Russian Copyright Law Allows Entire News Site To Be Shut Down Over A Single Copied Article

from the funny-how-that-works dept

We've noted for a long time now that copyright laws are regularly used as a tool for censorship. In Russia, abusing copyright law for censorship and to harass political opponents has become standard. Remember how the Russian government teamed up with Microsoft to use questionable copyright claims to intimidate government critics? And then how the MPAA gleefully got into bed with Russia's media censor to celebrate copyright? Of course, Russia also expanded its ability to use copyright to censor the internet, following pressure from short-sighted US diplomats, demanding that Russia better "respect" copyright laws.

And now it's resulting in the taking down of an entire news site. As TorrentFreak reports, news site Story-media.ru does appear to have copied a full article from a popular Russian news site Gazeta. That's certainly an issue, but because of that single copied article, combined with the use of anonymizing the WHOIS record, a Moscow court has ordered the entire site blocked. Think about that for a second and recognize how copyright can be used to shut down an entire publication. Now some will argue that they wouldn't have any problem if they hadn't copied that article, but copyright is one of those things that basically everyone infringes on eventually. If you don't expect this process to be abused to shut down press that powerful individuals in Russia don't like, then you haven't been paying much attention.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, news, russia

Putin's Internet Trolls Are Stoking The Vitriolic Fire By Posing As Trump Supporters

from the disinformation-nation dept

Over the last year we've repeatedly noted how Putin's Internet propaganda efforts go well beyond flinging insults in news story comment sections. Thanks to whistleblowing by the likes of Lyudmila Savchuk, we learned how Putin employs multiple factories operated by a rotating crop of shell companies whose sole purpose is to fill the internet with Putin-friendly drivel twenty-four-hours a day. Early reports noted how these efforts focused on what you'd expect from Putin: discrediting reporters, distorting Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, or opposing Finland's entry into NATO.

But a little more than a year ago, New York Times Magazine's Adrian Chen decided to see just how deep that particular rabbit hole went.

What he uncovered was a global, not-at-all subtle disinformation network of well-constructed hoaxes, heavily-produced YouTube videos, fake Wikipedia entries, and tens of thousands of bogus social media accounts -- many of which were designed to pollute the global discourse pool here in the States. The report went so far as to highlight one disinformation effort where Putin-paid trolls posed as Americans online, directing users to a fully-realized museum in Chelsea, Manhattan professing to show the "other side" of the Ukranian conflict (you say invasion, I say tomahto).

That Putin's trolls have extended these tactics to the US election is more than likely. In fact, in an accompanying podcast discussing his story, Chen notes that he also discovered that a number of Putin's disinformation pugilists have been posing as Trump supporters for some time -- something New Yorker contributor Ben Taub was quick to highlight this week just as the DNC e-mail hack hysteria began to peak:Obviously this insight begins to carry new meaning as Russia's involvement in the DNC hack becomes clearer. Many of course have spent significant calories trying to suggest a direct Putin to Trump connection; that's certainly the narrative being pushed by a DNC with a vested interest in avoiding any real conversation about what the e-mails actually say. But it's equally possible that Putin's simply using Internet propaganda to pour gasoline on a rolling dumpster fire that's already veering out of control.

This level of propaganda is something the United States -- already effectively at war with itself -- is not only very good at, but incredibly susceptible to. As a nation we're already prone to over-reaction in tech policy (ban all encryption!), adore responses that make already bad situations worse (immediately launch a cyberattack on Russia!), have an echo-chamber media for whom fact checking is often optional, and an ongoing, passionate relationship with cybersecurity hypocrisy.

During election season we're additionally susceptible to this type of attack; sportsmen in our color-coded onesies and ear plugs -- ready to pounce at the faintest suggestion that our preferred punishment candidate has anything other than the noblest of intentions. We're wading into some very dangerous and ugly territory during what's already been one of the most divisive years on record. Enter the latest expanded claims that the DNC hacker was likely under Putin's employ:

"The researchers, at Arlington, Va.-based ThreatConnect, traced the self-described Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 back to an Internet server in Russia and to a digital address that has been linked in the past to Russian online scams. Far from being a singly, sophisticated hacker, Guccifer 2.0 is more likely a collection of people from the propaganda arm of the Russian government meant to deflect attention away from Moscow as the force behind the DNC hacks and leaks of emails, the researchers found."

“These are bureaucrats, not sophisticated hackers,” Rich Barger, ThreatConnect’s chief intelligence officer, told The Daily Beast. In blog posts and in interviews with journalists, Barger said, Guccifer 2.0 has made inconsistent remarks and given a version of how he penetrated the DNC networks that technically don’t make sense. For instance, the hacker claims to have used a software flaw that didn’t exist until December 2015 in order to break into the DNC networks last summer.

Given countries are busy hacking each other every god damned day, Russia's involvement here -- if true -- shouldn't be a shock. Neither should Russia's use of propaganda and hybrid warfare, a response it believes is justified retaliation to decades of this country's own information warfare efforts. Enter the U.S. media stage left, not only hysterically surprised that nation states hack each other, but immediately losing the forest for the trees; happily insisting the actual content of the e-mails are meaningless -- when they're not busy pushing op-eds advocating all out cyber war. If this is a test of things to come, it's one the press is already failing.

We're already up to our necks in our own marketing, political disinformation and propaganda, leaving us incapable of differentiating Russian disinformation from home grown vitriol. We're barely coordinated enough to agree on what cybersecurity should mean -- much less differentiate hostile Russian propaganda from the vanilla rancor and bile pervading the internet on any given afternoon. Ill-prepared, poorly informed and confused as hell, there's numerous possible responses from the United States here. Given our history with abysmal cybersecurity policy and even worse media dysfunction -- none of them are likely to be any good.

Welcome to the post-truth era's disinformation wars, ladies and gentlemen. Team "level headed" is going to need all the help it can get.

Filed Under: donald trump, politics, russia, trolls, vladimir putin
Companies: twitter

Declaring Cyberwar On Russia Because Of The DNC Hack Is A Bad Idea

from the calm-the-fuck-down dept

There's been plenty of talk, of course, about whether or not Russia did the hack that exposed various Democratic National Committee emails and other documents. While we've already pointed out that this shouldn't impact the newsworthy nature of the material leaked, it's still an interesting story. We've highlighted some reasons to be skeptical of the claims attributing the hack to Russia, but it does appear that more and more evidence is pointing in that direction. Thomas Rid, over at Vice, has a pretty good analysis of why much of the evidence points to Russia as being behind the attack, and the FBI is now apparently on board with that as well. While I'd still prefer more evidence, at least at this point, it should be admitted that there's quite a lot of evidence pointing in Russia's direction making it, at the very least, the most likely suspect.

But, then, of course, there's the question about what it means and what should be done about it. And we're seeing some hysterical responses. Over at Ars Technica, they have a "guest editorial" from a cybersecurity firm CEO, Dave Aitel, (who also is, of course, ex-NSA), more or less arguing that we should declare cyberwar on Russia over this:

What occurred with the recently disclosed breach of the Democratic National Committee servers, and the dumping of stolen data on a WordPress site, is more than an act of cyber espionage or harmless mischief. It meets the definition of an act of cyberwar, and the US government should respond as such.

This is insane for a variety of reasons, and hopefully no one is seriously listening to this. First of all, hacking happens all the time. In fact, as Ed Snowden points out, revealed documents show that the US itself has authorized the hacking of foreign political parties. So if Russian hackers possibly doing that to us is a "cyberwar attack" and it's the kind of thing we need to hit back on, then, uh, haven't we been committing "cyberwar" on tons of other parties via the NSA -- for which we, too, deserve retaliation?

Second, the idea that hacking into a political party's servers is "cyberwar" is a ludicrous exaggeration -- especially when their own security practices were suspect. As the ACLU's Chris Soghoian reminds us, it wasn't that long ago that our very own CIA director John Brennan found his personal email hacked by a 16-year-old. Was that a "cyberwar attack" as well? People are going to get hacked. It happens. Sometimes because they have weak security, and sometimes because the hackers are persistent and determined (no system is completely secure). That, alone, should never make it something that escalates to the level of "war."

Finally, beware of so-called "cybersecurity" firms continuing to beat this drum. Their entire business relies on keeping people freaked out about this stuff, including the idea that "nation state" hackers are trying to break into everything. They have lots of incentive to play up attacks and get people worked up about "war." "Cyberwar" (whatever the hell that means) is good for business for cybersecurity companies. In fact, some of those companies admit that the lessening of "cyber" tensions between the US and other countries is bad for their business: None of this is to deny that nation state-level hacks may very well be happening. But let's keep things in perspective. Even if something like a "cyberwar" (again, whatever that means) happens, it's likely to be a lot less bloody than an actual war, and so much of the talk about this seems to be driven entirely by people who have a vested interest in promoting greater fear -- with little reason to suggest that, perhaps, this isn't a huge deal. In fact, perhaps a lot of this could be helped by simply employing better security practices and more encryption. But, you know, those kinds of solutions don't make headlines. "Cyberwar" does.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, cyberwar, dnc hack, exaggeration, russia

Russian Censor Bans Comodo... Doesn't Realize Its Own Security Certificate Is From Comodo

from the ow!-my-foot!-shot-it-right-off! dept

The Russian government's state censorship organization, Roskomnadzor (technically its telecom regulator) has been especially busy lately as the government has continued to crack down on websites it doesn't like. However, as pointed out by Fight Copyright Trolls, it appears that Roskomnadzor may have gone a bit overboard recently, in response to a court ruling that had a massive list of sites to be banned (over a thousand pages). Apparently, as part of that, various sites associated with Comodo were all banned. That's pretty bad for a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that Comodo remains one of the most popular issuers of secure certificates for HTTPS.

In fact, as many quickly noted, Roskomnadzor's own website happens to be secured with a certificate from... Comodo: It's not entirely clear the impact of this, but the Rublacklist site appears to be implying (via my attempt at understanding Google translate's translation...) that this also means that sites that rely on Roskomnadzor's registry of sites to block... may be blocked from accessing the list. Because its own site is effectively blocked by the list. Oops.

Filed Under: ban list, censorship, https, roskomnadzor, russia, security certificate, ssl
Companies: comodo

Private Internet Access Leaves Russia, Following Encryption Ban And Seized Servers

from the yikes dept

A few years ago, I got to travel to Moscow to present some of our research at an event. Having heard more than a few stories about internet access issues in Russia, before going I made sure that I had three separate VPNs lined up in case any of them were blocked. I ended up using Private Internet Access -- which was already quite well-known and reliable. That's my regular VPN, but I had been worried that maybe it wouldn't work in Moscow. I was wrong. It worked flawlessly. But apparently that's no longer the case. Just after Russia's new surveillance bill passed, complete with mandates for encryption backdoors and data retention (along with a demand that all encryption be openly accessible for the government within two weeks), apparently Russian officials seized Private Internet Access's servers in Russia, causing the company to send an email to all its subscribers, announcing what happened, what it was doing to fix things... and also that it was no longer doing business in Russia.

To Our Beloved Users,

The Russian Government has passed a new law that mandates that every provider must log all Russian internet traffic for up to a year. We believe that due to the enforcement regime surrounding this new law, some of our Russian Servers (RU) were recently seized by Russian Authorities, without notice or any type of due process. We think it’s because we are the most outspoken and only verified no-log VPN provider.

Luckily, since we do not log any traffic or session data, period, no data has been compromised. Our users are, and will always be, private and secure.

Upon learning of the above, we immediately discontinued our Russian gateways and will no longer be doing business in the region.

To make it clear, the privacy and security of our users is our number one priority. For preventative reasons, we are rotating all of our certificates. Furthermore, we’re updating our client applications with improved security measures to mitigate circumstances like this in the future, on top of what is already in place. In addition, our manual configurations now support the strongest new encryption algorithms including AES-256, SHA-256, and RSA-4096.

All Private Internet Access users must update their desktop clients at https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/ and our Android App at Google Play. Manual openvpn configurations users must also download the new config files from the client download page.

We have decided not to do business within the Russian territory. We’re going to be further evaluating other countries and their policies.

In any event, we are aware that there may be times that notice and due process are forgone. However, we do not log and are default secure against seizure.

If you have any questions, please contact us at helpdesk@privateinternetaccess.com.

Thank you for your continued support and helping us fight the good fight.

Sincerely,
Private Internet Access Team

Of course, the end result of this is going to make Russian internet users a lot less safe. The war on encryption is a really dumb idea, and kudos to PIA for taking a stand.

Filed Under: backdoors, encryption, russia, servers, vpn
Companies: private internet access

Putin Says All Encryption Must Be Backdoored In Two Weeks

from the make-it-snappy dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the push by the Russian Duma to pass a massive new surveillance bill that would mandate backdoors to encryption as well as massive data retention requirements for service providers, including saying that they need to store recordings of phone calls. As you may have heard, earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the bill into law. And apparently to prove that he's serious about all of this, Putin has also signed an executive order telling the FSB (the modern version of the KGB) to make sure it gets encryption keys to unlock everything within the next two weeks.

After signing controversial anti-terrorist legislation earlier today, President Putin ordered the Federal Security Service (the FSB, the post-Soviet successor to the KGB) to produce encryption keys to decrypt all data on the Internet. According to the executive order, the FSB has two weeks to do it. Responsibility for carrying out Putin's instructions falls on Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB.

As the article notes, there's a lot of uncertainty here, because in many cases, when things are encrypted locally or where there are private keys, there isn't any way for service providers to turn over any keys.

What happens next is a little unclear. But it seems likely that the Russian government will use this to attack certain encrypted communications services, and potentially block and/or fine them for failing to comply with the new law. There has been a lot of talk about how Ed Snowden has been speaking out against this law, as he should. Considering that he uses a number of different encryption systems to communicate with the world, this law puts him very directly in danger. But it also puts lots of other people at risk as well. As we've been pointing out for a while, encryption does much more to protect everyday citizens than it does to hide the communications of "terrorists." Undermining that puts a lot more people at risk of people hacking into their stuff than being a victim of a terrorist attack.

Filed Under: backdoors, data retention, ed snowden, encryption, fsb, mass surveillance, russia, surveillance, vladimir putin

Russian Culture Minister Claims Netflix A U.S. Mind Control Effort

from the glass-house-propagandists dept

Already on the shitlist of U.S. broadband companies for supporting net neutrality and opposing things like usage caps, Netflix now has a new factually-challenged enemy: Russia. Russia's Culture Ministry took over government film funding through the Cinema Fund in 2012, and more recently unveiled a list of approved subject matter should film makers in Russia wish to get funding. Approved subject matter should include tales that herald "traditional values," "the constructive actions of civil society" or "heroes fighting crime, terrorism and extremism."

With Netflix now pushing into 190 different countries and launching in Russia last January, Russia has clearly become nervous about the influence the US streaming company could have on Russian culture and homegrown production efforts. As such, streaming services like Netflix have been saddled with a significant number of restrictions, including requirements that online video services must be run through a Russia-registered subsidiary, produce 30% of its content locally, and potentially apply for a broadcast license.

Apparently believing these restrictions won't hamper Netflix fully enough, Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky last week upped the rhetoric to 11, proclaiming that Netflix was little more than a US government attempt to control the minds of Russian citizens:

"Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's minister of culture and a loyal supporter of President Vladimir Putin, claims the online streaming service is on the US government payroll. Speaking to a Russian news service, he said the White House had realised "how to enter every home, creep into every television, and through that television, into the head of every person on earth, with the help of Netflix."

"It turns out that our ideological friends [the US government] understand perfectly well which is the greatest of the arts," he said, alluding Lenin's famous comment about the propaganda of cinema. "And you thought, what? That all these gigantic start-ups appear by themselves? That some boy student thought something up and billions of dollars flutter from above?"

Scary! Nobody denies that both countries have used oceans of disinformation and media propaganda to portray the other side in a negative light, but suggesting Netflix has much of a motivation beyond money is an entertaining leap. Medinsky's complaint is particularly amusing given that Russia was just exposed for running disinformation factories twenty-four hours a day whose sole function is to fill the internet with anti-Western bile. But regardless of which side is generating the propaganda; if your social values are so fragile they can be unraveled by a half-hour sitcom or a documentary, you may want to reconsider your ethos.

That said, the real villain in this latest chapter in the information wars isn't Netflix, but Netflix-produced shows and other fare that dare to show homosexuals as something vaguely resembling actual human beings.

Filed Under: american culture, culture, mind control, movies, russia, tv, vladimir medinsky
Companies: netflix

Russia's Problem (According To Russian Politicians): Not Enough Mass Surveillance

from the can't-be-too-careful dept

When you look back at Techdirt's coverage of Russia's attempts to control its people and shut down online dissent, it's unlikely you will be thinking to yourself: "What Russia really needs is more mass surveillance." But Russian politicians would disagree with you there, as they debate bringing in even more powers for the government:

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 Russian-language media. Fines for offending companies could reach 1 million rubles or about $15,000.

That's from a report in The Daily Dot. But it appears there's another angle here, too, as The Moscow Times explains:

The Russian State Duma has recommended new anti-terrorism measures requiring telecommunications operators to store phone and Internet records for three years.

Companies are currently only required to record and store connection details for six months. The new law would change the system to ensure that the content of any call or message would be saved for half a year, while the connection details would be stored for three years, the Interfax news agency reported Friday. All information would be available to state officials "on demand," the Meduza news website reported in May.

Of course, being able to read encrypted messages or inspect the internet activities of Russians for the last three years is hardly enough to keep everything locked down: what about all those websites stirring up trouble? The new measures wouldn't deal with them, would they? But don't worry, Russia's plucky Attorney General has spotted the problem, and is on it, as the Meduza site informs us:

Russian Attorney General Yuri Chaika has proposed granting regional prosecutors the authority to block websites without any judicial oversight, if the websites spread information about preparations for unsanctioned political demonstrations and calls to mass unrest.

Well, that's a relief: I was beginning to worry that Russia might be losing control of the situation.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: mass surveillance, privacy, russia, surveillance

MPAA Happily Gets Into Bed With Russian State Censor Agency... To Protect Copyright!

from the the-friends-you-keep dept

Roskomnadzor is the Russian "telecommunications regulator" or "watchdog," but it could just as easily be described as the Russian internet censor, because that appears to be a large part of its role in the country. In the past, we've written about Roskomnadzor blocking all of Wikipedia over a single reference to hashish (really) and also a plan to block all of CloudFlare because the company made it difficult for Russia's internet censorship plans to work. Earlier this month, Roskomnadzor made news for blacklisting a Vice article, claiming that it would encourage shoplifting.

So, who better to support such a censorship regime than... Hollywood! The MPAA has now proudly signed an agreement with Roskomnadzor to cooperate on protecting copyright online. The linked article is unfortunately horribly written. The title implies that the MPAA represents the government of the United States (while sometimes true in practice, that's not how it's supposed to work...) and then provides frightfully few details on what the agreement really is), beyond "protect copyright!"

The memorandum reflects the principles and rules of self-regulation in the interaction of rights holders with internet facilities, essentially protecting copyright on the internet.

That feels like something the reporter pulled straight from a press release and didn't bother to check what it meant. Still, the MPAA getting into bed with the Russian state internet censor should raise some pretty serious questions. The Russian government has, somewhat infamously, been known to use copyright law to intimidate and silence government critics. The government also has used SOPA-like laws to encourage spying on users.

And yet, this is the same MPAA that claims that one of its core principles is preserving free speech. Perhaps they just mean in the US? Those in Russia are on their own, apparently, because the MPAA is on the side of the government censor. Or, perhaps the reality is that the MPAA has no problem with censorship anywhere, so long as it's censorship on behalf of the MPAA.

Filed Under: blocklist, censorship, copyright, roskomnadzor, russia, sopa
Companies: mpaa

Russia Imprisoning Dozens Of Social Media Critics For 'Hate Speech'

from the be-aware dept

We just wrote about the big social media companies agreeing to quickly take down content for "hate speech" in the EU, and warned about how problematic this was. The definition of "hate speech" matters quite a bit, and we've pointed out in the past how "hate speech" laws frequently morph into a tool for government censorship. So perhaps it should be no surprise at all that just around the same time that Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft agreed to start censoring "hate speech" in the EU, we get another story from the Associated Press about how Russia is using its own hate speech laws to imprison dozens of critics who mocked the government on social media.

As the Kremlin claims unequivocal support among Russians for its policies both at home and abroad, a crackdown is underway against ordinary social media users who post things that run against the official narrative. Here the Kremlin's interests coincide with those of investigators, who are anxious to report high conviction rates for extremism. The Kremlin didn't immediately comment on the issue.

At least 54 people were sent to prison for hate speech last year, most of them for sharing and posting things online, which is almost five times as many as five years ago, according to the Moscow-based Sova group, which studies human rights, nationalism and xenophobia in Russia. The overall number of convictions for hate speech in Russia increased to 233 last year from 92 in 2010.

So what kind of "hate speech" on social media is now leading to Russians being sent to prison? Apparently anyone criticizing Russia's involvement in Ukraine:

Several months after his arrest, Bubeyev pleaded guilty to inciting hatred toward Russians and was sentenced to a year in prison. His offense was sharing articles, photos and videos from Ukrainian nationalist groups, including those of the volunteer Azov battalion fighting Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Among them was an article about the graves of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine and a video describing Russia as a "fascist aggressor" and showing Russian tanks purportedly crossing into Ukraine.

Less than two weeks after the verdict, Bubeyev was charged again. This time, he was accused of calling for "acts of extremism" and "actions undermining Russia's territorial integrity." He had shared the picture of a toothpaste tube and also an article under the headline "Crimea is Ukraine" by a controversial blogger, who is in jail now, calling for military aggression against Russia.

And it's not like this guy was a widely known individual. The article quotes his wife saying: "His page wasn't popular — he only had 12 friends."

So for folks who think it's a good idea for platforms to become the police over "hate speech," take a moment and think about what your worst enemy would do if he or she were able to define what "hate speech" meant.

Filed Under: censorship, critics, free speech, hate speech, russia, social media