Russian users are reporting that the popular VPN service TunnelBear has stopped working in the country. According to Roskomsvoboda. Tech Talk, the service had been blocked for some time, but until recently, users could bypass the restriction using the GhostBear option in the client settings (which makes encrypted data look like regular Internet traffic). Now, even this feature no longer restores access.

Vladislav Zdolnikov, head of the GlobalCheck and Red Shield VPN projects, confirmed the block to “Durov’s Code,” noting that access to TunnelBear is now being restricted directly by blocking the IP addresses of VPN servers. Zdolnikov linked the issues with GhostBear to the expansion of the pool of blocked addresses: this feature only allows connections to other VPN node addresses and, to some extent, obfuscates the OpenVPN protocol using random padding. However, this obfuscation is ineffective when IP addresses are blocked, since the application’s requests can still be tracked, the expert added.

Zdolnikov also pointed out that, in TunnelBear’s case, the authorities are not yet using “smart” DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) capabilities, such as protocol-based blocking (analyzing certificates unique to each service). He noted that Roskomnadzor typically starts using such tools if a service tries to circumvent the block.

TunnelBear’s Block History in Russia

The TunnelBear website was added to the Russian registry of blocked sites back in May 2018. The decision to block it was made almost a year earlier by the Dyurtyulinsky District Court of the Republic of Bashkortostan. According to the court’s website, the TunnelBear case was considered by Judge I.Z. Nagaev as a special proceeding. Information about the plaintiff and the court’s decision is not publicly available.

VPN Restrictions and User Workarounds

In August of last year, the Central Bank of Russia sent a survey to banks about the use of third-party VPN services as work tools. The letter stated that Roskomnadzor wanted to “implement a set of measures to restrict the use of such services.” Information from banks was needed to “exclude VPN connections from access restriction policies.”

The company that owns TunnelBear has not yet commented on the block in Russia, but users are already sharing their own tips. According to Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the Internet Protection Society (OZI), subscribers told him: “TunnelBear works if you change your DNS to something like 1.1.1.1, and the profile reinstalls as usual.”