It was originally started to block sites featuring drugs, child pornography, and suicide methods, but then began to include ideas listed as “extremist,” with no real definition behind them. Criticism of the government at any level is included in this block, as well as “abuse of mass media freedom”. Even more representative of its covert censorship practices is the idea that Russia has worked with the authors of the Great Chinese Firewall to optimize its data gathering and blocking technologies.
Why the ban on cloud services?
The primary reasoning behind the plan is extremely simple. Like most countries that practice Internet censorship, Russia wants to know what its citizens are reading, watching, writing and doing online.
The information can be sent to a million different recipients or perhaps more dangerously from that point of view, people in other countries could add their own files to the Cloud and a Russian citizen could download them without anything having to get it from a website that has undergone Russian censorship standards. These cloud services are basically seen as a backdoor to sneak things in and out of Russia.
Russia’s VPN Ban
That would seem to be more difficult in Russia than in most countries because of a ban placed on all software and websites related to circumventing Internet filtering that was passed in 2017. President Vladimir Putin signed the bill into law in the summer of 2017, with a target activation date of November 1, 2017. However, no Russian ISPs came forth seeking bans of VPNs – probably because there was no way to enforce the law – and VPN websites have remained untouched by censorship.
Step-by-step guide to using a VPN for Google Drive and AWS
Best VPNs for Accessing Google Drive and AWS
1PrivateVPN
PrivateVPN has tremendous security values which makes it an ideal VPN for Russia. It boasts 2048-bit encryption, a strict no-logs policy, an automatic kill switch and built-in leak protection. It also give customers up to six simultaneous connections on one license. It also has a generous one-month money-back guarantee so if you’re only in Russia for a short amount of time you can not have to pay at all for a subscription. Get it Now
2ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN has lightning fast speeds, which makes it a tremendous asset for using Google or AWS which take up a lot of processing power when you are moving items onto or off the cloud. Its speeds make it one of the best VPNs for desktops which are frequently used for torrenting and a good VPN for Kodi, which is often used for viewing streaming content. Try Now Risk Free
3NordVPN
NordVPN is a power player in the industry and can unblock just about any content you could want to view. It features AES 256-bit encryption, is able to handle lots of different types of encryption, and regularly bypasses the censorship of the Great Firewall of China as well as online censorship in Russia. Get it Now
