Russia Plans “Whitelist” to Address Unintended Blocking of Third-Party Sites Caused by Telegram Restrictions

Software based on the OpenVPN protocol may be developed in early May 2018.

Herman Klimenko, the Russian President’s advisor on internet development, informed journalists about plans to create software that will ensure uninterrupted access to legitimate websites that were unintentionally blocked as part of the efforts to restrict access to Telegram, according to Interfax.

According to Klimenko, the software could be developed using the OpenVPN protocol at the beginning of this month.

“We’re saying: let’s make a ‘whitelist’ and place it above Roskomnadzor’s blocklist registry. OpenVPN is used—this VPN will only provide access to pools of IP addresses from the ‘whitelist.’ The goal is to make sure the ‘whitelist’ is accurate, that legitimate resources do not use IP addresses that are also used by Telegram, and to distribute this software for free,” the advisor explained.

At the same time, if a third-party resource uses the same IP addresses as Telegram, it will not be able to be included in the “whitelist.”

The development and launch of the program will not require approval from the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media or Roskomnadzor, but in the future, it may be added to the national software registry.