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Russia may deem civil servants’ use of Gmail, Facebook ‘high treason’

182 points by Libertatea 13y ago

mtgx 13y ago
Years ago, when Russia was vehemently against US expanding its anti-rocket shields, I was against Russia, and supported US, because "US are the good guys, right?". Over the past few years I've started to understand Russia's position. Nobody should want US to become too powerful, because clearly you can't depend on Americans to keep their own government in check, no matter how good the US Constitution is. So I kind've understand this move from Russia, too, even though it will probably end badly for Russia, to the point where they become more like China, but I feel that US deserves this from every country in the world, until they roll back all the spying, and end these programs and laws (Patriot Act, FISA). I imagine that if there are hundreds of corporations lobbying the US government to stop because they are losing business overseas, they will eventually do it, because they know that the end of the day, and despite all their public statements, the spying is not that useful for catching terrorists, and specific investigations and wiretapping should still be possible under reasonable laws anyway.
- colin_jack 13y ago
  "even though it will probably end badly for Russia, to the point where they become more like China" Not sure what you mean by this. As a European I'm pretty uncomfortable with the idea of a foreign government being able to snoop on my internet communications and I'm hoping European leaders take a stand on this. I don't see that leading any where bad though.
  - contingencies 13y ago
    Russia's best anti-US play right now is to offer massively cheap bandwidth between China/Korea/Japan, South Asia, and Europe. Yes, they will have to look after it. No, it won't be cheap. But in terms of intelligence gathering, it has the potential to significantly impact the US' ease of access to huge bodies of information by cutting North America out of the heart of the internet.
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      At this point, I really wish someone would do that. IMO the US has had its time and it's time they started getting cut out more. Having said that, I'm not sure if anyone would trust services coming out of Russia.
      - jerf 13y ago
        "Having said that, I'm not sure if anyone would trust services coming out of Russia." It may be worth reminding people that if the US currently seems to be heading into a police state, that Russia within living memory has manifested one. I'm all for holding the US accountable, but let's not collectively be idiots and think that this is all uniquely a US problem, and that therefore we can just stop worrying about everywhere else in the world and let them do whatever because they aren't the US, they must be awesome. We're still criticizing the US for heading in a direction that quite a few other major countries have already arrived at. It's great criticism, it's legitimate concerns, but don't get overexcited and give everybody else a pass. Can anyone say with a straight face that Russia won't sniff Internet traffic with the same basic purposes and approaches, either now or anytime in, say, the next ten years? I sure wouldn't bet any money on that claim.
        tripzilch 13y ago
        Yes, of course. I'll go one further and say I wouldn't trust any country to not sniff the Internet traffic passing through them. However, spreading it around is at least somewhat better than having the majority of traffic snooped on by a single power. Right?
        contingencies 13y ago
        The attraction is that it provides greatly needed decentralization for the internet at large. It doesn't solve the spying problem, but it does contribute to solving the global hegemon with turnkey totalitarian surveillance problem in a meaningful way that both Russia and the rest of the world can derive value from.
        flyinRyan 13y ago
  - PakG1 13y ago
    I think he's talking about how China blocks a lot of American online services. Russia could head in that direction too, though for different motives.
    - colin_jack 13y ago
      Ahh makes sense, sorry I presumed he meant in terms of a more repressive approach to communication. I can't see why any governments would be happy with the US monitoring their citizens communication. If the US laws don't change I'd imagine you will find a lot of alternative services having to appear pretty quickly.
- asperous 13y ago
  > "clearly you can't depend on Americans to keep their own government in check, no matter how good the US Constitution is." The Government has been taking away our rights for years, the general public seems to expect the government to solve all of their problems and give them free paychecks. Of course, I really would be surprised to find out the America is the only country spying on their own citizens. This has been going on for years and everyone knew it.. now with the leak hopefully we can reign in our own government and abolish the practice officially.
  - lutze 13y ago
    See this? This is part of the problem, stop being so stereotypically blinkered. The rest of the world doesn't care if the US government is spying on its own citizens. The US government is ACCOUNTABLE to its own citizens (well nominally, but hey...), so if they don't like it they're in a position to do something about it. As a none US citizen, I care that the US government is spying on ME, unilaterally and without any accountability. This is what the rest of the world cares about. Stop pissing away what little sympathy you have by moaning like a spoiled child about the bad shit your government is doing to YOU, and open your fucking eyes to what it's doing to EVERYONE ELSE.
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- daliusd 13y ago
  This move is not from Russia (as country/people) but it is from Russian government. They are constantly doing this as it is the only way to make the look better than they actually are.
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- flyinRyan 13y ago
  >because clearly you can't depend on Any Country to keep their own government in check, no matter how good Their Laws Are. FTFY. The fact is, laws/constitutions/whatever are utterly meaningless. Without enforcement, that is. And it's not up to us to enforce it, it's up to government officials. They can and do simply ignore laws whenever they wish. Sometimes a check/balance kicks in and makes them pay some kind of penalty, sometimes nothing happens.
- znowi 13y ago
  A bit of history in relation to the proposed anti-ballistic defense system in Europe. In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty with Russia. The treaty had been active since the 70s and sought to decrease the amount of those very systems installed. In the same year, no longer bound by the treaty, the US started to look into expansion of its defense arsenal in Europe, which eventually led them to Poland. It is no surprise then that Russia saw it as an unfriendly gesture at best. Any independent country would, when all of a sudden someone dumps the anti-ballistic treaty and then decides to build a defensive shield along your borders. The EU has traditionally been used as a playground to advance the US agenda. The proposed defense system is no exception. Gladly, it did not come to fruition. Otherwise, we'd seen a very different Europe now. Given our attachment to history, Russia is still often seen as this "cold war" aggressor out to get you. But if the past decade is of any lesson, I think we have a new candidate on this role.
  - dhimes 13y ago
    Totally agree. We have (essentially) all of the military might, start putting up defense shield, then invade the wrong country, against the better intelligence of the Russians and some Europeans. I also sympathize a bit with the Russians for wanting their own checks and balances against the US, as our attitude was clearly "we're going to do whatever we want and don't really care what you think."
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Perhaps surprisingly, but I also agree with the situation from Russia's perspective. There's an argument to be made about ABM against small-state actors like Iran and NK, but any system that becomes a serious deterrent to ballistic missiles puts an incredible upheaval in our "balance of power" and potentially leads to an arms race, increase in conflict, proxy wars, etc. Not good news. I don't agree that Russia should have a say in when NATO would be able to operate such a system, but a notification requirement would be fine, if not actually allowing a Russian liaison to be stationed with the operations center controlling such a system.
  - Arwill 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago
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- josefresco 13y ago
  When does establishing a good defense (for an ally no less) become an act of aggression? Certainly it's not a purely passive act, but it's also a far cry from aggression seen by both Russia and the US in the past.
  - Mikeb85 13y ago
    When the only thing that prevented war for 50 years was the concept of mutually assured destruction....
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      Especially including people like Stanislov Petrov's understanding of mutually assured destruction, and his willingness to martyr himself.
  - cousin_it 13y ago
    Two men have guns. One buys a bulletproof vest. Now he can bully the other one. So, more defenses can lead to more conflict. Also, more offensive weapons can lead to less conflict: One man has a gun. The other one buys a gun. Now there's peace. So many people don't get game theory...
- Fice 13y ago
  > hundreds of corporations lobbying the US government to stop And then if the government say that they stopped, how can you ever be sure they did? Unless we use free (as in freedom) software, open encrypted communication protocols, and decentralized network services, we are trusting too much of our computing and communication to third parties, which are subject to political powers, that always do whatever they can to protect themselves. The government should not be trusted, it must be controlled. Corporations should not be trusted either.
- pekk 13y ago
  If we are talking about being charged with treason and possibly executed, it's interesting to me that you are OK with brutal state oppression in Russia just because it hurts the US. It gives some insight into your priorities: hurting the US is more important to you than whether people are subject to gross injustice by an authoritarian state.
  - k2527 13y ago
    "brutal state oppression in Russia? What the hell are you talking about?
- borlak 13y ago
  Russia isn't worried about America becoming too powerful. Russia's stance is that your country should worry about itself, and leave other countries alone. Putin has said many snarky remarks in this respect. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
- deleted 13y ago
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- stackedmidgets 13y ago
  Terrorists who are competent harden their communications to avoid US sigint, where the superiority of the US agencies is paramount and well-known. The US is known to have particularly weak human intelligence networks (few spies actually capable of infiltrating foreign terrorist groups). Al Qaeda and the rest know that it's incredibly risky to use electronic communications, so the people that you'd want to monitor already know they're being targeted. Naturally, the US government's response to this has been to bet more heavily on signals intelligence.
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beloch 13y ago
I honestly don't see how american-run social media companies can disentangle themselves from the NSA now. It remains to be seen if the public in most countries will even take notice, but this kind of response will not be the last we see from foreign government agencies. If Facebook or Gmail do fall from public grace, the only certain thing is that their successor won't be run by an american company. International trust in american companies may be fundamentally tainted now.
- ihsw 13y ago
  > If Facebook or Gmail do fall from public grace, the only certain thing is that their successor won't be run by an american company. Who's to say we'll ever see a major international company like that again? I foresee a future where DNS root server control is yanked away from the USG and the internet is partitioned. The pendulum has peaked at globalization and now it's swinging towards isolationism. Whether we like it or not borders have been drawn along the previously wild-west-like internet, and it may take on the form of virtual Berlin Walls. Hopefully someday we can enjoy the same euphoria that followed Germany's reunification but on a global scale, and that day may take a century to get here.
  - dsirijus 13y ago
    I'd definitely read a sci-fi book based on those premises. Preferably, lead character would be developer. Not hacker; I'm not interested much in that point of view.
    - serf 13y ago
      Kind of reminds me of an abstraction of the Snow Crash concept of city-state issued visas and specialized bar codes that allow you to walk into said city-state problem free.
      - gregpilling 13y ago
        "Welcome to Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong" I was thinking this after the NSA thing. People could end up in 150 person (Dunbar number) sized LLCs like the city-states in the novel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_crash
arethuza 13y ago
The article says "immediately limit civil servants’ access to the popular US internet services and social networks" - which I have to admit actually makes sense. If the NSA can get details of the personal lives of individuals then it could open them up for blackmail and therefore to be a security risk.
mtgx 13y ago
Another interesting turn of events. It seems Russia is considering asylum for Snowden: The head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's State Duma, or lower house of parliament, predicted "hysteria in the United States," if Russia were to agree to shelter Mr. Snowden, whom he likened to controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “Having promised Snowden refuge, Moscow is taking up the defense of those persecuted for political reasons. There will be hysteria in the United States,” Alexei Pushkov wrote on Twitter. “In listening to phone calls and tacking Internet activity, U.S. intelligence agencies have violated the laws of their own country. In this sense, Snowden—like Assange—is a human-rights activist.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324634304578538742328320134.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732463430457853... Note: You can search the URL in Google to get the full story)
- adobriyan 13y ago
  Week ago, criminal case against vkontakte.ru's founder Pavel Durov was closed stating that he didn't intent to hit road police officer by a car after traffic jam halted his fleeing. He did or he didn't, the rumor now is that FSB doesn't need classified intelligence committee hearings to access vkontakte.ru data now.
  - notimetorelax 13y ago
    I can believe that, even more after they started requesting mobile phone numbers to login into vk.com. Since I refuse to give my number I cannot access or remove my profile.
    - lobotryas 13y ago
      What about Google Voice or a localized alternative for a virtual phone number? Worst case - burner phone. Another thing to keep in mind: even if you "delete" your profile, given the situation there's zero guarantee that all copies of the data will be destroyed.
  - pekk 13y ago
    And why do you think that FSB ever had an impediment to getting that data?
draven 13y ago
The original title is "Russia may deem civil servants’ use of Gmail, Facebook ‘high treason’", the edited one is a tad more sensationalist.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  I wonder why it was changed, that one is bad enough. I have to say, if I were asked by a business which valued privacy, I'd tell then to contractually and physically block all US services. I mean, if I were working one some product I wanted to keep secret for reasonable market reasons, like hell would I want my employees using gmail and the like to discuss it. I would also be nervous about employees leaving them selves open to blackmail because of facebook posts. Look at Alan Turing's experience of being gay. Say my lead developer was a member of a "secret" gay group on FB and became compromised? Now imagine I was not a business, but a government.
  - pekk 13y ago
    OK, I understand why you don't want people you work with to use Gmail. But treason for using Gmail? And what is the penalty? And we think this is a fair idea, to completely ruin people's lives because they use the 'wrong' internet service that we don't like?
einhverfr 13y ago
Obviously providing such data to the NSA is a crime. It's helping a foreign power, and it is taking away jobs from Russians at various Russian intelligence programs who now have less information about Russian citizens to look at.....
aptwebapps 13y ago
For official state use, not general use.
- 1morepassword 13y ago
  Which is technically illegal in most countries, storing government information on foreign systems. Up until now, it may have been tolerated as long as it didn't concern obviously sensitive information, but you can expect a total ban in most countries on the planet, not just paranoid Russia.
ern 13y ago
Since I don't know enough about Russia, I can't dismiss this report as sensationalist, but something tells me it is. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can tell us if Russian law requires intent to prove "high treason"? And how influential is this "Lower House deputy" anyway?
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  This is just another episode in anti-american hysteria reality show called Russian internal politics. >if Russian law requires there is no such thing as "Russian law" in the sense "law" is understood in the Western world. There is though a will of whoever has the power - it is real Russian law and it doesn't require any prove for a guilty verdict. >And how influential is this "Lower House deputy" anyway? Just a government mouthpiece. The elections are based on party lists. So beyond 10th position in the leading party and 2-3rd position in other parties, these people are unknown nobodies. Some just buy the position in the list to get immunity from various criminal prosecutions the face.
gus_massa 13y ago
This is only a suggestion of a MP. Is Ilya Kostunov an important politician in Russia? What are the chances that this idea will become a law?
silveira 13y ago
And what are the good email alternatives for an civilian that wants a good service and privacy?
- r4pha 13y ago
  What I use is thunderbird + enigmail, which encrypts the message with the receiver's public key and/or signs it with my private key. I don't know if that's the best thing for privacy. I would appreciate a lot to hear some pros/cons.
- alexro 13y ago
  http://prism-break.org/ http://prism-break.org/
bhdz 13y ago
I may sound paranoid and crazy but it smells horribly of gunpowder these months (excuse me if I am not contributing new information)
znowi 13y ago
Well, this is a typical link bait, peppered with the eerie "cold war" overtones. Let me clear up a few things. Firstly, the proposal is covering specifically military and state employees. No one is going to shut down Gmail or Facebook countrywide. This is ridiculous. Secondly, it's not a ban, but a request to develop a set of instructions on handling in-house data for the employees. Thirdly, the proposal calls for encryption of all sensitive data sent over the internet. A little less sensational, is it? :)
- deleted 13y ago
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Fice 13y ago
We saw this already with Skype. FSB: we are not able to eavesdrop Skype calls and Skype is controlled by US, so it must be banned. And some time later: we reached an agreement with Microsoft, Skype is OK.
Ntrails 13y ago
See, this instantly makes me wonder how Russia (and everyone else for that matter) will respond to the "always on" kinect on the xbone...
ethanazir 13y ago
Using Google itself is the biggest problem. Russia, Germany, somebody needs to create an alternative.
- pekk 13y ago
  Yandex and Baidu have existed for a long time, go ahead and use them if you want to.
  - lobotryas 13y ago
    Why risk giving data to Russia/China when we have duckduckgo?
    - ttrreeww 13y ago
      Under US jurisdiction.
      - lobotryas 13y ago
        True, although DDG's dedication to anonymizing searches seems it would make data retrieval more difficult. That said, the options look unappealing. If it really comes down to it, would you rather be giving your information away to US, Chinese or Russian agents?
        ttrreeww 13y ago
        I'd rather give it away to the one that I'm not under the jurisdiction of.
jebblue 13y ago
Putin gets divorced and all of a sudden there are Russian warships moving into the Mediterranean and now Russian citizens might be punished for using Facebook or Gmail.
Fuxy 13y ago
Well this is interesting... This may just turn out to be a good opportunity for European companies to take over from Facebook, Google and twitter. It would take a super human effort though. Unlikely it would happen but here's hoping. That would definitely send a message to the corporate system of America. Mess with our privacy and you loose your audience.
davemaya 13y ago
This is a rule in every governmental agency.
tonyplee 13y ago
Very soon, Russia, Saudi, India and anyother countries can demand Google, Facebook, twitter,'s servers be located inside their borders and allow their own intelligent agents to access, inspect it. Since China block google, Facebook, twitter already, they can also make the demand for Apple imsg, icloud, Microsoft and Skype servers be inside China , else they are blocked. Apple, M$ will have to agree or risk loosing that market.
ttrreeww 13y ago
I agree with Russia on this one.

182 points by Libertatea 13y ago

mtgx 13y ago

Years ago, when Russia was vehemently against US expanding its anti-rocket shields, I was against Russia, and supported US, because "US are the good guys, right?". Over the past few years I've started to understand Russia's position. Nobody should want US to become too powerful, because clearly you can't depend on Americans to keep their own government in check, no matter how good the US Constitution is. So I kind've understand this move from Russia, too, even though it will probably end badly for Russia, to the point where they become more like China, but I feel that US deserves this from every country in the world, until they roll back all the spying, and end these programs and laws (Patriot Act, FISA). I imagine that if there are hundreds of corporations lobbying the US government to stop because they are losing business overseas, they will eventually do it, because they know that the end of the day, and despite all their public statements, the spying is not that useful for catching terrorists, and specific investigations and wiretapping should still be possible under reasonable laws anyway.

colin_jack 13y ago
"even though it will probably end badly for Russia, to the point where they become more like China" Not sure what you mean by this. As a European I'm pretty uncomfortable with the idea of a foreign government being able to snoop on my internet communications and I'm hoping European leaders take a stand on this. I don't see that leading any where bad though.
- contingencies 13y ago
  Russia's best anti-US play right now is to offer massively cheap bandwidth between China/Korea/Japan, South Asia, and Europe. Yes, they will have to look after it. No, it won't be cheap. But in terms of intelligence gathering, it has the potential to significantly impact the US' ease of access to huge bodies of information by cutting North America out of the heart of the internet.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    At this point, I really wish someone would do that. IMO the US has had its time and it's time they started getting cut out more. Having said that, I'm not sure if anyone would trust services coming out of Russia.
    - jerf 13y ago
      "Having said that, I'm not sure if anyone would trust services coming out of Russia." It may be worth reminding people that if the US currently seems to be heading into a police state, that Russia within living memory has manifested one. I'm all for holding the US accountable, but let's not collectively be idiots and think that this is all uniquely a US problem, and that therefore we can just stop worrying about everywhere else in the world and let them do whatever because they aren't the US, they must be awesome. We're still criticizing the US for heading in a direction that quite a few other major countries have already arrived at. It's great criticism, it's legitimate concerns, but don't get overexcited and give everybody else a pass. Can anyone say with a straight face that Russia won't sniff Internet traffic with the same basic purposes and approaches, either now or anytime in, say, the next ten years? I sure wouldn't bet any money on that claim.
      - tripzilch 13y ago
        Yes, of course. I'll go one further and say I wouldn't trust any country to not sniff the Internet traffic passing through them. However, spreading it around is at least somewhat better than having the majority of traffic snooped on by a single power. Right?
      - contingencies 13y ago
        The attraction is that it provides greatly needed decentralization for the internet at large. It doesn't solve the spying problem, but it does contribute to solving the global hegemon with turnkey totalitarian surveillance problem in a meaningful way that both Russia and the rest of the world can derive value from.
      - flyinRyan 13y ago
- PakG1 13y ago
  I think he's talking about how China blocks a lot of American online services. Russia could head in that direction too, though for different motives.
  - colin_jack 13y ago
    Ahh makes sense, sorry I presumed he meant in terms of a more repressive approach to communication. I can't see why any governments would be happy with the US monitoring their citizens communication. If the US laws don't change I'd imagine you will find a lot of alternative services having to appear pretty quickly.
asperous 13y ago
> "clearly you can't depend on Americans to keep their own government in check, no matter how good the US Constitution is." The Government has been taking away our rights for years, the general public seems to expect the government to solve all of their problems and give them free paychecks. Of course, I really would be surprised to find out the America is the only country spying on their own citizens. This has been going on for years and everyone knew it.. now with the leak hopefully we can reign in our own government and abolish the practice officially.
- lutze 13y ago
  See this? This is part of the problem, stop being so stereotypically blinkered. The rest of the world doesn't care if the US government is spying on its own citizens. The US government is ACCOUNTABLE to its own citizens (well nominally, but hey...), so if they don't like it they're in a position to do something about it. As a none US citizen, I care that the US government is spying on ME, unilaterally and without any accountability. This is what the rest of the world cares about. Stop pissing away what little sympathy you have by moaning like a spoiled child about the bad shit your government is doing to YOU, and open your fucking eyes to what it's doing to EVERYONE ELSE.
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daliusd 13y ago
This move is not from Russia (as country/people) but it is from Russian government. They are constantly doing this as it is the only way to make the look better than they actually are.
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flyinRyan 13y ago
>because clearly you can't depend on Any Country to keep their own government in check, no matter how good Their Laws Are. FTFY. The fact is, laws/constitutions/whatever are utterly meaningless. Without enforcement, that is. And it's not up to us to enforce it, it's up to government officials. They can and do simply ignore laws whenever they wish. Sometimes a check/balance kicks in and makes them pay some kind of penalty, sometimes nothing happens.
znowi 13y ago
A bit of history in relation to the proposed anti-ballistic defense system in Europe. In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty with Russia. The treaty had been active since the 70s and sought to decrease the amount of those very systems installed. In the same year, no longer bound by the treaty, the US started to look into expansion of its defense arsenal in Europe, which eventually led them to Poland. It is no surprise then that Russia saw it as an unfriendly gesture at best. Any independent country would, when all of a sudden someone dumps the anti-ballistic treaty and then decides to build a defensive shield along your borders. The EU has traditionally been used as a playground to advance the US agenda. The proposed defense system is no exception. Gladly, it did not come to fruition. Otherwise, we'd seen a very different Europe now. Given our attachment to history, Russia is still often seen as this "cold war" aggressor out to get you. But if the past decade is of any lesson, I think we have a new candidate on this role.
- dhimes 13y ago
  Totally agree. We have (essentially) all of the military might, start putting up defense shield, then invade the wrong country, against the better intelligence of the Russians and some Europeans. I also sympathize a bit with the Russians for wanting their own checks and balances against the US, as our attitude was clearly "we're going to do whatever we want and don't really care what you think."
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Perhaps surprisingly, but I also agree with the situation from Russia's perspective. There's an argument to be made about ABM against small-state actors like Iran and NK, but any system that becomes a serious deterrent to ballistic missiles puts an incredible upheaval in our "balance of power" and potentially leads to an arms race, increase in conflict, proxy wars, etc. Not good news. I don't agree that Russia should have a say in when NATO would be able to operate such a system, but a notification requirement would be fine, if not actually allowing a Russian liaison to be stationed with the operations center controlling such a system.
- Arwill 13y ago
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josefresco 13y ago
When does establishing a good defense (for an ally no less) become an act of aggression? Certainly it's not a purely passive act, but it's also a far cry from aggression seen by both Russia and the US in the past.
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  When the only thing that prevented war for 50 years was the concept of mutually assured destruction....
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    Especially including people like Stanislov Petrov's understanding of mutually assured destruction, and his willingness to martyr himself.
- cousin_it 13y ago
  Two men have guns. One buys a bulletproof vest. Now he can bully the other one. So, more defenses can lead to more conflict. Also, more offensive weapons can lead to less conflict: One man has a gun. The other one buys a gun. Now there's peace. So many people don't get game theory...
Fice 13y ago
> hundreds of corporations lobbying the US government to stop And then if the government say that they stopped, how can you ever be sure they did? Unless we use free (as in freedom) software, open encrypted communication protocols, and decentralized network services, we are trusting too much of our computing and communication to third parties, which are subject to political powers, that always do whatever they can to protect themselves. The government should not be trusted, it must be controlled. Corporations should not be trusted either.
pekk 13y ago
If we are talking about being charged with treason and possibly executed, it's interesting to me that you are OK with brutal state oppression in Russia just because it hurts the US. It gives some insight into your priorities: hurting the US is more important to you than whether people are subject to gross injustice by an authoritarian state.
- k2527 13y ago
  "brutal state oppression in Russia? What the hell are you talking about?
borlak 13y ago
Russia isn't worried about America becoming too powerful. Russia's stance is that your country should worry about itself, and leave other countries alone. Putin has said many snarky remarks in this respect. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
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stackedmidgets 13y ago
Terrorists who are competent harden their communications to avoid US sigint, where the superiority of the US agencies is paramount and well-known. The US is known to have particularly weak human intelligence networks (few spies actually capable of infiltrating foreign terrorist groups). Al Qaeda and the rest know that it's incredibly risky to use electronic communications, so the people that you'd want to monitor already know they're being targeted. Naturally, the US government's response to this has been to bet more heavily on signals intelligence.

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beloch 13y ago

I honestly don't see how american-run social media companies can disentangle themselves from the NSA now. It remains to be seen if the public in most countries will even take notice, but this kind of response will not be the last we see from foreign government agencies. If Facebook or Gmail do fall from public grace, the only certain thing is that their successor won't be run by an american company. International trust in american companies may be fundamentally tainted now.

ihsw 13y ago
> If Facebook or Gmail do fall from public grace, the only certain thing is that their successor won't be run by an american company. Who's to say we'll ever see a major international company like that again? I foresee a future where DNS root server control is yanked away from the USG and the internet is partitioned. The pendulum has peaked at globalization and now it's swinging towards isolationism. Whether we like it or not borders have been drawn along the previously wild-west-like internet, and it may take on the form of virtual Berlin Walls. Hopefully someday we can enjoy the same euphoria that followed Germany's reunification but on a global scale, and that day may take a century to get here.
- dsirijus 13y ago
  I'd definitely read a sci-fi book based on those premises. Preferably, lead character would be developer. Not hacker; I'm not interested much in that point of view.
  - serf 13y ago
    Kind of reminds me of an abstraction of the Snow Crash concept of city-state issued visas and specialized bar codes that allow you to walk into said city-state problem free.
    - gregpilling 13y ago
      "Welcome to Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong" I was thinking this after the NSA thing. People could end up in 150 person (Dunbar number) sized LLCs like the city-states in the novel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_crash

arethuza 13y ago

The article says "immediately limit civil servants’ access to the popular US internet services and social networks" - which I have to admit actually makes sense. If the NSA can get details of the personal lives of individuals then it could open them up for blackmail and therefore to be a security risk.

mtgx 13y ago

Another interesting turn of events. It seems Russia is considering asylum for Snowden: The head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's State Duma, or lower house of parliament, predicted "hysteria in the United States," if Russia were to agree to shelter Mr. Snowden, whom he likened to controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “Having promised Snowden refuge, Moscow is taking up the defense of those persecuted for political reasons. There will be hysteria in the United States,” Alexei Pushkov wrote on Twitter. “In listening to phone calls and tacking Internet activity, U.S. intelligence agencies have violated the laws of their own country. In this sense, Snowden—like Assange—is a human-rights activist.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324634304578538742328320134.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732463430457853... Note: You can search the URL in Google to get the full story)

adobriyan 13y ago
Week ago, criminal case against vkontakte.ru's founder Pavel Durov was closed stating that he didn't intent to hit road police officer by a car after traffic jam halted his fleeing. He did or he didn't, the rumor now is that FSB doesn't need classified intelligence committee hearings to access vkontakte.ru data now.
- notimetorelax 13y ago
  I can believe that, even more after they started requesting mobile phone numbers to login into vk.com. Since I refuse to give my number I cannot access or remove my profile.
  - lobotryas 13y ago
    What about Google Voice or a localized alternative for a virtual phone number? Worst case - burner phone. Another thing to keep in mind: even if you "delete" your profile, given the situation there's zero guarantee that all copies of the data will be destroyed.
- pekk 13y ago
  And why do you think that FSB ever had an impediment to getting that data?

draven 13y ago

The original title is "Russia may deem civil servants’ use of Gmail, Facebook ‘high treason’", the edited one is a tad more sensationalist.

alan_cx 13y ago
I wonder why it was changed, that one is bad enough. I have to say, if I were asked by a business which valued privacy, I'd tell then to contractually and physically block all US services. I mean, if I were working one some product I wanted to keep secret for reasonable market reasons, like hell would I want my employees using gmail and the like to discuss it. I would also be nervous about employees leaving them selves open to blackmail because of facebook posts. Look at Alan Turing's experience of being gay. Say my lead developer was a member of a "secret" gay group on FB and became compromised? Now imagine I was not a business, but a government.
- pekk 13y ago
  OK, I understand why you don't want people you work with to use Gmail. But treason for using Gmail? And what is the penalty? And we think this is a fair idea, to completely ruin people's lives because they use the 'wrong' internet service that we don't like?

einhverfr 13y ago

Obviously providing such data to the NSA is a crime. It's helping a foreign power, and it is taking away jobs from Russians at various Russian intelligence programs who now have less information about Russian citizens to look at.....

aptwebapps 13y ago

For official state use, not general use.

1morepassword 13y ago
Which is technically illegal in most countries, storing government information on foreign systems. Up until now, it may have been tolerated as long as it didn't concern obviously sensitive information, but you can expect a total ban in most countries on the planet, not just paranoid Russia.

ern 13y ago

Since I don't know enough about Russia, I can't dismiss this report as sensationalist, but something tells me it is. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can tell us if Russian law requires intent to prove "high treason"? And how influential is this "Lower House deputy" anyway?

VladRussian2 13y ago
This is just another episode in anti-american hysteria reality show called Russian internal politics. >if Russian law requires there is no such thing as "Russian law" in the sense "law" is understood in the Western world. There is though a will of whoever has the power - it is real Russian law and it doesn't require any prove for a guilty verdict. >And how influential is this "Lower House deputy" anyway? Just a government mouthpiece. The elections are based on party lists. So beyond 10th position in the leading party and 2-3rd position in other parties, these people are unknown nobodies. Some just buy the position in the list to get immunity from various criminal prosecutions the face.

gus_massa 13y ago

This is only a suggestion of a MP. Is Ilya Kostunov an important politician in Russia? What are the chances that this idea will become a law?

silveira 13y ago

And what are the good email alternatives for an civilian that wants a good service and privacy?

r4pha 13y ago
What I use is thunderbird + enigmail, which encrypts the message with the receiver's public key and/or signs it with my private key. I don't know if that's the best thing for privacy. I would appreciate a lot to hear some pros/cons.
alexro 13y ago
http://prism-break.org/ http://prism-break.org/

bhdz 13y ago

I may sound paranoid and crazy but it smells horribly of gunpowder these months (excuse me if I am not contributing new information)

znowi 13y ago

Well, this is a typical link bait, peppered with the eerie "cold war" overtones. Let me clear up a few things. Firstly, the proposal is covering specifically military and state employees. No one is going to shut down Gmail or Facebook countrywide. This is ridiculous. Secondly, it's not a ban, but a request to develop a set of instructions on handling in-house data for the employees. Thirdly, the proposal calls for encryption of all sensitive data sent over the internet. A little less sensational, is it? :)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

Fice 13y ago

We saw this already with Skype. FSB: we are not able to eavesdrop Skype calls and Skype is controlled by US, so it must be banned. And some time later: we reached an agreement with Microsoft, Skype is OK.

Ntrails 13y ago

See, this instantly makes me wonder how Russia (and everyone else for that matter) will respond to the "always on" kinect on the xbone...

ethanazir 13y ago

Using Google itself is the biggest problem. Russia, Germany, somebody needs to create an alternative.

pekk 13y ago
Yandex and Baidu have existed for a long time, go ahead and use them if you want to.
- lobotryas 13y ago
  Why risk giving data to Russia/China when we have duckduckgo?
  - ttrreeww 13y ago
    Under US jurisdiction.
    - lobotryas 13y ago
      True, although DDG's dedication to anonymizing searches seems it would make data retrieval more difficult. That said, the options look unappealing. If it really comes down to it, would you rather be giving your information away to US, Chinese or Russian agents?
      - ttrreeww 13y ago
        I'd rather give it away to the one that I'm not under the jurisdiction of.

jebblue 13y ago

Putin gets divorced and all of a sudden there are Russian warships moving into the Mediterranean and now Russian citizens might be punished for using Facebook or Gmail.

Fuxy 13y ago

Well this is interesting... This may just turn out to be a good opportunity for European companies to take over from Facebook, Google and twitter. It would take a super human effort though. Unlikely it would happen but here's hoping. That would definitely send a message to the corporate system of America. Mess with our privacy and you loose your audience.

davemaya 13y ago

This is a rule in every governmental agency.

tonyplee 13y ago

Very soon, Russia, Saudi, India and anyother countries can demand Google, Facebook, twitter,'s servers be located inside their borders and allow their own intelligent agents to access, inspect it. Since China block google, Facebook, twitter already, they can also make the demand for Apple imsg, icloud, Microsoft and Skype servers be inside China , else they are blocked. Apple, M$ will have to agree or risk loosing that market.

ttrreeww 13y ago

I agree with Russia on this one.