Tomsk man prosecuted for using software to conceal Internet traffic

A court in Tomsk has sentenced a 31-year-old man to three years of “restricted freedom” for “using a harmful program” on his computer.

The man, whose name has not been released publicly, will be prohibited from leaving Tomsk or changing his place of residence.

The court’s press service reported the sentence on November 3. Local media covered the story on November 10.

According to investigators, the man downloaded the illegal computer program in 2018 and used it from 2018–2020. Prosecutors alleged that the program is designed to “neutralize computer information protection tools,” while the court described the software as a “harmful computer program that makes it impossible to unambiguously identify an Internet user and his network activity.”

Local media originally reported that the offending program was likely a VPN service, but neither the court nor the prosecutors explicitly used that term. After this story was reported, Internet users found a copy of a court decision online that appears to apply to the Tomsk man’s case. They reported that, according to the document, the man’s name is Georgy Belous and the “harmful program” he used is the secure messaging app Vipole. However, Vtomske reports that the program the man used was, in fact, neither of those things.

A representative of the Tomsk region Prosecutor’s Office clarified to Vtomske that the secure messenger had nothing to do with this case. Its name is simply similar to the name of the program the man was convicted for using. According to the prosecutor’s office, the program is popular among hackers and cannot be found in the public domain.

The prosecutor’s office refused to specify the reason for the incorrect name in the verdict. The press service of the Oktyabrsky District Court had no comment at the time of publication.

Correction: We initially reported that the computer program Belous was prosecuted for using may have been a VPN. It was then reported that he was using the secure messaging app Vipole. Meduza apologies for the error.