Russia Asks For The Impossible With Its New Surveillance Laws

[Independent voter]

This is from the EFF or Electronic Frontier Foundation, it's an organization that anyone can donate to who wants to keep the internet free and wild, meaning as far from state control as possible.

Yes I know the NSA captures surveillance data in the US. But it's meta data, who emailed who, who called who. This Russian law is saying the ISPs must keep the actual email, the actual voice call, the actual post on MMO-C etc.

Some ISPs say they will have to shut down, it's too much of a burden.






https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/0...veillance-laws

It’s been a rough month for Internet freedom in Russia. After it breezed through the Duma, President Putin signed the “Yarovaya package" into law—a set of radical “anti-terrorism” provisions drafted by ultra-conservative United Russia politician Irina Yarovaya, together with a set of instructions on how to implement the new rules. Russia’s new surveillance laws include some of Bad Internet Legislation’s greatest hits, such as mandatory data retention and government backdoors for encrypted communications—policies that EFF has opposed in every country where they’ve been proposed.

As if that wasn’t scary enough, under the revisions to the criminal code, Russians can now be prosecuted for “failing to report a crime.” Citizens now risk a year in jail for simply not telling the police about suspicions they might have about future terrorist acts.

But some of the greatest confusion has come from Internet service providers and other telecommunication companies. These organizations now face impossible demands from the Russian state. Now they can be ordered to retain every byte of data that they transmit, including video, telephone calls, text messages, web traffic, and email for six months—a daunting and expensive task that requires the kind of storage capacity that’s usually associated with NSA data centers in Utah. Government access to this data no longer requires a warrant. Carriers must keep all metadata for three years; ISPs one year. Finally, any online service (including social networks, email, or messaging services) that uses encrypted data is now required to permit the Federal Security Service (FSB) to access and read their services’ encrypted communications, including providing any encryption keys.

Opposition to the Yarovaya package has come from many quarters. Technical experts have been united in opposing the law. Russia’s government Internet ombudsman opposed the bill. Putin’s own human rights head, Mikhail Fedotov, called upon the Senators of Russia’s Federal Council to reject the bill. ISPs have pointed out that compliance would cost them trillions of rubles.

But now the law is here, and in force. Putin has asked for a list of services that must hand over their keys. ISPs have begun to consider how to store an impossibly large amount of data. Service providers are required to consider how to either break unbreakable encryption or include backdoors for the Russian authorities.

It is clear that foreign services will not be spared. Last week, the VPN provider, Private Internet Access (PIA), announced that they believed their Russian servers had been seized by the Russian authorities. PIA says they do not keep logs, so they could not comply with the demand, but they have now discontinued their Russian gateways and “will no longer be doing business in the region.”

Russia’s ISPs, messaging services, and social media platforms have no such choice: because they cannot reasonably comply with all the demands of the Yarovaya package, they become de facto criminals whatever their actions. And that, in turn, gives the Russian state the leverage to extract from them any other concession it desires. The impossibility of full compliance is not a bug—it’s an essential feature.

Russia is not the only nation whose lawmakers and politicians are heading in this direction, especially when it comes to requiring backdoors for encrypted communications. Time and time again, technologists and civil liberties groups have warned the United States, France, Holland, and a host of other nations that the anti-encryption laws they propose cannot be obeyed without rewriting the laws of mathematics. Politicians have often responded by effectively telling the Internet’s experts “don’t worry, you’ll work out a way.” Let us be clear: government backdoors in encrypted communications make us all less safe, no matter which country is holding the keys.

Technologists have sometimes believed that technical impossibility means that the laws are simply unworkable – that a law that cannot be obeyed is no worse than no law at all. As Russia shows, regulations that no one can comply with aren’t dead-letter laws. Instead, they corrode the rule of law, leaving a rusting wreckage of partial compliance that can be exploited by powers who will use their enforcement powers for darker and more partial ends than justice.

Russians concerned with the fall of Internet freedom, including the Society for the Protection of the Internet (IPI), have planned a protest in cities across the country on July 26. EFF will continue to follow the situation closely as it develops.

[Templar 331]

No internet for Russia then.

[Sunseeker]

Well, I suppose everyone (everyone being all ISPs and such) could just deny service to Russia. It'd turn the country into an internet black hole, but hey, they'd be out of reach.

[The Stormbringer]

Whelp... looks like Russia is fucked.

[Shalcker]

Oh no, Russian government can ask some companies to retain data up to 6 months. On case-by-case basis. And in most cases those who would need to do it already retain it way beyond this limit. Noone is going to save torrents, audio is easily compressible, text chats/emails are trivial to keep forever if needed, and video will be only retained when it's feasible.

It's not "everyone has to keep everything all the time". FSB can already keep everything they want with their "black boxes" each provider has to install by previous laws as far as general internet traffic goes.

[Belize]

Wow, that wasn't long before apologists came along to explain how it's perfectly ok for the Russians to trample all over their population's privacy.

[AeneasBK]

Wow, that wasn't long before apologists came along to explain how it's perfectly ok for the Russians to trample all over their population's privacy.

Unless I misunderstood, said apologist is simply saying "Big whoop, most of that shit is already covered" so I guess the trampling has been and gone, I don't know...

[Grummgug]

Meanwhile in China....

[Belize]

Unless I misunderstood, said apologist is simply saying "Big whoop, most of that shit is already covered" so I guess the trampling has been and gone, I don't know...

Oh, well, I guess that makes it ok!

[Kaleredar]

Ah, yes, if only limp-wristed Obama took more bull-headed, strong measures like Putin! Then the United States would be great again, right?

[ControlWarrior]

I /facepalm anytime I see an article that uses "ultra-conservative" to insinuate absolute evil.

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Ah, yes, if only limp-wristed Obama took more bull-headed, strong measures like Putin! Then the United States would be great again, right?

I'm pretty sure he was or is still trying. Don't give up on him yet!

[Manabomb]

Well, I suppose everyone (everyone being all ISPs and such) could just deny service to Russia. It'd turn the country into an internet black hole, but hey, they'd be out of reach.

TBH, without proper implementation of the internet, Russia has no future. Hell, every country that isn't focusing on or fleshing out internet access, rights and guide lines has no future.

The internet -is- the future.

[Charge me Doctor]

i think i'm going crazy, because i was reading an actual law and it is nowhere said that ICP will have to keep anything extra. They literally changed "for 1 year" line to "for 3 years" line and shit went crazy over trivial shit, except over police being able to use personal data without court, which is way more important than meta data being saved for 3 years instead of 1. Jeez.

[Sunseeker]

TBH, without proper implementation of the internet, Russia has no future. Hell, every country that isn't focusing on or fleshing out internet access, rights and guide lines has no future.

The internet -is- the future.

I mean, unless they're creating some sort of alternate option or something.

[Tackhisis]

TBH, without proper implementation of the internet

The proper implementation of the internet does include surveillance, as no information access should be uncontrolled.
Eventually, there will be a "white zone" in the internet, where all the users are using their real names and government-registered digital signatures, and everything of value will move there.

[May90]

This is one of those laws that are made not to actually force someone to do something, but to gain control over private corporations. It is clear that the law can't be satisfied, so the government gets an opportunity to extort anyone by saying, "Do as we say, or we will inquire about the back-up data you are required to have, and if you don't have it, there will be sanctions". Standard trick in dictatorship law systems.

I'm honestly fucking scared that I might have to go to Russia one day on a study trip.

I might have to go to South Africa in like 3 years... RIP.

[May90]

Lets switch pls.

Hmm... Sorry, I think I'll pass!

[Powerogue]

Meanwhile in China....

[IMG]https://www.stratfor.com/sites/default/files/styles/stratfor_large__s_/public/main/images/china-grid-mgt.jpg?itok=UOXJvw5c[IMG]

The difference between an incredibly efficient society and a corrupt prison state is their definition at the very end of "quickly address the situation, preventing a potential protest."

TBH, without proper implementation of the internet, Russia has no future. Hell, every country that isn't focusing on or fleshing out internet access, rights and guide lines has no future.

The internet -is- the future.

The problem that arises is that the internet is, and will only continue to become more, global. Yet, at the end of the day, countries can't agree on how to handle this. Is it a novelty? An opportunity? A threat?!