Investigation: Russian censorship systems (TMCT) expose Chinese DPI signatures

Since early 2026, Russian internet censorship systems (TMCT) have been blocking thousands of foreign websites, but users began encountering error messages in Chinese characters instead of standard Russian blocking notices. Investigation revealed that these messages originated from Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) hardware supplied by Chinese telecommunications company China Unicom, which Roskomnadzor installed on Russian ISP networks under the "sovereign Runet" law. The discovery suggests Russian censorship infrastructure is using Chinese equipment and potentially Chinese filtering signatures.