Slashdot Mirror
Sorm: Russia Intends To Monitor "All Communications" At Sochi Olympics
dryriver writes with this excerpt from The Guardian: "Athletes and spectators attending the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February will face some of the most invasive and systematic spying and surveillance in the history of the Games, documents shared with the Guardian show. Russia's powerful FSB security service plans to ensure that no communication by competitors or spectators goes unmonitored during the event, according to a dossier compiled by a team of Russian investigative journalists looking into preparations for the 2014 Games. The journalists ... found that major amendments have been made to telephone and Wi-Fi networks in the Black Sea resort to ensure extensive and all-permeating monitoring and filtering of all traffic, using Sorm, Russia's system for intercepting phone and internet communications. Ron Deibert, a professor at the University of Toronto and director of Citizen Lab, which co-operated with the Sochi research, describes the Sorm amendments as "Prism on steroids", referring to the programme used by the NSA in the US and revealed to the Guardian by the whistleblower Edward Snowden."
Anybody heard of SLOP (Severe Loss of Perspective Syndrome?)
The techno-libertarian community seemed to get a big dose of it when we saw those leaks from Snowden and friends. All of a sudden, we were the Devil incarnate, despite:
1) surveillance being subject to judicial and legislative oversight
2) not being anywhere near as far-reaching as SORM or the Chinese systems, or
3) anybody being hauled away in the dead of night for offending the sensibilities of anybody in power.
I suggest that some people need to grow up, and realise that the West is the absolute paragon of virtue compared to what Russia, China and Muslim countries are doing.
I shudder to think what will happen to the world when the baton of world domination is handed to these despots. I know the techno-libertarian crowd will be celebrating.