How Roskomnadzor blocks HideMy.name and what will happen next. A word to the founders of the VPN service

Last year, the VPN service HideMy.name (formerly Hideme.ru) has a difficult relationship with Roskomnadzor. In 2017, the service was blocked for 4.5 months due to the anonymizer on the site. And although later the ILS removed Hideme from the registry, the site still moved to the new domain.

A week ago, the service was blocked again . In a court order, a lot of things look strange. There are a lot of questions for him, and it would be nice to sort things out. Roskomnadzor is silent. We talked to the founders of HideMy.name. The guys, of course, over the edge of emotions, and the degree of anxiety somewhere may seem too high, but we will forgive.

I hope this is only the beginning of the story, and Roskomnadzor, in response, will also tell you something interesting.

The first blocking for anonymizer

- Until the 17th year, at least once there were problems with Roskomnadzor?

- Our service appeared two years before Roskomnadzor was founded as such, and 7 years before its active attack on the RuNet and the first real blockages. And no, for the entire period up to November 2016 (the first letter on the registry on hideme.ru) we did not have any communication with this body.

- Were you ready to block you one day?

- This probability is always in the air, because freedom of work on the Internet and the lack of censorship is not at all what the RKN was created for. Or rather, what he began to turn into in 2014.

- When you blocked him for an anonymizer, and you removed it - how did they explain that they kept the lock for 4.5 months?

- We were sent letters with questions about the "technical possibility of restricting access" for VPN clients. Receiving a negative response and the requirement to remove the site from the registry in connection with the deletion of the anonymizer form, they re-sent the same letter with the same questions.





- If it was illegal, did you file a lawsuit?

- When we realized that the RKN would not be able to enforce the law through communication via e-mail, we connected lawyers to influence through the legal field. Various complaints were filed against the actions, or rather the inaction of Roskomnadzor, and preparations were made to appeal the court decision, according to which the addition to the registry was initially initiated.

As a result, media attention and complaints worked faster than the court and the electronic "copy" - the resource was unlocked due to the absence of violations. By this time, we have been working for 4 months by the new name and domain HideMy.name.

- When Roskomnadzor asked to restrict access to prohibited sites - you have limited?

- We did not restrict access to the sites, but simply removed the form of the anonymizer ... but it did not help. As it turned out, the RKN appetite comes with eating.

Relock

- About the court in Mari El - did you know a year ago that they were doing something there? Month to appeal you were given?

- No, nobody notified us and, judging by the text of the decision, did not even try. We learned about the court decision only from Roskomnadzor a few days ago, when it was already added to the registry.

According to the registry of prohibited sites, our site is blocked by the decision of the Medvedevsky District Court of the Republic of Mari El No. 2-3-246 / 2017 dated July 04, 2017. Neither the website of the Medvedev District Court, nor the website of the GAS “Justice” solution was found. And this, by the way, is a violation of the Federal Law “On ensuring access to information on the activities of courts in the Russian Federation” dated December 22, 2008 N 262-ФЗ, article 15 clause 1.

The decision of the court was found only on the website “Rospravudiye”, which, ironically, is also blocked in the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, this site was hacked a couple of days ago and it redirects to some left-wing blog. But we managed to save our judgment in PDF .

- The fact that the wording in the court decision is strange is understandable. But theoretically, if they really checked something, was it possible to use HideMy.name to open a blocked page from Mein Kampf?

- This is where the fun begins. The court decision uses a similar wording on which stamps decisions on “anonymizers” are not the first year:

As part of the test, it was established that information on extremist materials is available on the hidemy.name/en web page . During this monitoring, it was established that Internet users have unrestricted access to Internet sites that host materials recognized in accordance with the Federal Law “On Countering Extremist Activities” dated July 25, 2002 No 114-ФЗ extremist.

Similar wording was in the court decision on the domain hideme.ru, and then it really was a form of anonymizer. But on the hidemy.name domain of this form never existed, and we moved to this domain without anonymizer.

Further more. For some reason, it seemed to them that only this formulation was insufficient, and we were also credited with the presence of the book Mein Kampf on the site:

When connecting to the Internet, individuals and legal entities have access to information posted on the above-mentioned website that hosts the book Mein Kampf, which was recognized as extremist by the decision of the Kirovskiy District Court of Ufa in the Republic of Bashkortostan of March 24, 2010. Login to the site is free, does not require pre-registration and password, get acquainted with the contents of this page and copy information in electronic form can any Internet user.

Why us? It is difficult to give an exact answer, but the most obvious assumption is that our site was issued at the request of “anonymizer” in Yandex, and switching to it on the monitor flashed this word again (on the main page there is a heading “About anonymizer” with a brief description, and below is a comparison table with VPN). Twice two were formed and it was decided that we were the ideal victim to imitate the vigorous activity and beautiful reports on the elimination of especially dangerous extremist residents. And the Mein Kampf was added to the text only for the Order of bravery in eliminating the fascists on the expanses of these your Internet sites.

- I do not really understand, I'm sorry, but if a dude finds mein Kampf on the Internet - who is breaking the law here? He who seeks; who puts out; Who gives tools to bypass the lock?

- The law imposes direct responsibility only on the person who directly places extremist material. At the same time, there is officially no responsibility for the "consumption" and "bypass of locks". And yes, bypassing locks is not prohibited by any law of the Russian Federation: here the media periodically bends, calling the law on regulation, the law “on prohibition”.

- WKN somehow answered you?

- With ILV e-mail is completely absent at least any opportunity to communicate! Even through the answer from the same mail, where they had written before it, i.e. banal about the "white list" there is no one heard. There were attempts to send letters from other mail, including Russian postal systems (Yandex, Mail.ru), all unsuccessfully: the letters are returned in a day with an error.



Probably, after the situation with the blocking of the Telegram, their mail servers attacked with large volumes of spam, and they are very crooked (why I am surprised at this) set up filtering in such a way that now no letters reach them at all. Only requests through the form on their website, where the response period after sending displays 30 days.



But this does not explain why an employee of Roskomnadzor, after 3 days set aside for “elimination of the violation”, did not check for the existence of the violation itself on the site before sending it to block. This is their direct and legitimate duty, which they have not fulfilled.

As a result, it turned out that none of the links in the chain (the prosecutor, the court, Roskomnadzor) were convinced that the website did contain the violation described, but simply brought the case to the end.

The precedent itself is very dangerous for the entire Russian Internet, because now the site does not have to be a violation: the court can make a decision about blocking without it. And then you prove that you are not a camel, while the ILV will repel your letters with anti-spam and block your website without checking if there are really any violations there. And if you are not stable enough, it will simply bankrupt your business.

What will happen next

- Theoretically, how long can the problem be solved by changing the domain? What is the worst outcome?

- Domain changed on the same day. Notified customers, media, added more mirrors, etc., this scenario has already passed a year and a half ago. The only difference is that we plan to return back to our domain hidemy.name after all this absurdity is over. The worst outcome: the bureaucracy will drag on again for months.

- And what is the best scenario?

- The best outcome: within the next week, Roskomnadzor will still execute the law and its own rules, and will remove the site from the registry for lack of any violations to us. Well, no one also believed in the victory of Russia with Spain at the World Cup.

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