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If you can read Russian, here is link from the Duma site:

http://asozd2.duma.gov.ru/main...

It's official

According to the external dimensions of the package is the same in both products. And air rudders have both.

3) Official respond (predictable, they claim the rumor is wrong):
http://www.ampravda.ru/2015/10...

Carrier rocket "Soyuz-2", which is to start from the cosmodrome Vostochny, fully meets the technical requirements and the size of the object space of the harbor. Special train with the spacecraft for a few days is at the railway station waiting for the spaceport and transport nodes "Soyuz" in the assembly and test complex (MIC). It will build and launch preparations for the launch.
.......
According to the press service of the Center of Operation of Land Space Infrastructure (COLSI), the only obstacle preventing to get to work — not full readiness of MIKa

In the forum posts above, they post image of "special train" mentioned in the article:
http://oborona.gov.ru/common/m...

or whatever they call their internal security organisation

That would be FSO.

Robert Mueller,

There has been a technical issue we need to resolve with your account at counter-intel.fbi.gov.

Please click on the above link and fill in your details. Follow the on screen instructions and the error will be corrected.

Thank you and have a good day,

FBI Technical Support

If this story is true, then it may be possible that the Russian government is making good money by selling its old space shuttles to rich oil businessmen! :-)

Yes, there is such an "ukaz", number 334, which means just a president's decree. It demands using only certified encryption in any communications with the government and in any communications with the central bank (which is the part that gets executed) and demands to prohibit any unlicensed crypto for anyone. (which is the part that is supposed to get executed somehow, but isn't) You see, an "ukaz" is not really a law per se - the president does not have direct lawmaking powers in this country. It can only directly affect organisations subservient to the government. There's also the FAPSI law which creates FAPSI and mentions licensing and certifying encryption, essentially giving FAPSI some power over encryption use in general. This clause, however, is very much open to interpretation, which interpretation, so far, is largely missing as well.

Unlike the constitution, neither of these two is a direct action legal truth - and the 334 ukaz also directly contradicts the constitution, making it essentially invalid in the parts where it does. This makes Russian encryption law, what little there is of it, a complete legal fiction, totally ignored in practice. For the fiction to become reality, specific regulations must be issued, which, so far, have failed to materialise. You cannot get anyone busted for using SSL until clear regulations exist detailing when and how this is to be done. (The constitution's supposed to be direct-acting legal reality, but in practice it isn't - for example, it allows alternative non-military service for those eligible for draft if they cannot do army service for whatever reason. It took quite a few years for appropriate regulations to show up, and they still aren't executed a lot of the time.)

Try this innocuous photo of a sunflower field. Then select the image using Ctrl+A (works only in IE).

See? BAN THE INTERNET.

P.S. BTW, the idea that Internet is full of child porn is so 20th century.
P.P.S. I am proud and happy to live in a country where you are legally allowed to store any materials on your computer, including child porn. How is that for you, you pediatrician-hating Brittons and Yankees? :]

I have a hard enough time when the US auctions off used, 15 - year old aircraft carriers to developing nations, although there's little I can do to stop it.

This thing flew less than 5 years ago, and China has already been known to buy Russian space technology for its own use. This capsule is said to be fully loaded. Can we trust Russia to strip American proprietary secrets out of the capsule before this blue - light special? Can we be guaranteed that it won't end up in the hands of some terrorist?

OK, this isn't designed to be a weapons grade device, but are we certain that there is NO enabling technology that, say, Iran or Iraq can use for their purposes?

THis isn't to say that forign nationals are bad, but we'd do well to acknowledge at least these two things:

Russia is still arguably an unwise place to do business

There are more than a few places where they don't tale a lot of pride in the the American flag

As a former employee of the Russian Academy Sciences (RAS) I strongly doubt that now it is capable of carrying out of anything like this attack. After the collapse of the Soviet Union RAS is in extremely poor condition with most capable people gone either abroad or to commercial companies. Younger people do not join RAS because of very poor working conditions and low wages. It is hard to find anybody younger that 30 there. The monthly salary at RAS is something about US$100 that even in Russia is almost nothing for a computer professional. In fact, I am just waiting when Russian government will openly admit that it does not see any need for science and technology and will close RAS bringing suffering of its employees to the end. And another issue is that very few people in the West understand what RAS is (or was), and RAS name taken alone always leads to some overexpectations. The only thing that RAS has now is its past.

Of course, there is a chance that may be some script kiddy has gotten stuck in RAS but it is quite slim, IMHO. Also in many cases RAS poses simply as an ISP (e.g. domain relarn.ru) that is used by some private and government organization. Some descendants of the Soviet KGB are certainly experienced and capable of cyber attacks.