The war in Ukraine has been extended to a new front – the VPN market. As part of that plan, the US government is pouring money into three separate VPN developers – nthLink, Psiphon, and Lantern.
The news comes after it has been discovered that citizens in Russia are turning to VPNs to avoid government censorship. In fact, VPN installs in Russia reached an all-time high, surging by 11,253% beyond their normal level in mid-March.
The money is reportedly coming from a federal agency that controls US government-backed broadcasters, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
The three mentioned VPN firms received $4.8 million in funding between 2015 and 2021, but this total funding has now risen by almost half.
Even though they are not super-popular in the rest of the world, these VPNs are apparently in widespread use according to Laura Cunningham, president of the Open Technology Fund – who told Reuters over four million Russians are using these types of privacy tools.
Russia’s response…
Although a Kremlin spokesperson said they are not censoring the Internet, he admitted that they do regulate “certain Web resources, like many other countries in the world.”
In fact, Russian authorities have taken a tough stance on internet censorship, blocking almost 2,000 websites since February 24 due to content relating to the invasion of Ukraine. These would include the likes of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google News, and BBC News.
Furthermore, Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor has officially restricted the operations of six VPN services in the country — ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and IPVanish being among them.
“The use of block bypass services results in the retention of access to banned information and resources and creates an environment for unlawful activities, including those related to the spread of drugs and child pornography, extremism, and incitement to suicide,” Roskomnadzor said.
Americans also use VPNs…
It’s not just Russians, with users in the U.S. also jumping on the “VPN bandwagon.” While they don’t need it to bypass censorship, more and more Americans (and members of other nations, for that matter) turn to VPNs to keep a low profile on the Internet.
Beyond various government agencies that want to keep up with every step we make, it’s also the likes of Google and Facebook that track us down online.
According to a YouGov poll involving some 1,000 adults that work remotely and have access to a work computer in the United States, just above half (52%) use a VPN all of the time, 14% use it sometimes, while 15% use it “rarely”. Another 15% never use the solution, while the remaining 4% don’t know.
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