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Russian Software Piracy Crackdown Restricts Free Speech

Posted by Zonk on from the amazing-coincidence dept.

reporter writes "According to a report recently filed by the Washington Post, the Kremlin has finally begun to crackdown on software piracy ... with a twist. The Russian state agency is targetting political enemies with claims of piracy, including independent news media, political parties, and private advocacy groups. In particular, 'the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, one of the last outposts of critical journalism in Russia, suspended publication of its regional edition in the southern city of Samara on Monday after prosecutors opened a criminal case against its editor, alleging that his publication used unlicensed software.'" This doesn't even take into account our recent discussion of the Kremlin's grip on internet access in that country.

8 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. great by JustNiz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It'll just drive more people to switch to Linux.

    1. Re:great by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Looks like the socialists are using the capitalists own weapons against them.

      Cool.

      If the opposition in Russia was actually opposing an oppresive regime, I might be more concerned.

      Being that they're a bunch of crackpots funded by foreign interests who would like nothing better than to use these very same oppressive laws against the population of Russia for private gain, I'm actually rather amused.

      Go Putin!

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    2. Re:great by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I guess it depends on how flexible you are with the term "freedom", and how far back you want to go in time.

      Marijuana has been illegal back to the 40s or so. Polygamy has been illegal all along; it's a relationship between consenting adults, but somehow it's illegal in a country that promotes "freedom". Before 1861, slavery was legal, meaning that millions of people had no freedom whatsoever. Before the 1910s or 20s, women weren't allowed to vote, so they were effectively no more free than children, who also can't vote (but for good reason). I don't know exactly when men who didn't own land were finally allowed to vote, but that was in there too. I guess if you're a white, male, land owner, you probably had the most freedom around 1790. If you're a black female, however, right now is probably your best bet.

      Maybe America should just stop yapping about "freedom" altogether, since I don't think we ever had it at all. It's just a jingoistic buzzword to make the people think they have it better here than elsewhere.

  2. Anybody surprised? by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ever since Gorbachev helped end the Cold War (and the USSR), the Russians have tried to fill a void left by that power vacuum.

    Unfortunately, many ex-KGB people are out there vying for power towards the "good old days". Turns out that someone is Putin right now. Power and threat of assassination should be enough to shut up critics.. or eat a dust-grain of Po.

    Could the Russians have a great state? Absolutely... but not with the KGB still distributively in power.

    Ad absurdum "In Soviet Rusia jokes"... because thats where they're headed back to.

    --
    1. Re:Anybody surprised? by TheNarrator · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Two high level defectors in the 1980s Anatoliy Golitsyn (Author of "The Perestroika Deception) and Jan Sejna (Author of "We Will Bury You") have written books and tried to tell the west that Perestroika was not genuine reform, but just a strategic retreat planned by the KGB (now GRU) that would help the Soviets catch up to the west technologically and economically after which they would return back to dictatorship and imperialism.

    2. Re:Anybody surprised? by innerweb · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My greatest fear is not what we are, but what we may yet become.

      The slippery slope gets more slippery the further along it you are.

      We have nothing to fear, but fear itself, and fear itself may be used to justify the end to the freedoms that we have left, as it has been used as a justification to limit/end the freedoms it already has.

      InnerWeb

      --
      Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
  3. Re:Denial of Service by Terms of Service by evann · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Within the ranks of AOL staff, accounts which had overhead abilities could suspend other accounts. These suspended accounts then have to call AOL and talk about the infraction, hear the warning or whatever, and then they get the account back.

    Phishing and trojans back in the days I am talking about..(95-2000? maybe they have the same setup) were pretty easy to pull off. You could easily get the password for one of these accounts and go ahead and start suspending many other accounts. There was even a hierarchy of these accounts, some had more banning power than others (and could terminate other overhead accounts). The phrase used when one person terminated another was called a TOS.

    Two things came of all this, the AO-underworld would start killing off eachother's accounts in mass. You can't call AOL to get an account reactivated which you created from phished credit cards. The second, a lot of people claiming they didn't break the TOS when they got TOS'd, and AOL laxing it's punishments.

    Player A just uses multiple accounts to complain. Player B eventually gets terminated. OR the staff will have to start letting people off the hook because they just don't know the truth.

  4. When you get potatoes make vodka by metoc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So when the USA starts using vague negative labels like pirates or terrorists, it is easy for foreign government to use them.

    Standard political tactics, label people you don't like with them too.