stories filed under: "russia"
DailyDirt: Trains, Trains, Trains. I've Got a Thing About Trains...
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Trains are an often over-looked form of transportation in the US. But trains are actually one of the most fuel-efficient ways to travel -- able to move a ton of freight over 400 miles on just one gallon of fuel. Here are just a few quick links on some cool train projects.- German trains will be powered by renewable energy (and no cheating by using nuclear power...!) by 2050. "That’s not just a declaration of intent. It’s a concrete business target." [url]
- This video demonstrates the 'Moving Platforms' concept -- which lets train riders get on/off a moving train via a small transfer train. Prior art from the movies: riding up on a horse and jumping onto a moving train. [url]
- Russia is seriously thinking about building an underground rail line between Siberia and Alaska. If completed, this $65 billion project would create the longest underwater tunnel in the world. [url]
- To discover other interesting transportation-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
Filed Under: alaska, moving platforms, renewable energy, russia, trains
'Dirty' City Decides It's Cheaper To Clean Up Google Rankings Than Clean Up
from the taxpayer-seo dept
Bas points us to the news that a city in Russia, Chelyabinsk, which is ranked in the "top 10" list of "dirtiest cities" by the government, has apparently decided that the best way to spend taxpayer money isn't necessarily to make the city any cleaner, but to clean up their Google and Yandex rankings. They've put out for bid a search engine optimization contract, in which they want the top 150 results on the city's name to show "positive or neutral opinions of the ecology of Chelyabinsk and the Chelyabinsk region." At most only 20% should show "negative reports about the region's environment." Chelyabinsk was apparently near a nuclear waste facility explosion in 1957, which the Soviet government covered up for over 30 years. The city is also hoping that "search queries related to that incident," will have much cleaner results. I'm sure plenty of cities do some SEO activities these days, but there does still seem to be something quite questionable about focusing on cleaning up your search rankings, rather than cleaning up the actual city.Filed Under: chelyabinsk, cities, dirty, russia, seo
Russia's 'Crime Of The Century' Highlights Importance Of Anonymous, Public Whistleblowing
from the corruption-runs-deep dept
About a month ago, a few people sent in this horrifying story from Foreign Policy magazine, written by lawyer Jamison Firestone, concerning how one of the partners in his Moscow-based law firm helped uncover a massive crime by government officials -- who stole approximately $230 million and dumped it into real estate around the world -- and was then arrested, tortured, blamed for the theft and murdered in jail for attempting to alert government officials of the corruption and crime. It's a horrific story for anyone who believes in the rule of law. Barron's has a similar story that focuses more on crime itself, and additional evidence that implicates Russian officials -- even as Russian officials continued to blame the whistleblower who had actually alerted authorities to the suspicious behavior before the full theft had even taken place. That article also mentions that many of the same government officials were apparently involved in a similar heist of $107 million a couple years earlier.While some may chalk this sort of thing up to the level of corruption found in Russia today -- which is known to be extensive -- it seems that this story also highlights the importance of the ability to blow the whistle on corruption through anonymous means that will make such findings public -- such as Wikileaks. Wikileaks certainly may have its own problems, and hopefully newer platforms will improve upon its lead, but the ability to expose such crimes without then being tortured, murdered and blamed for the crimes seems like an important thing.
Similarly, in our discussions on Bradley Manning -- who is accused of sending info to Wikileaks (though, according to many, the information Manning had access to was also available to over one million others, meaning that plenty of people may have passed it along to Wikileaks or others) -- we've had people insist that if he found wrongdoing, he should have just reported it to his superiors. The lesson from the story in Russia is that you have to actually trust the superiors to make that reasonable. Manning did not, perhaps for very good reasons. That's not to say that the level of corruption in the US government is on par with the level of corruption in Russia. I don't think anyone believes that. But, it does highlight why someone might reasonably feel that reporting illegal acts by their own government to their own government may not always be the best course of action if the goal is stopping such activities.
Filed Under: free speech, jamison firestone, protection, russia, whistleblowing
Russian President Proposes Creative Commons-Style Rules Baked Directly Into Copyright
from the interesting-move... dept
Well, this is getting interesting. Last week, we noted that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, alone among the other G8 leaders, questioned today's copyright laws, suggesting that they did not fit with the times, and pointed out that these century-old laws don't seem to fit with today's internet. Glyn Moody now points us to the news that Medvedev appears to be going even further than just condemning today's copyright laws. He's now looking to adjust Russia's copyright laws in the other direction:In a statement released on the Kremlin's website on Thursday, Medvedev instructed the country's communications ministry to draw up amendments "aimed at allowing authors to let an unlimited number of people use their content on the basis of free licensing."This could be interesting. To be honest, I'm not sure why such things need to be baked into copyright law (as we've seen, it appears to work with it being built on top of existing copyright law -- though, some question the legality of certain CC licenses). However, what will be most interesting is to see how copyright industry lobbyists and US politicians react to this. I imagine that such a move will show up in the industry... er... I mean the USTR's annual Special 301 report as evidence as to why Russia doesn't "respect" copyright law enough.
The proposed copyright system is on a par with the initiative launched by Creative Commons, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that has created copyright licenses that allow owners to share their content for free with certain restrictions.
But would that really be true? Does building a more flexible, more modern copyright law really mean a lack of respect for copyright? Why wouldn't it mean a healthy respect for building a system that matches better with the times -- rather than the industry's kneejerk reaction to just keep ratcheting up the punishments, enforcements and coverage of copyright?
Filed Under: copyright, creative commons, dmitry medvedev, russia
Companies: creative commons
Apparently Russia's President Gets Angry When You Hit His Blog With A Denial Of Service Attack
from the blog-is-down-for-an-hour! dept
Denial of service attacks are a pain, but they happen. In many ways they're becoming one way that people protest against powerful people and organizations -- and some have discussed how many are effectively the equivalent of a digital sit-in. Of course, it's no fun to be on the receiving end of a DoS attack, and if you're in a position of power, it isn't surprising to react angrily to such an attack. But it does seem a little out of proportion for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to demand that Russian law enforcement officials look into the reason why his LiveJournal blog was taken offline for a whole hour due to a denial of service attack."I have received many appeals in connection with the ... attacks on LiveJournal. As an active user of (LiveJournal) I consider these actions revolting and illegal.... What has occurred should be examined by LiveJournal's administration and law enforcement agencies."Of course, it does seem a bit strange that he's only concerned about denial of service attacks when they impact him personally. Also, LiveJournal? Isn't that kinda like if President Obama had a blog on Blogspot? It's not that hard these days to have a blog on your own domain...
Filed Under: blog, denial of service, livejournal, medvedev, russia
Companies: livejournal
Russia Won't Recognize The Pirate Party Because It Doesn't Like The Name
from the hey,-it's-no-bull-moose dept
I've made it clear in the past that I'm no fan of The Pirate Party's name. While I agree it draws short-term attention, I think it's long-term limiting, and makes it quite easy (even too easy) for people to misrepresent what the party appears to actually stand for. And, apparently, in some cases, it also means that it's cut off from the political process. Apparently, Russia has refused to recognize the Pirate Party because the Justice Ministry doesn't like the name:"piracy is an attack on sea of river craft, which is a criminal offense.'Why, yes, it is. Now will the Russian Justice Ministry claim the same thing the next time the entertainment industry comes calling about infringement?
Of course, the real issue is that the Justice Ministry apparently is unaware of how irony works, or at least doesn't believe that political party names should be ironic. Of course, now the rush is on to come up with a more acceptable name for the party. I vote for the "Party Names Aren't Literal" Party.
Filed Under: pirate party, politics, russia
Our Elected Officials Never Learn: Ask Biden To Get Russia To Increase Censorship Via Copyright
from the not-understanding dept
Vice President Biden went to Russia this week, and though I'm sure he needs no urging whatsoever to present Hollywood's misguided message on intellectual property, a group of our elected officials in Congress -- including Senators Orrin Hatch and Sheldon Whitehouse, along with Congressional Reps. Bob Goodlatte and Adam Schiff (from the LA area, of course) -- have sent him a letter asking him to push Russia to pick up the pace on its "anti-piracy" efforts. It's really quite stunning how shortsighted this request is. After all, we've seen over and over again that when the US pushes other countries to increase their anti-piracy activities, it inevitably results in them using greater "enforcement" against US interests. And Russia is a particularly interesting case. After all, the Kremlin has just indicated it wants to increase internet censorship, and the government also has a long history of using "anti-piracy" claims to censor political critics.I'm sure Russian politicians are having a good chuckle over this. Basically, these US politicians are giving them all the tools they need to censor anyone they don't like. They just get to call it "anti-piracy" and they can even brag about it and have the US government cheer them on.
In the meantime, is anyone a constituent of any of those four elected officials, who apparently make up the "Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus" (don't laugh -- perhaps they're just uninformed)? If so, can you please send them a copy of the new research report on piracy in emerging economies from the Social Science Research Council? We can hope that maybe (just maybe) they'll realize they're not helping.
Just Because A Population Isn't Politically Active Now, Doesn't Mean They Can't Become Politically Active Quickly
from the predetermined-conclusions dept
We recently wrote about the Russian government's plans to ward off populist protests against the government by making service providers liable for what their users have to say -- an attempt to effectively get third party service providers to censor content. Clay Shirky has picked up on this story, with a fascinating discussion of the role of social media in these protests, coming down firmly in the camp of believing that social media clearly has a role, and Russia's response more or less verifies that. But what struck me as most interesting about his piece, was the part where he points out the folly of commentators assuming that people generally are inert when it comes to their willingness to be active in politics. He quotes an article about the Kremlin's plans, where it notes that:Russia's 40 million Internet users -- the country's middle class and most active segment of the population -- have shown remarkably little interest in this political struggle. This means that the Kremlin's battle to prevent an imminent Facebook revolution will remain largely virtual.But then he notes that this makes a major assumption that people who aren't showing interest right now won't show interest later -- perhaps driven by widespread communication on social media platforms:
The unpoliticized nature of Russian internet use is presented as evidence of its political inertness. The underlying observation is correct, of course; young people the world over typically don't use the internet for political activism, but to seek employment or distraction. This is then assumed to be evidence that these same young people are inherently apolitical. The second assumption doesn't follow from the first, however, as illustrated by the events in Tunisia.I think that's a really key point. It still doesn't mean that these protests and government changes are entirely due to social media, but ignoring the role that social media may have had in helping to politicize people who were previously unpoliticized -- if not unpolitical -- should not be understated.
Prior to December 18th, Tunisia's 2.8 million internet users--the country's middle class and most active segment of the population--had shown remarkably little interest in political struggle there either, and that country subsequently underwent as thorough a revolution as has been seen in the region since 1979, one in which the organizers both used and credited social media (principally camera phones and social networks) as effective in aiding Ben Ali's overthrow.
I blame academia for planting the notion that people either are or are not political, and that we can read that aspect of their identity from their daily practice. Because universities put the PoliSci department down the street from Economics and all the way across the quad from Media Studies, we encourage people to think these are actually separate things. Meanwhile, out in the real world, they are all mixed up; you could ask whether an unemployed protester joining her friends to march on Parliament is making an economic, social, or political choice, but the answer would be "Yes."
The North African revolutions and remind us that citizens aren't so much political or apolitical as they are politicized or unpoliticized at any given moment; even people who don’t like discussing politics in their spare time can turn out in the Tahrir Square when the serious business starts.
Filed Under: politics, russia, social media
Russia Wants Social Media Sites To Be Liable For User Content To Avoid Middle East-Style Protests
from the secondary-liability dept
Different countries seem to be taking very different strategies when it comes to thinking about the role of social media in citizen protests against governments. Some are blocking certain sites, or shutting down the internet entirely. However, over in Russia, as pointed out by Julian Sanchez, it appears that the leadership is considering simply making social media sites responsible for what users say on them:Security agencies have proposed that owners of social-media sites be made responsible for all comments on their sites, a way to pressure them to turn over data on individual users who might be subject to criminal prosecution.Of course, foreign companies -- such as Facebook and Twitter -- can probably resist such pressure to some extent, but it could cause some problems. On top of that, the report notes that the Kremlin trained a special "school of bloggers" to counteract social media efforts that go against the government. Yes, they have their own Web 2.0 propaganda force.
Filed Under: free speech, russia, secondary liability
