Now That The NSA Has Made It The Norm, Total Surveillance During The Sochi Olympic Games Is No Longer Noteworthy

In addition to being an opportunity to stretch copyright and trademark rules way beyond the law, over the years, the Olympics has also become an occasion when the feeble "because terrorism" excuse is deployed to justify all kinds of additional restrictions on personal freedoms. It will come as no surprise to learn that the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Vladimir Putin's pet project, will continue the tradition: 

On Techdirt.

NSA Spying Fallout Hits French Satellite Deal

Techdirt has already noted how the NSA's massive spying programs around the world are costing US companies money through lost business -- and are likely to cost them even more in the future. But it seems that the fallout is even wider, as this story from The Voice of Russia makes clear: 

On Techdirt.

Russian Authorities Threaten To Block CloudFlare And Other Key Infrastructural Sites

This is getting boring. Every time Techdirt writes about Russian Internet blocking, it's along the lines of: "just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it does." Here's another one. As a post from TorrentFreak explains, Russia's telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor maintains a blacklist of sites that allegedly promote the usual bad stuff -- child pornography, criminal activities, suicide etc. In news that will surprise no one that understands how the Internet works, Roskomnadzor is finding it hard to enforce those blocks on material held on servers located outside Russia: 

On Techdirt.

Russia's Leading Social Network VKontakte Cleared Of Copyright Infringement

VKontakte is not only the largest social networking site in Russia, but is also one of the biggest unauthorized repositories of copyright music, thanks to its file-hosting service. Given the moves to clamp down on copyright infringement in Russia, it seemed only a matter of time before VKontakte found itself in hot water because of this. And yet, as Torrent Freak reports, something unexpected has happened: 

On Techdirt.

Russia Plans To Launch Sputnik Again -- This Time As A Search Engine

Techdirt has been reporting for a while the efforts of the Russian government to bring the Internet there under control. It now seems that it is taking a new approach: as well as banning or criminalizing activities it doesn't like, it wants to compete with them directly. Specifically, it plans to fund a new Russian search engine, called "Sputnik", named after the first artificial satellite, put into space by the Russians in 1957. According to an article in the news magazine "Der Spiegel" (original in German), this is designed to address two problems at once. 

On Techdirt.

Russia's Latest Idea: An Internet Whitelist For Copyright Materials

Now that Sarkozy has been thrown out of office, France is no longer producing the steady stream of bad proposals for the Internet that it once generated. That has left an opening for some other country to take its place, and it seems that Russia is keen to pick up where Sarkozy left off. We've been reporting on previous worrying developments there, and TorrentFreak has news on another one: 

On Techdirt.

Russia Prepares To Block Tor And Anonymizing Proxies

As more and more countries start introducing Web blocks, some people console themselves with the "at least there's always Tor" argument. Politicians may be slow, but they are not all completely stupid, and they are beginning to get the message that Tor and other anonymous services potentially render their Web blocks moot. It's then not a huge leap for them to move on to the next stage -- banning or blocking Tor -- as Russia now seems to be contemplating, according to this article on Russia Today: 

On Techdirt.

As Russia Expands Its 'Think Of The Children' Laws To Copyright, Agency In Charge Investigated For Infringement

Last week we wrote about how the Russian equivalent of SOPA had been amended in order to ban swearing online. Although that was worth noting for its entertainment value, probably more important is the fact that the same law -- originally brought in to take down sites about drugs, suicide and child pornography -- has also been widened to include copyright infringement, as TechWeekEurope reports: 

On Techdirt.

Russia To Ban Swearing On The Internet

A year ago, we wrote about a Russian law that introduced a blacklist designed to block access to information on drugs, suicide and child pornography (all for the children, of course.) Strangely, that same law was then used to silence leading reporters who dared to criticize the government (bet nobody saw that coming....) 

On Techdirt.

Russia to Ban Swearing Online: UK to Follow?

Yesterday I wrote about the slide into censorship and self-censorship that the UK government's misbegotten plans to impose a default set of Net blocks could bring about. Of course, the UK is not alone in seeking to introduce disproportionate schemes. Here's one from Russia:

On Open Enterprise blog.

SOPA Didn't Die, It Just Emigrated

It's hard to believe that the heady times that saw SOPA's rise and fall are only a year and a half ago. Of course, SOPA didn't die, but was merely "delayed". But if you've ever wondered what happened to it, wonder no more; it emigrated to Russia, as TorrentFreak reports: 

On Techdirt.

Has Russia's VKontakte Social Network Betrayed Its Users? Or Is It Under Attack For Defending Them?

We last wrote about the Russian social network site VKontakte, often called "The Facebook of Russia," a year ago. Since then, lots of bad stuff has been happening in Russia as a part of clampdown on online activity there, and now VKontakte is back in the news, with a pair of rather contradictory stories. 

On Techdirt.

Another Terrible Idea From Russia: Using Whitelists To Control Access To The Internet

Techdirt has been reporting on a steady stream of bad tech ideas coming out of Russia, including content monitoring, banning children from using WiFi, anti-piracy laws requiring takedowns in 24 hours and -- of course -- site blocking. But such blacklists are too permissive for some Russians: over on Google+, Peter Lemenkov pointed out that one region is now introducing whitelists (original in Russian): 

On Techdirt.

Russian Ministry Of Culture Publishes Draft Anti-Piracy Law; Requires Takedowns Within 24 Hours

Presumably as part of the overall agreement for Russia to be allowed to join the WTO, the Ministry of Culture there has published a draft of its anti-piracy law (via @PostActa). Here's the google translation of a story on the roem.ru site: 

On Techdirt.

Russia Blacklists Cultural Wiki Without Explanation, Site Just Moves To Circumvent Block

Techdirt has been following the worsening censorship situation in Russia for some time. Back in July, the country's parliament passed a new law ostensibly designed to "protect the children". It took only a couple of weeks before it was used to shut down the whole of LiveJournal for part of the country. That was apparently because a neo-Nazi blog had been found among the thousands of others hosted there -- an indication of just how blunt this new instrument of censorship is. 

On Techdirt.

Russia And China Both Want To 'Protect Children'; Both Want To Do It By Increasing Censorship

As expected, Russia has passed a law that will allow Web sites to be blacklisted, ostensibly to "protect children". According to this AFP report, the very vague "harmful information" category has been narrowed somewhat, but future threats remain: 

On Techdirt.

Russia Takes SOPA-Like Approach In Encouraging ISPs To Spy On Their Users

Something that's proving popular with politicians running out of ideas for tackling unauthorized sharing of copyright materials online is to make ISPs and Web sites responsible for the actions of their users -- even though nobody would think of doing the same for telephone companies. SOPA was one of the best-known examples of this approach, and now it looks like Russia wants to join the club: 

On Techdirt.

Why is Firefox - and Open Source - a Disaster in China?

Like many people, I've been tracking the steady ascent of Google Chrome - and corresponding decline of Microsoft's Internet Explorer - for some time now. Just recently, yet another milestone has been reached, apparently:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Russian Internet Content Monitoring System To Go Live In December

Back in April of this year, the Russian government put out a tender:

Last week, Roskomnadzor, Russian Federal Service for Telecoms Supervision, announced a public tender for developing Internet monitoring system. According to the tender, the budget for such system is 15 million rubles (about $530,000) and the job applications should be submitted by April 15, 2011. The system needs to be developed by August 15, 2011 and the testing period should end on December 15, 2011.

On Techdirt.

Microsoft's $844 Million Software Giveaway To Nonprofits: Pure Charity Or Cheap Marketing?

Microsoft has just released its 2011 Annual Financial Report. But alongside that document's dry facts about its $69.9 billion turnover, and the operating income of $27.2 billion, Dj Walker-Morgan pointed us to a more interesting publication, Microsoft's 2011 Citizenship Report: 

On Techdirt.