LinkedIn-Russia: US Says Concerned Over Decision to Block Professional Networking Site (ndtv.com) 95
The US government said on Friday it was deeply concerned over Russia's decision to block public access to networking site LinkedIn, saying it created a precedent that could be used to justify blocking other sites operating in Russia. From a report: LinkedIn, which has its headquarters in the United States, is the first major social network to be blocked under a new law that requires firms holding Russian citizens' data to store it on servers on Russian soil. Internet services analysts say other tech firms, including Facebook and Twitter, could also find access blocked unless they move data onto Russian-based servers. Maria Olson, spokeswoman at the US Embassy in Moscow, said Washington urged the Russian authorities to restore access immediately to LinkedIn, and said the restrictions harmed competition and the Russian people. "The United States is deeply concerned by Russia's decision to block access to the website LinkedIn," Olson said in a statement sent to Reuters. "This decision is the first of its kind and sets a troubling precedent that could be used to justify shutting down any website that contains Russian user data."
Honest doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because RUSSIA!!!!!
and TRUMP!!!!!!
Re:Honest doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how long before the left passes out from hyperventilating?
Probably about the time all the white supremacists Trump is installing choke us out.
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The worst thing to happen to the NRA (ie gun manufacturers) was Trump winning. Now their profits are going to sink.
Well, unless the NRA can find a way to sell guns to the left who, despite the stupid Rep rhetoric, actually own a lot of guns. They just don't make it the #1 amendment to look after.
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Yes, it was kind of crazy for the right wingers to be certain that any given year of the Obama administration was the one in which he would "take our guns." After all, not nearly enough groundwork was in place to make that leap. However, when the engines of the government are being employed to root out ideological impurities, it may not be all that big a leap to fear the end game.
"Operation Chokepoint," an initiative to reduce unlawful fraud by "choking" illegal players out of U.S. financial institutions
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He didn't get our guns because we remained vigilant.
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Also, because no one wanted to take them.
You paid 10x for bullets & 5x for weapons because the NRA made you believe someone was coming for them.
You are a sucker.
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SO, by your form of logic, Hillary was a lap dog of the Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Qatar who were also funding ISIS, so she is a Muslim extremist.
Glad we got that bitch out of the way.
(No, I didn't vote for Trump)
(I Love playing guilt by association)
Re:Honest doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a powerful segment of opinion, mostly among the rich and influential in the USA and elsewhere, that nation states are on the way out, to be superseded by some vague but wonderful world society. Rather less wonderfully, two forces look set to take over the power and authority that nation states are supposed to relinquish: multinational corporations and the US government. (Those two forces, of course, are far from separate and in fact are heavily intertwined). These ideas are associated with the so-called "neocon" movement.
In this particular case the argument is that the Russian government has no right to insist that its citizens' data must be stored only in Russia. Information wants to be free! As for what right the US government has to dictate to the Russian government, well that is the issue that is being tried right now. If the Russians had stood for LinkedIn's previous practices, that would have been one tiny step away from national sovereignty and towards the rule of corporations. (As prefigured by TTP and TTIP). Now that the Russians have come out against the practices, Washington denounces them for being petty tyrants.
The only national government that is not scheduled for destruction under this scheme is, of course, the US government. Well, someone needs to be at the wheel while the world undergoes creative destruction! Thus the US government is the only one that stands relatively unchallenged by corporate power. Perhaps, gradually and almost imperceptibly, the US government might shade into a world government. However, the recent moves by the BRICS and others to reduce their reliance on and commitment to elements of the Washington-centric world structure, such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the ICC, suggests that many national governments are fully aware of the plan for their dissolution, and have no intention of going quietly into that good night.
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You'll be buying nothing, you are the one to be bought and sold. The US government is already owned by multinational corporations and those corporations are just using the US government that they already own, to extend their ownership to all the other nations across the globe and basically enslave everyone. Real full fledged delusional nut burgers, they call people crazy when that is pointed out because yes that stuff is crazy but they still try to do it. It's simply time to get those crazies out of executi
Linked-in had their chance (Score:5, Insightful)
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This line of argument is as wrongheaded as the line of argument used to justify government mandating minimum wage.
You see, minimum wage is the limit on minimum ability. It is not about a company being forced to pay some minimum to the lowest hires, it is about the overall plank for the lowest hires to be set at a certain ability that corresponds to the minimum wage. This means that the lowest runs of economic ladder are kicked from under the people who are at the bottom of it.
Minimum wage prevents people
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I gotta admit I'm having trouble feeling sorry for LinkedIn here too. They've run afoul of US privacy laws too. We just don't seem to have any teeth in our privacy laws here.
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Oh, you got the $20 check too?
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a transaction black and white a foreign country?
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What the hell has USA to do with the will of a sovereign country? Are you fucking joking with us?
Linked in is an embarrassment to the Russian government, as it leaks out information about US salaries, and US standards of living and job opportunities that the Russia does not provide to the general population.
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The immediate parent is a fine example of the neocon philosophy in action. (IMHO).
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There is a good reason (Score:4, Insightful)
The rationale is that LinkedIn has not promised to keep personal information about Russian citizens on servers that are physically in Russia. The government believes that information on Russian citizens should be stored in Russia only. That seems a reasonable principle for a government to follow.
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No, for personal data too.
The EU does however primarily focus on data protection rather than physical location. If you can guarantee the same protections in a non-EU country then you're generally ok, and there are accepted approaches for putting data in other countries (including the US, which is how LinkedIn et al get by).
There's also just consumer pressure though, which is one reason you're seeing Ireland becoming a data haven, and a lot of commercial pressure which is why Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce an
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It's not reasonable if I have it right. Slashdot probably has "personal data" about Russian users, but is not intentionally stored in Russia. It's a law completely at odds with the global, distributed nature of the internet.
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It will do a little of that, but I suspect the consequences will lean heavily toward even more speech suppression of the Russian people.
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"19 Oct 2016 - Russian unemployment rate was recorded at 5.6 percent in May of 2016, down from 5.9 percent in the previous month. The figure came below market expectations of 5.8 percent and was the lowest October 2015. The number of unemployed people decreased by 217 thousand to 4.3 million". http://www.tradingeconomics.co... [tradingeconomics.com]
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Nonsense. LinkedIn is used as a recruitment aid but it's a single website and not even the first one I'd go to for job hunting.
When it's not the first one anybody would go to (in Russia) then others will step in and provide the needed services.
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I'm inclined to agree, but it's also reasonable to care about the freedoms of all people rather than just the small arbitrary group that you were born into.
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No.... a reasonable principle for a government to follow would be to require warnings, and let people make the choice; it's their personal information after all, they should be able to make informed consent, and accept the risk (to derive the gain), if they want.
Also... a reasonable protest would be to have an Internet-wide blackout where millions of the US-based websites that are most popular in Russia will of their own free will block access to all Russian IP addresses in protest of the censorship, a
Re:Linkedin provides a service in Russia so it sho (Score:5, Informative)
Russia has a $20 billion budget deficit its looking to plug. Facebook, LinkedIn,Google and Twitter can plug a nice big chunk of it.
Er, 'For FY 2016 the federal budget estimates that the [US] federal debt will increase by about $1 trillion. That's about $250 billion more than the official “deficit.”' http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us... [usgovernmentdebt.us]
So the US government must be 50 times as hungry for extra revenues as the Russian government. Furthermore...
"On January 26, 2016, debt held by the public was $13.62 trillion or about 75% of the previous 12 months of GDP. Intragovernmental holdings stood at $5.34 trillion, giving a combined total gross national debt of $18.96 trillion or about 104% of the previous 12 months of GDP". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Meanwhile Russia's national debt is 9.7 trillion. Oh, what's that you say? That's in rubles? So what's it in dollars? Oh, I see: about $151 billion. Gee, that's awful - that's nearly one percent of the US national debt. Those Russians are in real hot water now! http://www.nationaldebtclocks.... [nationaldebtclocks.org]
Obey the letter of the law. (Score:4)
Run everything from wherever the hell you're currently doing it. Have a synched copy on a server in Russia that's encrypted up the wazoo. Never use it for live traffic.
Re:Obey the letter of the law. (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, they'll never notice. Russians know absolutely nothing about computing.
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Yes, they'll never notice. Russians know absolutely nothing about computing.
This comment made my day, thank you sir :)
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Run everything from wherever the hell you're currently doing it. Have a synched copy on a server in Russia that's encrypted up the wazoo. Never use it for live traffic.
Is that really necessary? With current CDN technologies/strategies, would it not be a simple affair to put all Russia-based user data on a Russian server and pull it from there? The copy (nonlive version) could still be in the US or wherever. It's not as if I'm going to care about an extra 3 seconds of page loading time for the just-about-never times that I look at Russian Linkedin user profiles.
The law is still stupid but it doesn't sound particularly difficult to comply either.
Sounds like the US Government is mad... (Score:2)
The real issue (Score:1, Flamebait)
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Re:The real issue (Score:4, Informative)
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I do however very much question the actions of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.
Just to help you make yourself just a tad clearer: why do you "question the actions of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government"? What specific things have they done that make you so suspicious of them?
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Most ironic post ever.
The real issue here is censorship and control. The US, like many countries, wants the ability to censor and control the Internet, and like all such countries gets fucked off when another country refuses to allow it to spy on their citizens.
Remember that Russian media is State-controlled
Yes, totally unlike the corporate-controlled American media.
ANYONE who thinks for a second that the US media didn't collude to...
-stop Ron Paul from having a chance at becoming president
-stop Burnie Sanders from having a chance at becoming president
-
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How is this different from... (Score:2)
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... UK laws requiring data and operations to be physically located there?
When the NSA calls up MI6 and asks for data from UK servers they get what they want. Somehow I don't think they get the same response when they ask FSB for data from Russia servers.
And that's the difference.
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I'm not sure that the UK is the best example to choose from. [zdnet.com]
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The right idea. (Score:1)
We should block LinkedIn here in the US too.
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And facebook, and whatsapp, and snapchat and instagram.
But most of all... and especially:
Slashdot
Least of the worries (Score:2)
Honestly, having LinkedIn blocked is the least of the worries that US should have about Russia.
They installed a sympathetic president. I would say they have good enough professional network.
Because USA (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't complain when Russia blocks sex-ed and homosexual web-sites, the USA's been there. Nor when foreign cooked foodstuffs are banned, the USA (and other countries) have been there.
Russia has also banned yoga for being a religion, street-side bible-bashing and George Soros in the name of national security, US bureaucrats, Microsoft software and foreign GMO foodstuffs (a mostly US export).
Despite the obvious anti-US sentiment, the US government complains only when the daily correspondence of Russian residents can't be copied to US servers. That nicely reveals US priorities.
Hidden agenda? (Score:3)
Linkedin is not a professional networking site (Score:2)
It's a filter to filter out the people you don't want to have as employees. For example it constantly bugs you to give them your e-mail accounts so it can get your contacts!