Russian Software Piracy Crackdown Restricts Free Speech 175
reporter writes "According to a report recently filed by the Washington Post, the Kremlin has finally begun to crackdown on software piracy ... with a twist. The Russian state agency is targetting political enemies with claims of piracy, including independent news media, political parties, and private advocacy groups. In particular, 'the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, one of the last outposts of critical journalism in Russia, suspended publication of its regional edition in the southern city of Samara on Monday after prosecutors opened a criminal case against its editor, alleging that his publication used unlicensed software.'" This doesn't even take into account our recent discussion of the Kremlin's grip on internet access in that country.
Oh no!!! (Score:3, Funny)
great (Score:4, Interesting)
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The way they deal with things: Tell us what you were doing, or you're going to a Siberian gulag. Or we'll kill you.
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Go into any mid-sized company today and claim they're pirating. They're guilty. I dare say that and I know in 99% of cases I will be right.
Given the way companies buy computers and software licenses, i.e. often separate from one another, they're prone to actually not paying for a license or two, or for using the wrong software on a machen, or to update a machine without having the license. Not because they want to "save", but simply because it requires a lot of oversight and car
Re:great (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:great (Score:4, Insightful)
You're still a bit better off if they had to fabricate a charge than if you were really guilty of something as easy and obvious to demonstrate as software piracy. Looking at it from another angle, this is one of the reasons why it's socially detrimental to have poorly enforced laws against common activities (whether it be piracy, drug possession, low speed limits, whatever) - it gives abusive authorities the ability to selectively enforce those laws against people they don't like for some reason.
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Cool.
If the opposition in Russia was actually opposing an oppresive regime, I might be more concerned.
Being that they're a bunch of crackpots funded by foreign interests who would like nothing better than to use these very same oppressive laws against the population of Russia for private gain, I'm actually rather amused.
Go Putin!
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You can't, especially if the speed limit is so low that everyone breaks it all the time in normal driving. So rather than making everyone a criminal that the cops have an excuse to harass at any time, you fix the law.
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To start, I suggest you read this: http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html [ibiblio.org]
The conclusion I draw from that (and other material I've read on the same topic) is that there's no safety justific
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Re:great (Score:5, Insightful)
These charges are to put the dissenters out of business. I suppose that's better than being assassinated, but you've got to realize that most of the world does not operate the way the Western World does. If you criticize most governments, you die. We take for granted that we can say what we want about the people in charge. In reality, most people get killed. That makes martyrs, so the best bet is to discredit those who oppose you first. "Yeah, they were totally unscrupulous. Look at all the pirated software they're using. You can't believe a thing these guys say."
Look at Tienanmen Square - the Chinese murdered thousands of protesters, and now it's illegal to even mention it. I know, they aren't Russian. All the Russians do is inject you with plutonium, set off car bombs, and steal your computers. That's if you're a reporter!
The US may suck sometimes, but at least you've got a shot at a trial. Gitmo notwithstanding, of course, but imagine if reporting on Gitmo got you sent there for life.
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And you're A-okay with this? Why do we support doing business with these governments? Fascism is not something to be ignored. It will come back to bite us sooner than we think. Unfortunately we have to wait for the next 9/11 because nobody wants to talk about the last one. If you want to do something about THIS problem RIGHT NOW then demand a new criminal investigation into 9/11. And support ae911truth.org.
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How is that different than America?
There is anecdotal evidence the cops said "There is no 'My computer' icon on your desktop, so the software is pirated" and confiscated the computer. And yes, your guess is right, they had Linux with KDE on that box.
Obviously if there's no "My computer" i
Re:great (Score:5, Insightful)
How is that different than America?
That's a very good point: it's no different from America at all.
Of course, did anyone ever say that America was a country where people had freedom, and the laws actually worked? Any such person is a liar or an idiot.
Re:great (Score:4, Interesting)
Marijuana has been illegal back to the 40s or so. Polygamy has been illegal all along; it's a relationship between consenting adults, but somehow it's illegal in a country that promotes "freedom". Before 1861, slavery was legal, meaning that millions of people had no freedom whatsoever. Before the 1910s or 20s, women weren't allowed to vote, so they were effectively no more free than children, who also can't vote (but for good reason). I don't know exactly when men who didn't own land were finally allowed to vote, but that was in there too. I guess if you're a white, male, land owner, you probably had the most freedom around 1790. If you're a black female, however, right now is probably your best bet.
Maybe America should just stop yapping about "freedom" altogether, since I don't think we ever had it at all. It's just a jingoistic buzzword to make the people think they have it better here than elsewhere.
Anybody surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, many ex-KGB people are out there vying for power towards the "good old days". Turns out that someone is Putin right now. Power and threat of assassination should be enough to shut up critics.. or eat a dust-grain of Po.
Could the Russians have a great state? Absolutely... but not with the KGB still distributively in power.
Ad absurdum "In Soviet Rusia jokes"... because thats where they're headed back to.
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Yesterday, nobody was Putin. Tomorrow, someone else will be Putin
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Re:Anybody surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
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What is it now? 16 countries? And they're pissing them off at bat.
If anything they have the most to thank towards Global warming.. nobody wants Siberia. However, there is a treasure trove of minerals that can be extracted when the permafrost thaws.
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One would imagine it being easier to mine and transport vast amounts of heavy minerals from solid ground than methane-spitting swamp, but maybe that's just me.
Re:Anybody surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
If this were true, which I doubt, then it came with a very high price - the permanent breakup of the USSR and the loss of 14 Soviet Republics (Republic no. 15 is Russia - there were 15 Republics in the USSR), some of which aren't interested at all in being vassals to Mother Russia - Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. I get the impression that Armenia and Azerbaijan are somewhat indifferent to Russia and the 5 "Stan" countries are interested in Russia only in so far as they can get something (ie. money) out of it. Only Belarus remains loyal to Mother Russia and got paid back earlier in the year by Mother Russia telling it that it better pay up what it owed on natural gas and oil that came from Russia or there would be some, ahem, "unpleasantness".
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If this were true, which I doubt, then it came with a very high price - the permanent breakup of the USSR and the loss of 14 Soviet Republics (Republic no. 15 is Russia - there were 15 Republics in the USSR), some of which aren't interested at all in being vassals to Mother Russia.
Meh. The Russians annexed that land once, they probably think they can do it again.
Although, on second thought, I don't know why they'd even bother declaring a new USSR when they can just as easily control their puppet states through other means, like economic pressure (Russia now supplies a third of Europe's oil and natural gas), "diplomacy" (like the recently ratified withdrawal from the CFE treaty and other scare tactics), and covert means (the KGB always was good at bribing and blackmailing others into
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Russia is already a dictatorship (when was the last open election in Russia?)
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So whether it be Russia, USA or China, it really makes not difference. Democracy is the means by which they are controlled ie, caught, prosecuted and imprisoned for their basic inherent corruption (it's just a default part of the psychological make up, the only moral limit to their action
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Really, the whole Communism thing never really took hold there. If it did, there would have been no real "leader" to begin with. Their whole country was based yet on another monarch with absolute power. They just set forth communism for non-governmental workers. The poor share all their money (which = poor).
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Re:Anybody surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been said that the prerequisite for Democracy is a strong middle-class. Guess what - Russia went straight from Feudalism with a complete lack of middle-class to Communism, with its similar lack of a strong middle-class. This means that the political tradition in Russia is one of central strong men (and one woman) who have near absolute power over everything. I don't see that changing anytime soon - the Enlightenment period is long past, and the current global atmosphere does not support its revival.
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This attempt to make the US sound like Putinocracy or Communist China is absurd, and worse, bullshit. There are abuses, there are always abuses, but at the end of the day, where would you rather be right at this moment in time; Moscow or Detroit?
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Detroit? DETROIT?! You choose the American city with the climate the most similar to Moscow and the economy most similar to Siberia, or wherever the hell the Soviet Union tried manufacturing. Of those two options, I'll take Seattle.
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My greatest fear is not what we are, but what we may yet become.
The slippery slope gets more slippery the further along it you are.
We have nothing to fear, but fear itself, and fear itself may be used to justify the end to the freedoms that we have left, as it has been used as a justification to limit/end the freedoms it already has.
InnerWeb
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The fact remains that, despite the abuses, the United States is by an incredibly wide margin a freer society
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Kind of funny (Score:4, Insightful)
Well... at least they're not being cliché.
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Re:Kind of funny (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Kind of funny (Score:2)
For anyone else left wondering, codepoint 134 in CP1252 is U+20
Re: Extended ASCII character sets (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia.. (Score:4, Funny)
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In Amerika, property owns YOU!
In Soviet Russia... (Score:2)
Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
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Denial of Service by Terms of Service (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was working on a MMORPG years ago, this sort of behavior was a worry. It was a much smaller, less consequential worry, but it was there. Player A would call the company, and whine to mommy that Player B was breaking the rules. We had to be careful about policies so we didn't just disable Player B prematurely during the investigation, or it would become a new dynamic in the game. Want to invade a guild hall? Make sure their best players are disabled due to investigations.
It didn't catch on, but at the time I called this a DOS by TOS: a denial of service by (ab)using the terms of service; the terms of service can be a weapon if the environment is competitive enough.
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personally, I'm so sick of software piracy that I don't really care if it represents infighting in the russian corporate elite. as long as they do something about the blatmnt software piracy from that country. many big companies i know who sell online entirely blacklist the country by IP because of the extent of fraud and piracy from there.
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Phishing and trojans back in the days I am talking about..(95-2000? maybe they have the same setup) were pretty easy to pull off. You could easily get the password for one of these accounts and go ahead and start suspending many other accounts. There was even a hierar
it sure doesn't help all these soviet jokes... (Score:4, Funny)
Article is a flamebait. (Score:5, Informative)
He even expressed [slashdot.org] his desire to have a dedicated anti-russian section here.
While bashing a Cold War enemy is certainly fun, I don't see much "news for nerds" here. Keep
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MOD UP (Score:2)
Re:Article is a flamebait. (Score:5, Insightful)
The topic of the submission was "Russian Software Piracy Crackdown Restricts Free Speech". Again, emphasis mine. If we get rid of this article on the grounds that it is not news-for-nerds, then we might as well dismiss every article ever posted on
Also, Slashdot has a worldwide readership. It would be a folly to filter out every topic that does not relate to the U.S. Regardless how how you may feel about the foreign news, worldwide political events will affect people in the States as much as anywhere else. For instance, there are plenty of foreign companies that do business in Russia. If any one of them ever use their position as a pulpit to disagree with the Kremlin, then they too may get a knock at the door for software piracy.
Lastly, you claim this article is FUD, as you say everything Reporter [slashdot.org] posts is. I don't see anywhere in your post your rebuttals or WHY you claim that it is FUD. I even read the original Washington Post article that this post linked to, and it seems pretty clear that Russia is only selectively enforcing copyright laws against organizations that have spoken out against the government.
That's not anti-Russian FUD, it's reality! Please explain to us why it is FUD. And saying "Because it is anti-Russian" doesn't cut it.
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Wait, are you against FUD in general, or are you against FUD only when it applies to topics related to Russia?
I'm against FUD in general. I've hit the "200 friends/foes" limit because of this.
The topic of the submission was "Russian Software Piracy Crackdown Restricts Free Speech".
Every couple of weeks there are articles in russian press about police raids and confiscations of counterfeit CDs. I don't see any of these news here on /. But when the "free press" (which BTW is just as corrupt and self-involved as the ones they bash) is concerned, suddenly there's an article in WP and a helpful submission of our own "reporter".
If any one of them ever use their position as a pulpit to disagree with the Kremlin, then they too may get a knock at the door for software piracy.
No, they'll first get a visit from the Tax Police, you don't know much about bu
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Basically you are trolling.
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This is Russia we're talking about.
So does this automatically gives justification to putting bullshit on the front page?
disregarding the focus of the comment which was to tell of a specific human rights violation the Russian government was guilty of
It seems that EVERYTHING the guy posts is related to "human rights violations" in Russia. I'm just pointing out that he floods the site with political news, part of which may be even true (but again, we only know about this from Washington Post), but are
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As for "putting bullshit on the front page," I suppose you can take that up with the Washington Post, heh. Either it's true or it's not, and the theme is software p
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Why do you think that the Washington Post article is FUD?
Because WP don't actually read russian news, they just repeat what the "human rights groups" tell them. Never mind the fact that every month the police confiscates thousands of CDs on the streets, when they target the "free press", then they report it.
And why do I find it amusing that you are attempting to silence someone who is concerned about people being silenced?
I don't know why do you (an AC) find it amusing. The guy who uses the terms "Russian fascism", "Russian beast", etc. is not concerned about anything, he just spreads the Red Scare again.
Wonder when they'll start to bait-and-switch (Score:1)
2) Record customer data in the invoice
3) Sell data to government
4) Close up shop
5) Government prosecutes customer for piracy
6) Customer uses invoice as evidence
7) Prosecution cites evidence that said organization does not exist
8) Customer goes to jail due to lack of evidence on their part
9) Profit!
Just don't try it on the Mafia.
yawn... (Score:2)
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However, this doesn't change the fact that Putin is an autocratic little bastard with lots of support by the general population. This is not a return to Stalinist ideology. This is a return to good old-fashioned tsarist imperialism and global power.
Stop picking on Russia (Score:3, Funny)
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When you get potatoes make vodka (Score:3, Interesting)
Standard political tactics, label people you don't like with them too.
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What's sad is that those claims eventually turned out to be self-fulfilling prophecies. With all moderate Chechen leaders killed in fighting, the religious extremist party got into power, and established real contacts with al-Qaeda and other foreign Islamic terroris
More Liberal Delusion (Score:1, Insightful)
Gorby helped end the cold war, what? Are you on crack?
This is exactly the revisionist liberalism that is pervasive today, crack smoking liberal delusion depicting the soviets or russians, whatever they are calling themselves today as anything but adversarial.
2 words for you liberal geek dopes, RONALD REAGAN
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The way you couched this however, just makes you seem like a twit.
Yes the Soviet economic system was collapsing and the USSR would have failed eventually, but it could have been a lot uglier.
Reagan essentially called the bluff, and Gorbachev folded. It could have been a great deal worse.
However, when you start going into juvenile hyperbole with statements like "crack smoking liberal delusion" and "liber
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Gorby actually wanted to save the falling system. He wanted to reform it and revamp it to make it more productive and "continue the revolution". Gorbachev was a Communist and IIRC still is. But the people already had so much steam pent up that was trying to break free against the oppression that, when he gently lifted
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Afghanistan. You know, the place we pretend we're not occupying? They spent themselves to death trying to block the rise of.... wait for it... Islamic fundamentalism. Seems they were right, but the solution of shooting all the rebels didn't work out.
Would the Soviet Union had died if we h
open source preferred (Score:1)
Every Federal Law is an enemy of freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Every federal law has to be viewed as a potential for enslavement, another excuse for a would be dictator to trounce freedom. Those who are afraid of the government while Bush is in office, or if Hillary or Obama were elected, need to really ask, why do we have to have a government that -anyone- is afraid of.
The best federal government is the one where it doesn't matter which political party runs it.
Mod parent up. (Score:1)
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Furthermore, what difference does it make whether it's federal or not? Federal is an artifact of our system, and many people have been harassed by selective enforcement of purely local law.
Why do we have a government that anyone is afraid of? Because
What worries me even more.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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That's what made Hitler possible in Germany (hi Godwin). That's also a general development you can observe whenever times get rough. In general, you'll notice two tendences. First of all, people will not care about freedom, environment or education. That's a "luxury" you start to ponder when you're fed and shelt
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It's more interesting than that. The "common folk", for the most part, don't care that much about Putin - they are certainly not the ones to show "strong support" (unless forced to, i.e. for government workers: "Tomorrow we all go to a demonstration in support of the President; if you do not wish to go, you can
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Who cares about politics, for very real monetary reasons rather than being manipulated and agitated by propaganda from various sides, are those that actually benefit from having the "right" politician in charge.
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Whats propaganda and whats true? (Score:2)
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I think that would be a fabulous development, if people accessed primary sources more (or became primary sources) the world would have a great deal more informed opinions to choose from rather than the same old crap repeated endlessly.
US Piracy Crackdown Restricts Free Speech (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember the U.S. Federal Prosecutor Firings? (Score:2)
I'm not saying that two wrongs make a right, but those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Y'all might want to take out a 0 point refi and upgrade to at least a wood frame...
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Free Speech? (Score:2)
50 years (Score:2)
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I'm going to go out on a limb and state that I don't think Russia will ever be a liberal Western-style democracy. It won't be the quite the dictatorship that the USSR was, nor will it be quite as author
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I'm sorry, but I think you either have to be a mental retard or a liar to equate the two situations.
Meme...I'm gonna live forever... (Score:2)
Did anyone not see this coming? (Score:2)
So um...who's surprised about this?...
anybody?...anybody at all?
You in the back, you're surprised?
Oh...you were just stretching...
ok.
well I guess nobody's surprised.
Not to be a jackass to the people getting shafted by the Czar here, but if you switch to FOSS Putin can't level that shit against