Sorm: Russia Intends To Monitor "All Communications" At Sochi Olympics 193
dryriver writes with this excerpt from The Guardian: "Athletes and spectators attending the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February will face some of the most invasive and systematic spying and surveillance in the history of the Games, documents shared with the Guardian show. Russia's powerful FSB security service plans to ensure that no communication by competitors or spectators goes unmonitored during the event, according to a dossier compiled by a team of Russian investigative journalists looking into preparations for the 2014 Games. The journalists ... found that major amendments have been made to telephone and Wi-Fi networks in the Black Sea resort to ensure extensive and all-permeating monitoring and filtering of all traffic, using Sorm, Russia's system for intercepting phone and internet communications. Ron Deibert, a professor at the University of Toronto and director of Citizen Lab, which co-operated with the Sochi research, describes the Sorm amendments as "Prism on steroids", referring to the programme used by the NSA in the US and revealed to the Guardian by the whistleblower Edward Snowden."
We have become despots (Score:5, Informative)
1) surveillance being subject to judicial and legislative oversight
You mean the secret surveillance conducted by a secret agency under secret orders with secret legal justification, "overseen" by a secret rubber stamp court with secret findings? Exactly how do you propose oversight works when there is no accountability to the electorate whatsoever?
2) not being anywhere near as far-reaching as SORM or the Chinese systems,
Got proof to back that up? I didn't think so.
3) anybody being hauled away in the dead of night for offending the sensibilities of anybody in power.
So you are claiming the US government has never engaged in extraordinary rendition [wikipedia.org] and does not operate a prison camp without any due process [wikipedia.org]?
I suggest that some people need to grow up, and realise that the West is the absolute paragon of virtue compared to what Russia, China and Muslim countries are doing.
Not it the last 10 years, particularly in the US. The US has engaged in kidnapping, torture, secret and illegal surveillance, political assassinations, gag orders without any warrant or due process, and started two unjustified wars which are still going on over a decade later, and you want to claim that we are a "paragon of virtue"? Maybe we are better but it certainly isn't by much these days. Hell we had a president who was awarded the Nobel peace prize and used the opportunity to argue why war is sometimes necessary. Talk about hypocritical.
Re:Monitoring (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder what Snowden has to say about this? Since The Moscow Times says that Spying Is a Sovereign Right [themoscowtimes.com], and a key spokesman for Snowden in Russia [businessinsider.com] is the head of public council for the Federal Security Service (FSB), I would guess not much. Just as well: NSA Is No Match for the FSB [themoscowtimes.com]
Re:And how do they plan to deal with.. (Score:3, Informative)
. When your device downloads any data over the network it will be infected with malware and all the encryption in the world is useless
The NSA attack depended on people being dumb enough to run the javascript in the attack payload. If you're dumb enough to do that, you deserve what you get. Furthermore, it used an exploit targeting the Windows version of Firefox.
You seem somewhat confused. "Downloading data over the network" doesn't automatically infect your machine with malware unless your download app is buggy, or you go running scripts or executables that you downloaded. You have to be pretty damned ignorant to do that in a situation where you are trying to preserve your security and privacy from organizations like the FSB or NSA.
Sandbox your browser in a VM, don't use Windows, don't run scripts served to you by random pages you have no reason to trust, and that will improve your security by about 99.99%. Yes, I know, it isn't 100%, and therefore a bunch of slashdotters will say, "but it's useless, because it's not absolutely PERFECT", but in fact the NSAs attack you allude to and virtually every other malware distribution mechanism would not succeed.
If you go running malware payloads, you will get infected: news at 11.
Re:US is not despotic - Russia and PRC are. (Score:4, Informative)
In the US, you actually have to be a threat to human life - instead of a journalist, a politician, or an ordinary citizen that said the wrong thing at the wrong time.
BULLSHIT!
you could not be more wrong. little subtle things like getting on the no-fly list (and not being able to confirm it or get off of it) is one example. there are others which neither you nor I am aware of but I fully believe exist, given the current climate of the US gov.
you don't have to be kidnapped at 3am. there are other ways to ruin your life if you piss off someone high enough up in the food chain.
you can find it hard to get a job. you can be on a 'no hire list'. you can find your taxes are 'extra well reviewed' and are on the audit list more than you think would be reasonable. you can be wiretapped and monitored more closely. many things can happen that is way short of being 'taken in the night'.
wake up! we are slowly cooking the frog, here. you need to get out of the storyland fable that you were taught as a kid and realize what our country has slowly become.