Stop, signal: in the Russian Federation, the ability to access inaccessible resources from foreign Sim cards has been disabled

Foreign SIM cards have become useless for connecting to Internet resources, access to which is limited in Russia, Izvestia has learned. At the same time, the use of services that have themselves limited their work in the Russian Federation, for example, a number of foreign neural networks, is still possible. According to experts, about 500 thousand subscribers used such SIM cards in our country. The connection was carried out through the infrastructure of foreign operators, while domestic networks performed only the function of a transit link for transmitting traffic to foreign Internet nodes. Experts note that such a scheme initially remained expensive and designed for a limited number of users, so it was not widely used. The Ministry of Finance clarified that this approach is aimed at ensuring security in the digital space.

What happened to the foreign SIM cards

Owners of SIM cards of foreign operators have lost the opportunity to freely access services that cannot be accessed from the Russian Federation. This was reported to Izvestia by several users of such cards. According to one of them, roaming connection, in which Internet access is actually carried out through the infrastructure of foreign telecom operators, no longer allows circumventing the restrictions in force in our country.

This information was confirmed to Izvestia by two sources close to Russian communications specialists. The editors sent inquiries to the Big Four companies. At the same time, according to the surveyed users, access remains to services that have independently restricted work in our country, such as Netflix and a number of foreign neural networks.

When working in the networks of Russian telecom operators, the roaming Internet traffic of foreign subscribers is subject to the general filtering regime in force in our country, the Ministry of Digital Affairs explained to Izvestia. We are not talking about a complete shutdown of the Internet, but about restricting access to resources blocked for violating the legislation of the Russian Federation. Subscribers with SIM cards from foreign operators still have access to other resources, the ministry stressed. They noted that this approach is aimed at ensuring security in the digital space.

Meanwhile, contracts of foreign signallers continue to be sold on domestic online platforms. Prices range from about 600 rubles to 5.5 thousand. For example, a Nigerian card costs about 1,000 rubles — 1 GB of Internet costs 800-1200 rubles, depending on the selected tariff.

Russians began actively buying foreign SIM cards in 2022. Initially, they were mainly used for registration in the services that left the Russian Federation, as well as for access to the services of foreign banks. According to the Mobile Research Group, our citizens currently have about 2 million of these cards in their hands. At the same time, about 500 thousand of them are used for Internet access on an ongoing basis.

Problems with access began to arise about a week and a half ago, Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group, told Izvestia. According to him, the nature of the restrictions depends on which foreign operator the subscriber uses.

—For example, when using a SIM card from the UAE, Russian websites are opened, including Gosuslugi, as well as Arab Internet resources, but there is no access to popular foreign social networks and a number of other services," the expert noted.

In many cases, the Internet traffic of such subscribers is filtered according to the same rules as for users with Russian SIM cards, said Anastasia Bezrukova, a leading expert at the Center for Strategic Support of Domestic Technologies. According to her, the purpose of this measure is to provide uniform rules for access to Internet resources for all users physically located on the territory of the Russian Federation, regardless of the country of issue of the card.

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How international roaming works

According to Leonid Konik, a partner at ComNews Research, there are two main schemes for organizing international roaming. Traditionally, telecom operators used the Local Breakout model: in this case, all the subscriber's roaming Internet traffic is processed by the operator's network in the guest country and sent directly to the global Internet. This method ensures minimal delay in data transmission and reduces the load on international communication channels, since traffic is not transmitted to the home network.

However, with the development of VoLTE technology, which provides voice transmission over LTE networks, operators began to switch to another model — S8 Home Routing (S8HR), Leonid Konik noted. In this case, the mobile device in roaming accesses the home network through which the Internet traffic passes.

— For example, if a roamer in Russia has a SIM card from Kazakhstan, then his smartphone connects to the Kazakh network. All traffic goes through a secure tunnel directly to a foreign operator, bypassing Russian filtering," the expert explained.

Nowadays, signalmen are increasingly using an approach in which user traffic is processed according to Russian rules if it is physically located on the territory of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the country of registration of the SIM card does not matter, said Leonid Drobyshevich, an NTI technology expert. According to him, because of this, the use of foreign cards as a tool to circumvent restrictions has become virtually inaccessible.

Where traffic passes directly through Russian networks, the usual filtering works, the expert explained the principle of restrictions in international roaming. If the connection is organized through a foreign operator, point restriction of access is technically more difficult. In such cases, other measures may be used, such as temporarily shutting down the channel, checking activity, or making arrangements with foreign operators, he noted.

It is difficult to filter roaming Internet traffic, but technically possible, according to one of the cellular network planners. DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) technology can be used for this. As the expert explained, the traffic that passes from the Russian cellular network through a secure "tunnel" to foreign Internet sites cannot be directly decrypted. However, by indirect signs — for example, connection signatures, the time of accessing certain resources, the amount of data transferred, and other parameters — it is possible to determine which service the user is accessing and restrict access, the Izvestia interlocutor claims.

The scheme for connecting to resources, access to which is limited in the Russian Federation, remained expensive and therefore did not become widespread, said Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily. According to him, most users are not willing to pay about €30 per month for such a service. In addition, this connection method remains inconvenient: if there are problems with the service or erroneous withdrawals, it will most likely not be possible to quickly resolve the issue with a foreign operator, the expert concluded.