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."
Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just what oppressive governments do. They have to monitor everything to stay in power.
Why are you surprized? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pot, Kettle... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SLOP syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
"surveillance being subject to judicial and legislative oversight" I guess you missed all the leaks which revealed that oversight is utterly useless?
Re:Monitoring (Score:1, Insightful)
That's just what oppressive governments do. They have to monitor everything to stay in power.
Just like the US of A. Old foe, meet new tyrant. Old foe copies new tyrant. Old foe and new tyrant are now buddies.
Re:SLOP syndrome (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
I suggest that some people need to wake up, and realise that while the West is currently the absolute paragon of virtue (compared to what Russia, China and Muslim countries are doing) we must not take that condition for granted.
FTFY.
I shudder to think what will happen to the world when the baton of world domination is handed to these despots.
Yep, me too. That's exactly the reason I don't want "the West" to become them.
This is new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, the IOC is perfectly OK with corruption, oppression, censorship, and spying, as long as committee members get their payoffs, a pleasant facade is maintained while cameras are rolling, and nobody but Jews get killed. Russia wishes they could have the all encompassing monitoring that Beijing had, but they just don't currently have the resources. Keeping the athletes in segregated housing simply makes it easier to ensure that every single area is bugged, and each and every person there that the participants can possibly come in contact with is engaged in intelligence collecting.
Re:SLOP syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
..but just couple of articles back there's an article of going for foreign soil and shooting guns. with russia you're pretty much free to do anything(few isolated incidents not counting) as long as you stay out of russia(or their oil drilling operations). I'm not aware of any cases of russians even asking extradition of hackers, dissidents or what have you. however usa does that regularly and not only asks other countries to do it - they and their ally have regularly gone abroad to outright kidnap (locally)illegally persons they for some reason or another want out of the picture. that's scary. I can stay out of russia easy and not sweat even if I fly over it.
I could even plan a hypothetical russian revolution plan without worrying about getting whacked! now if I did the same thing using some cloud service but only for USA instead of russia I would be risking a black ops visit or extradition to usa for threatening security in usa.
there's plenty of reasons to boycott sochi. but all that was lost already to olympic movement when china had their games. they only care about money and for most athletes making it to olympics is about money too - to keep a "pro" status they have to get there and pro status means having enough sponsorship(private or state) to keep competing on pro level. of course the right thing to do is to not watch the games.
a big thing about the leaks is that judical and legislative oversight.. is that it isn't. it's closed doors. there's TWO parallel processes - the old one that went through courts and ended up as evidence on regular cases and then there's the mystery NSA-secret court and secret oversight one - but why would there be a need for that ? and I don't know how really much more far reaching you can get than re-routing connections and inserting tagging via js holes to people who you don't know even where they're from. you really shouldn't use russia or china as the benchmarks for freedom! as soon as you do that you're thoroughly fucked!
And you forgot the biggest difference to russian spying vs. american spying if one is from neither of the countries! american spying is targeting among other people me, whilst russian spying is targeting (mainly) russians and foreigners _on_russian_soil_ - in their country, according to their laws. they don't publicly pretend that they don't need to follow our laws while doing operations in our country but the leaders of the american intelligence apparatus have made time and time again comments that they don't need to give jack shit about our laws.
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just the theater. The real power never appears on television.
Re:SLOP syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
The courts have thrown up their hands and stated PUBLICLY that they can no longer reign this in. So much for judicial oversight. The NSA blatantly lied to Congress and has faced no consequences for it. So much for legislative oversight.
As for 2 or three, you maintain that it's fine to beat someone into a coma and as long as someone somewhere was killed outright the coma victim and family have no right to complain?
Sorry, I would prefer not to set the bar as low as Russia or China. Not the worst is not much of an aspiration.
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
President of US has no absolute power over everything, the same is true for Putin. If you think Putin is some absolutist czar and can do whatever he wants, you are watching western propaganda too much. The difference is that right now the two faction that hold power in US are in fight, while in Russia they are mostly playing along. Putin and Obama are figureheads.
Tell that joke about zero consequences to Snowden or to people from Occupy, to name just two examples. I would grant you that Russia government is more thinly-skinned, but even in Russia you can voice opposition to various degrees, and even in US if you try to mount too effective opposition, you will be whacked hard.
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
why is the government stalemated at the moment?
What stalemate? The the one side of the party is bickering with the other one? C'mon, that's the sideshow for when there's nothing important to do. Or rather, when there is a lot of important stuff to be done, but nothing that they actually want to do because doing anything would be against their interest. Don't think of it as a stalemate, think of it as the half time show to keep the spectators entertained while there's nothing really going on that they want to do.
Why does the President have no power?
Erh... why should he have any power? You nuts? That muppet is elected by the plebs, why the fuck should he get any real power?
Why, unlike in Russia, are people currently able to publicly oppose their leader with zero consquences?
Because we learned that governments are stable as long as people talk, protest, march, complain, make jokes or smear crap on internet boards. It gives them a place to vent their anger at government while not really having any impact on it. Think of it as some way to vent some steam. It's actually the sensible thing to do, not only does it give the people the illusion that they can voice their concerns (well, that's not really an illusion, they can actually do that, the illusion is that anyone gives a shit), it's a way to vent. If you keep the lid on the pot too long and too tightly, the pot won't whistle, it will explode.
So they let 'em whistle instead. It's maybe annoying, but it doesn't really cause any harm.
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
At least Russia tells you they're monitoring you in advance. In US, you're monitored 24/7 all year round and you only find out about it through evil "traitors" like Snowden.
Re:Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
Fascism will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible. ~ Sinclair Lewis 1935
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -- James Madison
patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. - Samuel Johnson
let me know if any of those seem to describe the current US political climate...