KGB Wants Control of Email and VOIP 129
blair1q writes "The FSB (really just a rebadged KGB) is worried about the abilities that internet communications services such as Hotmail, Gmail, and Skype give to people they consider black-hats. In particular, they don't like the fact that these services allow encryption. They say they aren't going to seize or block them, yet, but are just 'studying' the situation, with an eye possibly toward implementing controls like those in China. Their increased interest in the tools may be related to a DDoS attack on Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's own LiveJournal account, which he termed 'revolting and illegal.'"
Re:Join the club, comrade (Score:4, Informative)
> No one has ever heard of Jitsi or similar.
Now they, have, thanks!
http://jitsi.org/ [jitsi.org]
Skype doesn't work with my webcam, even though the OS supports it with other programs. My family (don't know about yours) won't mind installing Jitsi, ... win!
GNOME's empathy is another: http://packages.debian.org/sid/empathy [debian.org]
Pidgin too.
Re:KGB? (Score:2, Informative)
totally different government entity that is stuffed[sic] by totally different people
It is a reorganized (several times) version of the same government entity. The KGB's employees weren't all fired and replaced by new people in 1991. The head of the KGB was fired, the organization was legally abolished and immediately re-established with a new name and head. The new head reorganized the units under him. It was later moved to be a unit of the Russian department of Justice.
When Putin became President he reorganized it again, and moved it to be directly under him. So a former KGB member was running the KGB's lineal descendant directly from his office. Despite the name changes, it serves the same function and is controlled from the same level of state power. It may have more democratic controls on it, but being a security organization nobody but its minders knows if it is really following those controls. The Russian Federation citizens it is tasked with assassinating probably don't see much distinction.
You can still say it's "totally different," but I think if you say it now you won't believe it so much.