Sanctions on Russian Federation due to invasion on Ukraine in February 2022

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Dr.MonaLisa
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Sanctions on Russian Federation due to invasion on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

EE2.eu Administration has decided to issue sanction on Russian Federation, due to invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.

We know that it's not the fault of people who are living in Russia, but the dictator: Vladimir Putin, who manages the country for over 22 years.

Unfortunately, such acts of aggression in Europe can not be left with no answer. People in Europe are terrorized by Russian military forces, gas price manipulations, and many, many other hostile actions.

From now on (22.02.2022, 18:00 CET) players connecting from the Russian IP addresses will see an error message and will be unable to use EE2.eu services. This includes EE2.eu website, forum, Unofficial Patch 1.5 & Language Changer installers, Unofficial Patch 1.5 Launcher and EE2.eu Multiplayer services.

Players from Russia will still be able to use EE2.eu services using the third-party VPN providers.

This decision was also made considering the number of cyber-attacks from Russian IPs. Over 95% of spam bots attacking our server were coming from Russian Federation. Spam bots are continuously trying to access the forum administrator account (using the brute force attack), and are also attacking our SSH server, scanning ports, etc. It makes our server waste resources on spam requests and puts EE2.eu on potential risk. These things were tolerated for quite a long time in order not to harm ordinary users from Russia, however now, when Russia openly attacked Ukraine and destabilizes situation in our region - the sanctions are very well needed and understandable. The main EE2.eu Server is located in Poland, which has recently been a target of cyber-attacks from Russia. Blocking requests from the entire country will help us protect our server and all EE2.eu users around the World.

The sanctions might also be extended to include Belarus, if the attack on Ukraine continue from the Belarusian border's side.

I feel sorry that ordinary players suffer sanctions directed in the Putin's regime, but please understand that we have no other reaction tools than this. I'd like remind that even wikipedia has been banned by Russia, so most of people have to use VPN services anyway in order to browse the free Internet.

Please feel free to leave your opinion / questions about the sanctions.


UPDATE 23.02.2022, 19:10:

I talked with my mom, and she was not so happy when I told her about the "sanctions". She claims that it might affect too many innocent people, who are not responsible for these things. She also said something that people already suffer enough with Putin, and "sanctions in game" only make it worse for these who just want to have fun.
As alternative I asked her what she thinks about a website where players would be allowed to "whitelist" their IP address after checking a box that they do not support Putin's regime. She said it's a bad idea, because she recently read news that 16 years old was sentenced with prison for killing something in a video game. I checked, and it's true: https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/02/1 ... -minecraft
She said that people could be put at risk if they had to "agree" to something they can not openly agree. I don't know how it is in reality, if people are really punished for disagreeing with the "ruling party" in Russia, but I agree that it's better not to risk.

Anyway, I was rethinking the whole "sanctions" idea, and I decided that at the current stage it's better to revert them. I still think that the sanctions idea had it's positive sides (bringing attention to the problem), but I can not mentally suffer that innocent people, unrelated to Putin's regime are also being punished.

So in summary, since 23.02.2022 ~18:30, the sanctions have been removed.
There is still a possibility that if the conflict escalates, the sanctions will be resumed, with a possibility to manually "whitelist" the IP address. After all, people in Ukraine are also terrified by the war, and many of them will probably lose their lives in case of the war. So these things can not be left unanswered.

At the moment, I think it will be a better idea to simply post EE2 News condemning Russia's actions.


UPDATE 24.02.2022, 08:40:

The sanctions have been resumed after the Russian invasion on Ukraine today at night. The sanctions now also include Belarus which allows its border to be used to attack Ukraine.

Unfortunately, such acts of aggression need an answer from all possible services and the World. For now Russian players need to use VPN in order to use EE2.eu services.


UPDATE 27.02.2022, 04:50:

As I promised, the Russian and Belarusian players can now remove the sanctions by filling a declaration at the specially prepared website:

https://ee2.eu/sanctions/



The texts might be improved in the near future. I just didn't want to delay the release of this web page.

I hope all the good Russian players, who are against the war, will find this web page helpful.

The sanctions removal system might be changed a bit in the future (e.g. periodical expiration of the declaration in order to protect players privacy in case of dynamic IP address changes), but at the moment it's not required.

Russian players who make a declaration and then insult Ukrainian players, or post pro-war messages on our chat services will be awarded with bans identified by the hardware IDs of their computer. Discussion about the war is still acceptable as long as it doesn't offend the invaded country. Due to aggression started by Russian Federation, we do not guarantee the same protection for Russian players. Russian players who will use our chat services need to be aware that they might be the target of hateful messages from players living in different countries around the World. Unfortunately it won't be something that can be controlled.
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to attack on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by KennetRP »

"Players from Russia will still be able to use EE2.eu services using the third-party VPN providers."

^ Considering this is still an option for Russian EE2 fans who really want to play the game, I fully support the sanctions. It seems reasonable to me.
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to attack on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by vovana »

Wikipedia has not been banned in Russia.
Now I have a question, how should I play the game if I have no internet connection? For example, if I'll go to my village on vacation.
I can not run Betternet VPN app as it says that there is no internet, and game launcher says that I have to use VPN.
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to attack on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

vovana wrote: 23 Feb 2022, 16:28 Wikipedia has not been banned in Russia.
Now I have a question, how should I play the game if I have no internet connection? For example, if I'll go to my village on vacation.
I can not run Betternet VPN app as it says that there is no internet, and game launcher says that I have to use VPN.
Hmm, you're right. I remember someone talking about wikipedia censorship, but it wasn't "recently". Recently there were problems with limiting the speed of twitter it seems.

When you are on vacations, do you know if your IP remains the same, or it frequently changes?

As expected, sanctions often hurt people who have nothing to do with Putin's decisions, however, they're required, to give a strong signal of disagreement.

Maybe I will just create some separate website which will allow to unlock certain IP addresses on submission. This way the sanctions system will still work, but active users will be able to whitelist themselves and use it normally...

Added after 1 hour 36 minutes 4 seconds:
UPDATE 23.02.2022:

The sanctions have been removed for now. Please read the updated post for the statement: viewtopic.php?p=27128#p27128
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to attack on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by vovana »

Great news, thank you very much
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to attack on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by EWBJ »

It is a shame to watch the history of mankind. I can't stand war topics. I understand that quite recently there was an incredible horror (1940). But let's take a look at the entire chain of human history, and you and I will see that a series of events flows from war to war, and here you can see how, after this or that brawl, there is a restructuring of consciousness and a technological leap upwards. From the outside, it looks like humanity is going through a stagnation and are beginning to crawl out of their skin from fat and superiority. Then comes the military conflict. A person seems to be eager to get hit on the forehead at a certain moment in order to start living and learning something new. And so in a circle. Think back to history lessons in school. Already there we were forced to study the "great battles", who, with whom, how and when fought ... Thus, preparing the mind for a future war. As if there is no other occupation on earth, except to go to war at the right time. Absurd.
I despise the military, they are only puppets of the oligarchs, monkeys who were given weapons in their hands. Ordinary people living in any of the territories of the world will never advocate war, these are only the interests of a separate small group of people occupying high positions of government, and as a rule, all citizens of these countries despise their government. And in this situation, by imposing sanctions, you only support the side of the greedy oligarchs, dividing the peoples and creating internal tension. The motto of the demons people is Divide and Conquer. And the motto of Humanity is Connect and Stay Healthy. I am for a freedom humanity, without artificial borders between countries. I am for friendly cooperation between peoples. Just imagine what humanity is capable of if everyone works together and helps each other. But as long as there is a monetary system, and a system of control over people in general, we will not see such a picture for a long time.
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to attack on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

EWBJ wrote: 25 Feb 2022, 11:50And in this situation, by imposing sanctions, you only support the side of the greedy oligarchs, dividing the peoples and creating internal tension. The motto of the demons people is Divide and Conquer. And the motto of Humanity is Connect and Stay Healthy. I am for a freedom humanity, without artificial borders between countries. I am for friendly cooperation between peoples. Just imagine what humanity is capable of if everyone works together and helps each other. But as long as there is a monetary system, and a system of control over people in general, we will not see such a picture for a long time.
The IPs range of Russian Federation is sanctioned, not the Russian players. I have capabilities to "sanction" based on the selected game language (actually simpler method), but it was not done to not harm the ordinary players.
People currently living in Russian Federation have no rights to be proud of their terrorist country (caused by Putin's regime), therefore "sanction" messages have its positive sides. I also don't buy the arguments that most of Russian people hate Putin, because many independent sources in the World clearly mention that Putin still has a huge support from ordinary people (possibly caused by years of propaganda and brainwashing).

Using a VPN is also a safe method to protect Russian players who disagree with Putin's regime. Since EE2.eu clearly claims which side is supported, players visiting the EE2.eu websites could be verified and lead to responsibility (jail time, or worse - work camps). Therefore these sanctions also protect Russian players themselves. I am also worrying that players identified by the Russian country (in our Multiplayer services) could experience bullies, fights and unnecessary word-wars in game chats. I am not going to waste time and recode our country identification visibility (which would also affect the auto-translator), just because some dictator decided to cause a mess.

Another important aspect which you totally ignored is the number of cyber-attacks from Russian IP addresses towards the EE2.eu. It known for a very long time that Russia is the biggest source of the spam bots (even greater than China). You can for example read posts about it on the official phpBB forums: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2439336 or https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2532311
EE2.eu experiences a lot of brute force attacks from Russian IPs, which simply waste our server's resources. It's also known that Russian authorities do nothing to prevent these attacks, ignore reports and actually approve them.
We could tolerate these attacks for long years, but now, when there were confirmed cyber-attacks on Ukraine and other countries, we have rights to also defend ourselves and our services. Even if a small group of all EE2.eu users experience restrictions (need to use a VPN), the part of the Free World has improved security.

In the future there will be a website that allows Russian players to whitelist their IP address, after checking a box with disagreeing with Putin's regime. It will also use Google Captcha to minimize risk of spam requests on that site. This can be done on the own responsibility of these players, and EE2.eu won't be responsible if Russian authorities identify these players and led them to "responsibility" (aka. prison).

While I understand that people from different countries might find my arguments as "ridiculous", I'm pretty sure the actual players from Russia understand them pretty well, and understand way better than German, Italian or Hungarian players whom governments put Europe on risks once again.
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to attack on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by EWBJ »

Dr.MonaLisa wrote: 25 Feb 2022, 13:49
EWBJ wrote: 25 Feb 2022, 11:50And in this situation, by imposing sanctions, you only support the side of the greedy oligarchs, dividing the peoples and creating internal tension. The motto of the demons people is Divide and Conquer. And the motto of Humanity is Connect and Stay Healthy. I am for a freedom humanity, without artificial borders between countries. I am for friendly cooperation between peoples. Just imagine what humanity is capable of if everyone works together and helps each other. But as long as there is a monetary system, and a system of control over people in general, we will not see such a picture for a long time.
The IPs range of Russian Federation is sanctioned, not the Russian players. I have capabilities to "sanction" based on the selected game language (actually simpler method), but it was not done to not harm the ordinary players.
People currently living in Russian Federation have no rights to be proud of their terrorist country (caused by Putin's regime), therefore "sanction" messages have its positive sides. I also don't buy the arguments that most of Russian people hate Putin, because many independent sources in the World clearly mention that Putin still has a huge support from ordinary people (possibly caused by years of propaganda and brainwashing).

Using a VPN is also a safe method to protect Russian players who disagree with Putin's regime. Since EE2.eu clearly claims which side is supported, players visiting the EE2.eu websites could be verified and lead to responsibility (jail time, or worse - work camps). Therefore these sanctions also protect Russian players themselves. I am also worrying that players identified by the Russian country (in our Multiplayer services) could experience bullies, fights and unnecessary word-wars in game chats. I am not going to waste time and recode our country identification visibility (which would also affect the auto-translator), just because some dictator decided to cause a mess.

Another important aspect which you totally ignored is the number of cyber-attacks from Russian IP addresses towards the EE2.eu. It known for a very long time that Russia is the biggest source of the spam bots (even greater than China). You can for example read posts about it on the official phpBB forums: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2439336 or https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2532311
EE2.eu experiences a lot of brute force attacks from Russian IPs, which simply waste our server's resources. It's also known that Russian authorities do nothing to prevent these attacks, ignore reports and actually approve them.
We could tolerate these attacks for long years, but now, when there were confirmed cyber-attacks on Ukraine and other countries, we have rights to also defend ourselves and our services. Even if a small group of all EE2.eu users experience restrictions (need to use a VPN), the part of the Free World has improved security.

In the future there will be a website that allows Russian players to whitelist their IP address, after checking a box with disagreeing with Putin's regime. It will also use Google Captcha to minimize risk of spam requests on that site. This can be done on the own responsibility of these players, and EE2.eu won't be responsible if Russian authorities identify these players and led them to "responsibility" (aka. prison).

While I understand that people from different countries might find my arguments as "ridiculous", I'm pretty sure the actual players from Russia understand them pretty well, and understand way better than German, Italian or Hungarian players whom governments put Europe on risks once again.

Putin climbed into conceptual power. And the tops of the world government do not like it. And the children who arrange cyber attacks, they need to be kicked in the head for such things. There are enough such attackers in every country in the world. It's strange that such a small resource as Ee2 is subjected to some kind of attack... Perhaps the children are training on you in computer science?)

You are certainly right in many respects. You're right, not everything is so sweet in Russia. At any moment they can come and squeeze your business "legally" Eugene Chichvarkin is a living example. And there is no point in continuing the dialogue, few people read us here. And we can't influence anything.

In hell the government, both Russian and Ukrainian, and Latvian, and so on. I'm embarrassed just thinking about them. They don't deserve it. Rogue, shaking for her reputation, for money, for power. Shame

We need to take an example from New Zealand, and from Switzerland or Norway. That's where the standard of Life.
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to attack on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

EWBJ wrote: 25 Feb 2022, 14:24 Putin climbed into conceptual power. And the tops of the world government do not like it. And the children who arrange cyber attacks, they need to be kicked in the head for such things. There are enough such attackers in every country in the world. It's strange that such a small resource as Ee2 is subjected to some kind of attack... Perhaps the children are training on you in computer science?)

You are certainly right in many respects. You're right, not everything is so sweet in Russia. At any moment they can come and squeeze your business "legally" Eugene Chichvarkin is a living example. And there is no point in continuing the dialogue, few people read us here. And we can't influence anything.

In hell the government, both Russian and Ukrainian, and Latvian, and so on. I'm embarrassed just thinking about them. They don't deserve it. Rogue, shaking for her reputation, for money, for power. Shame

We need to take an example from New Zealand, and from Switzerland or Norway. That's where the standard of Life.
I don't think EE2.eu is a direct target of these attacks. As seen in the phpbb forum topics which I posted above, almost every website administrator experiences these spam bot attacks. Russian bots (possibly even powered and funded by the Russian government) are brute-force attacking all small or bigger websites. They're trying to login with administrator's account and passwords from their commonly used passwords dictionary. Many websites with the low protection (aka. weak passwords, or outdated server software) might get hijacked. Russians are then able to install malicious server software on these servers and create a botnet which is able to remotely issue DDOS attacks to take down websites. In short: Russia allows spam bots (because probably uses them), then hijacked servers are used to attack other websites which Russian government dislikes. This situation persists for many, many years, but now, in the time of brutal military aggression from Putin's regime, it can be fairly used as one of the reasons of sanctions.
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Re: Sanctions on Russian Federation due to invasion on Ukraine in February 2022

Post by EWBJ »

It is strange to blame other countries or another person for your own incompetence. These bots teach you to think about protection. Or is it just a threat to you? Weird. And in addition, I see that 80% of the eWa clan, support the current government of the Nazis, manipulated by the SS-Nazis. If this is not so, then please explain to me why Russia is cleaning up Ukraine?
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