Private Use of VPN to be Prohibited in Oman
The Telecom Regulation Authority (TRA) has recently published a draft regulation on the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) (Arabic text) in Oman. The TRA is seeking public opinion on the matter before passing this regulation as law. The short summary of this regulation is that the use of VPN by individuals will be illegal, a fine of RO 500 will be charged for personal use and RO 1000 for commercial use.
The use VPN specifically wasn’t regulated before, but it could be argued that it’s use has always been illegal as a form of unlicensed encrypted communication. This new regulation makes it clearly an offense to use VPN at home, and allows it only to private and public institution who have to apply for TRA’s approval before using VPN, the TRA also retains to right to object to any grant this approval without provide reasons for this objection.
It it easy to understand why the TRA is prohibiting the use of VPNs as their primary use in this country is to bypass ISP censorship and the prohibition of the use of VOIP. A few also use VPN service to fake their IP location in order to use services offered in a region only (e.g. Hulu).
However, there are companies and institutions that rely on VPN services to conduct their business as security measures and communications with their international partners require the security of VPN network, for this specific purpose the use of VPN by companies will be allowed upon registration with the TRA.
I think there is a small case to argue that the use of VPN is necessary for individuals who study on long-distance programs as some universities offer access to their subscription based educational resources (e.g. Lexis Nexus and Westlaw) and blackboard through university VPN. When I was doing my masters at Southampton university I couldn’t access the university’s VPN when I was in Oman.
According to Article 1 of the regulation VPN is defined as follows: “a private information network ย for private use made through the use of connections with a public communications network.”
It should be noted that this definition of VPN is wide and could catch uses which have nothing to do with bypassing the regulation, for example, you cannot establish a VPN to connect to your computer wirelessly through your mobile phone in order to share files between your computer and your phone. It might also cover networks created for multiplayer gaming.
Though a big worry for users of VPN, there isn’t much that can be done about this regulation as it seems to be in accordance with the telecom law and the general censorship policy in the country.
If you have any suggestions to make to the TRA on how this regulation should be amended you can send them an email at fpconsulting@tra.gov.om by the 20th of September 2010.
Tags: Public Consultation, TRA
This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Censorship, Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Thanks for a very useful and informative article. Is it actually possible for the use of a VPN to be detected? Or at least, is it possible to distinguish VPN use from accessing a secure website such as those used for online banking etc.? I appreciate this is more an IT question rather than a legal one, but it would be interesting to know if you or your readers can shed any light on this.
yes you can use an SSL based vpn on port 443 it will like you are accessing a secure website ‘https’. Regular vpns use other ports that can be detected. www.banana-vpn.com/ssl-openvpn-accounts.htm
yes you can use an SSL based vpn on port 443 it will like you are accessing a secure website ‘https’. Regular vpns use other ports that can be detected. www.banana-vpn.com/ssl-openvpn-accounts.htm
Hi Bg76, if the usage of a person is monitored by an ISP it should not be too hard for the ISP to figure out that a lot of his traffic is going through a single port making it easy for them to suspect he is using a VPN. I’m not sure if they can prove that it is though.
[...] though many people dislike the policies made by the TRA (e.g. the upcoming ban of VPN) , I am one of the greatest fans of the TRA’s initiative to involve the public in the policy [...]
Too much work, i think they find it easier just to scare people from doing that. I mean if you are using a wifi in hotel , restaurant, coffee shop etc… they have no way of knowing who is using the VPN.
They just want to scare people and that is the best way
It only proves that telecom companies here is very powerful. Like they are connected with the Government yet they are so called Private Companies!
Gubhsh I totally agree with you. Also, as Anoutlaw said, I think they are just scaring people. Well, it is already illegal to encrypt data, but I never heard that someone was in trouble because of that! The TRA could easily say that VPN is illegal because it encrypts traffic.
VPN is really necessary for secure internet connection. I wonder why some people wouldn’t want that security anyway.