Russia’s Digital Development Ministry has proposed using artificial intelligence to analyze VPN services’ characteristics, aiming to detect and block them more effectively.
The proposal appears in one draft version of a national plan for implementing AI technologies through 2030, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported.
The plan’s drafters said AI could achieve 95% effectiveness in blocking VPN services.
The Digital Development Ministry told Kommersant that “the current version of the draft national plan for implementing AI technologies contains no such information.”
A source who spoke to the outlet, familiar with discussions around the initiative, said algorithms for intelligent traffic analysis are already in use, though these do not constitute AI.
“AI tools make it possible to find VPN servers relatively quickly based on indirect signs: how a node behaves, what hosting it uses, what neighboring addresses look like. And most importantly, this makes it possible to respond more quickly to changes in network activity,” a source in the industry told Kommersant.
However, several sources told the outlet that the use of AI, “especially during the initial stages of training,” would likely result in the erroneous blocking of “legitimate traffic.”
Demand for VPNs has surged in Russia amid blocks on popular social networks, services, and messaging apps. Russian authorities have responded by stepping up efforts to combat circumvention of these blocks. Russia’s budget for the next three years earmarked a record 60 billion rubles for traffic filtering. Reports have repeatedly said the Digital Development Ministry wants to charge higher rates for international traffic (operators treat VPN traffic as international).
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.