New Russian Law To Forbid Storing Russians' Data Outside the Country 206
TechWeek Europe reports that on Friday Russia's parliament passed a law "which bans online businesses from storing personal data of Russian citizens on servers located abroad[.] ... According to ITAR-TAAS, the changes to existing legislation will come into effect in September 2016, and apply to email services, social networks and search engines, including the likes of Facebook and Google. Domain names or net addresses not complying with regulations will be put on a blacklist maintained by Roskomnadzor (the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications), the organisation which already has the powers to take down websites suspected of copyright infringement without a court order. In the case of non-compliance, Roskomnadzor will be able to impose 'sanctions,' and even instruct local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to cut off access to the offending resource." According to the article, the "measure is widely seen as a response to reports about the intrusive surveillance practices of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK’s GCHQ. Edward Snowden, who revealed sensitive data about the operations of both, is currently residing in Russia, with his asylum application up for a review in a couple of months." The writer points out that this would mean many web sites would be legally unavailable altogether to Russian users.
Security through legislation is no security at all (Score:5, Interesting)
As stated in the subject line, security through legislation is no security at all. If anything, this will weaken information security for Russians. It's a transparent and comically unenforceable attempt to keep Russian data precisely where the Russian government wants it: on servers they can put their hands on. I'm genuinely amused.
Re:So they don't have to ask the NSA (Score:5, Interesting)
Correction (Score:5, Interesting)
STUPID and/or FOOLISH Americans don't care about their privacy; they Tweet, and Facebook, and store "their" files in the cloud (1960's style on a server they neither own nor control) and so on. MANY Americans, on the other hand, value our privacy just as much as our founders did back when they wrote a Constitution that limited our government to doing only a handful of specific things (NONE of which included either facilitating OR regulating OR snooping on ANY communications within the country other than the creation of a postal service) and prohibited the government from going through our "stuff" without a warrant that [1] is attached to some claim of a crime, [2] is taken-out by sworn oath of the officer [3] is specific about WHO, WHAT, and WHERE to search:
The Fourth Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"
Those of us who still believe in those "quaint" and "out-dated" ideas, and who deny that the Constitution is a "living document" that can be evaded by any judge who wishes to "re-interpret" it to fit the current mood store OUR data on our own servers and do not use completely unnecessary "social media" sites that encourage adults to behave like self-absorbed teenage girls. Many of also resist using sites like Facebook where every click contributes to an empire of advertizing and data-snooping that funds political efforts to tear down all the limits on importing labor so its founder can get even richer by suppressing the wages of middle-class American IT people.
Re:Not all that new, but what is personal? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is completely different from EU directives. Those pertain to EU companies storing data. This one is about all companies storing data of Russian citizens. I am a Russian citizen residing abroad; by the letter of this law, if I create a GMail account, Google must host my inbox data on a server in Russia, even though neither of us two is there. If they do not comply, their servers will be blocked inside Russia.
This is not a privacy provision like EU directives are. It's about having the data on Russian soil, where it can be easily examined without a warrant, or even a notification that it is happening (see also: SORM-2).
Re:Not all that new, but what is personal? (Score:2, Interesting)
Blocking servers is currently on the table in EU, it's just not implemented yet. Juncker has made it very clear that one of parts of his IT agenda is to push for actions like those to prevent US monopolies from both serving EU customers to US intelligence on a silver platter as well as completely chocking life out of all competition through monopolistic action.
There are many other implementations, such as fines however.
Re:Good on them... (Score:4, Interesting)
As for restricting culture, we still have actual people to interact with, so not to worry.
Not for long -- Russia has made emigration almost illegal, but none of the international press have seen fit to pick up on this.
It always backfires... apk (Score:1, Interesting)
1st: History shows us all, occupations always fail. You really mean an "extension of ourselves", don't you, rather than an "ally".
It also, for example, didn't work out so well with S. Hussein, did it? Nope. How about IRAN after the "Man of the Year" from Time Magazine was the ruler before that too, was deposed??
They all turned on us eventually.
See - Humanity hates captivity. Even when it's benevolent. That's just our nature. It can never, ever, last & is wasteful of monies but more importantly, OUR CITIZENS LIVES from the working or poor class, while the wealthy tip margaritas and do coke laughing at us!
The perfect trap removes the desire of the prisoner to escape. We haven't perfected one yet.
Chavez beat them trying it too with economic hitmen and the like. It never works and wastes our monies which we as taxpayers pay for and warmongers profit by. Period.
It is the WRONG WAY TO DO THINGS. Worst of all, it makes others hate us (which is illogical really - WE ARE COMPOSED OF ALL OF THEM)...
HOWEVER:
I've been all over Europe, and asked the people there (who REALLY LIVE IN FEAR of saying anything mind you) "Why do you all hate the USA, we ARE you?" - know what they told me? They said "It's not your people. It's your leaders, and they are NOT politicians, but rather the big money behind them" proving money truly is, the root of all evil.
APK
P.S.=> I just don't *like* what I see - wasteful illogic, benefitting only the "1% few", making GOOD PEOPLE fight one another, like stupid puppets (& we fall for it, manipulated by the mainstream media). I also don't believe that last part totally. People here aren't stupid. They follow the examples that come from above them. Shit flows downwards in other words. "Get what you can while the getting is good & then split" seems to be the mantra of the day, and it's DESTROYING us on many levels (financially, our reputations, and more)... apk