Stories from RuNet Echo from June, 2010
Russia, U.S.: The “Spy Ring” Story
A selection of posts on the “Russian spy ring” story: Julia Ioffe at The Daily Beast; A Good Treaty; Yelena Osipova at Global Chaos; Mark Adomanis at True/Slant; Vadim Nikitin at FPA's Russia blog; Dina Fainberg at The Dustbin of History; Catherine Fitzpatrick at Minding Russia; Windows to Russia; Eugene...
Russia: New Initiatives Indicate Government's Fear of the New Media
Alexey Sidorenko writes about the Russian government's attempts to control cyberspace - and its apparent fear of the new media.
Russia: Blogger Finds a Vulnerability in E-Gov Portal
Habrahabr-user Romachev blogs [RUS] about a crucial security hole in the process of the identification of E-government portal gosuslugi.ru [RUS]. According to the blogger, the vulnerability offers a large potential for identity fraud.
Russia: Chechen President Launches Blog
Ramzan Kadyrov [EN], president of the Chechen Republic [EN], launched a blog ya-kadyrov [RUS] at Livejournal. In his first post Kadyrov writes that he is “a sociable and to the limit outspoken person”, and that he “hopes to develop friendship and discuss various events with his readers”. There is no option to...
Russia: Bloggers React to President Medvedev's Silicon Valley Tour
For the first 24 hours, Dmitry Medvedev's @KremlinRussia Twitter account provided a unique opportunity to send unmoderated comments to the Russian president. Then all the comments were removed, and the era of the Russian unmoderated online democracy ended. Gregory Asmolov reviews Russian bloggers' reactions to the president's visit to California.
Russia: Police Would Like to ‘Cooperate’ With Bloggers
Valery Gribakin, head of the public relations department of the Russian Ministry of Interior, expressed a will to meet with top-ranking bloggers in order to discuss ways of possible cooperation, rsn.ru reported [RUS]. Bloggers have lots of questions to the police but don't expect the answers, sadly comments anti-corruption blogger...
Russia: President Medvedev Visits Silicon Valley
Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, during the widely discussed tour to the Silicon Valley, dined with Arnold Schwarzenegger [EN], visited Apple [RUS], officially started [EN] an account on Twitter [RUS] at the company's headquarters, and refused [EN] to meet with Google‘s creator Sergey Brin. The Russian blogosphere reacted [RUS] with a number of...
Russia: Flaws and Pitfalls of the Subsidized “Social” Internet Plan
Gregory Asmolov examines the potential of the Russian government's two new initiatives that aim at reducing the digital divide in the country.
Russia: Analysis of Hacker Attacks On Bloggers
Over the last five years, more than 40 RuNet bloggers have become targets of hacker attacks, most of which were carried out by a group of hackers named The Brigade of Hell. The hackers' targets have been both political and commercial bloggers.
Blogger Compares Russian Army to American Prison
Blogger mr_bison analyses [RUS] Russian military statistics. The results are shocking: Russian army is more dangerous environment for a human being than a prison in the US. Plus, almost every fifth death in the army is a suicide, another sad military fact says.
Russia: Famous Blogger and Civil Rights Activist Gives Interview
Marina Litvinovich, one of the top Russian bloggers and a civil rights activist, shares [RUS] her perspectives on online campaigns, civil society, and politics in Russia.
Russia: Anti-Corruption Cartoon Competition
S-pravdoi.ru, civil society portal, launched [EN] an anti-corruption cartoon competition. After one day of work the competition gathered more than 100 works from all over the country.
Russia: Novaya Gazeta, An Opposition Newspaper Under Internet Attack
Novaya Gazeta is a liberal opposition newspaper in Russia that is famous beyond Russia's borders. Several of its journalists have been killed, and it continues to attract both online and offline threats. Sergey Sokolov, the deputy executive editor, shares with GV his perspectives on information security and the ongoing investigations into the journalists' murders.
Russia: Bloggers Discuss the Case of a Cop-Killing Gang
Russian bloggers are having a heated discussion of the recent detention of a criminal group that carried out a series of attacks on the police in Russia’s Far East.
Russia: New Websites to Promote Modernist Islam
Paul Goble writes [EN] about the launch of two websites islam-portal.ru and soyuzmusulmanok.ru, that promote modernist Islam. Two websites, Goble suggests, illustrate both attempts to seek connections with younger Muslim population, while competing with fundamentalist Islamists, and to prove Tatars as “intellectual leaders of the Muslim umma of Russia”.
Russia: Online Media Exempt From Comments Responsibility
Russian Supreme Court finally approved the decision concerning responsibility of online news media for the comments published on their forums, lenta.ru reported [RUS]. The court exempt the news websites from any responsibility for comments left by the users. However, Roskomnadzor [RUS], Internet regulatory body, has the authority to oblige site...
Russia: Authorities Anounce “Social Plan” for Internet Access
Igor Schegolev, Russian minister of Communications, announced [RUS] today that country's largest, state-controlled, access provider “Svyazinvest“ [ENG] will launch a subsidized Internet access plan. Users of the new “Social” plan will be able to access few “socially important” websites for lower price (at reduced speed, though). Few days earlier, “Social Plug“, a parallel...
Russia: From “Sovereign Democracy” to “Sovereign Internet”?
Gregory Asmolov analyzes some of the recent Internet-related initiatives of the Russian government and explains what RuNet may possibly evolve into in the future.
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan: Initial Coverage of the “Osh Massacre”
On June 10, 2010, local clashes between the ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek population in the Kyrgyz part of the Ferghana valley turned into a full-blown massacre and further exodus of the Kyrgyzstan-based Uzbeks. It seems that the conflict had been incited by the Kyrgyz organized criminal gangs in order to destabilize the region and might be connected with the revolutionary events in Kyrgyzstan two months earlier. The post summarizes initial coverage of the event by local bloggers.
Russia: Cyrillic Email Accounts?
Svetlana Gladkova of Profy.com writes about the Russian government's plans to provide every citizen with a Cyrillic email account, points out “the problem of the @ character” on the Cyrillic keyboard, and concludes: “But the worst part is that I have no idea why my taxes go into crazy things...
Russia: Apple at Moscow Schools
Svetlana Gladkova of Profy.com reports that “at least a quarter of the new Moscow schools to be opened this fall for school children will be equipped with Mac computers, including MacBook laptops and Mac Mini desktops.”
