolled restart but the lack of electricity did nothing to remove decay heat. And so, "it happened".

          Still, horrible disaster averted in Ukraine.

      2. Kane

        Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

        "The simplest way to do that is to cause enough fuss that the Ukraine authorities shut it down themselves."

        The simplest way would have been to destroy the supporting distribution infrastructure, but we are not dealing with the sanest of minds.

    3. Irony Deficient

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      Do you imagine that the missile attack on the largest nuclear power station in Europe, near the western border in Ukraine was somehow accidental?

      The Zaporizhzhia plant is not near the western border of Ukraine; it’s at 34° 35′ East, near Enerhodar, which is closer to Donetsk (to the east) and Crimea (to the south) than to its nearest western border of Ukraine (with Moldova).

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      You do know Ukraine aren't part of Nato? Also people on here aren't dumb. If we get involved it's WW3 and that won't end well. To be fair we are heading towards that and it's a scary prospect. However please stop talking out of your arse.

      1. Snake Silver badge

        Re: not part you NATO

        But America, the UK and Russia promised to protect Ukraine when they gave up the nuclear weapons they inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed

        https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-putin-invasion

        Nice to know we're keeping up our end of the bargain... -_-

        1. Intractable Potsherd

          Re: not part you NATO

          They're just following the playbook set in previous times. The Central and Eastern European countries have always been disposable to the west.

    5. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      "Do you imagine that the missile attack on the largest nuclear power station in Europe, near the western border in Ukraine was somehow accidental?"

      From the reports I've seen it could have been artillery or rockets (the short range, multiple launcher kind mounted on trucks). However, if it was a missile it would most likely be accidental. Russia has (or rather had) very few sophisticated "cruise" style missiles, and probably expended those in the first few days of the invasion. So the move to indiscriminate bombardment is not only an intentional move to wear the Ukrainians down but also dictated by necessity.

    6. Timbo

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      Most of the reactors at the site (that has been partly damaged by Russian attacks) have already been shut down and the one remaining "working" reactor is being shut down.

      This will mean that the site should be safe - unlike the Fukashima reactors, no graphite is used, so there is nothing to "burn" inside the reactor - and the reactor itself is very strong (for good reason).

      Closing the plant down makes more sense as it deprives Ukraine of a lot of it's electricity...blowing it up and hoping the wind blows in the right direction, is not a good plan, as the radioactive debris could easily head back to Russia...

      But then again, Putin has been shown to be quite "unbalanced" by launching this invasion on a sovereign country that is actually home to many Russian speaking people.

    7. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      Putin hoped to explode the reactor and spread its contents across Europe. The wind was heading towards Romania, Poland, Germany and Netherlands. NATO would do nothing, clearly, and he would establish that he can attack Europe with 'near'-nuclear weapons without any response from NATO.

      Did he really? I’m impressed with your insight into Putin’s strategy. Do you have an inside contact in the invasion planning command? Or do you read tabloids and Faecebook?

      You’d think they could do a bit better than a bit of light shellling on one of the training school buildings if they wanted to release nuclear pollution.

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      You ask where NATO is: direct conflict between NATO forces and Russian forces has a name: WWIII. NATO would like to avoid that, as would I, as I do not like being only the shadow of a person left on a wall after the person has boiled away.

    9. veti Silver badge

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      I am so sorry. I know Ukrainians are desperate for help, and will spin every story they can to try to draw NATO into the war.

      But it's not going to happen. We'll send money, and weapons, we'll take refugees (for now at least), and we won't stop volunteers who want to go - but, ultimately, Ukraine stands alone.

      This is the kind of story that builds nations. I pray Ukraine survives to retell it.

    10. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: The nuke power station attack was not accidental

      I think he just wanted the power to go out...

      If Putin wanted fallout to blow towards neighboring countries on the west, he could have either dropped a ground detonation at the Chernobyl site (possibly as effective as a dirty nuke bomb), or used an *actual* nuke.

      Occam's Razor. Putin has been knocking out infrastructure. It's almost more like terrorism and intimidation, so that people cower in fear and give up the will to fight back. THAT would be a Soviet tactic and is the most likely explanation.

  6. Zolko Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Fahrenheit 451

    RT.com is unreachable, even through TOR.

    451 fahrenheit (232,8°C) is the temperature at which paper burns. It's also the name of a science-fiction book by Ray Bradbury that depicts a totalitarian regime that forbids some books and burns them so that people cannot read them, and thus be "perverted" by them. It takes its subject from the McCarthism that was prevalent in the 1950-ies in the USA.

    Since Internet is what books and newspaper used to be, the censoring of Russian sites proves that our "western liberal" societies have reached that totalitarian regime. I mean, for those who didn't hear the shot since 2 years of Covidian nonsense. Now we can see that it was not nonsense, it was a dictatorial takeover : all the tools that were put in place to "save lives" will now be used to censor and control the population.

    Icon, obviously

    1. Irony Deficient

      RT.com is unreachable, even through TOR.

      That might depend upon the particular Tor exit node that is used to try to reach it, unless all Tor exit nodes are being prevented from accessing that domain.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's quite reachable via 'normal' internet. At leas in Eastern Europe.

      1. katrinab Silver badge
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Fahrenheit 451

        Not reachable for me. I get a 403 error.

        It resolves to an IP address owned by ddos-guard.

        I can visit ddos-guard's website. They give a postal address in Edinburgh Scotland - 101 Rose Street South Lane, which is home to 2320 different companies.

        It is a Scottish Limited Partnership called Cognitive Cloud LP, which is always a red flag in terms of dodginess. Website is available in Russian and English.

        The phone number has an international dialling code for Brazil.

        1. that one in the corner Silver badge

          Re: Fahrenheit 451

          I got the ddos-guard page for a few seconds and was then passed on to enjoy (?!) the rest of the site.

        2. Paul Crawford Silver badge

          Re: Fahrenheit 451

          Earlier I got a 403 but maybe the ddos guard site stopped doing business with them.

          Now I can see it from a selection of geographic VPN exit nodes, UK, USA and EU.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Fahrenheit 451

          DDOS-Guard are a Russian organisation better known as the defenders of fascist sites:

          https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/01/ddos-guard-to-forfeit-internet-space-occupied-by-parler/

          https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/15/8kun-8chan-capitol-breach-violence-isp

    3. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      RT.com is unreachable, even through TOR.

      I can reach it without problems.

    4. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      My ISP seems to be blocking it, but Firefox (with DNS over HTTPS enabled) works fine.

    5. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      Looks like Orange France might be blocking it (I get an immediate connection refused). Diddums.

    6. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      It isn't unreachable. Quite easy from a normal internet connection. It might be unreachable from Tor exit nodes, because it's using a redirection service (found that by looking at the scripts pulled in from the first HTTP request). Those tend to block Tor because they don't trust people coming from there. Or perhaps, since you don't appear to have checked normally, you just lied about that. I see little benefit in bothering to check.

    7. martinusher Silver badge

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      RT.com is accessible in the US. It usually runs comment streams through Disqus but these have been off the air for some days (....not that anyone's missing much -- there's a few useful gems in there but most of the material makes the local QAnon types seem quite lucid and rational).

    8. Yes Me Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      "RT.com is unreachable"

      I wish. It's there and full of its usual lies. At least it's mainly disappeared from broadcast TV.

    9. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      I'm going to take a punt and say you have both a Twitter and Facebook account, right?

      Maybe spend a little less time on those chief.

    10. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Re: Fahrenheit 451

      Is unreachable because it is suffering DDOS attack. That attack probably is not launched by western governments: much more likely to be by Ukrainian government or enterprising individuals.

  7. Robert Helpmann??
    Holmes

    Old News

    "Access has been restricted to a host of information resources owned by foreigners."

    So moving from de facto to de jure? Expected this a while back and am surprised it has taken this long for Russia to move on this.

  8. G.Y.

    text vs. image

    Is there a place where that long TorBBC URL appears as text? this is a LOT to type by hand

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: text vs. image

      In the article. Or pasted here:

      https://www.bbcnewsd73hkzno2ini43t4gblxvycyac5aw4gnv7t2rccijh7745uqd.onion/

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The question is…

    …how do you respond to this when it was the European Commission who started (with unclear authority, I might add) this blocking game.

    Then the Ukrainian guy comes along demanding that someone whose job is to keep things running go doing some more blocking.

    Honestly, what can't we just put Zensursula (as she's been known in Germany for years), Borrell (the Spanish geezer), Putin (with or without a shirt) and that Biden guy in a cage and they sort it out amongst themselves and leave the rest of us in peace?

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      IT Angle

      Re: The question is…

      Quote

      "Honestly, what can't we just put Zensursula (as she's been known in Germany for years), Borrell (the Spanish geezer), Putin (with or without a shirt) and that Biden guy in a cage and they sort it out amongst themselves and leave the rest of us in peace?"

      From 'All quiet on the western front'

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The question is…

        I guess that explains what is wrong with us.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Choice

    I'll give the BBC world service a pass, but the other two outlets, DW and VOA (as well as radio free Europe) are creepy as hell.

    They play from the same score as RT and the Chinese one (I forget their name).

    To me, the best propaganda is when you hold *your own* leaders accountable and treat everyone with respect.

    1. Martin-73 Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: Choice

      VOA was weird back in the 80s and 90s, glad to hear it's still sticking to its guns

      Icon because that's how I feel realizing how LONG it's been

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Streisand effect

    This admin decision to block the beeb and 'western' social media in Russia will GREATLY improve the 'penetration' of what is happening in Ukraine, across Russian society. In general, they have 'always' been suspicious (perhaps well before 1917) of their rulers, feeling, and rightly so, that they don't treat them as humans, but merely sheep that can be used and abused. And you don't consult your livestock on strategic decisions, the owners know better, thus cesorship / insulation from outside, dissenting views that pollute the mind. So, by default, Russians _always_ compensate for the state that lies to them, they always read between the lines, fill the gaps, to the point that they fill them, even if they're not there. They are told not to worry, everything is great!, and they will immediately translate it as 'we're in _deep_ shit!'. They're told there are no Russian casualties in the peace-keeping mission in Ukraine, and that message alone tells them: our soldiers suffer _serious_ losses, otherwise, why would state media say the losses are minor? They're told 'our brave armed forces have suffered 500 casualties in Ukraine', and they will multiply this x 10, etc (ironically, they might soon be x 20 that). Very soon, there will be Russian mothers asking, quietly, but persistently, why their sons haven't vibed or telegrammed them for two weeks; sure, they were told 'on excercise' so messaging, but now, this 'military operation' that the state tries so hard to hide from them, and they immediately put the 2 and 2 together, it's not like and there's no prior art in recent years, Afghanistan and Chechnya still haunt them, so they will _immediately_ know. And this message, like ripples, _will_ travel. Plus, you can't hide sanctions, can't hide the fact that over 140 countries out of about 180 condemned Russia in the UN, can't hide shortage of cash in atms, hikes of interest rates, doubling prices of spare parts for your car, can't deny multiple denials and reassurances on the trusty state telly channels that tell our dear citizens that everything, EVERYTHING is ABSOLUTELY fine!

    Now - the above does not mean that they will stand up to the state, nothing of this sort. I wish they did, but the first, second, third reaction is - keep your head down, go into survival mode, see no evil, hear no evil, perhaps it will somehow (how?!) blow over and it won't hit me directly! This might be incomprehensible to a person in the West used to general freedoms, but if you've lived in a regime that's been tightening their grip over the last 20 years, slowly, but steadily, and with no realistic chance to jump the ship... you keep their head down :(

    1. Timbo

      Re: Streisand effect

      There are reports of Russian people leaving Russia and heading for Finland...and others getting flights to Istanbul and further afield, as people fear Putin will declare martial law very soon and seal the borders to prevent anyone leaving.

      It is clear that Putin will stop at nothing to get his way, even if it leads to many people of many nationalities in both Russia and Ukraine being injured and/or killed by this invasion.

      Whilst NATO is doing it's best to prevent an escalation of the situation, the fact is that Putin is doing everything he can to ensure there IS an escalation...and it'll then be a question of what happens next and when/if the nuclear launch option takes place.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I didn’t vote for Putin

    In reality, nor did anyone else…

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Been doing it for years

    I've been blocking Russian IPs from my website (except Yandex search engine), and telling them if they want to see my stuff they must use a non Russian IP (for example via VPN or Tor).

    Does my bit to train the Russian public to surf more safely I hope.

  14. tiggity Silver badge

    Meanwhile

    I'm not happy at the UK censorship approaches.

    We all know various broadcasters are to a greater or lesser degree, acting on government orders. Russia Today being a prime example of that.. But I object to it being removed from Freeview (yes, I know there's other ways to look at how the Russia spin is applied, but that was quite a useful one, especially given access to Russia Today web based resources is quite flakily intermittent currently).

    I'm quite keen that people have ability to be exposed to media denoting different viewpoints, and can decide for themselves.

    As a UK resident, I can't help but notice the difference in coverage when it's mainly "white" people, in "nearby" Europe (though its about 2K miles from London to Kiev) compared to the plight of (less "white" people in Yemen, Palestine etc. by countries that the UK "likes" to various degrees). Obviously there's the chance of ultimately the cockroaches being the main beneficiary of this whole thing to make it more newsworthy / scary, but does emphasise the UK media is happily partisan in its own biases.

    BTW, one thing Russians are still making use of is Discord, seems to have slipped through the block so far (was using it to chat with a Navalny supporting friend in Russia yesterday (Sunday 6th) who's fervently hoping this leads to the end of Putin as he hopes someone in a position of power in Russia does not want to risk some of the hideous consequences down the line & stops him - also said some games with in game chat functionality still not blocked yet - though (obv) he & others are making use of VPNs, tor etc. but aware that such use is not risk free, hence the interest in software that has slipped through the cracks so far )

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like