After blocking ProtonMail, Russia appears to be shutting down access to another encrypted email provider called Tutanota.
The service has been blocked since Friday in certain parts of the country, according to Germany-based Tutanota. Users in cities including Moscow have been complaining of errors when trying to connect to the email provider’s servers.
“We condemn the blocking of Tutanota. It is a form of censorship of Russian citizens who are now deprived of yet another secure communication channel online,” the company wrote in a Monday blog post. OONI Explorer, a tool that tracks online censorship, has also been encountering the Russian blocking attempts of the Tutanota.com domain.
It remains unclear why the blocking is occurring. But last month, Russian authorities decided to restrict internet access to ProtonMail on claims hackers were abusing the encrypted email service to send hoax bomb threats to inboxes across Russia.
Since then, ProtonMail has tried to restore the service in the country to no avail. “We immediately closed down the offending accounts and have since reached out to the Russian authorities both directly and via the Swiss embassy in Moscow to try and get the block lifted,” the ProtonMail team told PCMag on Tuesday. “Despite this we have heard nothing back in response.”
Both Tutanota and ProtonMail can let users send and receive encrypted emails over servers based outside Russia, which make them appealing tools for privacy-conscious users within the country. However, the same encryption may have made them targets of the Russian government, which has been trying to expand its control of the internet.
Last year, the country’s regulators blocked nine VPN services for declining to hook up their servers to a government content-filtered system. In 2018, authorities also tried to cut access to mobile messaging app Telegram for refusing to help the government access users’ encrypted messages.
In the case of ProtonMail, Russian regulator Roskomnadzor argues the blocking is necessary to protect the country. However, ProtonMail isn’t buying the justification. “The only thing it does do is prevent normal, law abiding citizens in Russia from accessing our private and secure communications platform,” the company said.
To access the two email services , Russian users will need to use a VPN service or the Tor browser. ProtonMail also says it's working on a technical workaround.
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