Employees of the Cybersecurity Department of Turkmenistan are forcing phone sellers in Ashgabat to sell VPNs built on the cyber department's servers. If you refuse, you will face a large fine. Thus, trade in free Internet access has become a business, and corrupt cybersecurity officials do not fight with VPNs, but only eliminate competitors.
Connecting to a VPN in the capital's wholesale bazaar costs from 400 to 600 manats (about $20-30). The service is reliable: the Cybersecurity Management servers are whitelisted and never shut down.
Sellers cannot refuse to mediate. Many of them are simultaneously engaged in VPN trading themselves, but use foreign servers that are not related to management. It is much cheaper: up to 100 manats ($5). Customers often ask to install a VPN themselves when buying a new or used phone. Without this, it is impossible to fully use the Internet in Turkmenistan.
The disadvantage of "cheap" VPNs is that they literally stop working in a couple of days. The Cybersecurity Department puts their servers on a blacklist. But the very fact of this trade allows employees of the department to put pressure on sellers, threaten them with harassment, and ultimately force them to sell the "right" VPNs.
For example, recently cybersecurity officials purposefully blocked the subnet 176.123.0.0 / 16 in order to unblock only their own few IP addresses and sell access there. At the same time, they began to force phone sellers to use only their services, otherwise they will face a fine for ... distributing VPNs!
One of the foreign servers of the Cybersecurity Department is securewarfare.com. It is based in Kazakhstan. However, turkmen.news knows at least seven other servers that are located in Turkmenistan.
Money-hungry employees of the Cybersecurity Department eliminate competitors not only among phone merchants, but also in other areas. For example, Turkmentelecom provides entrepreneurs and organizations with virtual servers for their projects. But if employees of the cyber department notice that someone uses these servers as a VPN, the tenant can be fined or even imprisoned for a period of five to fifteen days.
In other words, employees of the Cybersecurity Department not only use blocking the Internet solely to make money, but also abuse their authority to organize sales and eliminate competitors. It is noteworthy that absolutely all sites, including turkmen.news, are accessible via a VPN from the Cybersecurity Department. hronikatm.com, azathabar.com and others, for the sake of blocking which this department was created, as well as tens of millions of dollars were spent on technical equipment.
In recent years, Turkmenistan has not blocked individual sites that seem dangerous to the authorities, but has turned off IP addresses in entire subnets. In other words, the range of addresses starting with certain digits stops working. Because of this, sites that can't even theoretically be considered harmful are blocked. At the same time, there is no real cybersecurity. As firewalls, the Management uses an unknown product from the non-existent company Indigo Software.
At each big holiday or other event, the so-called "strengthening" occurs, "security measures" are taken in the form of carpet Internet blockages, as a result of which hundreds of thousands of IP addresses are permanently blocked at a time. This happened, for example, when Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov's mother died.
As of spring 2023, three-quarters of the world's existing IP addresses were already blocked in Turkmenistan. This means that it is virtually impossible to use the Internet without a VPN in the country. And well-known VPNs (whether free or paid) do not work in such conditions either. Here we need special services built for Turkmenistan, but their operation period is until the next block. The alternative is to buy VPNs from the Cybersecurity Administration's whitelists.
Earlier, sources of turkmen.news estimated that the income of compilers of" white " lists of IP addresses is estimated at tens of thousands of dollars per month. But who are these compilers and what kind of cyber governance is this?
This structure was removed several years ago from the Eighth Department of the Ministry of National Security, which is responsible for communications and encryption. Maksat Geldiyev, who previously headed the Eighth Department, was appointed head of the Cybersecurity Department. Then he was dismissed and returned to the Eighth Department as deputy chief, but, according to sources, did not lose influence on cybersecurity issues.
After Geldiyev, the Cybersecurity Department was headed by his relative Allanazar Kulnazarov. It is these two people, as well as their subordinate Didar Seyidov, who manage the blockages and receive income from them. In fact, the development of technology in the country is artificially slowed down so that these and other employees buy numerous houses, apartments and cars for themselves and their relatives. There is no other sense in blocking for a long time.
• Source: https://turkmen.news/sotrudniki-upr...ev-telefonami-prodavat-vpn-na-svoih-serverah/
Connecting to a VPN in the capital's wholesale bazaar costs from 400 to 600 manats (about $20-30). The service is reliable: the Cybersecurity Management servers are whitelisted and never shut down.
Sellers cannot refuse to mediate. Many of them are simultaneously engaged in VPN trading themselves, but use foreign servers that are not related to management. It is much cheaper: up to 100 manats ($5). Customers often ask to install a VPN themselves when buying a new or used phone. Without this, it is impossible to fully use the Internet in Turkmenistan.
The disadvantage of "cheap" VPNs is that they literally stop working in a couple of days. The Cybersecurity Department puts their servers on a blacklist. But the very fact of this trade allows employees of the department to put pressure on sellers, threaten them with harassment, and ultimately force them to sell the "right" VPNs.
For example, recently cybersecurity officials purposefully blocked the subnet 176.123.0.0 / 16 in order to unblock only their own few IP addresses and sell access there. At the same time, they began to force phone sellers to use only their services, otherwise they will face a fine for ... distributing VPNs!
One of the foreign servers of the Cybersecurity Department is securewarfare.com. It is based in Kazakhstan. However, turkmen.news knows at least seven other servers that are located in Turkmenistan.
Money-hungry employees of the Cybersecurity Department eliminate competitors not only among phone merchants, but also in other areas. For example, Turkmentelecom provides entrepreneurs and organizations with virtual servers for their projects. But if employees of the cyber department notice that someone uses these servers as a VPN, the tenant can be fined or even imprisoned for a period of five to fifteen days.
In other words, employees of the Cybersecurity Department not only use blocking the Internet solely to make money, but also abuse their authority to organize sales and eliminate competitors. It is noteworthy that absolutely all sites, including turkmen.news, are accessible via a VPN from the Cybersecurity Department. hronikatm.com, azathabar.com and others, for the sake of blocking which this department was created, as well as tens of millions of dollars were spent on technical equipment.
In recent years, Turkmenistan has not blocked individual sites that seem dangerous to the authorities, but has turned off IP addresses in entire subnets. In other words, the range of addresses starting with certain digits stops working. Because of this, sites that can't even theoretically be considered harmful are blocked. At the same time, there is no real cybersecurity. As firewalls, the Management uses an unknown product from the non-existent company Indigo Software.
At each big holiday or other event, the so-called "strengthening" occurs, "security measures" are taken in the form of carpet Internet blockages, as a result of which hundreds of thousands of IP addresses are permanently blocked at a time. This happened, for example, when Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov's mother died.
As of spring 2023, three-quarters of the world's existing IP addresses were already blocked in Turkmenistan. This means that it is virtually impossible to use the Internet without a VPN in the country. And well-known VPNs (whether free or paid) do not work in such conditions either. Here we need special services built for Turkmenistan, but their operation period is until the next block. The alternative is to buy VPNs from the Cybersecurity Administration's whitelists.
Earlier, sources of turkmen.news estimated that the income of compilers of" white " lists of IP addresses is estimated at tens of thousands of dollars per month. But who are these compilers and what kind of cyber governance is this?
This structure was removed several years ago from the Eighth Department of the Ministry of National Security, which is responsible for communications and encryption. Maksat Geldiyev, who previously headed the Eighth Department, was appointed head of the Cybersecurity Department. Then he was dismissed and returned to the Eighth Department as deputy chief, but, according to sources, did not lose influence on cybersecurity issues.
After Geldiyev, the Cybersecurity Department was headed by his relative Allanazar Kulnazarov. It is these two people, as well as their subordinate Didar Seyidov, who manage the blockages and receive income from them. In fact, the development of technology in the country is artificially slowed down so that these and other employees buy numerous houses, apartments and cars for themselves and their relatives. There is no other sense in blocking for a long time.
• Source: https://turkmen.news/sotrudniki-upr...ev-telefonami-prodavat-vpn-na-svoih-serverah/
