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Russia Lawmakers Pass Spying Law That Requires Encryption Backdoors, Call Surveillance (dailydot.com)
A bill that was proposed recently in the Russian Duma to make cryptographic backdoors mandatory in all messaging apps, has passed. Patrick Howell O'Neill, reports for DailyDot:A massive surveillance bill is now on its way to becoming law in Russia. The "anti-terrorism" legislation includes a vast data-eavesdropping and -retention program so that telecom and internet companies have to record and store all customer communications for six months, potentially at a multitrillion-dollar cost. Additionally, all internet firms have to provide mandatory backdoor access into encrypted communications for the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency and successor to the KGB. The bill, with support from the ruling United Russia party, passed Friday in the Duma, Russia's lower legislative house, with 277 votes for, 148 against, and one abstaining. It now moves to Russia's Federal Council and the Kremlin, where it's expected to pass into law.
Non-Russian-based companies can't be compelled to comply with this, and furthermore some companies are sure to just completely pull out of Russia completely. Apparently Russian politicians are no smarter than politicians anywhere else, and apparently are uncomprehending of the fact that the Internet is not just inside Russia or controlled by Russia.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Seems like exactly the kind of thing a corrupt government that doesn't respect the privacy and rights of its citizens would do.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
They will be missed.
Let's hope it's just as newsworthy. I expect to hear all about new technologies that can get around the problem.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Will they cave, or will they stand tall? Because if they cave, the US and the world will follow Putin's lead.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
Do these people really think these companies can create a secure "backdoor to all encryption"? I dread the day I wake up and whatever bullshit "solution" they come up with gets compromised and it's basically cyber Armageddon. Hope they come up with some other impossible shit like, "Feds declare all cars must get 200m/g. Government declares all hamburgers must be fat free." I get what they want, but some things you just can't legislate into existence, especially the goddamn backbone of ecommerce.
They want broken encryption, well, they deserve everything that's coming to them, it's not if, it's when.
so that telecom and internet companies have to record and store all customer communications for six months, potentially at a multitrillion-dollar cost
"You keep using^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H use that word, I do not think it means what you think it means"
Hey Russkies..
Don't you think you are a bit late. USA agencies have had this requirements implemented in OSes for long...
Telegrams were rarely encrypted anyway. Besides, Western Union shut down their telegraph services a decade ago.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Usher in new techniques. Say and think what you want, but Russian computer enthusiasts WILL find ways around this. And so will Chinese and American and Israeli etc. Let the new Digital War begin.
Gilmore famously said "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
Extend that concept a little to "... and Orwellian monitoring and social control", and we can talk about it.
Gilmore may have been correct... at the time he said it. But that was in an era of the net being dominated by technically astute people, rather than the Facebookian masses, who appear perfectly happy to tolerate any degree of central control and monitoring.
The internet no longer interprets these things as any sort of problem, and that allows nations like Russia, China, and many in the Middle East to use it as a tool of oppression, spying on their population, and trying to influence human behaviors. Also the US to use it as a means of constant surveillance of everyone, at all times.
So where is the "circumvention" now? It's absent. Sure, you can find the occasional neckbeard bemoaning the state of things, but those people are one in tens of thousands. Slashdotters like to say, "But GPG through TOR relays through VPNS!!!one!!" as if that is something that 99.999% of the world even understands. Face it, the voice of people wanting an open and free internet is a drop in the ocean of people who Just Don't Care, or actively Want That Control because terrorists.
So little by little, the walls close in. Each country is emboldened by the successes of the last who tried. Each step is not that big. Each little increment is tolerable. But in the end? The Internet That Was is destroyed, and the Internet That Is becomes more about being the ultimate tool of authoritarians.
I don't live in Russia. I have several Russian friends in Moscow. I am sad for them, just like they are for me RE: NSA. And we're both powerless to do much but watch.
I remember a time when the US could point fingers at other countries abusing spying on their own citizens...
There are a lot of software companies selling on north America, but developing their product in Russia. Some of the products are troubling. For example, Netcracker makes software for provisioning and controlling communication services in the telecom industry. There are a great deal of major telcos and cable providers using their code. What does this law mean for something like this? What happens if animosities increase between the east and west and our sensitive infrastructure runs on Russian code? Are there any other types of software that is programmed in Russia that controls our infrastructure? What does it mean for our security? Never mind just Russia either, all that Chinese code too.
It was the We Break Your Legs and Shoot You in an Alley provision.
Dear Russia,
Please cancel our service. Your terms of service suck.
Thanks!
The Rest Of Planet Earth
Oh, come one, Bill Clinton is not running for any office any more, stop beating him up.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Because people don't want to bother with all that. They want a one-stop solution with all contacts in one place. Like Facebook or WhatsApp, with no need to look for contacts. It's laziness, yes. But it's powerful.
Also with these new laws in Russia this isn't going to help you at all. They have also outlawed using non-certified apps (with no backdoor) now and can fine you for just using such an app. And believe me, paying a few hundred bucks for using jabber will teach people some laziness very quickly.
That's funny!
Except that's not what we have. It seems like every new contact wants me to install yet another new IM app just to talk to them.
How many hard drives can the ips buy with a trillion dollars? Those Russians must be communicating much more than the rest of the world.
I've got aim, Skype, Telegram and Retroshare. That seems to cover everyone between them.
Anyone who only uses Snapchat isn't worth knowing.