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Archive.org has become the latest site to be blocked in Russia:
Archive.org, home to the popular Wayback Machine, is again blocked in Russia, according to a site that monitors IP addresses banned in that country. The Internet Archive's address, 207.241.224.2, turns up in the latest dump by Antizapret on GitHub.
The anti-censorship Antizapret maintains a list (currently beyond 12,000 addresses) of blocked IPs, and also provides information about anti-censorship tools like VPNs. The blog Meduza.io, which reported Antizapret's original announcement, says the Kremlin's media watchdog agency, Roskomnadzor, took exception to Wayback archiving links to Syrian Islamist videos. Because Archive.org uses HTTPS, the individual pages can't be blocked, so the whole site's been blacklisted.
It's not the first time the non-profit archive's robots have stored content that Roskomnadzor doesn't like. Wayback raised Russia's ire in June when it scooped up a page referring to the "theory and practice of partisan resistance."
Previously, Reddit was blocked in Russia for hosting a single page about growing psychedelic mushrooms, and Wikipedia was briefly blacklisted for its entry on Charas, a hashish form of cannabis. A day after Wikipedia's block was lifted, Moscow's head of communication and culture, Yevgeny Gerasimov, discussed plans for an alternate Russian version of the site.
The effects of erratic site blocking may pale in comparison to the data localization requirement that amended the Russian Federal Law on Personal Data, which came into effect on Sept. 1. Bloomberg reports:
A law now forces tech firms with Russian customers to operate local servers to handle Russian personal data. It's the latest in a string of about 20 laws tightening government control of the Internet, all put into place since President Vladimir Putin's re-election in 2012. Taken at face value the new program is aimed at protecting the privacy of Russian citizens. It's not a uniquely Russian idea, and is something Brazil and Germany are also exploring in the post-Snowden era. Yet human rights activists fear the regulation will be misused, allowing officials to spy on citizens and suppress political activists. It comes into force days after Wikipedia was briefly blacklisted because of an article about cannabis.
"The regime is already ramping up censorship and surveillance and using it to target opposition activists, so the requiring of companies to host data on servers in the country makes it easier for the government to access that data," says Laura Reed, a research analyst from Freedom House.
In theory Russia's intelligence services need a court order to access any data, but observers say they are rarely turned down. All eyes are now on Facebook, Google and Twitter, which have been meeting with the Kremlin in private to make sense of the law. At this stage it's not clear whether they will agree to comply. Google declined to comment. Facebook simply says it won't comment on speculation, and that "we regularly meet with government officials and have nothing more to share at this time."
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 02 2015, @04:56PM
Or, maybe, just maybe, Putin is a totalitarian fascist, Russia is a democracy in name only, and some nations are doing far better than others about not pulling this kind of shit.
(No, this is not an endorsement of the US and it's not-so-great laws)
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 02 2015, @05:02PM
It's a source of concern, but there's a huge number of people in other countries that enjoy a relatively free experience on the internet. I'm personally a lot more concerned with tracking that goes on and the push to closed networks like FB rather than a proper town square.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday September 02 2015, @06:39PM
The tracking that goes on in the US seems to be primarily for advertising purposes.
(Or that is what the trackers claim, but recent articles suggest that even the trackers have no idea about what to do with all that data [business2community.com] they are drowning in).
Click on a few articles about [insert subject] and I am sure to get spam and page ads trying to sell me [insert subject] after a little while.
(Shopping for a new car is a sure fire way to test this. You have to turn off ABP to see these, although with a sale as large as a car on the line, the car companies have a way of pushing right past APB with html5 ads).
However, in the US, I don't see any blocking, and I don't see any obvious sign of government tracking. US government tracking isn't about denial of access. Its about silent data collection.
Should I decide to go rogue, they would track me down in a heartbeat.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 02 2015, @06:49PM
Why would the government bother to track us when they can just use an NSL to get access to the information that companies have?
It's much more cost effective than actually doing their own data collection. This is one of the reasons why I'm so uncomfortable with companies like FB and Google tracking the hell out of everybody. Even if they don't use the data themselves or sell it, it's still available for government witch hunts.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @07:20PM
It's much more cost effective than actually doing their own data collection.
The U.S. effort seems to be well-funded, so it's pursuing an "all of the above" strategy including full-take surveillance (e.g. Room 641A [wikipedia.org] and PRISM [wikipedia.org]).
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 02 2015, @07:31PM
That's a fair point.
But, I suspect that's more about sustaining the military-industrial complex than anything else. It's certainly not about getting better data as they already have so much data that they can't analyze more than a small portion of it. At best it's useful after the fact to try and identify the perpetrators or establish motive.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday September 02 2015, @07:56PM
Why would the government bother to track us when they can just use an NSL to get access to the information that companies have?
Agreed. Which is why we should be pushing companies like Google to stop retaining so much history, and pushing companies like Facebook over a cliff.
Instead they paint a thin layer of SSL over their massive collection which goes back years, and tell us it is secure. Its far from
secure. When they use client side encryption/decryption and they don't hold the keys, then we can talk about secure.
(Google allows you to kill off all your data and close an account. But there are weasel words in this promise.)
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Thursday September 03 2015, @10:17AM
Do you have an example of a page with HTML5 adverts.? I have not seen any adverts on any site for quite a while.
I use"ScriptBlock" (and allow only sites that I really need), "Ghostery" (to block all trackers, no exceptions) and "uBlock Origin" (to also block trackers and adverts)
I would like to also test my home DNS blackhole ad blocker too.
Thanks
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday September 03 2015, @01:10AM
there's a huge number of people in other countries that enjoy a relatively free experience on the internet.
That is true only while those freedoms do not present even a slightest concern for the governments of those countries. If they do, even the most democratic governments are quick to intervene. In Germany, for example, people are imprisoned for denial of Holocaust. One would think why would anyone cares what one lunatic tells another in a public square... but here you are. In the USA one would be well advised to obey laws of political correctness, otherwise he will be accused of racism, sexism, and whatever -ism is popular today. In South Korea proposals about mending ties with NK come with a prison term. Democracy is inherently unstable, as it is supposed to facilitate its own destruction. As it is not desirable for a number of reasons, governments all over the world make sure that, for example, ISIS recruiting centers are not permitted. Otherwise they'd be legitimate places where one group of people talks to another. No weapons present, no threats - fully conforming to the standard of political discussion. It is outlawed because the subject of the speech is not welcome. It may be not welcome by many, or not welcome by just a few - the exact number doesn't matter. A true democracy cannot have forbidden subjects, be it the Holocaust or the duty of true believers to exterminate everyone else. All countries forbid certain knowledge - just ask Snowden or Assange, people who did nothing more than revealed the information that the people should have known all along anyway.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday September 02 2015, @05:07PM
The Russian approach isn't fundamentally different from the US's.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 02 2015, @05:38PM
You.
I included that second sentence for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @06:07PM
He thought it was your signature.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 02 2015, @07:20PM
I appreciate the thoughtful anticipation. I'm touched.
I had to use the springboard provided by how well you worded it,
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday September 02 2015, @06:52PM
The Russian approach isn't fundamentally different from the US's.
Please go back and re-read TFS.
It clearly is different.
When was the last time you couldn't get to Wikipedia because of US government blocking?
Perhaps the US government actually watches what URLs you access, or maybe they just fetch
that from the close ties they have with carriers, and some other companies, but they don't OFTEN
go out of their way to block entire web sites. And in the few cases that they do, they intentionallty
do it ineffectively.
The US intelligence theory seems to be:
Knowing that you did something is worth more than preventing you from doing it.
The Russian/Chinese theory seems to be:
Blocking an entire domains (none to subtly) generates less unrest than having some things be common knowledge.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @07:25PM
The US intelligence theory seems to be:
Knowing that you did something is worth more than preventing you from doing it.
Words of truth!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 02 2015, @07:36PM
While I mostly agree, it's more the targets than the methods which differ. The US seizes domains left and right, including in other countries, to protect Private Interests as much as to take down botnets.
While president Obama doesn't shutdown Truther sites, any more than President Santorum would shutdown porn sites, or President Trump take down hair restoration and bankruptcy record sites, the data localization aspect (not just citizen but worldwide) is achieved by agreements, incentives, economic threats and plain 'ol spying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @07:46PM
While president Obama doesn't shutdown Truther sites, any more than President Santorum would shutdown porn sites
Well, to be fair, President Santorum is likely to shut down some porn sites, particularly any displaying that frothy mixture of lube and excrement [urbandictionary.com].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @08:02PM
The USA does use a different approach. When the U.S. Cyber Command blocked Wikileaks, it did so only for its own governmental networks:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-cables-blocks-access-federal [theguardian.com]
https://publicintelligence.net/dod-blocks-public-intelligence/ [publicintelligence.net]).
It also shuts down websites, such as Silk Road [telegraph.co.uk], Rentboy [huffingtonpost.com] and Megaupload [arstechnica.com]. Arresting the site owners and seizing their assets creates an obstacle to restarting those services. In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security shut down scores of sites, including sites that promoted rap music and hip hop music:
http://mashable.com/2010/11/27/homeland-security-website-seized/ [mashable.com]
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/11/us-government-seizes-82-websites-draconian-future [eff.org]
Are there any examples of websites that were shut down by the Russian government, their owners arrested, and all their money taken?