Kazakhstan Halts Introduction of Internet Surveillance System

Kazakhstan has halted the implementation of an internet surveillance system criticized by lawyers as illegal, with the government describing its initial rollout as a test. From a report: Mobile phone operators in the oil-rich Central Asian nation's capital, Nur-Sultan, had asked customers to install an encryption certificate on their devices or risk losing internet access. State security officials said its goal was to protect Kazakh users from "hacker attacks, online fraud and other kinds of cyber threats." The certificate allowed users' traffic to be intercepted by the government, circumventing encryption used by email and messaging applications. Several Kazakh lawyers said this week they had sued the country's three mobile operators, arguing that restricting internet access to those who refused to install the certificate would be illegal. But late on Tuesday, Kazakhstan's State Security Committee said in a statement that the certificate rollout was simply a test which has now been completed. Users can remove the certificate and use internet as usual, it said.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Jagshemash! Although Kazakhstan a glorious country, it have a problem too: economic, social, and Internet. So we introduce monitoring system to protect citizens and sheeps from threat: hacker attack, online fraud, and Jew. Now we remove monitoring system and put in sack in river. Our beloved chairman of security council Nursultan Nazarbayev have to find new means to find woman, follow her, and maybe have sexy time with her.

Mission Accomplished

[SuperKendall]

Step 1) Install government SSL cert on all mobile devices in a country.

Step 2) Under challenge back off and say that users can remove the certificates if they want.

Step 3) Enjoy unfettered access to internet traffic for 99% of the population who either can't figure out to uninstall a certificate or do not even care.

What you thought there would be a mystery step? No mystery as to what is happening here.

What part is wrong here?

[SuperKendall]

Why do you try to comment on security stories you both don't understand and know nothing about generally?

By saying that, we all question how much you know...

Follow the link. Are they installing an SSL cert? Yes.

Pretty much any modern developer is going to be very familiar with what this allows, because we all install custom certs to enable things like HTTP proxies that can inspect web service calls over HTTPS...

But I guess you wouldn't know much about that it seems since you seem to think what I said is i

Re:

[bugmenot1]

Way SSL works, you only need one. More if you don't want them (all, presumably) revoked. Thing is, you don't need SSL cert fake signing, if you have flaws in the SSL implementations themselves. ;) Twist: They say no more SSL proxy nonsense... because they found/got/bought a better way from their friends in half a dozen countries like 5 eyes, China, etc.

Re:

[bugmenot1]

On other hand, they won't get fired because "Hey, we just spent millions of dollars on your on-the-job training!". Because we just no everyone makes some big mistakes like that at least once in that sort of work.

such a clumsy way to snoop

[astrofurter]

Can't they just get their hands on some Bluecoat proxies, like other repressive governments worldwide?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Leads me to wonder...

[v1s10nary]

...if this was carried out as a "proof-of-concept" for Kazakhstan's close ally- Russia.

Re:

[bugmenot1]

Damn, 50cent isn't even trying anymore. I feel so disappointed! All that anger in first sentence gives away the game before you get people to read it. :( I'm serious. I can't even respect this for being from a competent professional. Also, feel sorry for that 'general public' that doesn't know any better, than to blindly trust the oldest con in the game - nationalism. Granted, they often can be trusted, but same way you trust a revolver - constantly watching it. Otherwise, it gets taken (over) by so

We used to do this ...

[CaptainDork]

... back in the 90s with Novell 3.1.

We'd make changes while in production, and stick our head out the computer room and if we heard, "Godammit!!! WTF! What's going on?!!" we'd revert.

When management called us in, we'd say, "Novell was running a test."

Or, when an application we were building performed like shit, we'd say, "Oh, that's just the prototype."

Surprised

[manu0601]

It surprises me that the government of Kazakhstan feels the need to stop such an experiment. His former president did not show interest for human rights during his 30 years reign.