VKontakte management: “For several years now we have been cooperating with the FSB and the “K” department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, promptly disclosing information about thousands of users of our network. The court allowed the FSB to read personal correspondence on Facebook

On March 20, the Supreme Court legally required the FSB to decrypt the correspondence of Telegram users. Roskomnadzor sent the messenger a request to issue encryption keys within 15 days, otherwise the agency has the right to block the operation of the service in Russia after April 5.

April 3 activist group spent a series of single pickets against blocking Telegram near the FSB reception on Kuznetsky Most. They read aloud excerpts from their personal correspondence.

Almost immediately, the participants were taken to a paddy wagon, and after forty minutes they were taken to the DMIA in the Meshchansky district for "preventive work." Later, Anatoly Kapustin, one of the detainees and the organizers of a series of solo pickets, said that there had been no conversation. He also said that the passport details of all the participants were recorded, but the reason for the detention was not reported. An hour later, the activists were released without a protocol being drawn up.

Afisha Daily talked to the picketers about why they came out to read their personal correspondence.

Anatoly Kapustin

Microblogger, event organizer

“We wanted to show how absurd it is when the state tries to get into the personal correspondence of citizens. And also the fact that when this personal spills into the public space, everyone immediately becomes embarrassed. You can try to read aloud the correspondence with a loved one yourself, and you will feel how strange it sounds. Now the FSB is demanding that Telegram transfer access to users' personal correspondence and is threatening to block the messenger. And we decided to give them our correspondence ourselves, because we don’t want them to happily tear it out of our hands. I am against decryption of correspondence, because I believe that a person should have a personal space in which the state should not interfere.”

Elisabetta Corsi

“Our action was designed to show the awkwardness that corresponds to reading other people's personal correspondence. That this is not very normal, because the personal should belong to us and no one else. And our state behaves in a completely different way. We have been living in a situation for a very long time, when our personal data can become the property of special services or someone else. Now there is another attempt to block Telegram, which is designed specifically to ensure that we do not have any personal space left. So we went out to read our correspondence, but we were quickly detained. I was detained about ten seconds after I started reading. It is very significant that we were not even allowed to do anything.”

Artem Shtanov

Activist, event organizer

“To be honest, my hands were shaking when I read this [personal correspondence]. Just from the fact that there were a lot of people around, cameras and stuff. I read very personal and important things for me. But surely none of the FSB officers thinks what it will be like for people to live with this feeling that at any moment some comrade colonel can take and read your correspondence with his wife, husband, daughter or friends. And not because there is something shameful or illegal, it doesn't matter. The feeling itself is important. Personal correspondence is an intimate zone. We thought that perhaps they [the FSB officers] did not fully understand this. And we decided to go to the FSB reception and read some of our personal correspondence with loved ones so that they and the people around them understand and we ourselves better realize how embarrassing it is, because all this is a personal and intimate part of your life, where you don’t want to let anyone in ” .

It has always been believed that intelligence agencies can easily eavesdrop on any conversation and read email correspondence, messages on social networks and messengers.

How do intelligence agencies receive correspondence?

Several methods are used to obtain information. So what ways to read someone else's mail do the Russian special services have.

  1. SORM is a system of technical means for providing the functions of operational-search activities. This is the provision by Internet providers of access to their communication channels, special-purpose services. Without providing such access, not one Internet provider in the Russian Federation will receive a license.
  2. An official request from an investigator, prosecutor or court to the server of an e-mail service company.

But not everything is so difficult for those who also use foreign postal services. The servers of foreign mail services are not physically located in the Russian Federation and do not have a license to work in the Russian Federation.

The Russian government recommends, and in some cases tries to force, foreign companies to cooperate with the Russian Federation and provide access to the correspondence of its users. For example, the well-known Telegram service of Pavel Durov will be repeatedly blocked on the territory of Russia if he does not cooperate with the special services of the Russian Federation.

“Skype, for example, immediately agreed to cooperate, it gives the authorities access to encryption algorithms,” Putin’s adviser German Klimenko said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

How to choose a mail service and protect yourself from reading your mail?

It is necessary to proceed from whether the postal company cooperates with the laws of Russia or not. I will quote the words of adviser to the President of Russia German Klimenko from an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. “So, our company Mail.ru will respond to the request of the investigator. And Google will not answer, but send away. Why? He also responds to 32,000 requests from the US National Security Agency per year. But he doesn't answer ours." From here we can conclude that such services as mail.ru, yandex.ru, rambler.ru can be read by the FSB of the Russian Federation, but such as yahoo.com, gmail.com, aol.com do not read.

Any legislation in the field of messaging comes down to the fact that you build servers with us, and if you encrypt, provide access keys. Asking why? Why does the Russian government want to control everything? The government explains it as helping to catch criminals: "drug addicts, rapists, pedophiles," Klymenko says.

Although on the Internet you can read the alternative opinion of people who talk about the control of petty criminals just like a curtain, but the meaning of total control lies elsewhere. Well, for example, to identify organizations of mass protests against the current government. Identification of opposition activity.

Let's summarize:

In order to protect your correspondence, you need to use the postal services of a foreign service with a democratic policy, be sure, because this is not prohibited by law.


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There is no more personal space on the Internet.

Probably, many of you are wondering: "Can the special services read my correspondence on the Internet?". The peak moment was the situation with the whistleblower of the American intelligence services, Edward Snowden, who, by his example, opened the eyes of the whole world to the fact that personal data, correspondence and calls can be viewed and listened to by special services without any permissions and court orders.

Let's look at everything in order.

Mobile phone

Snowden showed everyone that the telephone is a "tidbit" for the special services of many countries. They can easily access the phone by sending an encrypted text message to it, which, of course, the user will not notice. After that, the "Smurf suite" - a set of secret interception methods - will work on your phone. Each “smurf” performs its own functions, as a result, intelligence agencies can track who you called, what you wrote in a text message, what sites you visited, who was in your contact list, where you were, what wireless networks your telephone. And the most interesting thing is that special services can take a photo from your phone and turn on the microphone to listen to the environment at any time, regardless of your desire.

It is worth saying that these same “smurfs” are a joint development of the special services of several leading countries. Of course, not all countries use the “Smurf set”, but the special services in absolutely every country have their own methods for listening to phones and can use them at any time. Generally speaking, it turns out that by gaining access to your phone, intelligence agencies gain access to your entire personal life.

Of course, all states unanimously assert: "Surveillance activities take place within the framework of a strict legal regime and principles that ensure that these activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate." And, most likely, they really only apply this technology to certain individuals, and it is your phone that is not being tapped right now. But I assure you, if your phone starts to be tapped, you will not even suspect about it.

As for correspondence in social networks, then, of course, not all special services can openly read them, but they definitely have access to publications that are not hidden in private messages, as well as information about who sent the message to whom and at what time. . And in the UK, for example, correspondence in social networks was officially recognized as “external communications”, which made it possible for the special services of this country to literally read all messages. Other countries may follow this example.

However, do not forget that the owners and administrators of the resource itself have access to all correspondence in any social network. And they can already provide your personal correspondence to law enforcement agencies under a court order, which says that the transfer of such information is necessary for the investigation. At the same time, it is the social network that makes the final decision about what confidential data can be disclosed in each individual case.

Therefore, for now, you can not worry about the safety of your personal correspondence on social networks, if you do not break the law and do not get "on the pencil" to the special services. As one of the press secretaries of Vkontakte says:

If you deal in weapons or drugs, distribute child pornography, or are involved in organized crime, do not use our site at all.

The administration of Facebook and Instagram will prohibit posting messages about the sale of firearms and ammunition.

This decision was made in connection with confirmed information that some users use Facebook as a platform for the illegal arms trade.

Related articles:

Messengers

A similar situation is with messengers such as Viber, WhatsApp, ICQ, Telegram. The owners of these applications provide information to intelligence agencies upon their request and court order. Also, all correspondence goes through the filter of "undesirable" words, and the collected data is sent straight to the special services.

In this plan Telegram is the most protected messenger from wiretapping and surveillance, because it has an additional private chat feature with end-to-end encryption.

As creator Pavel Durov stated:

Telegram does not store unencrypted messages, and if they are deleted from phones, they disappear forever.

Due to the fact that the authorities cannot fully control the correspondence in Telegram, it has already been blocked in Iran and some regions of China.

But with Skype, the situation is radically different: Microsoft, which bought Skype in May 2011, provided the service with legal listening technology. And from that moment on, any subscriber can be switched to a special mode in which encryption keys are generated not on the user's device, but on the server. And the one who has access to the server can, respectively, listen to your conversation or read the correspondence. Microsoft provides such a service not only by court order, but simply at the request of the special services of many countries, not just Russia.

The Skype distribution also includes a "keylogger" that monitors the presence of "undesirable" words in messages, and sends the collected data to special services. Truly, communication via Skype can be called the most accessible for the special services of each country.

Related articles:

Mail

As for e-mail, we can say with confidence that all mail services are initially engaged in mail scanning in one form or another, sorting letters from spam or selecting contextual advertising for you according to your interests. The transfer of information to special services occurs in the same way as in social networks, upon request and with a mandatory court order. However, the user is still not warned about this and will not know when law enforcement agencies start spying on him.

By the way, the owners of postal services in different countries consider requests from special services in different ways. For example, in 2013, interesting statistics were published: in six months, Google received 97 requests for user data from Russian intelligence agencies, but partially satisfied only one! For comparison: during the same time, 7.5 thousand requests from American services were satisfied, which is 88% of requests.

P.S. It is worth noting that if your traffic passes through the territory of any state, then for security purposes, the special services of this state can gain access to your personal information without any requests and court orders.

This is the world of freedom. Welcome to the 21st century.

https://www.site/2017-08-12/fsb_mvd_i_drugie_budut_chitat_vashu_perepisku_i_eto_narushaet_konstituciyu

Digital emergency

The FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and others will read your correspondence

Pravda Komsomolskaya/Russian Look

The Ministry of Communications has published a draft order on the requirements for "organizers of the dissemination of information" on the Internet. This seems to be a purely departmental document, rather low in its status (not a law, not a presidential decree, not a government order) made a lot of noise. It has been compared to the imposition of a state of emergency, when civil liberties are severely curtailed for the sake of security. The order lists in detail the data that the "information dissemination organizers" must store for 6-12 months and, most importantly, provide the special services conducting operational-search activities (ORD).

There are no fundamental innovations in the document. Let me remind you that the obligation to store and provide data on our correspondence to the special services was enshrined in the law "On Information" back in May 2014. It was then that the very “register of organizers of information distributors” appeared, into which everyone who conducts "activities to ensure the functioning of information systems and (or) programs for electronic computers that are designed and (or) used for receiving, transmitting, delivering and (or) processing electronic messages of Internet users."

Agree, this is a rather vague definition. It is not surprising that in this registry, in addition to Yandex, Rambler, VKontakte, Mail.Ru and other services, there are such items as a site about the outstanding Tatar singer Sara Sadykova or the World of Digital Photography site. According to this definition, any Internet forum, any site with comments, any simple program or service for exchanging messages over the Internet should be included in the registry. Even online games about tanks, orcs or zombies - you can also exchange messages there! But, of course, first of all, these are instant messengers, social networks and mail services.

For brevity, we will refer to these “information dissemination operators” as DSOs.

That law immediately stated that it was the ORS that was obliged to store on the territory of the Russian Federation and transfer for operational-search activities:

information about the facts of reception, transmission, delivery and (or) processing of voice information, written text, images, sounds, video or other electronic messages of Internet users and information about these users within one year from the date of completion of such actions;

But the fact of receiving and transmitting information is not the information itself. And in 2016, another norm was added. DSO is required to keep

text messages of Internet users, voice information, images, sounds, video, other electronic messages of Internet users up to six months from the moment of their acceptance, transmission, delivery and (or) processing.

It was also said there that the procedure, terms and volume of storage of the information specified in this subparagraph are established by the government of the Russian Federation.

Just a new document of the Ministry of Communications, as far as one can judge, establishes this procedure. It follows from the minister's order that operators of special services will be able to receive all the information listed quickly through their own interface. That is, they do not have to go to Yandex with a request to read your letter sent last week: they can simply remotely enter your mailbox, see everything they want, and leave. Or they will be able to set filters so that when you mention the word “explosion”, “bomb”, “jihad” or, for example, “Navalny”, your letter or message immediately gets into the monitoring.

Most of all, citizens were frightened by the list of information that operational services can receive. If the ORS concludes an agreement with the user, then the special services will be able to obtain all personal data in general: full name, birth data, passport data, and so on. Now, when registering on social networks, they do not ask for passport data, but proposals that Whatsapp and VKontakte should be allowed only with a passport are often heard, and it can be assumed that the state will take such steps.

However, according to the current rules, until such contracts are concluded, the operatives will receive your phone number, IP address, date and time of sessions, location, payment information, and, most importantly, the content of messages.

It turns out that we are finally entering the era of forced digital transparency, when all our correspondence, all our personal lives are potentially available to special services, including political investigation.

Of course, there are reservations in the laws that such information can only be obtained in the course of operational-investigative activities, and such activities cannot be carried out illegally, infringe on civil rights and freedoms, blah blah blah. But let's face it.

Firstly, we know that any citizen whom the state considers unreliable easily becomes the object of operational-search activity, becoming a defendant in a criminal case or even just a subject of development. Moreover, the law on investigative activities explicitly states: wiretapping can be applied both to persons suspected of committing crimes (starting from moderate severity) and to those who may “have information” about such crimes. This wording can be interpreted very broadly. Can I have information about a crime? Theoretically, I can, at least, according to the investigator. And who will check it?

Let me remind you right away that a “crime” today is not necessarily a murder or a terrorist attack. A “crime” may well be inciting hatred or insulting the feelings of believers, that is, your careless statement, or your friend, is enough to officially become the object of an ORD.

Secondly, and even more terrible, there are cases when supposedly classified information obtained in the course of a search operation "leaks" from operational agencies and falls into the wrong hands.

Let me remind you the Yekaterinburg policeman Artem Pismenny. The court found him guilty of selling information about wiretaps of the Ural politician Yevgeny Roizman through an intermediary. And he sold it not to anyone, but to a former employee of the prosecutor's office, Alexei Karpov, who was later convicted of organizing contract killings. This man was an enemy of Roizman and had motives for killing the Ural politician. In his hands were data on the conversations and movements of Roizman: a good tip for the killer! Through his wife, he paid 300 thousand rubles for this. This is official information, the verdict was confirmed by the Supreme Court. The case was relatively loud, as it came to the surface. And what remains in the shadows? How much ORD data is sold and outsourced each day? Now it will be not only wiretapping, but also your mail, correspondence, communication with an accountant, even messages to friends or sexual partners.

You should not console yourself with the thought that your modest person is not interesting to Lubyanka. Lubyanka - yes, not interesting. A major from your Ministry of Internal Affairs may be very interesting. Maybe your competitors paid him, or maybe you had an argument with him in traffic. Or two years ago you were photographed at some rally and you ended up in the base of the "E" center. And in addition to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB, the FSO, SVR, customs and the Federal Penitentiary Service have the right to conduct operational-search activities (and access to your correspondence).

The argument “respectable citizens have nothing to hide” here, unfortunately, does not work - when the state receives broad powers, it ceases to be interested in which category of citizens you belong to. Random people are jailed for reposts on VKontakte - why not start jailing for words, pictures or videos sent in personal correspondence?

The strategy of the state is aimed at ensuring that citizens should not have secrets. Formally, the state does not interfere in the private life of citizens, but conditions are created when the possibility of such interference always exists. Now, according to the law, Internet services that are not included in the register cannot work in Russia. And all services entered in the register are required to open data for the FSB or the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Therefore, theoretically, you should not have any possibility of secret correspondence using the Internet. In fact, many services are still operating in Russia that are not included in the register (Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, and others), but we see a trend: the state will strive to keep only those services in the Russian Federation that "comply with Russian laws."

I put these words in quotation marks, because, in fact, all this violates the main law, the Constitution. It clearly states:

“Article 23. Clause 2. Everyone has the right to privacy of correspondence, telephone conversations, postal, telegraphic and other communications. Restriction of this right is allowed only on the basis of a court decision.

Indeed, according to the law, an operational-search activity in violation of the secrecy of correspondence and negotiations is possible only by a court decision. But, judging by the letter of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, we are talking about a system of prompt and constant interference in the correspondence of citizens. Obtaining judicial permission essentially remains on the conscience of intelligence officers (and, as far as is known, judges almost always agree with the requests of the authorities to conduct a search warrant, in fact this is a formality).

All this is being done, of course, in the name of the glorious goal of fighting terrorism. Both the draft order of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and those pro-government commentators who rushed to defend the idea of ​​interference in private life on social networks refer to laws on combating terrorism. They recall that now the FSB will be able to quickly identify terrorist cells, neutralize recruiters, and prevent tragedies and deaths.

Most likely, this is just a suggestion. And the very effectiveness of such a measure looks doubtful. Yes, it can be successful in the fight against recruiters who invite young people to IS, but I have little faith that real terrorists who are preparing bombs in Russia use VKontakte or Agent Mail.Ru to communicate. Rather, they will use obscure, very small services or sites and send encrypted messages to each other through them. Or they will completely refuse Internet correspondence, using the proven grandfather methods of conspiracy and encryption.

Although world terrorism is an absolute evil, and each of its victims is tragic, I would like to remind you that both in Russia and throughout the world, the powers that governments receive to protect against terror are inadequate to the statistical size of the threat. In Russia in 2016, 62 people were killed by terrorists. Yes, this is a tragedy, this is a mournful figure. But 19 thousand people died from drinking poor-quality water (official data from Rospotrebnadzor). Building a good water supply infrastructure is not so attractive from the point of view of gaining control over society, which is also why the fight against terror is given incomparably more attention. And often the real struggle is replaced by police measures aimed rather at political control.

Polina Nemirovskaya gave a good comparison in the Telegram channel: even to inspect your backpack, a police officer must introduce himself, give reasons and invite attesting witnesses. And it will be possible to get into your correspondence, your videos, your conversations anonymously, quietly, without any reason. At the same time, we live in a time when the contents of a messenger are much more important, more intimate than the contents of a backpack.

If we agree that the fight against terror is just an excuse to tightly control the Internet, then what is the real reason? Probably in the fact that the state sees a serious threat for itself in free communication, which has grown many times over thanks to the Internet. In a way, it's right. Communicating, people discuss the problems of the state, have the opportunity to exchange negative information, including criticizing the government. What kind of government would like that?

But at the same time, it runs the risk of overlooking the opportunities that the free Internet gives Russian society, the free exchange of information, knowledge, and ideas. The Internet has given a huge country the opportunity to unite and interact at a new, digital level. The Internet infrastructure directly affects the economy through human capital. The world is moving toward an economy of knowledge, an economy of ideas, and the Internet is the lifeblood of that economy. Grossly interfering in it, destroying Internet freedoms, we are slowing down our development, throwing the country back.