Russia Tells UN It Wants Vast Expansion of Cybercrime Offenses, Plus Network Backdoors, Online Censorship (theregister.com) 52
An anonymous reader writes: Russia has put forward a draft convention to the United Nations ostensibly to fight cyber-crime. The proposal, titled "United Nations Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes," calls for member states to develop domestic laws to punish a far broader set of offenses than current international rules recognize. Russia, the ransomware hotbed whose cyber-spies were blamed for attacking US and allied networks, did not join the 2001 Budapest Convention on Cybercrime because it allowed cross-border operations, which it considers a threat to national sovereignty. Russian media outlet Tass also said the 2001 rules are flawed because they only criminalize nine types of cyber offenses. The new draft convention from Russia, submitted last week, defines 23 cybercrimes for discussion.
Russia's proposed rule expansion, for example, calls for domestic laws to criminalize changing digital information without permission -- "the intentional unauthorized interference with digital information by damaging, deleting, altering, blocking, modifying it, or copying of digital information." The draft also directs members states to formulate domestic laws to disallow unsanctioned malware research -- "the intentional creation, including adaptation, use and distribution of malicious software intended for the unauthorized destruction, blocking, modification, copying, dissemination of digital information, or neutralization of its security features, except for lawful research." It would forbid "the creation and use of digital data to mislead the user," such as deep fakes -- "the intentional unlawful creation and use of digital data capable of being mistaken for data already known and trusted by a user that causes substantial harm."
Russia's proposed rule expansion, for example, calls for domestic laws to criminalize changing digital information without permission -- "the intentional unauthorized interference with digital information by damaging, deleting, altering, blocking, modifying it, or copying of digital information." The draft also directs members states to formulate domestic laws to disallow unsanctioned malware research -- "the intentional creation, including adaptation, use and distribution of malicious software intended for the unauthorized destruction, blocking, modification, copying, dissemination of digital information, or neutralization of its security features, except for lawful research." It would forbid "the creation and use of digital data to mislead the user," such as deep fakes -- "the intentional unlawful creation and use of digital data capable of being mistaken for data already known and trusted by a user that causes substantial harm."
Russia's Request puts the Kremlin in Jail (Score:3, Insightful)
By their own request, their own people will go to jail. Russia is one of the largest sources of cyber criminals in the world, including cyber espionage from their own government.
What is this a smoke screen for, if Russia doesn't even follow their own proposed rules today>
Re:Russia's Request puts the Kremlin in Jail (Score:5, Insightful)
They want to normalize gov't censorship world-wide.
The followup would be they start filing international complaints/law suits against people outside of Russia who publish things critical of Russia.
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I'm surprised they don't go the child abuse angle. It's what I'd do in their place: Call for an international internet filtering mandate to fight child porn. No politician would dare oppose such a thing, so it'd sail through easily. Then you've won half the fight against the free internet: The filtering hardware is already in place and configured, and politically untouchable. Once the infrastructure for censorship is funded and built, it's a much easier prospect to push for expanding usage.
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The Internet is global, if one country has more relaxed laws than others then it puts them at an advantage. The only reason rules would be followed, is if everyone follows and enforces them.
Perhaps attacks which appear to originate from russia actually don't? They could be false flag operations by groups looking to attribute blame to the russians, or simply looking to cover their tracks by relaying the attacks through compromised hosts in russia. If you're an american hacker and want to hack targets in your
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there is a fair portion of the audience that can't have enough stories about russia/china (and iran, for those smart enough to know it is actually a country and with long term memory capable of registering major events for over a year) doing very, very nasty things, the united states often playing the oblivious victim of the story, that patient and righteous giant that ought to wake up etcetera. it's really sad, braindead and bigoted patriotic bullshit (if you pardon me for being so redundant) but it sells
Re:Russia's Request puts the Kremlin in Jail (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps aliens are stealing our cattle. Perhaps the oceans are full of mermaids. Perhaps the COVID-19 vaccine makes your fingernails grow faster.
Perhaps throwing out red herrings into conversations about the hypocrisy of a nation making rules after allowing the crimes to flourish in their borders and sphere of influence is not only unethical but foolish.
Perhaps.
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Perhaps attacks which appear to originate from russia actually don't?
For some reason nobody will accept this. They prefer to believe their comfortable lies that obscure domestic/personal problems
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"Russia's Request puts the Kremlin in Jail"
In case you didn't get the memo the White House with their close friends still have the most expertise and are also the world leader when it comes to "cybercrime".
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Yes, of course. I mean, NSA, CIA, FBI, and surprisingly the UPS and the Weather folks, are all tasked with spying. The USA and most technologically advanced countries are not innocent when it comes to spying on their own citizens, those of others and developing sophisticated cyber attack programs
Re:Russia's Request puts the Kremlin in Jail (Score:5, Informative)
By their own request, their own people will go to jail. Russia is one of the largest sources of cyber criminals in the world, including cyber espionage from their own government.
What is this a smoke screen for, if Russia doesn't even follow their own proposed rules today>
Step 1. Encourage & enable a vast domestic cybercrime industry.
Step 2. Get heavily criticized by other nations.
Step 3. Propose a cybercrime treaty that looks good at a superficial level, but in reality is filled with vague and impractical proposals that are a dead end and will never get adopted.
Step 4. Announce to the world "look at our comprehensive proposal! We're leading the fight to fix the problem!!" and then go on encouraging & enabling your vast domestic cybercrime industry.
Re:Russia's Request puts the Kremlin in Jail (Score:5, Insightful)
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. I'm sure Apple feels it's not okay to hack into their phones (surely that's a DMCA issue) but that doesn't stop Israeli "security companies" from doing just that.
The world probably should try and adopt some baseline good online behavior laws.
No one really wants a free speech Internet anyway. They want an echo chamber that confirms their beliefs. Governments more so.
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Mod parent up, though you left out Step 5.
Step 5. Cheat.
And to complete the joke.
Step 6. PROFIT.
Re:Russia's Request puts the Kremlin in Jail (Score:4, Insightful)
By their own request, their own people will go to jail. Russia is one of the largest sources of cyber criminals in the world, including cyber espionage from their own government.
What is this a smoke screen for, if Russia doesn't even follow their own proposed rules today>
Hi. You can trust us. Please disarm unilaterally. - Russia
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By their own request, their own people will go to jail.
lol so, you still believe in the Justice Fairy, eh?
Just like when Stalin sent himself to the gulag, because rules, right?
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What is this a smoke screen for, if Russia doesn't even follow their own proposed rules today>
Russia always has a plan. It may not be well thought out or planned and it is always definitely short term in scope, but there is always a plan. They do the standard tactic of "lie and deny" when confronted with wrongdoing and they surely know that this kind of proposal will never go anywhere, but it enables them to claim "Hey USA. You don't like hacking? Dude, we are totally against hacking! Did you look at our UN bill? Nobody who supports hackers would do that!"
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No it doesn't. See the "unlawful" qualification up there? Obviously that which is ordered by the Kremlin is lawful.
So finally! governments east, west (Score:1)
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To rephrase Leela's joke about Bender, Russia is more on the cybercrime supply side though
just like the US (Score:1)
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This is just a reply to Bidens hacker requests, meaning "raspberry."
A proper US or UK response would be to send a diplomatic package with a single baked cookie containing polonium.
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Polonium is an alpha-emitter, and is used as an alpha-particle source in the form of a thin film on a stainless steel disc. These are used in antistatic devices and for research purposes. A single gram of polonium will reach a temperature of 500ÂC as a result of the alpha radiation emitted.
So you're saying, "In post-Soviet Russia, cookie bakes itself"?
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So you're saying, "In post-Soviet Russia, cookie bakes itself"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko
.
So... (Score:2, Funny)
Russia wants a worldwide body controlling a crypto backdoor with all Countries having access to that backdoor ?
I was laughing so hard I had to use my inhaler. Good luck with that. If this ever gets approved, and I doubt it will, that will push many people off of Cell Phones, Corporate Social Media and Windows. Fun times for all.
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No mod points, please upvote parent. This is indeed both hilarious and frightening at the same time.
actions speak louder than words (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be a lot easier to take this proposal seriously if Russia put more effort into stopping malware attacks originating in their own country. As it is, it's difficult to trust that they will enforce these rules themselves while expecting all other countries to do so, giving them a competitive advantage in espionage.
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There can certainly be a lively debate about the actions taken by nation-state actors against other nation-states. But don't even try to claim that there is an equivalence between the level of, and (un-)willingness to prosecute, cyber-crime between the US and Russia. Because it ain't even close.
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It is silly to think that Russia thinks that other countries would stop engaging in espionage so they can have an advantage.
More realistically, they want this tool to use it against Russian citizens, and citizens of Russia-allied states, so they can have dissidents returned to them.
Very Clever (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the reason that they have made this move is because they have either guessed or found out that the US and her allies are proposing to do something similar but which would make it possible to go after the "Cyber Gangs" operating inside Russia's borders.
By bringing their own proposal forward ahead of anything the west does, Russia not only claims the moral high ground, but they will be able to get a few friendly states to sign on in support and when the west *does* bring their own content forward, this draft convention will of course be used to delay and challenge the US model.
So this is pretty clever. It puts the US and the west on the back foot, it allows Russia to claim more international PR, and it also allows them to control the narrative with respect to any convention that *does* get taken up for consideration, because of course it will have their name on the front page.
And of course they can also sprinkle a few other goodies in there too - like online censorship. And when the US point at the online censorship provisions and challenge, Russia will smile, laugh, and point at all the discussions in the US regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and call the US hypocrites.
Simple, Comrade.
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Let's be clear... Russia would have absolutely no intention of respecting this convention should it come to pass.
of course they wouldn't, but then neither would the US
Translation... (Score:3)
(and you can expect me not to reply, because I imagine this will bring out some rage in some people)
These 23 would basically destroy the U.S.A.'s initiatives -- on the domestic surveillance side of things, as well as the international espionage and sabotage side of things.
I'd bet that the original 9 covered everything that Russia does, but didn't stop the U.S.A. from routine espionage.
I'd also bet that the U.S.A. would have even larger domestic problems without those pesky "unsanctioned malware research" -- which covers most of the U.S.A.'s domestic surveillance and law enforcement.
So I'm betting that the U.S.A. will shut this down pretty quick.
I absolutely love international sovereign states discussing rules for war.
For some reason I'm assuming bad faith here (Score:2)
Laws only restrain law abiders (Score:2)
They may deter lawbreakers but deterrence is not interdiction. Simple-minded people (most of humanity) hallucinate outlawing X will inherently have positive impact. See the War on Some Drugs for how that works in real life.
Re:Laws only restrain law abiders? (Score:2)
This a circular reasoning joke?!
Hard to tell these days where up is down (if Putin says so... if Trump says so ...then Fox News says so...)
Making murder illegal doesn't stop murder, don't bother making it illegal... it's not preventing murder now so it's useless lets get rid of it.
Smart strategy (Score:2)
Qualified immunity, comrade? (Score:1)
So, they blow smoke up the UN's collectiv(ist) ass by claiming to want to prosecute crimes that they themselves commit. The UN will, of course, lap it up and roll over.
Russia Wants to Vastly Expand Cybercrime Offenses (Score:2)
Fixed headline.
Russia may need support in fighting cybercrime. (Score:2)
Most of these groups are international, often with an insider say a cleaner who connects a Raspberry PI to the LAN for an hour or so from time to time.
Having an international system of laws would give prosecutors a stronger moral ground and a cross-border framework.
Is it easy say for president Biden to stop illegal
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It is extremely hard to charge a good cyber-criminal. As with any other crime: The inept ones get caught and prosecuted, and put on public display as a deterrent. The skilled ones get away with it. And the really, really skilled ones? They are never even detected.
Ah hah. I think I see what the play is, here (Score:2)
Fuck you, Russia. I think we'd be better off just cutting all the cables running into your corrupt-assed country.
Projection (Score:2)
Re: Projection (Score:2)
This is a dark but necessary discussion (Score:3)