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KGB Wants Control of Email and VOIP
blair1q writes "The FSB (really just a rebadged KGB) is worried about the abilities that internet communications services such as Hotmail, Gmail, and Skype give to people they consider black-hats. In particular, they don't like the fact that these services allow encryption. They say they aren't going to seize or block them, yet, but are just 'studying' the situation, with an eye possibly toward implementing controls like those in China. Their increased interest in the tools may be related to a DDoS attack on Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's own LiveJournal account, which he termed 'revolting and illegal.'"
The U.S. government wants the exact same thing. I'm pretty sure that almost every government at this point wants *at least* a way to bypass encryption, a "kill switch" for the internet in their country, and some form of email monitoring (all these without any pesky warrants, of course). If your country is an exception, count yourself lucky.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
And this is different from NSA, et al ... how?
Clean up your own back yard before you go knocking on your neighbors door.
The NSA has hardware in Google HQ and most likely other US data centers too.
This is why everyone should be running freenet, stick your virtual fingers in the mans eyes. http://freenetproject.org/
So you want Slashdot to report on nothing that is negative outside of the US, so long as they US does it as well?
Why? Just general US-hate?
Seems to me this is news no matter where it happens. I've seen Slashdot report on the US government doing plenty of stupid shit, including all the AT&T stuff, so why can't they also report on Russia?
I love how anytime someone points out how any other government than the US government might be doing evil things, it's immediately assumed to be some attempt by Americans to make themselves look better, and compared to some similar American program. It's as if it is somehow more important that an insult be hurled at the US than attention be diverted to some other country's less-than-honorable behavior for a few moments.
Trust me, we are all well aware of the failings and bad behavior of the US government. I see about ten articles a day about it. But don't ignore the serial killer next door because a loud, obnoxious, schizophrenic drunk is making noise down the street.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
As if you'd need "soviet" for that anymore. Face it, the Soviet Union protected our liberty. As long as they existed, the "western democracies" had to play nice to be seen as the good guy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It also doubles as a good excuse. "No, I do NOT have two terabytes of porn, the pics are just so large because they hide my plans to become ruler of the world."
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why are they doing this now? One word: Egypt. The fact that with Internet organizing one of their old boys club could be run out on a rail? I'm sure that scares the shit out of them.
As for TFA? I'm sure we'll be seeing more of this in the coming months. Anything that can threaten power the way it did in Egypt will have to be monitored (for the children/terrists/etc) and sadly most folks won't know nor care that everything is being monitored as long as it isn't THEIR door that gets kicked in. If you're doing nothing wrong, right?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's own LiveJournal account, which he termed 'revolting and illegal.'
I agree. LiveJournal accounts can often be revolting and illegal.
Their increased interest in the tools may be related to a DDoS attack on Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's own LiveJournal account, which he termed 'revolting and illegal.'"
This is very much oversimplifying the part of Medvedev in this story (as well as the story in general).
This whole mess started when an FSB official (head of their department of information and telecommunication security), in the course of an official meeting, brought up GMail, Hotmail and Skype as an example of a "security problem" due to impossibility of wiretaps (as servers are outside the country, and HTTPS ensures secure connection to them from within), and suggested a ban (neither TFS nor TFA mention this!).
Shortly after, an official from president Medvedev's administration stated that the ban - and, more broadly, the whole idea that foreign-hosted services are a "security issue" - is a personal opinion of that particular FSB person, and does not represent the official position of that organization nor government as a whole.
Shortly after that, prime minister Putin's press secretary stated that this is incorrect, and the position is the official position of FSB, that it is well-argued and reasonable, and that Putin takes it with all due consideration.
So basically it's more of the same thing that we've seen before. Whether it's a genuine power struggle between president and prime minister (the elections are less than a year away), or whether they're playing out a scripted "good cop / bad cop" in preparation for the same, is yet to be seen.
totally different government entity that is stuffed[sic] by totally different people
It is a reorganized (several times) version of the same government entity. The KGB's employees weren't all fired and replaced by new people in 1991. The head of the KGB was fired, the organization was legally abolished and immediately re-established with a new name and head. The new head reorganized the units under him. It was later moved to be a unit of the Russian department of Justice.
When Putin became President he reorganized it again, and moved it to be directly under him. So a former KGB member was running the KGB's lineal descendant directly from his office. Despite the name changes, it serves the same function and is controlled from the same level of state power. It may have more democratic controls on it, but being a security organization nobody but its minders knows if it is really following those controls. The Russian Federation citizens it is tasked with assassinating probably don't see much distinction.
You can still say it's "totally different," but I think if you say it now you won't believe it so much.