Open Letter to the international IT and telecom companies
You can read it sign it with the link above. However I never liked canned news so here is what it is all about and why it matters in my own words.

As sanctions keep piling up on Russia some of things here become increasingly restricted and this affects freedom of communication. Ironically this is the effect Putin wants - the government is busy building up their Internet censorship and control. Now as the result of some sanctions people trying to maintain independent services and censorship circumvention tools are under attack from both sides. Myself included.

Some examples:
Thawte certification authority suddenly revoked certificates of some services (banks mostly) which gave the government the reason to double down on imposing national certificate system. If successful it opens unprecedented opportunities for censorship and surveillance.

NameCheap domain registrar suddenly refused supporting customers from Russia forcing them to either move their domains immediately or lose them. This together with rumors of the government imposing isolation measures on Russian part of network made many people move their websites and services into Russian-controlled zone.

Some backbone ISPs like Cogent disconnected Russia impacting network connectivity and making it easier to shutdown, control and censor.

Visa and Mastercard payment systems withdrawing is probably the hardest blow for everyone who hosted something outside of Russia as there is no easy way to pay for services or receive donations for them. This also forces many people to migrate their projects back to homeland where they risk to be seized and their owners prosecuted.

While I understand the reasons for diplomatic pressure and public reaction to the events in Ukraine I can't believe this is the effect we want. This hurts the opposition, freedom of speech and access to information. I can't access some of the links above without VPN. Soon I likely won't be able to get on the global network without VPN - and not public one, these get blocked every day.

And the last thing - free social networks like this one are one of few remaining bridges between Russian and Ukrainian people. Mainstream networks are getting ugly, media sources get banned and blocked by the opposing sites. Here we still can talk. Hopefully it will last.

#NoWar #Russia #Ukraine