DOJ Russia Indictment Again Highlights Why Internet Companies Can't Just Wave A Magic Wand To Make Bad Stuff Go Away

from the troll-troll-troll-troll dept

As you've certainly heard by now, earlier today the Justice Department announced that it had indicted thirteen Russian individuals and three Russian organizations for various crimes related to trying to influence the US election. You should read the full indictment if you haven't already. Not surprisingly it focuses on the infamous Internet Research Agency (IRA), which was the giant Russian online trolling operation that we've discussed going back to 2015.

While many are trying to position the indictment as a "significant" bit of news, I have to admit to being a bit underwhelmed. It really does not reveal much that wasn't already widely known. It's been widely reported that the Russians had interest in disrupting our democracy and sowing discord, including setting up and pushing competing rallies from different political sides, and generally stoking fires of distrust and anger in America. And... the indictment seems to repeat much of that which has already been reported. Furthermore, this indictment actually reminds me quite a bit of a similar indictment four years ago aginst various Chinese officials for "hacking" crimes against the US. As we noted then, indicting the Chinese -- who the US would never be able to arrest anyway -- just seemed to be a publicity stunt, that had the potential to come back to haunt the US. It kinda feels the same here.

What is interesting to me, however, is that the indictment also demonstrates why all the hand-wringing against Facebook, Twitter and Google seems kind of misplaced. For months we've been seeing big articles and Congressional hearings questioning why the platforms allowed the Russians to use their services as propaganda tools -- even getting the companies to recently send out (useless, confusing) announcements to people about whether or not they saw or reposted Russian troll propaganda. But what the indictment makes pretty clear, is that the Russians made it nearly impossible for an internet service to ferret them out. The money used was spread out among many different banks and laundered through various means to make it more difficult to trace back. And it details just how far the trolls went to appear to be Americans, including traveling to the US, posing as Americans online to talk to actual US activists and push them in certain directions. And, of course, confusing the internet platforms into thinking they were Americans:

ORGANIZATION employees, referred to as "specialists," were tasked to create social media accounts that appeared to be operated by U.S. persons. The Specialists were divided into day-shift and night-shift hours and instructed to make posts in accordance with the appropriate U.S. time zone. The ORGANIZATION also circulated lists of U.S. holidays so that specialists could develop and post appropriate account activity. Specialists were instructed to write about topics germane to the United States such as U.S. foreign policy and U.S. economic issues. Specialists were directed to create "political intensity through supporting radical groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation and oppositional social movements."

Defendants and their co-conspirators also created thematic group pages on social media sites, particularly on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. ORGANIZATION- controlled pages addressed a range of issues, including: immigration (with group names including "Secured Borders"); the Black Lives Matter movement (with group names including "Blacktivist"); religion (with group names including "United Muslims of America" and "Army of Jesus"); and certain geographic regions within the United States (with group names including "South United" and "Heart of Texas"). By 2016, the size of many groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers.

Most of those groups (if not all?) had previously been revealed by the platforms or by news reports. But the extent to which the Russians went to cover their trails is more revealing.

To hide their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, Defendants and their co- conspirators--particularly POLOZOV and the IT department--purchased space on computer servers located inside the United States in order to set up virtual private networks Defendants and their co-conspirators connected from Russia to the U.S.-based infrastructure by way of these VPNs and conducted activity inside the United States? including accessing online social media accounts, opening new accounts, and communicating with real U.S. persons--while masking the Russian origin and control of the activity.

Defendants and their co-conspirators also registered and controlled hundreds of web-based email accounts hosted by U.S. email providers under false names so as to appear to be U.S. persons and groups. From these accounts, Defendants and their co-conspirators registered or linked to online social media accounts in order to monitor them; posed as U.S. persons when requesting assistance from real U.S. persons; contacted media outlets in order to promote activities inside the United States; and conducted other operations, such as those set forth below.

Use of Stolen U.S. Identities

In or around 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators also used, possessed, and transferred, without lawful authority, the social security numbers and dates of birth of real U.S. persons without those persons' knowledge or consent. Using these means of identification, Defendants and their co-conspirators opened accounts at PayPal, a digital payment service provider; created false means of identification, including fake driver's licenses; and posted on social media accounts using the identities of these U.S. victims. Defendants and their co-conspirators also obtained, and attempted to obtain, false identification documents to use as proof of identity in connection with maintaining accounts and purchasing advertisements on social media sites.

This was not just some run-of-the-mill "pretend to be Americans," this was a hugely involved process to make it very difficult to determine that they were not Americans.

I've seen some people online claiming that this shows why the platforms have to take more responsibility for who is using their platform:

But my read on it is exactly the opposite. It shows just how ridiculous such a demand is. Would any of us be using these various services if we were all forced to go through a detailed background check just to use a social media platform? That seems excessive and silly. Part of the reason why these platforms are so useful and powerful in the first place is that they're available for nearly everyone to use with little hurdles in the way. That obviously has negative consequences -- in the form of trolling and scams and malicious behavior -- but there's also a ton of really good stuff that has come out of it.

We should be pretty cautious before we throw away all of the value of these platforms just because some people used them for nefarious purposes. People are always going to be able to hide their true intentions from the various platforms -- and the response to that shouldn't be "put more blame on the platforms" -- it should be a recognition of why it's so silly to blame the tools and services for the actions of the users.

Yes, we should be concerned about foreign attempts to influence our elections (while noting that the US, itself, has a long history of doing the same damn thing in other countries -- so this is a bit of blowback). But blaming the technology platforms the Russians used seems to be totally missing the point of what happened -- and risks making the internet much worse for everyone else.

Filed Under: doj, impersonation, indictment, influence, intermediary liability, propaganda, russia, russian trolls
Companies: internet research agency

Devin Nunes Releases Memo That Doesn't Show The Surveillance Abuses He Hypocritically 'Cares' About

from the owning-the-libs-by-pretending-to-do-his-job dept

House intelligence oversight leader Devin Nunes released his supposed bombshell Friday. The Nunes memo was supposed to contain info showing the FBI had engaged in a questionable, politically-motivated investigation of Trump staff. How this news was supposed to be shocking was anyone's guess. Anyone who has followed the FBI's activities since the days of J. Edgar Hoover already knows the FBI engages in questionable, politically-motivated investigations. The only new twist is the FISA court's involvement and the use of secretive surveillance powers to collect domestic communications.

The FBI responded by noting the memo [PDF] contained "material omissions of fact." What's contained in the memo likely provides rhetorical ammo to those who believe Trump and his advisors did nothing wrong during the run-up to the election. But it will only provide limited support. What's contained in the memo are accusations the FBI sought (and obtained) FISA warrants to surveill one-time Trump advisor Carter Page. The FBI -- according to the memo -- used the dubious Christopher Steele dossier to buttress its allegations. It apparently continued to do so even after it knew the Steele dossier had been paid for by the Democratic National Committee.

The memo notes this interception was not performed under Title VII, which covers the recently-renewed Section 702 collection powers. This surveillance was performed under Title I -- a more "traditional" FISA process in which the government seeks probable cause-based warrants from the FISA court, much like law enforcement officers seek warrants from magistrate judges.

The memo suggests the FBI should have dropped the investigation -- or at least given the FISA court heads up -- once it became apparent the Steele dossier was politically compromised. But the FBI continued to ask for renewals and these requests were approved by law enforcement officials Trump and most of the Republican party no longer care for. The list includes James Comey (fired), Andrew McCabe (resigned), Sally Yates (fired), and Rod Rosenstein (who Trump would apparently like to fire).

The memo also points out that Christopher Steele was "terminated" (as a source) by the FBI for disclosing his relationship with the agency to the press. Steele also apparently stated he was very interested in preventing Trump from winning the national election. There's also mention of a conflict of interest: a deputy attorney general who worked with those pursuing an investigation of Carter Page was married to a woman who worked for Fusion GPS, the research group paid by the DNC to dig up dirt on Trump.

This all seems very damning at first blush. The Nunes memo is the party's attempt to derail the FBI's ongoing investigation of the Trump campaign and its involvement with Russian meddling in the presidential election. But there's a lot missing from the memo. The facts are cherry-picked to present a very one-sided view of the situation.

The rebuttal letter [PDF] from Democratic legislators is similarly one-sided. But adding both together, you can almost assemble a complete picture of the FBI's actions. The rebuttal points out Christopher Steele had no idea who was funding his research beyond Fusion GPS. It also points out the dirt-digging mission was originally commissioned by the Washington Free Beacon, a right-leaning DC press entity.

It also points out something about the paperwork needed to request a FISA warrant. To secure a renewal, the FBI would have to show it had obtained evidence of value with the previous warrant. If it can't, it's unlikely the renewal request would be approved by FBI directors and/or US attorneys general. The multiple renewals suggest the FBI had actually obtained enough evidence of Carter Page's illicit dealings with the Russians to sustain an ongoing investigation.

Beyond that, there's the fact that Devin Nunes -- despite spending days threatening to release this "damning" memo -- never bothered to view the original documents underlying his assertions of FBI bias. In an interview with Fox News after the memo's release, Nunes admitted he had not read the FBI's warrant applications. So, the assertions are being made with very limited info. Nunes apparently heard the Steele dossier was involved and that was all he needed to compile a list of reasons to fire current Trump nemesis Robert Mueller... disguised as a complaint about improper surveillance.

It's this complaint about abuse of surveillance powers that really chafes. Nunes throttled attempts at Section 702 reform last month and now wants to express his concerns that the FBI and FISA court may not be protecting Americans quite as well as they should. Marcy Wheeler has a long, righteously angry piece at Huffington Post detailing the rank hypocrisy of Nunes' self-serving memo.

Because Nunes and others ― up to and including House Speaker Paul Ryan ― claimed to be motivated by a concern about civil liberties, it was generally assumed the privacy community would join the clamor. But those of us who’ve been through several surveillance fights with these posers know the reality is far more complex. Ultimately, two principles are at issue: the rule of law and privacy. In both instances, Nunes and Ryan are on the wrong side of the issue.

[...]

A mere three weeks ago, Nunes and Ryan were happy to have Americans surveilled with no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing. Back then, Ryan backed suspicionless, warrantless searches of Americans as a necessary trade off. “This [bill] strikes the balance that we must have between honoring and protecting privacy rights of U.S. citizens, honoring civil liberties, and making sure that we have the tools we need in this day and age of 21st century terrorism to keep our people safe.”

Today, however, when a former Trump campaign adviser is at issue, Nunes and Ryan have discovered the due process they personally refused for so many Americans.

This isn't Devin Nunes' first ride on the surveillance hypocrisy merry-go-round. Just like Dianne Feinstein on the other side of the political aisle, Nunes doesn't give two shits about domestic surveillance unless it's being used against him and his. Somehow, Nunes believes libertarians and anti-surveillance progressives will join him in his excoriation of the FBI and its alleged abuse of domestic surveillance powers. But he's not going to win any converts. The hill Nunes has chosen to die on with this memo is this: the law should protect the powerful from questionable snooping. It has nothing to say about the marginalized groups targeted most frequently by security agencies and law enforcement.

Every single privacy activist I know cares about privacy in significant part to ensure the rule of law and to prevent the arbitrary exercise of justice to focus just on select groups like Muslims or Chinese-Americans, rather than those who pose the greatest risk to society, like people allegedly doing Russia’s secret bidding. Yet the actions of Ryan and Nunes reverse that, using a sham concern for civil liberties as a way to prevent themselves, their associates, and the president from being subject to the rule of law like the rest of us would be.

Moving beyond that, there's the damage done to the FBI by the president and the party that follows him. Trump proclaimed himself a "law and order" president and stated he would always have law enforcement's back. But he's spent most of his time in the White House battling the FBI and DOJ, hoping to make investigations into his campaign's questionable relationship with Russia vanish. He wasted no time alienating the FBI simply because its former director wouldn't give him a pledge of loyalty.

Now, with Nunes releasing a completely unredacted memo, the FBI will suffer even more harm. The agency now knows its sources might be exposed for purely political reasons. Very few people will work with the FBI knowing their names might be splashed all over documents released voluntarily by intelligence oversight committee members. This administration has made it clear no one is safe from public disclosure, even as it does everything it can to shut down unauthorized leaks. Again, the hypocrisy is undeniable. While every administration desires to control the narrative, few have been this transparent about their motives.

There should be no rush to lionize the FBI and the officials Trump has discarded because of perceived lack of loyalty. The FBI is no better than it was before Trump took office. It's no champion of civil liberties and it is in the wrong position to pretend to speak truth to power simply by continuing to exist. Abuse of surveillance powers is a very real thing and the FBI remains one of the worst offenders. The memo is Nunes photoshopping a bunch of smoke over a small, ordinary flame and claiming it's photographic evidence of the FBI's antipathy towards Trump. If abuse occurred under Nunes' watch, then it should be called out. But laying bare the details of an ongoing investigation just to score political points is a terrible abuse of Nunes' oversight powers.

Filed Under: devin nunes, fisa, fisa court, fisa warrant, russia, russia investigation, surveillance

British Military Chief Warns Russia Could Cut NATO's Internet Connections, As Traffic For World's Top Sites Is Mysteriously Routed Via...Russia

from the probably-just-a-coincidence dept

We recently wrote about an interesting comment from Vladimir Putin's Press Secretary that Russia had no intention of cutting itself off from the rest of the Internet. But there's another side to the disconnection story, as this Guardian news item reveals:

Russia could pose a major threat to the UK and other Nato nations by cutting underwater cables essential for international commerce and the internet, the chief of the British defence staff, Sir Stuart Peach, has warned.

Russian ships have been regularly spotted close to the Atlantic cables that carry communications between the US and Europe and elsewhere around the world.

In other words, although Russia says it won't cut itself off from the Internet, it could probably cut off many NATO countries. A new report, entitled "Undersea Cables: Indispensable, insecure", emphasizes the importance and vulnerability of the underwater cables that provide much of the Internet's global wiring:

97% of global communications and $10 trillion in daily financial transactions are transmitted not by satellites in the skies, but by cables lying deep beneath the ocean. Undersea cables are the indispensable infrastructure of our time, essential to our modern life and digital economy, yet they are inadequately protected and highly vulnerable to attack at sea and on land, from both hostile states and terrorists.

US intelligence officials have spoken of Russian submarines "aggressively operating" near Atlantic cables as part of its broader interest in unconventional methods of warfare. When Russia annexed Crimea, one of its first moves was to sever the main cable connection to the outside world.

And if there were any doubts that Russia is very interested in the world's Internet connectivity, this recent event may help to clarify things:

Traffic sent to and from Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft was briefly routed through a previously unknown Russian Internet provider Wednesday under circumstances researchers said was suspicious and intentional.

As another story in Ars Technica reported, this is not the first time important traffic has been mysteriously routed through Russia:

large chunks of network traffic belonging to MasterCard, Visa, and more than two dozen other financial services companies were briefly routed through a Russian government-controlled telecom under unexplained circumstances that renew lingering questions about the trust and reliability of some of the most sensitive Internet communications.

These events are a reminder that the online world depends on technologies where trust is an important element. That approach is now looking increasingly shaky as nation states wage attacks not just by means of the Internet, but even against it. This may explain why Russia says it wants alternative DNS servers for the BRICS nations: they could come in quite handy if -- by any chance -- the rest of the Internet goes down.

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

Filed Under: connectivity, dns, infrastructure, internet, russia, uk, undersea cables

Russia Threatens To Ban YouTube And Twitter, But Probably Won't Try

from the VPN-crackdown?-what-VPN-crackdown? dept

Last year, the Russian authorities ordered LinkedIn to be blocked in the country, supposedly for failing to store personal data locally. Since other US companies like Google and Facebook had also ignored this data localization requirement, it was curious that only LinkedIn was affected. Now the German news site Deutsche Welle is reporting that Twitter and YouTube risk being locked out of Russia, but for quite different reasons. These involve Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the wealthiest person in Russia, and a long-time vocal opponent of President Putin. Khodorkovsky spent a number of years in prison, allegedly for fraud and embezzlement. He now lives outside Russia, and has set up the NGO Open Russia, which promotes democracy and human rights in Russia.

Open Russia was put on the official list of "undesirable organizations" in April of this year. The Russian government has shut down Open Russia's web site, and now it is demanding that the NGO's presence on social media be deleted as well. Roskomnadzor, the country's media regulatory agency, gave YouTube and Twitter a deadline to delete Open Russia's accounts on their services, or be blocked entirely. The deadline has now passed, but the accounts are still accessible within Russia. The question is: what happens now?

If Twitter and Google continue to refuse to delete the accounts, the Russian authorities could try to block them individually. That wouldn't be easy, so the government might simply order the whole of Twitter and YouTube to be blocked. After all, that is what it did with LinkedIn. However, the local experts interviewed by Deutsche Welle point out that LinkedIn was never very popular in Russia, so its loss passed largely unnoticed. Shutting down Twitter and YouTube would be a different matter, and would probably cause widespread online protests -- something the authorities would be keen to avoid.

In any case, users could use proxies, VPNs, and Tor to circumvent such blocks. It's true that Russia has brought in a law that gives the authorities the power to order those kinds of services to block access to particular sites, or be shut down. But the Deutsche Welle post contains the following information about what is actually happening on the ground:

The Russian government has already limited the use of such [circumvention] tools. But [Russian reporter and blogger Alexandr] Plushev pointed out that is just a formality. "They have declared about seven VPNs illegal but there are tens of thousand of them to be found online," he said. "Both the Tor and Opera browsers allow you to get around such blocks."

That's an indication that the latest threats to block Twitter and YouTube may not amount to much in practice, and are designed more as a warning of what the Russian authorities could do at some point, rather than what they will do immediately. The fact that Russia will be holding a presidential election next March, in which Vladimir Putin is standing, and presumably expects to win, may be a factor here.

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

Filed Under: bans, mikhail kordorkovsky, roskomnadzor, rozkomnadzor, russia, social media
Companies: twitter, youtube

Russia Says Disconnecting From The Rest Of The Net 'Out Of The Question', But Wants Alternative DNS Servers For BRICS Nations

from the think-global,-act-local dept

At the start of the year, we wrote about a call for Russia to make its Internet infrastructure resistant to external attempts to shut it down, and able to work in isolation if need be. It looks like the authorities are moving ahead with the idea:

The Russian Security Council has asked the country's government to develop an independent internet infrastructure for BRICS nations, which would continue to work in the event of global internet malfunctions.

The RT news story has some details on how the BRICS subnet will work:

They decided that the problem should be addressed by creating a separate backup system of Domain Name Servers (DNS), which would not be subject to control by international organizations. This system would be used by countries of the BRICS bloc -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The plan has evidently developed from a purely Russian intranet system to one that includes the other BRICS nations. Creating additional DNS servers will be easy, so there's no reason why it shouldn't happen -- not least because Putin has "personally set a deadline of August 1, 2018 for the completion of the task". Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the story is the following comment by Putin's Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov:

"Russia’s disconnection from the global internet is of course out of the question," Peskov told the Interfax news agency. However, the official also emphasized that "recently, a fair share of unpredictability is present in the actions of our partners both in the US and the EU, and we [Russia] must be prepared for any turn of events."

That offers a pragmatic recognition that disconnection from the global Internet is no longer an option for a modern state, even if Iran begs to differ. It's true that local DNS servers provide resilience, but they also make it much easier for a government to limit access to foreign sites by ordering their IP addresses to be blocked -- surely another reason for the move.

This latest proposal is part of a long-running campaign by Russia to wrest control of key aspects of the Internet -- such as the DNS system -- from international bodies, for example during the ITU's World Conference on International Communications (WCIT) in 2012. Russia already had the support of other BRICS governments back then, which suggests they will back the new approach.

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

Filed Under: brics, dns, internet, russia

Russia Threatens To Go To War With Google Over Stupid Comments By Eric Schmidt

from the what-a-mess dept

What a world we live in, where a giant country and a giant company may be about to go to war. At a security conference, Alphabet "executive chairman" Eric Schmidt made some fairly dumb comments saying that the company was looking at downranking sites like RT and Sputnik:

“We’re working on detecting this kind of scenario ... and de-ranking those kinds of sites,” Schmidt said, in response to a question at an event in Halifax, Canada. “It’s basically RT and Sputnik. We’re well aware and we’re trying to engineer the systems to prevent it.”

To be clear: I have no doubt that RT and Sputnik have engaged in attempts to push anti-US propaganda in the US. That seems fairly obvious at this point. My concern is twofold: first of all, saying that "it's basically RT and Sputnik" suggests Schmidt thinks that the issue is just those two sites and merely downranking them will solve problems related to propaganda. That's both wrong and naive. Second, having the executive chair of Google's parent company directly announce that Google is working on ways to downrank two specific sites is bad. Part of Google's longstanding position has always been that they don't interfere to go after specific sites, in part because that creates a massive slippery slope. Of course, Google gave up on part of that position five years ago when it caved in to Hollywood and agreed to start downranking sites based on accusations (not actual convictions) of copyright infringement.

Directly coming out and saying that Google is targeting these two sites -- no matter how bad those sites are -- only reinforces the idea that Google will ideologically rank sites, rather than focus on what was its core mission of helping people find the information they were looking for.

And, of course, there are the wider implications of this -- whereby you now have the head of Russia's media regulator Roskomnadzor, threatening to retaliate should Google actually downrank those sites:

Alexander Zharov, head of media regulator Roskomnadzor, said his agency sent a letter to Google on Tuesday requesting clarification on comments Saturday by Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt about how the Russian websites would be treated in search, according to Interfax.

“We will receive an answer and understand what to do next,” Interfax quoted Zharov as saying. “We hope our opinion will be heard, and we won’t have to resort to more serious” retaliatory measures.

Now that's quite an interesting SEO strategy, to have a nuclear power threaten retaliation for dropping in the rankings. Never mind that this is the same Roskomnadzor currently involved in a corruption scandal, and which has been pushing forward on widespread internet censorship without due process.

The whole thing seems like quite a mess -- one that easily could have been avoided if Schmidt hadn't specifically called out those two sites, which, at best, are only a small corner of a larger issue. It would have been fine to suggest that Google was looking to algorithmically do a better job of minimizing false reports or outright propaganda (though, even that might raise serious questions). But to single out two specific sites backed by the Russian government just seems dumb. On the flip side, having Roskomnadzor hit back so strongly also seems fairly short-sighted, as it appears to be the Russian government more or less admitting that it relied on US companies to spread propaganda, and it won't tolerate efforts to diminish the power of its propaganda.

Of course, it does seem worth noting that three years ago, Google shut down its Russian office just as Russia picked up its efforts to censor the internet in that country. So it's not as if Google and the Russian government haven't been at odds before -- but this certainly feels like an escalation.

Filed Under: downranking, eric schmidt, fake news, propagranda, roskomnadzor, rozkomnadzor, russia
Companies: alphabet, google, rt, sputnik

Russian Foreign Ministry Accuses America Of Supporting ISIS With Video Game Footage

from the fake-it-until-you-make-it dept

The history of governments attempting to demonstrate either their own military prowess or the dastardly actions of others -- usually America -- is long and storied. South Korea used footage from war games to show off weapons I guess it must not have, Egypt attempted to pass off game footage as Russian airstrikes against ISIL/ISIS/whatever they're supposed to be called, and North Korea attempted to show off its nuclear capability by pinching some Modern Warfare 3 footage. Even Russia has tried its hand at this, attempting to show that America was arming Ukrainian rebels with Stinger missiles with some stills from the game Battlefield 3. That any of these countries thought they would get away with these fakes is nearly as funny as their having not considered how much international egg they'd have on their faces once they were found out.

But you'd at least have thought these countries would learn their lesson. In the case of Russia, it seems not so much. The Russian Defense Ministry recently accused the American military of, get this, helping ISIS in order to promote American interests in the Middle East. While that claim is, on its face, fairly laughable, so too was the photo evidence Russia provided.

If those images look sort of familiar to you, it's probably because you've played AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron. It seems that the photographic evidence offered by the Russian Defense Ministry is just more video game stills.

In a sign of how lazy some propagandists can be, on Tuesday the official Russian-language Twitter account for the country’s defense ministry tweeted a selection of photos, claiming the images were irrefutable evidence that the U.S. was helping ISIS terrorists. However, one of the photos the Ministry of Defense tweeted (and later deleted) appears to be from the video game AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron, a clip of which is available on YouTube. The account also posted the photos along with a longer body of text on Facebook. Researchers from verification and citizen-journalism platform Bellingcat debunked the photo after someone else tweeted it, claiming a video was live drone-attack footage over Mosul, Iraq.

Whatever those other photos are from, it's clear they are not from American forces happily supporting ISIS. We've done bad things in this country, but this claim is simply off the reservation.

Russia, for its part, deleted the debunked photo, but maintained the claim that America is now helping ISIS in the Middle East. Maybe we can grab a couple of stills from The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle as evidence that Russians are committing mass genocide of all moose and squirrel.

Filed Under: isis, russia, video games

Rozcomnadzor's Corruption Scandal Doesn't Prevent The Russian Government From Empowering It To Ignore Due Process

from the russia-gonna-russia dept

Reading our coverage of Rozcomnadzor, the Russian government agency tasked with keeping the internet clean of piracy, you would know that the agency has a laughably bad track record for pretty much everything. Even as ranking members of the agency have been embroiled in a corruption scandal in which they bilked Russian taxpayers by creating fake employees, the statistics out on Rozcomnadzor's ability to carry out its stated mission -- blocking sites used for piracy on the internet -- are horrendous. Put simply, the agency has managed to take down 4,000 "pirate" sites through legal cluster bombs that have inflicted 41,000 sites worth of collateral damage. Any honest look at those kinds of numbers would lead a sincere government to seriously consider whether such an agency was worthy of existence at all.

The Russian government, on the other hand, has decided to expand Rozcomnadzor's powers by essentially nixing anything that would even remotely look like due process. The new proposal being considered by the Russian Ministry of Culture is severe, to say the least.

A new amendment that that was published by the Ministry of Culture proposes to allow for near-instant pirate site blockades to protect the local movie industry, Vedomosti reports.

At the moment, website owners are given three days to remove infringing content before any action is taken. Under the new proposal, site blockades would be implemented less than 24 hours after Rozcomnadzor is alerted. Website owners will not get the chance to remove the infringing content and a court order isn't required either.

If this looks like a change almost perfectly designed for even more collateral damage and practically begging to be abused, then you're looking at this in exactly the right way. The collateral damage, already severe, will be worsened by the supercharged speed of the takedown process and the omission of any site's ability to address the court's concerns prior to having its site censored. It's almost as if removing infringing material from websites isn't the actual goal of this agency at all. Instead, quick censorship based on accusations without judicial oversight is the order of the day, and it is inevitable that the government and adverse commercial entities will wield this weapon with abandon.

Keep in mind that Rozcomnadzor has already proven itself unreliable on matters of public servitude. The Russian government itself, of course, has little interest in free speech rights for its citizens and has built a reputation for itself as perfectly willing to pretzel Russian law to silence dissenting opinions. Everyone should be immediately suspicious of the Russian government handing itself so much power to censor outside of the Russian's courts purview.

There are some making much noise about the law's requirement that sites be infringing on Russian films.

The new blocking plans go further than any of the previous legislation, but they will only apply to movies that have “a national film certificate” from Russian authorities, as HWR points out. This doesn’t cover any Hollywood movies, which typically top the local box office.

Except this focus on Russian films hasn't kept those tens of thousands of sites caught up as collateral damage out of the censorship blast, has it? This new law under consideration is dangerous to anyone that cares about free speech, particularly in a region already besieged by efforts to limit that speech.

Filed Under: corruption, due process, rozcomnadzor, russia, site blocking
Companies: rozcomnadzor