· March, 2011

Stories about Russia from March, 2011

Russia: The Most Fierce DDOS Attack On LiveJournal Analyzed

RuNet Echo  31 March 2011

Ilya Dronov, LiveJournal's head of development, told [ru] some details about yesterday's DDOS-attack on LiveJournal, popular blogging platform in Russia. That was the most fierce attack in the history of the platform. Anton Nosik, suggested [ru] that (despite that most of the attacking machines were outside of Russia) the main client...

Russia: Voting For The BOBs Blog Award Has Started

RuNet Echo  31 March 2011

On march 22, 2011 voting for "The Best Of Blogs" Awards, event annually organized by German media corporation Deutsche Welle, started. The award is getting more popular every year. This happens mostly because the role of blogs and online communities grows, as does their influence on social life.

Russia: Mapping Bribery Online

RuNet Echo  30 March 2011

Anton Nosik shares [ru] a link to RosKomVzyatka (‘Russian Committee for Bribes’), Ushahidi-based platform that allows users to map bribes (both given and taken) anonymously. It's another transparency project after rospil.info, gdecasino.ru, otmenta.ru, and others that crowdsource crime/injustice reporting.

Russia: Real Life Super Hero From Chelyabinsk

RuNet Echo  30 March 2011

Metkere.com shares [ru] a video-address of a real life super hero calling himself “The Avenger.” (see his Vkontakte fan group [ru]) The avenger, a man in a black costume with a green letter “M” (apparently M for Mstitel’, the ‘avenger’ in Russian) on it and a black mask, says he...

Russia: Blogger Translates Articles on Alexey Navalny

RuNet Echo  30 March 2011

LJ user vadda translates from English into Russian two recent texts about Alexey Navalny, a prominent Russian anti-corruption activist: one text, by Andrew E. Kramer, appeared in the New York Times on March 27 (the Russian translation is here; 266 comments); the other, by Julia Ioffe, was published in the...

Russia: A Riot Police Officer's Twitter and Blog

RuNet Echo  29 March 2011

A Good Treaty writes about an anonymous Moscow riot police (OMON) officer, who started tweeting in January (@OMON_Moscow, RUS, over 3,000 followers) and also has a blog (LJ user omon-moscow, RUS): “While the fact that this blogging activity is tolerated by the police force likely constitutes evidence that the top...

Russia: 2010 Cyber-Crime Market Research

RuNet Echo  28 March 2011

Group IB, Russian cyber-security research company, publishes [ru] Russian Cyber-Crime Market in 2010 report. According to the research, Russian hackers commit nearly 35 percent of all cyber-crimes. DDOS-attacks (from $90 to $300 per day of attack) are falling in price which makes this method of cyber-warfare more accessible to online...

Russia: Tribute to SOVA's Galina Kozhevnikova

  27 March 2011

At OpenDemocracy.net, Andreas Umland pays tribute to Galina Kozhevnikova, the deputy director of the “SOVA” NGO and a prominent researcher of Russia's extreme right-wing movements, who died earlier this month: “She will be irreplaceable in future academic and public debates on the increase of ultra-nationalism in Russia.”

Russia: BBC Russian Service's Last Broadcast

  27 March 2011

Christya Riedel writes on Foreign Policy Association's Russia blog that on March 26, “the BBC Russian Service ceased its radio broadcasts after 65 years on the air because of drastic budget cuts implemented by the British government.”

Russia: Voina Art Collective

RuNet Echo  27 March 2011

At OpenDemocracy.net, writes about the Voina art collective (RUS: @free_voina; ENG: @free_voina_en) and “explains how their controversial methods have made it difficult to mobilise support.” Kevin Rothrock (@agoodtreaty) re-posts a video of Voina‘s recent prank action (1,178,969 views, 3,023 likes, 658 dislikes): “unwelcomely, without warning kiss female cops on candid...

Russia: Life With Autism

  26 March 2011

At OpenDemocracy.net, Dmitry Golubovsky and Svetlana Reiter write about the lives of autistic people in Russia.

Russia: Unexpected Results of Radiation Mapping

RuNet Echo  25 March 2011

The crowdsourcing project of mapping radiation levels in Russia measured by private dosimeters not only became an interesting case of digital activism, but also showed some effects its creators didn’t even think of.

Russia: Friendship Relations Between LiveJournal Blogs Analyzed

RuNet Echo  23 March 2011

Habrahabr-user RomanL published [ru] a detailed analysis of Russian LiveJournal blogs. According to the analysis, Russian-speaking LiveJournal blogosphere (active audience of around 170,000 users) can be divided into 4 distinctive clusters (apolitical, political, creative, and general). Only 55 bloggers have the audience of more than 10,000 friends, while the vast...

Russia: Bots To Look For Extremism Online

RuNet Echo  22 March 2011

Lenta.ru reported that Roskomnadzor, Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communication, intends to use a special software designed to spot extremist content online. The software will check text, audio and video footage on the Web for words and phrases containing calls for violence and social and...

Russia: Human Bots Fight Opposition

RuNet Echo  21 March 2011

As Internet control becomes more and more sophisticated, new techniques join the arsenal of online deception and discreditation. Vadim Isakov analyzed the phenomena of 'human bots,' paid commenters willing to turn any constructive conversation into the mess.