Bitcoin Forum

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5235502.0

The reason for blocking this topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1620600.0)
but blocking all forum ( means domain)

https://reestr.rublacklist.net/search/?q=bitcointalk.org


another discussion about it  here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5235546.0)

Removal of this thread won't result with anything. Simply because here is a ton of paid signatures and posts which are advertising casinos and bettings.

Unregistered betting companies and casinos are illegal in Russia because they're refusing to pay taxes. Any activities related to advertising such resources are leading to ban. Formally, providers are instructed to deny access to specific page only, but with HTTPS there is no possibility to enforce a ban on some specific page. Generally, you may only reject all connections to server.

So there are few options left, MITM and cooperation. MITM is impossible because nobody will use such provider, cooperation is impossible because advertising is a significant source of income.

For what I've understood using the automatic translation software....

- There was an incident 4/5 years ago involving a casino not paying a reditt user 5BTC

- Later on, the casino payed the reditt user

- Now, bitcointalk gets blocked by the Tax Organization of Russia (or a similar name)

What does the forum have to do with anything if the user was from reditt?

Looks like this guy issued a clause to authorities, maybe it was a form of revenge for him. ::)

That's shocking ! For a 4 years old tax audit really.

Is there any other country where bitcointalk.org is banned BTW ?

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Why would he though, he was already hiding his taxes from the authorities. ???

I think China. :P

But this isn't a big surprise.

Source: https://www.comparitech.com/privacy-security-tools/blockedinchina/bitcointalk/

Unfortunate, and it would definitely affect Bitcointalk negatively in terms of SEO and traffic, but if you've been using Bitcointalk for a while it shouldn't be a problem honestly. Bitcointalk is light-weight enough to work well(just sliiightly slower) through Tor.

And if you're worried about captchas, we already have this thankfully: https://bitcointalk.org/captcha_code.php

So does that effect the Pyccкий (Russian) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=10.0) local board ? There should be less or very low new posts which is not to be. Seems like people have a way to access this forum even in case of a domain ban.

It doesn't effect now since almost every russian here was well taught by many other blacklistings of favorite resources.
 
But surely it does effect future, when cryptocurrency adoption is widely spread.

Newcomers from Russia or from any other country that is (or willl be) affected by such regulations, might skip this forum by accident because bitcointalk now needs additional tools in order to access it.

Access to the forum is still available through VPN or Tor, but as witcher_sense wrote above this state of affairs will clearly reduce traffic from Russia. Not every newcomer will understand why he does not have access to the forum from a search query, he would rather go to another available link.

Can someone in the Russian board confirm if Bitcointalk is now part of Russia's Federal List of Extremist Material? Because I know it is one of their methods of banning and blocking websites if they view it as something detrimental to their country. I'm not worried about our fellow Russian members not having direct access to BCT since they can always use vpn to bypass the restriction but what I'm worried about is if this restriction is something even bigger to what we are seeing now, like have they changed their views towards Bitcoin that is why they have blocked the forum to begin with?

I don't really know but it doesn't show when using google, not so sure if there's a new list though .

I just saw this Blow To Bitcoin As Russia Moves To Effectively Ban Crypto (https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/03/21/blow-to-bitcoin-as-russia-moves-to-effectively-ban-crypto/#10b85b495c63), but it will not happen so soon.

link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_Russia#cite_note-36

So it would not suprise me that much tbh

Well that's an odd thing to see because it feels like the Russian Government took a wrong turn an go to the opposite direction again. I've seen news before this that they were preparing a bill in favor of cryptocurrencies and now they suddenly changed their minds and ban the buying and selling of crypto entirely. But I won't still be jumping into any conclusions right now not until someone in the local board of Russia confirms that this news is true and that Bitcointalk is really blacklisted in their country.

Following their logic, almost every website including Google should be banned in Russia because they had advertisements of gambling websites and other services which aren't fully legitimate in Russia jurisdiction. But it wouldn't be surprise. They have banned LinkedIn, tried to ban Telegram, banned ProtonMail few monthd ago. Censorship in Russia at it's finest.
BTW, This accident happened long time ago, ban was issued in 2017, it's strange why it took so long to ban it.
It's not a big issue for advanced users, because they know how to bypass ban. But it will hurt average people and newbies especially. Not everyone will know how access forum.
For people from Russia, is it enough to change your DNS, or VPN/Proxy/Tor is needed?
It's not tax organization. Roskomandzor basically is censorship organization which have blocked a lot of websites in Russia.

Did you expect anything else? I wonder how much paperwork was necessary for this decision, probably more than all the posts on the forum, plus the mandatory 3 stamps and signatures on every page.


The odd thing would be for them not to change their mind every month, that would be something. News from the government of Russia are just like those from China, everyone is talking about what will happen, and guess what, nothing happens.

Anyhow, is this a DNS ban or IP?

Maybe yes, but at least in my country they block illegal websites such as torrents or IPTV just few days or weeks after court decision.

May be North Korea A country that shot dead its first Coronavirus carrier can do anything inhumane.

DPRK has the entire internet blocked. Literally.

VPN/Proxy/Tor. I'm using Coudflare DNS but it useless to bypass censorship.

I would agree they don't even seem to allow access to it to common citizens which is equal to blocking it totally and would never lead to much of there activity on bitcointalk.

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It's pretty sad from an mod here, looks like this would drastically reduce the traffic and internet of the people's in the crypto industry there. Sad news though.

I was surprised to hear that Russia was taking decisive steps to block all sites that could direct its citizens to access gambling sites including Bitcointalk. So far bitcointalk still facilitates forum users to be able to do gambling activities using crypto and I am sure many sites provide fair games and they can be trusted.

I am not sure they have taken the right decision to block the bitcointalk site for their citizens, and this blocking is very sad and very unfortunate because I know that there are many Russian users who contribute to bitcoin forums and communities and I think they have the right to access the forum when they want to.

Really, this is a government decision that has disappointed all parties. Is there another way for forum users from Russia to access the forum if everything you mention doesnt work.

Just an update regarding this issue and I think it is confirmed that the Russian government have blacklisted Bitcointalk.org from their country. I used this website (https://eais.rkn.gov.ru/en/#form) of the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) to see if the domain name of Bitcointalk.org is blacklisted or not. What makes me wonder is the "authorization date" of the blacklisting since the order was way back 2017 and our Russian members are only reporting it now, the blacklist might just have taken full effect when this started.