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Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

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Re: Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

#71

Post by VMG »

insuffi wrote: post #33
vdaniuk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hilarious. People in Russia support Putin exactly because there are virtually no free mass media. This is one of the latest steps to block access to all media channels that may oppose Russian cleptocratic government.

Heh, Right. Is there free mass media anywhere else? Are you aware that any journalist who spoke out against the Iraq war never had a career again? Free mass media is a political talking point, not a real thing. Would you prefer Yeltsin? Putin is what Russia needs.

> Are you aware that any journalist who spoke out against the Iraq war never had a career again?

Yeah we never heard of Michael Moore ever again.

Re: Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

#72

Post by VMG »

bad_user wrote: post #38
spindritf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

balkanisation of the Internet is a natural result of the erosion of trust in corporations and other stewards of this medium Not even close. This is another regime looking to suppress dissent, just like China has been doing all along. They don't trust their own citizens, not "corporations and other stewards of this medium." You're buying a flimsy excuse for cracking down on free speech. Their problem has never been th…

> This is another regime looking to suppress dissent, just like China has been doing all along. No government can act without the acceptance of a majority of the citizens. China's firewall can only exist because the Chinese people are accepting it in the name of protecting children or other such bullshit - brits should watch out, as their personal liberties have been eroded in the name of safety for too long. And if…

> No government can act without the acceptance of a majority of the citizens.

This is not a contradiction to the original statement. Even if the majority wants to suppress minority dissent (or do worse things to minorities), it's not the right thing to do.

Re: Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

#73

Post by huhtenberg »

jacquesm wrote: post #55
huhtenberg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pray tell what these motivations are. Just talk through them and then ask yourself if they are in fact "not present" outside of Russia given all the NSA and GCHQ shenanigans that have surfaced.

This is all about their ability to censor and has nothing to do with the stated reasons (combating piracy / protecting the privacy of Russian citizens and other fig leafs). If you want to know the real motivations for this then it helps to remember Putin's origins and articles like this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russia-telecoms-watchdog... The rest of Europe does not (for now) share any of those motivation…

Is UK included in "the rest of Europe" by any chance?

Besides if the censorship were the goal, then it's perfectly doable as of now and regardless of the physical location of the servers. Just ask Saudi's. To understand the motivation you have to stop reading Washington Times and looking at Putin's origins and instead consider what he has accomplished in recent years - he essentially resurrected the national pride. In this context, it's only logical that they now view their dependency on (mostly) US companies as unbecoming, especially in the light of Snowden revelations, hence the move in question. You may also recall the hocus-pocus Visa did not long ago by showing a middle finger to some Russian bank as per directive of the US department. Now, swap the US and Russia and consider what the US reaction would've been.

If you are thinking it's all about censorship, you are missing a much larger picture.

Re: Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

#74

Post by bad_user »

happyscrappy wrote: post #45
bad_user wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is another regime looking to suppress dissent, just like China has been doing all along. No government can act without the acceptance of a majority of the citizens. China's firewall can only exist because the Chinese people are accepting it in the name of protecting children or other such bullshit - brits should watch out, as their personal liberties have been eroded in the name of safety for too long. And if…

I guess you haven't heard: "The Five Eyes are cooperating with various 3rd Party countries in at least two groups: The "Nine Eyes", consisting of the Five Eyes plus Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway. The "Fourteen Eyes", consisting of the same countries as the Nine Eyes plus Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Sweden.[41] The actual name of this group is SIGINT Seniors Europe (SSEUR) and its purpose is coord…

But of course. I wasn't denying anything of the sort.

But you see - it's one thing for my country to do it, because if I suffer from it, I have legal ways to fight it. It's another thing entirely for a foreign government with so much power to do it, let alone a government that directly controls and that can subdue the biggest companies that operate on the Internet. Depending on the country, the NSA doesn't have enough jurisdiction or power to subdue a foreign company, regardless of any treaties, therefore depending on the country, I can trust a more local company more than I can trust a US company - since a US company can be quietly subdued to whatever the NSA wants without recourse or without me finding out about it.

And I do realize that if I'm targeted directly, then short of keeping myself offline, there's no way to protect my data. But my biggest fear is that my personal data will end up being processed in bulk by incompetents. My personal ID ended up in a local newspaper by mistake because of incompetents running our governmental institutions (even though that's illegal). I've got important data that I care about - while at the same time I've got nothing to hide - but do I want my personal data, like pictures, love or angry letters, source code of personal projects and so on and so forth to end up being processed by incompetents? Hell no. And if it does happen, I want to be able to strike back.

With the US government doing it, I have no recourse, no path I could take - since I'm not a US citizen and I don't have money for the fees practiced by US lawyers anyway, while at the same time, my voice is not heard because I'm a foreigner. Heck, I don't even have a right to vote, if that counted for something. Can you see my problem here?

That's why I'm of the opinion that the US government should try really hard to fix what they broke, since we all have enjoyed the freedoms provided by the global Internet and it would be a pity if balkanization happens because some idiots thought it would be cool to process the emails of individuals without warrants and in bulk.

Re: Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

#76

Post by dkarapetyan »

ganwar wrote: post #68

Russia as a country sees storage of internet data as a tactical disadvantage against US. They are only moving ahead to level the playing field as much as they can.

Yup, politicians are starting to realize that digital data in all its forms is now a competitive advantage and they are looking to control it like any other national resource.

Re: Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

#77

Post by dkarapetyan »

jacquesm wrote: post #19
therealunreal wrote: post #4

It's sad that it's spiraling down to this but it is in practice no different than what the US is doing. There's no free speech without privacy so this looks like a "choose your dictator" kind of thing.

The difference here is that America does not care whether you store your data on services in Europe or Russia, but Russia does. Clearly in practice this is very different to what the US is doing.

The only reason we haven't cared up until now because it has all been stored here or within countries that have had very strong diplomatic ties to the United States. Plus, it doesn't really matter anyway because the internet backbones are all tapped. In any event I think Russia is just looking out for its own best interest by realizing that data needs to be managed and controlled like any other national resource.

Re: Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

#78

Post by alexro »

vdaniuk wrote: post #56
alexro wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russians prefer a cleptocratic government with Putin than a cleptocratic government without Putin. There are no non-cleptocratic governments in the world. Power corrups ... you know the rest of this, right?

Just stop this craptastic argument of "every government is the same". Another favorite argument taken directly from putinbots social media guidance. And stop using strawman arguments. No government is perfect but there are degrees of corruption in the government. Russian government is extremely corrupt, Iceland government is a little bit corrupt. One is better than another. God, do I really have to post trivia on HN?

Don't think trivial and you'll be safe. There are degrees of corruption between of the biggest countries and the tiny ones, but not so much inside the group. The methods vary, of course.

Re: Russia Moves To Ban Online Services That Don’t Store Personal Data In Russia

#79

Post by benihana »

cyphunk wrote: post #3

It sounds evil but balkanisation of the Internet is a natural result of the erosion of trust in corporations and other stewards of this medium. The NSA/GCHQ scandal only pushed it a little further. We all know that any great medium starts out as a bastion of understanding, sharing and common good until a bunch of trolls show up to ruin it all (ahem, reddit, ycombinator, digg, etc). Until that moment we enjoy all the…

>We all know that any great medium starts out as a bastion of understanding, sharing and common good until a bunch of trolls show up to ruin it all (ahem, reddit, ycombinator, digg, etc).

No, we don't. I don't agree with your statement and I don't think you should be speaking for other people. None of those places were bastions of any of those things. They were places where like-minded people gathered to talk about common interests. Don't make the mistake of thinking because they represented your interests that these places were bastions of all that is good.

That is such a dim and cynical and solipsistic view to take. I don't agree that the people who came to those networks are trolls just because they showed up after me. This is a natural consequence of networks getting popular, not a bunch of trolls coming to ruin the things I love because I love them. It's like saying that the people who came to America after the initial European colonists were trolls because they had different interests from original colonists.

This is such a common tactic on internet 'debates.' To call someone who disagrees with you a troll, thereby absolving you from the mental work of understanding their viewpoint (I don't need to engage this troll, they're just fucking with me) and dealing with the possibility that someone has different opinions than you.

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