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Russian Bill Requires Encryption Backdoors In All Messenger Apps (dailydot.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the privacy-vs-security dept.

Patrick O'Neill quotes a report from The Daily Dot: A new bill in the Russian Duma, the country's lower legislative house, proposes to make cryptographic backdoors mandatory in all messaging apps in the country so the Federal Security Service -- the successor to the KGB -- can obtain special access to all communications within the country. [Apps like WhatsApp, Viber, and Telegram, all of which offer varying levels of encrypted security for messages, are specifically targeted in the "anti-terrorism" bill, according to the Russian-language media. Fines for the offending companies could reach 1 million rubles or about $15,000.] Russian Senator Elena Mizulina argued that the new bill ought to become law because, she said, teens are brainwashed in closed groups on the internet to murder police officers, a practice protected by encryption. Mizulina then went further. "Maybe we should revisit the idea of pre-filtering [messages]," she said. "We cannot look silently on this."

2 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Filthy dirty freedom hating commies by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Funny

    Those filthy dirty freedom hating commies. Now they are stealing out government's ideas!

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  2. Re: Oh, the irony! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Expressions of homosexuality are also heavily restricted and Russia has a horrible record of LGBT rights.

    Shurely not.

    Putin wouldn't be posting all those homoerotic pictures of himself if that were the case.