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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: 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?