Russia: Anti-Corruption Donor Details Leaked · Global Voices
Ashley Cleek

In the middle of April 2011, donors to the Russian anti-corruption, whistle-blowing website Rospil.info [ru] began to report that they had received strange calls and emails  from unknown people, some claiming to be journalists, asking about their  donations to Rospil and why they support the website’s founder, popular Russian blogger Alexey Navalny.
Suspiciously well-informed calls
Donors had made contributions to Rospil through their personal  Yandex.Money [electronic transfer system] accounts, the financial  service arm of Yandex, Russia’s largest and most popular search engine.
On April 20, blogger fezeev [ru] recalled a strange phone call he had received from a woman calling  herself Yulia Ivashova and claiming to be a reporter with the newspaper  Our Time:
Russian five rouble coins. Image by Flickr user Waltie (CC BY 2.0).
ЮИ – Скажите, почему вы поддерживаете Алексея Навального?
Я – Не понял вопроса
ЮИ – Почему вы поддерживаете Алексея Навального?
Я – Я услышал вопрос, я его не понял.
ЮИ – С Вашего Яндекс-кошелька были отправлены деньги в поддержку Алексея Навального, это так?
Я – (слегка охреневая от осведомленности барышни) А откуда у вас такая информация?
ЮИ – У нас свои источники, это открытая информация
Я – (охренев еще больше от слов “открытая информация”) Не поделитесь со мной этими источниками, если это открытая информация?
ЮИ – Нет, не поделюсь, но вы не отвечаете на мой вопрос, почему вы поддерживаете Алексея Навального?
Я – Ну давайте обменяемся информацией, вы мне расскажете, откуда вы  узнали про движения на моем Я-кошельке, я расскажу, почему я поддерживаю  Алексея Навального
ЮИ – Кто Вам перечислил деньги на поддержку Алексея Навального?
Я – Снял с зарплаты и перечислил
ЮИ – Неправда, за девять минут до вашего перечисления эти деньги  поступили на ваш кошелек с банкомата московского кредитного банка. В  окрестностях Яндекса, откуда вы перечисляли платеж нет ни одного  банкомата МКБ.
After searching the internet for the phone number by which the woman had called him, fezeev found that another Yandex.Money user and Rospil supporter had posted in the comments section of Navalny’s blog [ru] that he had been called by the same number on March 18, 2011.
Another blogger gunlinux [ru] wrote on April 13 that he had received an email from a Yulia Ivashova, who claimed to be from the online journal Saltt, asking questions about his support for Rospil and Navalny:
Здравствуйте. Вас беспокоит корреспондент издания «Соль»  Юлия Ивашова. Подскажите, пожалуйста, кому пренадлежит электронный  кошелек Яндекс.денег 41001653061014, опубликованный на странице  http://cs.net03.ru/donate . Я бы хотела задать несколько вопросов  владельцу кошелька. Заранее спасибо за помощь. С уважением, Юлия  Ивашова.
Blogger Nikolayich posted on April 30 [ru] that he had found the mystery caller’s profile on the Russian social networking site Vkontakte and posted a screenshot of the profile. In the profile “Yulia Pantera  Dikhtyar” lists that she is a member of the pro-Kremlin youth movement  “Nashi.”
Source of the leak
On May 2, 2011, BBC Russian reported that Yandex.Money had released Rospil donors’ financial and personal information [ru] to Russia’s secret service agency, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB).
In an interview with the radio station Echo Moskvy [ru], Yandex's Head Editor Elena Kolmanovskaya said that according to  Russian law, Yandex was required to supply the FSB with the donors’  account information, though she stressed that she found the disclosure  of such information objectionable. Private data on “about 100″ donors  was released to the FSB:
Мы сами очень недовольны сложившейся ситуацией и  разделяем негодование пользователей. После того, как наши юристы ее  рассмотрят, мы поймем, что можем сделать по этому поводу.
While it has not yet been explained how this information was leaked, Russian bloggers have begun to speculate.
Blogger edrofob intimated [ru] that the FSB had handed the information over to Nashi:
Эти гниды имеют доступ к государственным ресурсам и пользуются ими на своё благо, как собственными карманными шпоргалками.
mudryi_vvp, whose account has now been deleted, spoke out [ru] against Navalny and approved of the unknown caller’s questions:
Ну ведь общеизвестно, что Навальный играет против России.  Зачем же Вы тогда его поддерживаете? Почитал Ваш блог: вроде обычный,  гражданский. А ведете сейчас себя как последний оппозиционер. Разве не  понимаете, что сейчас наступает то время, когда надо определиться на  какой Вы стороне: за Великую Россию или против нее. А Юля задала вполне  конкретные вопросы – почему не отвечали?
In an interview with the Moscow Times, Navalny said that he too believed the FSB had handed over information to Nashi.
Nashi has officially denied [ru] the accusations, saying that Yulia Dikhtyar is working for Nashi  but she had never called anyone asking the details of contributions to Rospil.  Dikhtyar, however, did not comment on the topic. The Federal Security  Service that allegedly leaked the information to “Nashi” has also  refrained from commenting.
Consequences of the leak
Many aspects of the story remain unclear: firstly, the role of the  FSB. The case indicated the permissiveness and complete lack of  transparency that the FSB enjoys. In the case of Navalny this lack of  restraint is amplified by the fact that there has been no public  investigation against Navalny (and if there was to be one, what would  the charges be?).
Secondly, the motive. The main version expressed by many bloggers was  that the aim of the leak was to intimidate Navalny's supporters  via intermediary censorship. Blogger Rusanalit however, suggested [ru] that the scandal might be connected with Yandex's Initial Public Offering,  which is currently being developed; Yandex's market price is estimated  as much as of 6-7 billion US dollars. He recalled a similar ‘attack’ on  private Domodedovo airport in 2008.
Some have suggested that Yandex itself was interested in publicity  before the Initial Public Offering and could be the beneficiary of the  scandal, although who would be interested in this kind of publicity?
Thirdly, did the leak negatively influence online crowd funding? It  has definitely shown the weak basis of Russian crowd funding. E-money  systems are only viable as long as they can turn electronic money into  real money, and cooperation with the government is of extreme importance  here.
But that's technology. Did the leak intimidate the bloggers or  influence their motivations? On the contrary, it had the opposite effect  – as Anton Nossik has shown [ru], the number of donations has increased after the leak.
It seems that if the government continues its pressure on the Internet (despite President Medvedev's declarations “not to put a hand on it“ [ru]), bloggers might turn to more traditional offline funding models, using the Internet simply as a coordination tool.
Where there's a will, there's a way.