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The Internet Government The Courts

The Kremlin Jails the Father of Russia's Internet (cepa.org) 74

Posted by BeauHD from the death-sentence dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA): Alexey Soldatov, a Russian Internet pioneer and a founder of the first Internet provider in the country, has been sentenced by a court to two years in a labor colony on charges of "abuse of power." Soldatov, 72, had been detained by a court in Moscow. He is terminally ill. Very few in Russia believe in the government charges against a man widely known as a Father of the Russian Internet -- and who is less well known as the father of Andrei Soldatov, one of this article's authors. Soldatov was accused of abuse of power when managing a pool of IP-addresses by an organization he had no position at. This legal absurdity was enough to see him imprisoned even though the court knew of Soldatov's illness, which meant the court had no legal right to pass a custodial sentence. His family believes that the decision is essentially a death sentence. The article details Soldatov's history and his pivotal role in creating the Relcom network, which connected Soviet research centers and established the Soviet Union's first link to the global internet in 1990. During the 1991 KGB coup attempt, Relcom remained operational, highlighting its role in bypassing traditional media control and connecting people both within the Soviet Union and globally.
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The Kremlin Jails the Father of Russia's Internet More

The Kremlin Jails the Father of Russia's Internet

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  • So, TL/DR... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @07:07PM (#64650574) Homepage

    Sentencing a 72-year-old scientist in poor health to a labour colony on trumped up political charges.

    No matter what Russia calls itself over the course of history, it's always the same place.

    • ... trumped up political charges.

      You -- and Putin -- better watch that, might get sued for trademark infringement. :-)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      trumped up political charges

      Scenes of Project 25.

    • Ah, the fine Russian legal system at work again:

      "Today I made and appearance downtown
      I am an expert witness, because I say I am
      And I said, 'Gentleman....and I use that word loosely...I will testify for you
      I'm a gun for hire, I'm a saint, I'm a liar
      Because there are no facts, there is no truth, just data to be manipulated
      I can get you any result you like....what's it worth to ya?
      Because there is no wrong, there is no right
      And I sleep very well at night
      No shame, no solution
      No remorse, no retribution
      Just people falling out of windows
      And opportunity to participate in this pathetic little circus

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by clovis ( 4684 )

      Sentencing a 72-year-old scientist in poor health to a labour colony on trumped up political charges.

      No matter what Russia calls itself over the course of history, it's always the same place.

      It had nothing to do with anything Alexy Soldatov did. This is a.
      about punishing his son, Andrei.

        https://cepa.org/author/andrei... [cepa.org]

  • Everyone knows Al Gore invented the Internet. Too bad he landed for some borscht and got popped by the authorities. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn called to get him out, but nobody believed them.

    • Re:What if the photo showed Al Gore + surprised fa (Score:5, Informative)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @07:18PM (#64650602)

      Everyone knows Al Gore invented the Internet. Too bad he landed for some borscht and got popped by the authorities. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn called to get him out, but nobody believed them.

      Of course, Gore never actually said, or even claimed, that, but they could have just read the Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] about it:

      Gore became the subject of controversy and ridicule when his statement "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" was widely quoted out of context. It was often misquoted by comedians and figures in American popular media who framed this statement as a claim that Gore believed he had personally invented the Internet. Gore's actual words, however, were widely reaffirmed by notable Internet pioneers, such as Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who stated, "No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President."

      • Sort of like how Sarah Palin was quoted saying shit about Alaska and Russia which really came from an SNL skit.

        But politics is a rough business. Tough shit if any of the people involved can't stomach it.

        • Yeah the actual quote is "They're our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska"

          Which is technically correct, the best kind of correct.

          • But what Palin got mocked for was, "I can see Russia from my house" which she never said.

            https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/... [csmonitor.com]

      • So he didn't invent the internet, he created it?

        • It wasn't public before he got involved.

          He created the internet we know today, starting with the research project that existed at the time.

          Your statement is indeed generally correct.

          A recount that likely would have resulted in his presidency was stopped on a specious basis, so he's also the only president in recent memory that actually had an election stolen from him. Seeing that he couldn't reasonably prove it in a timely fashion, he conceded. His payment for his presidential attempt and his involvement wi

  • It seems like there have been a fair number of "Old guy who did something technical back in the day gets kangaroo court" cases coming out of Russia lately; and I'm a little curious what the point is.

    I suppose that going after retirees means not pulling people out of the workforce, which is something; but where's the disciplinary/intimidation value in "we might suddenly drag you off for something you'd been doing with our approval for years or decades"? When you are trying to intimidate people and encoura

    • seems like there have been a fair number of "Old guy who did something technical back in the day gets kangaroo court" cases coming out of Russia lately; and I'm a little curious what the point is.

      That Putin is not entirely right in the head and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

      • I have the impression Putin is getting old and just does not care anymore. He is shaping the country in his own vision and just goes full in on authority. Sneeze in the wrong direction? Labor camp to set an example. His buddies now only tell him what he wants to hear out of fear. Personality wise it is like a positive feedback loop. Like a mic and a speaker too close to each other. A deafening squeel that has little to do with reality.

    • You mean why are intelligent, privileged old people being thrown in jail, in Russia, seriously? He crossed Putin or offended the Russian government, therefore Putin.

      They put people in jail for saying "unpatriotic" things. For saying the w word, jail. Standing on a sidewalk with blank piece of paper, jail. Unapproved reporting, jail. So if you're well-known and speak your mind about what's going on, what do you think happens?

      If the mafia hangs a body in the street, do you seriously question the effectiveness

      • I can hear the groans already, here ... from TFA.
        See, wrote about dictatorship *checks notes* - go to jail. Don't know what else to say, I thought more people were following world events.

        His true crime in the eyes of this vicious regime? An independent mind, genuine integrity, and a son who lives in exile, while writing about the descent into dictatorship of their homeland.

        I haven't seen my father for four years, since I left Russia. I hope I still have the chance to see him once again.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 )

        So if you're well-known and speak your mind about what's going on, what do you think happens?

        That is pretty much it. If you are well known - for anything - in Russia, Putin considers you a threat. Don't think you even have to say anything.

        How many well known Russians can you name? The vast majority of names I know are dead or in jail. On the bright side, Putin's name will indeed be well known to history forever. As a war criminal.

    • Tyrants are jealous of competent people. This has the salutary effect of making tyrannical regimes weaker.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      s/workforce/those eligable for conscription/ and your're probably hitting the nail on the head.

      Soldatov kept Relcom up and connected to the rest of the world during the KGB coup attempt, and you can bet they at least thought about taking it down until the deed was done. Relcom, like Arpanet, started out as a closed network, and I doubt it would have got those interconnects at all if it had not been for Glasnost and Perestroika, and even then it probably took a lot of personal effort from Soldatov and pr

  • I cannot find any mention of Andrei Soldatov as the father of Russian Internet using sources one year old

    Andrei Soldatov is a prominent Russian investigative journalist and co-founder of the website Agentura.ru, which monitors the activities of Russian secret services. Together with Irina Borogan, Soldatov has authored several books on the Russian intelligence community, including "The New Nobility," "The Red Web," and "The Compatriots" [1][2][4]. His work often delves into the operations and internal dynam

    • Soldatov and Borogan's investigative journalism has frequently put them at odds with the Russian government. They have faced significant legal and financial repercussions, including being added to Russia's list of "foreign agents" and having their bank accounts frozen [1]. Despite these challenges, their work continues to shed light on the opaque world of Russian intelligence and its impact on both domestic and international affairs.

      Fairly safe bet these people will not die natural deaths. Props to them persevering knowing that though.

    • Re:Fake News. Andrei Soldatov is a journalist. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @07:59PM (#64650666)

      I cannot find any mention of Andrei Soldatov as the father of Russian Internet using sources one year old

      Andrei or Alexei? The New York Times has an article dated 2000, which shows Andrei as being 25 in the year 2000, consistent with a 1975 date of birth, and mentions both his agentura website and his investigative journalism. His father, Alexei Soldatov, founded Relcom.

      " Mr. Soldatov's father, Alexei Soldatov, who is president of Relcom.ru, one of Russia's leading Internet service providers, told him that Relcom was starting a series of Russian-language content projects. (Relcom pioneered dial-up Internet access in Russia while the Soviet Union still existed, said Mr. Soldatov and to Robert Farish, a research manager at IDC Russia, an international information-technology consultant firm based in Framingham, Mass.)

      Mr. Soldatov proposed his idea for Agentura and his father gave the go-ahead. The timing, Mr. Soldatov said, was particularly good because Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, was a K.G.B. official. "Now that we have President Putin from the K.G.B.," Mr. Soldatov said, "people in Russia want more information on the secret service." "

      https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/technology/a-web-site-that-came-in-from-the-cold-to-unveil-russian-secrets.html [nytimes.com] via https://sgp.fas.org/news/2000/12/nyt121400.html [fas.org]

      From this, I speculate that the father, who founded Relcom and encouraged the free exchange of information, is being punished in order to coerce and/or punish the son, who became an investigative journalist.

    • Re:Fake News. Andrei Soldatov is a journalist. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Gibgezr ( 2025238 ) on Wednesday July 24, 2024 @01:41AM (#64651046)

      Alexei is the father of the man you are talking about. Andrei being a expat Russian who writes articles criical of Putin would be exactly why Alexei, the founder of Russia's first ISP, has been jailed.

  • Russian prisons are horrible. Their labor camps are worse.
  • In America the law persecutes criminals, in Soviet Russia criminals persecute you!
  • I guess before he retires Putin wants to settle scores with everyone who was involved in the decade of shame when Russia was destroyed from 1991-2000. The KGB coup was the last ditch attempt at keeping the Soviet Union together and preventing Yeltsin from letting the vultures loot the corpse of the Soviet Union. Putin probably feels if not for this man and his ISP, Russia would not have had to go through a decade of shame.
  • Possibly a stupid question, but how do kangaroo trials like this work in the modern day? There's no defense lawyer? The defense lawyer speaks but nobody listens? The jury generates a verdict but the sentencing disregards it?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by vbdasc ( 146051 )

      A counter-question: You know what has happened to the defense attorneys of Navalny? Arrested, included in a terrorist list, forfeited civil rights.

    • I am not an expert on Russian courts but, in every case I've read about in the news, the trials were not jury trials. Everybody goes before a judge and makes their case. Maybe in some situations the judges are fair and impartial. But in a political trial like this, the defendant is always found guilty.

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