Russia’s Senate has adopted legislation that would ban “internet anonymizers” including Tor and VPNs, Meduza reports.
From the article: “The upper house of Russia’s parliament, the Federation Council, has approved draft laws banning Internet anonymizers (including VPNs and the Tor browser) and prohibiting the anonymous use of instant messengers. The legislation was adopted almost unanimously: just one senator abstained from the vote on the anonymizers, and only six senators voted against the messenger law (with 12 abstaining)…All that’s left now is President Putin’s signature, and this legislation will become Russian law. The law on instant messengers would take effect on January 1, 2018, while the legislation against censorship-circumvention tools would enter force even sooner, on November 1, 2017.”
Read the full article here.
Update: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the bill into law on July 29th, RFE/RL reports.