Stories about Russia from April, 2011
Russia: Environmentalist Sousveillance Project to Watch Over Water Reservoirs
Russian environmental organization “Open Shore” [ru] has launched a sousveillance map [ru] of “occupied shores of Russian water reservoirs.” Activists map properties that were built illegally close to the water reservoirs.
Russia: Analysis of the Latest DDoS Attacks By Security Expert
Andrei Soldatov, Russian security expert, analyses latest attacks on LiveJournal and other websites. According to Soldatov, “Kremlin did not have to use FSB resources to attack objectionable Web sites; it could simply steer the growing community of patriotic hackers in the right direction.”
Poland: Remembering April 10, 2010
Politics, Economy, Society shares memories of April 10, 2010, the day the Polish President and nearly a hundred other people were killed in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia.
Czech Republic: “Honor to the Astronaut”
Luboš Motl of The Reference Frame offers a Czech perspective on the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin‘s first human spaceflight on April 12, 1961. (More in this 2007 post by the same blogger.)
Poland, Russia: Smolensk Plane Crash, One Year On
On OpenDemocracy.net, Adam Szostkiewicz shares thoughts on the Polish-Russian relations one year after the plane crash near Smolensk that killed Poland’s president and nearly a hundred other dignitaries.
Russia: “Political Schizophrenia”
A Good Treaty writes about “Russia’s bastard democracy” – which “drives most anyone to a sort of civic manic depression” – and journalist Oleg Kashin's political “mood swings.”
Russia: FSB Representative Urges to Ban Skype, Gmail, and Hotmail
Alexander Andreyechkin, head of Information and Special Communications Protection Center of Federal Security Service (FSB), said that uncontrollable use of Skype, Gmail, and Hotmail ‘can lead to a massive threat to Russia's security” and urged to ban these services, RIA Novosti reported [ru]. On the same day, anonymous Kremlin representative...
Russia: Distributed Denial of LiveJournal
Russian online space is getting more violent. The last series of attacks on LiveJournal blogging platform has proved this once again. Whatever are the reasons, the attack on LiveJournal is the attack on online speech in Russia. The bloggers, however, share responsibility for the situation.
Video: Checking out the BOBs Video Channel Nominees
The Deutsche Welle International Blog Awards, known as The BOBs are one of the most important awards for content producers online. One of their 17 categories is the award for Best Video Channel and today we'll get to know a bit more about the 11 nominees to better cast your vote.
Russia: Communist campaign against tandemocracy
Vadim Nikitin of Foreign Policy‘s Russia Blog discusses a campaign video [RU] for the 2012 presidential elections, allegedly first posted on the Communist Party website, which portrays the Putin-Medvedev tandemocracy as an apocalypse in the making.
Russia: RuNet Celebrates 17 Years Today
Habrahabr-user kremlin reminds [ru] the world that on April 7, 1994 “.ru” domain had been included to IANA, root zone database. This means, today is the 17th birthday of the Russian Internet! Congratulations!
Russia: Compromising Photos of Saint-Petersburg Judge Leaked
Blogger Yanvarlamov publishes private (and quite compromising) pictures [ru] of Alexey Kuznetsov, Saint-Petersburg judge famous for sentencing opposition activists. On the pictures, Kuznetsov is depicted as a heavy drinker and a person that can hardly be called a source of a reasonable judgement. Besides, on one of the pictures his colleague...
Russia-Romania: Interview with Rogozin
Gabriela Ionita of Power&Politics World publishes an interview with Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, on Russia, Romania, and European relations.
Russia: Majority of Russians Are Unaware of the Blogosphere
Levada-center has published [ru] a survey poll results on how Russians use the Internet. 39 percent of users use it for entertainment, 27 percent use it to search information, 18 percent – to communicate. Answering the question which bloggers they trust most, respondents have pointed out president Medvedev… and prime-minister...
Russia: Anti-Government Slogans Published On a Hacked Soccer Club Website
Blogger pilgrim67 publishes [ru] a screenshot of the “Zenit” soccer club website that has been hacked this morning (now restored). A hacker had defaced the website and posted pictures of Valentina Matvienko (mayor of Saint-Petersburg) and Vadim Tyulpanov (speaker of the city assembly), both members of “United Russia” party, and...
Russia: DDoS Attack On LiveJournal Has Russians Debating Internet Politics
On March 30, 2011, the blogging platform LiveJournal experienced serious functionality problems for over 12 hours due to a powerful Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack. It has triggered a debate on the origins of the attack and the future of the stability of the Russian political blogosphere.
Russia: Tandem under the carpet
Streetwise Professor discusses various scenarios on relations between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Premier Vladimir Putin against the backdrop of the most recent white paper [RU] of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.
Russia: LiveJournal under attack
Putin Watcher reports on how a cyberattack by DDOS and hacking against top blogs on LiveJournal, Russia's most popular blogging platform. This attack follows earlier incidents this year, aiming to knock out LiveJournal.
Russia: Online Fundraising Changes Transparency Standards in Politics
Oleg Kozyrev, popular Russian blogger, writes [ru] about the effects of online fundraising (this year online opposition activists had fundraised nearly $230,000): 1. it improves transparency standards of opposition politicians, thus making them resistant to corruption allegations and criminal cases, 2. it brings activists closer to their supporters, 3. it makes...
Russia: Anti-Corruption iPad Application Beats “Angry Birds”
iPad application for Rospil.info, Russian crowdsourcing anti-corruption service created by Alexey Navalny, has taken over [ru] “Angry Birds Rio HD Free” application in the Apple App market. The application has been created voluntarily (and free of charge) by Russian iPad app developers.
Russia: Starting the Moscow Metro
Metro Dream by Russos writes about [RUS] the initial construction work on the Moscow Metro and posts pictures from the period.