Recently, the government of Russia blocked another encrypted email provider Skiff. The government blocked Skiff after exactly three years when it had blocked similar email encrypted services including Proton Mail and Tutanota, according to a Russian digital rights organization and the email provider.

 

Skiff is an email and cloud service provider which was launched last year. These actions of the Russian government show that this regime is decidedly knocking down encrypted communication services that allow common people of the country to have conversations that are harder to spy on. 

It is about last Wednesday when Roskomsvoboda reported that an unidentified Russian state organization has ordered to block off the skiff. Roskomsvoboda describes itself as “the first Russian public organization active in the field of protecting digital rights and expanding digital opportunities”. 

After the action against skiff, it is assumed that the reason for this was the sending of anonymous letters through this service, which were containing fake mining reports. The same reasons were given when the Protonmail, Tutanota, and Mailbox were blocked by the government. 

Skiff is a decentralized and open-source email, which also provides a decentralized cloud storage and teamwork environment in which users can organize and create various types of cards or tables, write notes, lead projects, and much more. 

The Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. was asked to make a comment on the matter, however, it did not respond to a request for comment. 

The technical director and co-founder of the Russian government’s censorship authority, commonly known as Roskomnadzor, Stanislav Shakirov reported that the block is in full effect and that “the blocking is done by the ISP on their equipment by the URL mask (*.skiff.com) and IP addresses.” 

After the news, Skiff founder Milich said “I started Skiff with a more private vision for the internet, where our personal information is not shared, bought, and sold. Jason and I have both had personal or professional connections to Russia — mine through Stanford, and Jason’s family escaped the Soviet Bloc in the late 1970s via a covert radio network…,” Milich said. “…With the fast adoption of our products and now suppression of them, we’re even more confident and determined in our mission to build products for private communication and freedom.”