Russian Govenrment Cracking Down on the Internet

First the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs established the Россвязьохранкультура, or Rossvyazkhrankultura, which roughly translates as the Russian Online Culture Protection Service. Among other things, the Rosokhrankultura will eventually use data mining (now it is still done manually) to identify sites which carry “extremist” material (which is already illegal in Russia).

Note: in Russia, the definition of what is extremist is somewhat open to interpretation. The news and human rights site Ingushetia.ru is currently fighting the Moscow courts to avoid being declared extremist and closed. In November 2007 the site was closed more directly, when local ISPs blocked access and redirected visitors to a p*rn*graphic site). Their court case, which is was set for April 11 in a Moscow court (the government appealed after the Supreme Court of Ingushetia refused a request by the Ingushetian Public Prosecutor's Office to close the site), but that court refused to hear it on the grounds that the case was not within its juridiction and instead directed it to the Kuntsevo District Court, where Magomed Evloev the owner of the site in question, is registered. That it in the courts at all instead of just closed is because of timing; the case predates the creation of the Rosokhrankultura, which can simply declare sites “extremist” without any court involvement. The entire investigation is reported to have been initiatead by the FSB. The English news articles I could found about this have since been taken down, but here is a cached version of one. The same applies to coverage of the hearing itself.

The role Rosokhrankultura is not purely cultural of course (otherwise it would have bee formed as part of the Ministry of Culture, as opposed to the security-minded Ministry of Internal Affairs), but technically it has no power beyond identifying the sites. Enter the General Prosecutors Office; they were just given the power to close “extremist” sites. This is not the most important part, however. They were also given the power to suspend operations of Internet Service providers (ISPs) that host such sites. The option to shut entire businesses if they do not cooperate is a strong incentive for cooperation, as well as for ISPs to self-police.

Within days (on April 8) of gaining those powers, the General Prosecutor’s division of St. Petersburg temporarily suspended the operations of ten Internet Service Providers (ISPs) operating in that city, although the exact sites for which they were being punished for hosting is unclear. Even the exact companies are unknown. The police stated that they closed the ISPs only very briefly, which looks more like they did it as a warning to ISPs across Russia that their operations could and would be damaged should they choose to host such sites.

Should ISPs not police themselves as well as the state would like, there is a back-up plan: Deputy General Director of the Russian general Prosecutor Alexei Zhafiarov also called for legislation mandating such involvement if self-policing is not instituted. According to his reasoning, it is not always possible to determine who posted extremist materials, but it is possible to determine who is hosting it, and as such they should be held responsible.

UN Watchdog Censures Google, Gets Censored

I really don't want to become one of those preachy, over-exaggerating bloggers writing for effect or out of bias, but I keep coming across these stories. The next one will be different I promise. An entry about why Russian women are hot or something (a surprisingly popular topic lately, and I have my own theory). But for now, the facts..

You know its a real story when even Fox News, that "fair and balanced" bastion of right-wing fuss TV-watchers* picks it up.

The short version: Inner City Press, a small but successful UN watchdog, is dropped from Google News after the Inner City Press publicly questioned Google's refusal to sign the UN compact on human rights and anti-censorship principles. Google responded by delisting Inner City Press from its Google News Service. On February 8, 2008, Google News sent Inner City press an email which began:

We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users. When we reviewed your site we've found that we can no longer include it in Google News.

"Don't be evil" indeed. The Global Accountability Project has further details here.

I would like to stress that although the Inner City Press clearly has an agenda, that is to monitor the doings of the United Nations and point out wrong-doing when they see it, they do it from a straightforward journalistic approach; they aren't a political group of permanently seeking to paint the UN in a bad light. Having spent time in Afghanistan, where UN malfeasance and mismanagement played role in killing much of the naiveté I had left, I can say the Inner City Press is a model of restraint, if not too restrained. The problem with such truly bad things is that others tend to thing you are exaggerating or operating on too extreme of a bias when you say them. I used to think such people were foolish too, until I became one of them. The same thing applies to some of my more outlandish adventures; I generally don't tell most people because they just don't believe it (one of the reasons I have over 4,000 pictures on my personal flickr page. Having a photo of myself flying a helicopter over the Pakistani mountains or playing snow polo is a lot easier, and faster).

* To be fair, most TV news channels are mostly fluff. I stopped watching any of them when I saw a pieces titled "Bush Girls Good Girls - Where Did They Go Right?" Not only is this not true, it is not news, and therefore a waste of airtime.

Obvious Statement of the Week Award

Six cables damaged in under two weeks and you think it may have been the work of saboteurs? At least the story is getting out there.

Undersea Saboteurs May Have Been Responsible For Cable Cuts

Some highlights:

Reports from those vessels have apparently indicated that the may not have been caused by accident or through natural events. According to the ITU's (International Telecom Union) head of development, Sami al-Murshed, "We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago,"

"Do not rule out," doesn't carry quite the same weight as "have proof of sabotage," but of the five cable cuts, only one (the link between the UAE and Oman) is definitely established to have been an accident. There are doubts regarding the others, as some experts feel that the cables were too deep to be cut and lie outside of normal shipping lanes. The short period of time between the other four failures may also be indicative of deliberate action, as its unusual for multiple critical cable breaks to occur that close together. Four of the five cables have been repaired at this point the repair status of the fifth cable is unknown.

Just because an abandoned anchor was found at the damaged point of one cable doesn't mean that it was an accident. It is possible that one of the cables providing connectivity was damaged by accident on the same day that another, distant, cable providing connectivity to the Middle East was also damaged, but somehow I doubt it. I don't know who or what was behind the cable breaks, but six cables down in under two weeks is not an accident, especially compared to the previous record - the last serious damage to a cable was in 2006, when an earthquake disrupted (just) one cable serving parts of Asia.

The damaged anchor discovered at the site of one of damaged cables.
This photo comes from the FLAG website, two of FLAG's cables being among those damaged.