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Russia bans VPNs, and Swedish Transport Agency leaks millions of details A daily dose of today's top tech news, in brief. You need to hear this. Vladimir Putin signs law banning VPNs in Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that bans the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) and other anonymizing technology that allows users to access banned websites. The law had already passed through the Dama, Russia's lower House of Parliament, and will be put into practice November 1. The Dama's information policy committee said the law was not designed to restrict law-abiding citizens, and is only intended to block access to "unlawful content," RIA news agency reported. The decision comes just one day after Apple removed VPN apps from its China App Store following a government request. Technical details on the ban are still pending, and how companies using VPNs for productivity purposes will respond is yet to be seen. AMD unveils Radeon RX Vega cards Following months of sparse details, AMD has unveiled its Radeon RX Vega cards. The company will offer three RX Vega cards: the Vega 64 Liquid, Vega 64, Vega 56, and R9 Fury X. All three cards are based on the Vega 10 CPU. Performance numbers so far are limited, with numbers for the Vega 64 Liquid and Vega 56 remaining unreported. "What we've been told is to expect the Vega 64 to 'trade blows' with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080," Anandtech writes. "In terms of numbers, the few numbers that the company has published have focused on minimum frame rates over average frame rates, opting to emphasize smoothness and the advantage they believe to have over the aforementioned [NVIDIA] GTX 1080." Full specifications can be seen at Anandtech here, and the Radeon RX Vega is expected to launch on August 14. Swedish Transport Agency outsourced database management, exposing millions of personal details In one of the largest government technical blunders in history, the Swedish government exposed the personal documents of millions of its citizens by outsourcing database management to companies in the Czech Republic and Serbia. The entire Sweden Transport Agency database was uploaded onto cloud servers, of which some employees at foreign companies had full access. The exposure was discovered in March 2016 by the Swedish Secret Service, which promptly warned other government agencies that unauthorized parties now have access to classified systems. The decision to bypass necessary security checks was reportedly made to expedite the transition to outsourced IT staff, as the STA wanted to fire local staff as soon as possible. According to Bleeping Computer, exposed information includes: The official responsible for the leak was reportedly fined just $8,500 and will continue to head the agency, a sentence many in Sweden feel is far too light. But there's more going on in the world than that. No More Ransom aims to combat the rapid spread of ransomware attacks An organization called No More Ransom was launched jointly last year by Europol, the Dutch National Police, McAfee, and Kaspersky Lab, and aimed to create a united front to combat the growing problem of ransomware, a digital plague that cost victims over $1 billion last year. The organization provided decryption tools for four major ransomware families, and provides methods to better secure systems against cyberattacks. It also provides the decryption keys for several known ransomware strains. The creation of the agency has been considered wildly successful, with millions of visitors and an expanded network consisting of dozens of auxiliary partners. "Law enforcement agencies have restrictions that criminals don't — they have the logistics of paperwork," David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, told ZDNet. "Whereas at least under the umbrella of a project like this, there's nothing to slow it down." The number of decryptions that have occurred thanks to tools offered by No More Ransom is not known, but the organization estimates that the number is close 28,000 decryptions. And you can't not know this. Scientists have discovered a way to reverse aging in cells Scientists have discovered a way to stop aging in cells, which is a critical step in the search for longer lives, and ultimately, immortality. Researchers at the Houston Methodist Research Institute say they have found a way to "make aged cells younger." The research focuses on telomeres, the caps at the ends of chromosomes whose length is believed to correspond with age. "Cooke's team used a technology called RNA therapeutics, which delivers RNA directly into cells, to spur cells to produce telomerase, a protein that lengthens telomeres," Motherboard writes. "The technique improved cells' lifespan and function." The research is undoubtedly significant, but reversing age in a lab is far from reversing age in a living being. That said, the project's head researcher, Dr. John Cooke, says that he is optimistic that the research has the potential to combat age-related disease.