KGB Wants Control of Email and VOIP

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.'"

Join the club, comrade

[elrous0]

The U.S. government wants the exact same thing [nytimes.com]. I'm pretty sure that almost every government at this point wants *at least* a way to bypass encryption, a "kill switch" for the internet in their country, and some form of email monitoring (all these without any pesky warrants, of course). If your country is an exception, count yourself lucky.

Back in the USA

[plawsy]

And this is different from NSA, et al ... how?

As opposed to how the US is handling it?

[bazmail]

Clean up your own back yard before you go knocking on your neighbors door.
The NSA has hardware in Google HQ and most likely other US data centers too.

Re:Join the club, comrade

[houstonbofh]

If your country is an exception, count yourself lucky.

Count yourself delusional, more like... But if they think they can actually pull this off, the KGB is delusional. Encryption is out of the bag. The software for VOIP and e-mail is wide open. (FOSS) All it will do is drive people from Skype to Jitsi. (Or similar)

Re:Join the club, comrade

[Riceballsan]

Ah but if it drives them to Jitsi or any alternatives, then that is a quick easy way to know who to flag as a terrorist. After all 90% of people won't be educated enough to know the difference if encryption is lost, so the 10% that switch, are the ones with something to hide.

Re:Back in the USSR

[cobrausn]

I love how anytime someone points out how any other government than the US government might be doing evil things, it's immediately assumed to be some attempt by Americans to make themselves look better, and compared to some similar American program. It's as if it is somehow more important that an insult be hurled at the US than attention be diverted to some other country's less-than-honorable behavior for a few moments.

Trust me, we are all well aware of the failings and bad behavior of the US government. I see about ten articles a day about it. But don't ignore the serial killer next door because a loud, obnoxious, schizophrenic drunk is making noise down the street.

Re:Join the club, comrade

[Anonymous Coward]

The notion that people with nothing to hide shouldn't seek to preserve their privacy is one of many completely absurd beliefs anywhere, right up there with scientology. We give up too many rights because of ignorant points of view like this. The fact is, with no privacy at all, it would be a trivial matter to find something to put everyone away for. Go ahead, say you've never broken the law and gotten away with it. Make yourself a liar.

Re:Join the club, comrade

[Opportunist]

The "funny" bit is that those who'd need the most surveillance will certainly be exempt.

Re:In soviet russia...

[Opportunist]

As if you'd need "soviet" for that anymore. Face it, the Soviet Union protected our liberty. As long as they existed, the "western democracies" had to play nice to be seen as the good guy.

Medvedev's part in the story

[O(+inf)]

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.'"

This is very much oversimplifying the part of Medvedev in this story (as well as the story in general).

This whole mess started when an FSB official (head of their department of information and telecommunication security), in the course of an official meeting, brought up GMail, Hotmail and Skype as an example of a "security problem" due to impossibility of wiretaps (as servers are outside the country, and HTTPS ensures secure connection to them from within), and suggested a ban (neither TFS nor TFA mention this!).

Shortly after, an official from president Medvedev's administration stated that the ban - and, more broadly, the whole idea that foreign-hosted services are a "security issue" - is a personal opinion of that particular FSB person, and does not represent the official position of that organization nor government as a whole.

Shortly after that, prime minister Putin's press secretary stated that this is incorrect, and the position is the official position of FSB, that it is well-argued and reasonable, and that Putin takes it with all due consideration.

So basically it's more of the same thing [nytimes.com] that we've seen before. Whether it's a genuine power struggle between president and prime minister (the elections are less than a year away), or whether they're playing out a scripted "good cop / bad cop" in preparation for the same, is yet to be seen.