As outlined in Tech Radar, the Russian government has explored the potential use of artificial intelligence to enhance its ability to block virtual private network services.
A draft of the national AI plan previously proposed using AI to analyze 70% of blocked VPN services, aiming to increase overall blocking effectiveness to 95%. While the Digital Development Ministry stated this specific measure is absent from the current version of the plan, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, known as Roskomnadzor, continues to pursue a separate machine-learning filtering project. Experts note that the 95% target refers to blocking effectiveness rather than accuracy, raising concerns about potential false positives. Such a system would likely impact corporate VPNs, cloud services and voice traffic by analyzing packet sizes, timing and session lengths. The government has already faced challenges distinguishing between permitted corporate traffic and unauthorized VPN usage, leading to unintended disruptions in banking services. Despite the removal of the specific AI mandate from one document, authorities remain committed to increasing their censorship capabilities. With funding for blocking infrastructure set to double, the ongoing campaign against circumvention tools continues to intensify, leaving users with fewer reliable options for maintaining private internet access.
Source: Tech Radar
