Russia Backs Down On Skype, Gmail Ban

An anonymous reader writes "Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has backed away from its call for a ban on Skype, Gmail and Hotmail, first voiced on Friday. On 8 April, FSB official Alexander Andreyechkin said foreign-based services that allowed for encrypted communications posed a security problem for Russia. 'The uncontrollable use of such services can lead to a major threat to Russia's security,' Andreyechkin reportedly said at a government meeting."

Re:ban at what scope?

[Hazel Bergeron]

They need pass no law to achieve that, an executive order would be enough.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the current Russian legal system. Would no legislative action be needed to require all government employees and contractors to only communicate work details through government-approved systems?

The proposed ban was against any and all encrypted communications within the territory of Russia where the government has no key escrow.

So the outcome could have been an agreement with Google etc. Either way, use of US services exposes users to snooping from the US government. I don't see any evidence that the people benefit.

There's no education issue here, unless what you mean is that they want to 'educate' Russian students about the benefit of alternatives to Skype and Gmail that the Russian government can intercept.

Or, educating Russian students about the benefit of alternatives to Skype and Gmail that the US government are less likely to be able to intercept. There are more people in the world who distrust the US government than there are people who distrust the Russian government - and if the choice was between a system secured from Russia and a system secured from the US, many would choose the latter. Recall also that a determined Russian official would use the physical presence of a suspect to keylog / warrant search / otherwise anyway, so the value of protection against some form of snooping from one's own government is diminished vs the value of protection against snooping from foreigners.

Re:In US

[AHuxley]

The US is so free you thoughtcrime yourself out in blogs, emails, phonecalls, web 2.0 ect. The urge to spread the message, find others, share and build is very powerful. If you do use encryption, the trail is even more clear and task force/federal interest builds.
The only thing that makes people really sit up is old court cases where they see the use of hardware and software to get around any level of encryption.
Russia seems to have learned this, spread the tools, understand the web 2.0/free tools, then go hunting.