Recent Issues
A near doubling in Russian wiretaps over five years
In a previous article, we asked who was bugging the Russian opposition. Here we develop this theme, looking at how a combination of recent legislation and new technology has allowed Russia’s many security agencies to expand their activities still further. / June 4 2012 /
The Kremlin and the hackers: partners in crime?
The recent Russian parliamentary and presidential elections were notable for the wide use of cyber attacks on the websites of the liberal media, as well as opposition hackers accessing officials’ email exchanges.
The Russian state and surveillance technology
The Russian blogosphere has burgeoned into a open-door sanctuary for all strands of political opinion. Predictably, it has also attracted the attention of the country's security services. Our first in a series of investigations outlining how the Russian state is now monitoring its online public.
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The New Nobility
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The statements that President Vladimir Putin made at a recent meeting with leaders of the Russian Internet are hardly worth discussing. As usual, he offered only vague assurances of support for a variety of freedoms while pretending that all of the recent legislative initiatives tightening control over the Internet were designed exclusively to fight pedophiles, drugs, terrorism and suicide. What is worth discussing is the position of the Internet industry leaders themselves. / June 20, 2014 /
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Unlike the Brits [Luke Harding and Edward Lucas], Greenwald communicated with Edward Snowden; the first time face to face in Hong Kong in May 2013, and the last time only several days ago here in Moscow. And it was he who was chosen by Snowden for publicizing his exposes to The Guardian.
However, despite this important advantage, the main thing in Greenwald’s book is what is not in it. Excerpts from Andrei Soldatov’s critical review of Glenn Greenwald’s 'No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State' at vozduh.afisha, an independent cultural and entertainment site owned by Rambler.ru, translated by The Interpreter. / May 31, 2014 /
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President Vladimir Putin, who had previously shown complete indifference to the Internet, has suddenly given an exhaustive explanation of his position on the subject. It has thus become clear that on key issues, Putin remains the same mid-level KGB officer that he was in the late 1980s. On April 24, Putin said that "the Internet first appeared as a special CIA project," and although it later went on the open market, it was "initially a military program, a special program, and special services are still at the center of things." / May 4, 2014 /
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The intrigue is growing over the Federal Security Service's involvement in Ukraine. On April 11, Ukraine's Deputy Prosecutor General said there was no evidence implicating the FSB in events on Maidan Square. At the same time, it is officially confirmed that FSB generals visited Kiev on Feb. 20 to 21. The answer as to why FSB officers were in Kiev could be key to understanding the role of Russia's intelligence agencies in the current crisis and to the Kremlin's entire strategy in Ukraine./ April 16, 2014 /
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Forget investigative reporting, even critical commentary is now out of bounds as the Kremlin clamps down on Web news sites. Until this week, a handful of websites seemed to be the last bastions of the free press in Russia. But on Thursday those bastions fell. The Kremlin blocked three independent news sites, including one run by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, as well as a widely read investigative blog, Livejournal.com, by Alexei Navalny. / March 17, 2014 /
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How can we reduce American influence over the Internet? Is it possible to place boundaries on the global network and, if so, how? Today, in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, these are among the most prominent questions in the global debate on Internet regulation. Surprisingly, it appears that it is Russia rather than China—the established world authority on Internet censorship—leading this offensive on the Internet. /March 12, 2014/
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The Olympic Games in Sochi have helped the Federal Security Service, or FSB, achieve the impossible. Following the disclosures by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, the global debate over electronic surveillance focused largely on the NSA. But a new player has appeared on the global stage: Russia's total electronic surveillance system for the Olympics has put this country's intelligence agencies in the spotlight. /February 6, 2014/
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When Dokku Umarov, the leader of the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, issued a statement six months ago promising a strike on the Olympics in Sochi, Russian authorities were faced with two major questions. Experts and the secret services asked whether militants still possessed the capabilities to hit beyond the North Caucasus, and whether they had recruits willing to carry out suicide bombing attacks. Now both of those questions have been answered. /December 31. 2013/
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