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Russia Adopts Bill That Would Expand Government Control Over the Internet (go.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the raising-censorship-fears dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: Russia's lower chamber of parliament has adopted a bill that would expand government control over the internet, raising fears of widespread censorship. The State Duma on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to support the bill, which still has to be approved by the upper chamber of Russian Parliament and signed into the law by the president.

The bill requires internet providers to install equipment to route Russian internet traffic through servers in the country. That would increase the power of state agencies to control information while users would find it harder to circumvent government restrictions, and the quality of the connection may suffer. Proponents of the bill say it is a defense measure in case the United States or other hostile powers cut off the internet for Russia.

23 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. a legitimate concern.. by edris90 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Having grown up with the internet and watching it degrade from a place of uncensored anonymous sharing of information where the reputation means nothing and the idea is what holds value, To the e-commerce slums , carefully curated and censored propaganda machine, it has become,. It would be naive not to expect the US to break the internet on purpose, for governmental interests.

    1. Re: a legitimate concern.. by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      It would be naive not to expect the US to break the internet on purpose

      And it'd be even more naive not to expect the US to keep it working... after all, it's only the most useful propaganda and intel-collection tool ever made.

    2. Re:a legitimate concern.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Though the reasons you cite for more supervision of the Internet are legit, this is probably about something else. Putin has been using his intelligence services to attack numerous other countries through the Internet in various ways, including the USA, and since he is widely recognized as a "smart guy" it seems likely that he knows retaliation is coming. There was a first taste of this in the 2018 mid-term elections when Russia's access to the rest of the Internet was largely blocked for several days by US intelligence services. He is right to expect much more retaliation, and not just from the US. Most of Western Europe is also getting fed-up with Russian activities designed to stir up strife and conflict in their respective societies.

    3. Re: a legitimate concern.. by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they can't break the "internet," but they're welcome to install firewalls on their side and screw up their intranet as bad as they want.

      I don't really care if they use routers for firewalls, or if they just throw their people in a gulag for PEBKAC. My packets route the same.

    4. Re:a legitimate concern.. by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      regardless of what you believe the USA will or will not do, may or may not do, what putin's regime is doing is making it possible to remove and block content that putin and anyone in power in that regime finds dangerous for their power, that is all it is.

      For example hundreds or thousands of pieces of content and sites have been blocked simply because they report this story - Andrey Kostin and his much yonger lover Naili Asker-Zade, they have a daughter out of wedlock obviously because he is married to a woman he paid 6000000usd to keep quet, he has multiple yonge lovers and has kids with them and he is a givernment worker, who is paying tens of millions of dollars to his lovers. That would be millions of dillars he is stealing from the government bank he is working for.

      putin doesn't care about that, his concern is holding on to power and he owns all of the main stream media outlets in the country (by proxy), so the tv and the radio is under control. What is *not* under control yet is the Internet and it is super dangerous to putin's power since millions of people can now tune into opposition channels like that of Navalny for example and they can get a dissenting point of view about putin and his puppets in parlament (duma) and his puppets in the justice system, etc. Russia is a sham of a country today and it should in fact be treated as a rogue state, because it is one. putin supports every terrorist and dictatorial regime out there, point a finger at a terrorist organization anywhere in the world today and you can be certain putin is dumping money into it and giving them weapons, providing them with infrastructure and other types of help.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    5. Re:a legitimate concern.. by Etcetera · · Score: 2

      Having grown up with the internet and watching it degrade from a place of uncensored anonymous sharing of information where the reputation means nothing and the idea is what holds value, To the e-commerce slums , carefully curated and censored propaganda machine, it has become,. It would be naive not to expect the US to break the internet on purpose, for governmental interests.

      What you're overlooking is that it was grown out of US governmental interests to begin with, and exploded under American tutelage. Russian, Chinese, and other bad-state actions in the last 5-7 years really highlights how horrible a decision it really was for the Obama Administration to allow ICANN to be moved out from the under the ultimate authority of the Department of Commerce.

      The Internet has been a battleground for years, and the history of the last century points to Americans being better Guarantors of Last Resort than facially neutral entities like your average UN commission when it comes to being a force for liberty in the world.

      --
      Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
    6. Re: a legitimate concern.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The usual apologists that you'll get around here. Followed by whataboutism that isn't even true.

      When Russian websites don't censor themselves as far as Kremlin criticism goes worse things happen.
      For example I liked to read RBC.ru because there you get a way better perspective than with that RT.com bullshit that all the idiots here in the West gobble up like it's fried bacon. That was until 2016 when the Kremlin forced a change in leadership there because they investigated things that were too inconvenient for Putin and his oligarch friends.
      Now I know that they likely installed their Kremlin/Oligarch puppets there.

      Anyway the problem is that if we're arguing that way then Putin doesn't need to do most of the oppressive things he does to stay in power. Yet he does them. And they all bear the dangers of him tightening the grasp he has on the nation. But no, no, no, that won't possibly happen. Faggots like you will suck his dick nonetheless while gladly blaming Westerners.

  2. How do we escape it? How do we route around it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't want to depend on a "benevolent" government to do the right thing.

    We've interpreted this degradation as damage; now, how do we route around it? How do we set up an alternative channel for at least text communications

    * Point to point directed WiFi with mesh networks?

    * Uber for hard disks, so we can drive data around, slowly but surely?

    How do we get something going that allows us to thumb our digital noses at these authoritarians?

    1. Re:How do we escape it? How do we route around it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Dude have you been living under a rock these last 20 years ? The US government has never been benevolent or respectful of privacy (pre or post 9/11). The only thing that changed is that the curtains were swept away and you can see all the rot and the "lets pretend " as the fuck you it really is.
      Russia is quite late to the internet control party actually.

  3. at least they're up front about it. by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

    Not that either approach is 'good' or anything less than sheer evil; but if a government is going to actively snoop on its citizens, is it better to do what the rooskies are doing, or what the NSA did (15 odd years ago I might add.)

    case in point:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    1. Re:at least they're up front about it. by quenda · · Score: 1

      And it is good that the Russians feel the need to legislate this. At least they are giving lip service to rule of law.
      The US is heading the other direction, and increasingly ruling by presidential executive order, and misused "emergency" powers, in place of laws passed by congress.

      And no, this did not start with Trump. It has been getting worse over recent administrations.

  4. Yeah... right. by rnturn · · Score: 1

    ``Proponents of the bill say it is a defense measure in case the United States or other hostile powers cut off the internet for Russia.

    Uh, huh. Whatever you say. It might help in sucking up to Vlad, though.

    --
    CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
  5. Re:OK. Nobody said it was. by Stolovaya · · Score: 1

    Five Eyes? NSA? Not a strawman.

  6. Re:OK. NOBODY SAID IT WAS BENEVOLENT. by Stolovaya · · Score: 1

    Do you have an actual refutation of Fives Eyes or the NSA? Or are you just going to quote an inaccurate logical fallacy?

  7. Re: How do we escape it? How do we route around it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Raspberry Pi Zero W's only cost $10 and require very little power. If you paired it with a small solar panel and battery, you could throw these up all over the neighborhood and quickly build that WiFi mesh network you're thinking of.

    Problem is, what would you or your neighbors use it for that can't already be done on the Internet itself? Why would anyone bother connecting to your WiFi mesh network instead of connecting to the Internet proper?

  8. Re:OK. NOBODY SAID IT WAS BENEVOLENT. by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    Nobody can refute Ceiling Cat.

    Ceiling Cat knows how many eyes you have.

    Ceiling Cat knows what you did with that cheeseburder.

    Ceiling Cat knows where you hid the pee-pee tape.

    Nobody can refute Ceiling Cat.

  9. Re: How do we escape it? How do we route around i by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

    ive done exactly this.
    But the software side of the mesh networking is a shitshow.

  10. Netsplit by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

    Just cut them off completely. We don't need a global internet. It's just not worth the trouble. US should cut off every other country from their free and open internet. If backward countries without proper free speech laws on their books don't wanna play nice. If greedy countries wanna tax links and pictures.. go for it.. on your intranet.

    Get off our network.

  11. I wonder what happens to those who vote nay? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    "To protect Russians from being cut off from the US.", what a laugh.

    And the Berlin Wall was there to prevent West Berlin from fleeing into the East.

    Just watch and see. Eventually Russia will decide it's time they "need to protect the sensibilities of their citizens" blah blah blah.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  12. Control where? by mark_reh · · Score: 1

    In Russia or in the US?

  13. Re:Simple anwer: Host stuff there! by Allasard · · Score: 2

    They should not just be a network of relays. They should BE the servers. For files, chat (IRC, Signal), mail, websites, forums, etc.

    This project has some of that functionality: Piratebox

    I installed it on a battery-powered wifi router with some survival docs, but its battery is dead so it might not be very useful when the SHTF.

  14. Re:OK. Nobody said it was. by Stolovaya · · Score: 1

    Covert spying on citizens...disrespecting privacy...I'm not sure why you don't see these as the same thing. Nice that you seem to think that as long as the privacy is invaded by a different country, but then shared, well, that's okay (at least with Five Eyes).

    The NSA wholesale spies on citizens of the US. Period.

    So, nope! No strawman.

  15. Re: It's not just the idea that holds value by edris90 · · Score: 1

    Wrong is that people are accepting hearsay as fact without directly experimenting to test things for their own understanding and direct observation. people have forgotten but no peace and remembrance Shannon should ever be accepted as fact until you have personally approved it through direct experimentation. That's basic personal responsibility.