For those who read this, "half of the Internet" is not an exaggeration. I legitimately cannot access about half of websites I get linked to without a proxy.

I had a couple of questions about this. First does attempting to access the site simply time out? For instance in the UAE you get an official message saying that the content is blocked. Second what has the coverage of this been like in the local media?

Yes, it times out. If a site uses HTTP, there can be a notification about it being blocked, for HTTPS sites it is not possible. Some ISPs block packets by inspecting SNI field and such blocks can be bypassed by playing with TCP packet size either from client or server side. Some ISPs just block traffic to blacklisted IPs without inspecting the packets.

> Second what has the coverage of this been like in the local media?

All major media in Russia are controlled by the government. They reported that Telegram is used by terrorists and drug dealers and Durov refused to comply with russian law and provide decryption keys that are needed for the invesigation (Durov says that accounts in question are long deactivated and that he was required to provide keys allowing to decrypt the traffic of any user, and that those terrorists used WhatsApp as well).

Putin's advisor on Internet development also suggested that russian users can switch to messengers made by russian companies.

There also was a small rally in Moscow against internet censorship. Only about 12000 people from 12-million city took part in it.

Thanks for the response.

>"Yes, it times out. If a site uses HTTP, there can be a notification about it being blocked, for HTTPS sites it is not possible."

Why wouldn't it be possible to get a notification for HTTPs though since the domain part of the URL is still unencrypted? How does manipulating the packet size help steer around the blocking?

Also I am curious what the media coverage has been regarding the state HTTP filtering?

> Why wouldn't it be possible to get a notification for HTTPs

Because you need a valid certificate to break SSL connection.

> How does manipulating the packet size help steer around the blocking?

The filtering hardware looks for SNI field at specific offset. If you break packet into two it will let the packet through because it doesn't reassemble IP packets (probably because it would require more resources).

> what the media coverage has been regarding the state HTTP filtering?

When the law was discussed initially, I think somewhere around 2012, after large protests against falsifying parlament election results and Putin's third term, media explained that there is many illegal information on the net, for example, terrorists' sites, sites selling drugs, sites that promote homosexual relations or suicide among minors. So the government needs a law to protect children from this. Sometimes they also add that some western countries censor Internet access too.

Several years later new causes to block sites were added, such as sites with pirated movies, casino sites, sites that allow to view blocked content or provide VPN services, or pages that call for an unauthorized rallies.

It is somewhat ironical that when Ukraine blocked russian social networks, media explained how to bypass the block.

For a history on Putin's censorship: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Web-Struggle-Dictators-Revolution...