New Anti-Corruption Social Network In Russia Requires Numerous Personal Details To Join: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
from the how-secure-is-that-database? dept
As the murder of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov last week reminds us, the political situation in Russia is not just difficult, but extremely dangerous. Presumably hoping that technology might offer a relative safe way to cope with this situation, a Russian NGO has announced that it will be launching a nationwide social network dedicated to fighting bribery and corruption. You might expect that anonymity would be a crucial aspect, given the risks faced by those who choose to join. And yet, as this RT article explains, that's not the case (via @prfnv):
the new project will have one major difference from existing social networks -- a complete lack of anonymity. Membership will only be granted by invitation from existing members, and even when this condition is met, the institute that launches the project promises to open accounts only after verifying the identity of potential members in real life.
That people could use the network to spread false accusations is certainly a risk, but hardly the main danger, which is surely that those accused of corruption may decide to settle things in the same way as Nemtsov's enemies. Creating a network of anti-corruption activists and lawyers will make its membership database extremely desirable for many nefarious actors, who would doubtless find things like place of work and phone numbers useful for future attempts to "dissuade" people from coming forward with information about bribe-taking. Let's just hope the new social network's security advisers are really good.
The users will have to provide a lot of details about themselves -- from name and date of birth, to place of work, e-mail and phone numbers. The people launching the project say that this is a necessary measure to prevent attempted slander, which they see as the main danger threatening their network.
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Filed Under: anonymity, corruption, privacy, russia, social networks, whistleblowers
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Huh, haven't seen that before
Any system which can be hacked, will be hacked, so by forcing people to provide extensive personal details before they are allowed to participate in a forum for reporting corruption, either the ones putting it together are incredibly stupid, or their idea of 'stopping corruption' is the same as the USG's, 'If you can't see it, it isn't there', in which case the best way to get rid of corruption is to get rid of those exposing it.
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Re: Huh, haven't seen that before
can you say, 'honeypot' ?
sure, i knew you could...
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/04/pro-russia-trolls-ukraine-guardian-online#im g-1
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Okay. Seriously now, this is just a bad idea, no matter who you support
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The second part is not be as much of a problem as the first part in this instance.
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Re: Re:
I just wish that RT (as we know it today) had been around in 2003, when the entirety of the US mainstream media were in lockstep with Bush's goal to invade Iraq, and whored themselves out as enthusiastic cheerleaders for that invasion, rather than doing their job as journalists by allowing the dissenting viewpoints and doubts of WMD claims (of which there were many) to be heard. It was a complete snowjob on the American people, and so thorough that sadly the only place that anyone living in the US could get the truth was through the internet (as well as the only place safe to honestly talk about it without being branded an unpatriotic traitor).
My biggest complaint about RT was that they were doing non-political "fluffy" news in their early days, at a time when there was a serious need for hard-hitting reporting to expose the many lies that the US media was spewing daily.
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No one signs up?
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A World First
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I see a money making opportunity here...
I bet a site could be built where you enter any name and address, it generates the Internet Drivers License number (use a real program just to piss 'em off) with addresses of local PD and politicians... prints it off on a high-quality ID printer and mails it...
hmmmm...
The Dumber the Politician, the Dumber the idea.
To paraphrase - Although Genius has its limits, dumb does not.
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I thank you for your invitation to the new social network you are interested in, but I must respectfully decline. You see, I have enough of a job on preventing others doxxing me without making their illegal task easier by laying out all my personal info on a plate, as it were.
Yours sincerely, this Techdirt AC.
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It's too loud to be KGB.
I have a very bad feeling.
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Re:
(http://youtu.be/l2gB01x0sAM)
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Solution
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It's a bad idea for any country, especially Russia right now, to do tis sort of thing over the internet. We can be sure that взяткенет will absolutely become a prime target of NSA hackers.
Russians who report abuse but are rebuffed by authorities are going to be become prime recruiting targets by US-government-funded NGOs (USAide, National Endowment for Democracy, etc) operating both openly and secretly throughout the country, whose primary objective has been to sow dissent, organize and fund radical groups, and forment violent revolutions (including against elected governments) and civil wars throughout the former Soviet empire.
Considering the enemies the Russian government is up against, data security should be a top priority. And of course the only guaranteed way for something to be 100% secure from hostile hands is to have nothing there.
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Before you say I'm wrong and ought to wear a tinfoil hat, think about everyone who called people who knew about the NSA warantless dragnet (it was revealed in december 2005 ffs, well even before, the NYT just sat on the story for a year so as not to appear to want to hurt Bush's second sElection.) crazy, conspiracy theorists(a TLA invented weasel words combo) and otherwise.
This comes out just after a Ukrainian official said that if the west gives them nukes they would not hesitate one second to nuke Russia. Yay for the Neo Nazis who rule Ukraine! Yay possibilities of life destruction!
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