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:
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.
In December 2011, shortly after the first post-election rally on Bolotnaya Square, the head of "a universal tool for communicating and finding friends and classmates, which is used daily by tens of millions of people," Pavel Durov sent a letter to the then First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration (AP) and controller of the Russian political field Letter to Vladislav Surkov. The transmission link was the then press secretary of VKontakte, Vladislav Tsyplukhin, who, judging by the materials at the disposal of Novaya Gazeta, worked more for the AP than for his main employer (this is a slightly different story, although very symptomatic from the point of view view of the authorities' attempts to manipulate social networks). Among his regular recipients are Surkov's right hand in the administration, the then head of the Department of Internal Policy (UVP) Konstantin Kostin, "writer" Sergei Minaev, and deputy head of the department of the UVP Irina Fedina.
From the letter (more precisely, from two documents: Tsyplukhin's preamble and Durov's letter to Surkov) it follows that the press secretary of VKontakte and his colleagues "blocked ... radical users." In addition, Tsyplukhin reports that he, "for example," helps the largest writer of the Russian land, "Sergey Minaev ( the one that is "The Chicks". —A.K.) to increase tension between the parties of the split opposition (Chirikova - Nemtsov, Bolotnaya - Revolution Square). And he adds: “At the request of Minaev, under my control, the groups “We are for Nemtsov, we meet on Bolotnaya” and “We are for pl. Revolution, for Chirikov." Now we plan to cross the traffic of these two groups in order to provoke a conflict.”
It’s like “The Tail Wags the Dog” on a county scale ...
In a letter to Surkov, the head of VKontakte recalls: “As you know, we have been cooperating with the FSB and the “K” department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for several years, quickly issuing information about thousands of users of our network in the form of IP addresses, mobile phone numbers and other information, necessary for their identification. Of course, this specific activity of the service, focused on “always staying in touch with those you care about,” is justified by the highest state interests, including preventing the “spread of violence and chaos.”
There is another benefit from the social network VKontakte, which is purely patriotic and, as expected, anti-Western: “Thanks to super efforts in the technological and information spheres, we manage to restrain the monopolization of the Russian market of social networks by Facebook, a process that has already taken place in almost all countries peace."
“…will undermine the credibility of our network among passionate youth”
But the hidden meaning of the letter is not in this. The head of VKontakte and, apparently, the shareholders of the company are painfully torn between the interests of business and what can be metaphorically called "state interest". That is, what is required from VKontakte - to block the opposition in the domestic Internet space - is contrary to the business interests of the social network: it is losing customers and losing to competitors. Here is the fragment for which the letter was written: “Blocking the opposition communities of VKontakte will undermine trust in our network among passionate youth, which in the long run may nullify our technological and ideological efforts to curb the onslaught of foreign social networks on the domestic market.”
It is characteristic that the letter was written in such a special Kremlin dialect, within which, of course, there is no concept of normal market competition, but there is “restraint of the onslaught”. There are no interests of the client, but there is, as it were, the state interest and the interests of the security forces (“to reveal and suppress crimes” - obviously committed by the same “passionate youth”).
Durov convinces Surkov that the (apparently) imposed model of behavior on VKontakte "will only lead to the emergence of a serious competitive advantage for Americans, the end result of which will be the loss of control on our part."
The head of VKontakte names alternative ways: “You can continue implicit, indirect control over the Runet, or start blocking Internet resources at the national level according to the Chinese model.”
Of course, the shareholders of VKontakte are “interested in maintaining stability in the life of the state,” and therefore Durov promises to come up with something else “to reduce the emotional tension in society.” At least in Chinese, at least like ...
In conclusion, an elegant curtsy: “I will also not hide the fact that I personally like the heads of the presidential administration ...” Well, that's right - the nicest people. Only those who forced the head of the company to pay them rent for the services of "deanonymization" of the Network, entering into "contact" not with Facebook, but with the FSB. Otherwise, apparently, it is not possible to save the business. Here is the basic problem.
artificial reality
In a word, one can only sympathize with the leadership of VKontakte, and the shareholders of the domestic Network can only envy the old Zuckerberg: it is unlikely that he reports to the administration of the American president about his activities to seize adjacent territories with his Facebook. Part of the commission “paid” to the authorities is personally the ex-press secretary of VKontakte, who almost full-time had to deal with manipulations on Twitter and other services, regularly reporting to the AP employees and artists who joined them, who answered “Yes” to the question “Who are you with, masters of culture?”.
As a result, VKontakte does not work for clients, but for a group of political manipulators who create a fake, artificial reality on the Internet - with fictitious conflicts, with pitting people on the Web, with young men and women corrupted already at a tender age, who are helped to create controlled services for manipulation of public consciousness. Again, this is a separate story, but along the way, participants in all this hard work form, for example, such a thing as The Twitter Journal 2.0, which now operates under the slogan “Our robot collects links to articles from Russian publications in order to then analyze their popularity. You only read important news." So, this "robot", this Twitter-Golem, was breathed into life by the native Old Square. Accordingly, “only important news” is also a manipulative tool.
They are all artificial, in vitro. An artificial people who are driven to the numerous Poklonnye Gory. Artificial social movements and rallies, collected for a moderate fee. Artificial parents being herded into the Hall of Columns. Artificial TV with twisted counters. Artificial elections based on stuffing and carousels. Artificial ratings with a huge statistical error. And even the artificial internet.
Yes, the documents date back to the time when other people were in the positions of the main manipulators. But even today, judging by the quality of artificial reality, nothing has changed. Perhaps the methods have become more straightforward, which corresponds to the character of Vyacheslav Volodin, who replaced Vladislav Surkov, but this did not lose their purely manipulative nature.
Comments
Former head of the press service of VKontakte Vladislav TSYPLUKHIN (worked until February 15, 2013):
“Neither I, nor even Pavel Durov, wrote any such letters. As a press secretary, I actually communicated with the presidential administration, with the State Duma, with the Ministry of Economic Development. The State Duma invited to round tables on legislation, at the Ministry of Economic Development we met with other Internet sites when issues of copyright were discussed. The presidential administration - they learned about the mechanisms for blocking communities, how it happens. Consulted.
This was actually before all the events related to the elections. After the first year of work, since 2011, I began to communicate with government agencies. When I became public, they began to contact me, offering to meet, ask something, learn something. Offered affiliate programs. For example, with the Administration, we tried to register representative offices of all regions of Russia on VKontakte. But they didn’t finish it - about 10 communities registered, then they abandoned it.
Surkov came to our office and met Pavel. We talked about Skolkovo. Vladislav Yurievich asked if VKontakte was interested in moving, how we could be useful for this project. But after this meeting, as far as I know, they had no communications. Journalists were not present at the meeting, but the meeting was unclassified.
I spoke with Vladislav Yurievich twice. In principle, he was interested in my view of the Internet, the media environment in it. He asked what was going on with us, whether we were planning to move to the West. Well, partly in the elections as well. Talked to someone else from the administration.
Those events (December 2011) I do not remember well: more than a year has passed. Then people from United Russia showed more interest in us. They tried to call me, asked about some communities. But I don’t communicate with strangers on the phone, and no one offered to meet. Yes, after the elections, they also called from the Administration, asking: “Why is such and such a group not blocked?” I say, "Because there is no court order." After Pavel spoke out (he refused to close five opposition groups and pages of rallies at the written request of the FSB on December 7, 2011, after which he was summoned to give explanations to the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg), everything generally went public. There was noticeable attention from the press and government agencies, there were problems. Pavel did not go to the prosecutor's office then, and everything was hushed up.
After Surkov left, communication ceased altogether. I had no contact with the new administration.
Georgy LOBUSHKIN, head of the VKontakte press service:
Vlad ( Tsyplukhin. — E.K.), when he left, he gave me only the contacts of people from the press service of Medvedev, who manage his VKontakte account. Sometimes they ask how they do this, how they do it, but these are, in general, very technical points.
But to exchange such letters, I have little idea.
I have never been contacted. Pavel, in principle, is rarely available for communication with anyone. With journalists, with officials... He does not talk on the phone, he does not use e-mail. I send emails to him through VKontakte or during a live meeting.
There has been a clear procedure for communicating with law enforcement agencies for a long time. We have employees in the security service who know what the request looks like, from whom it can come. At the request of law enforcement agencies, if there is a criminal case, and the FSB, we can provide personal data: ip-address, as a rule. The request must be motivated, we deploy unmotivated ones. By court decision, we can present correspondence - but these are very serious cases, we refer to the article on the secrecy of correspondence, we demand detailed explanations. I think that not one crime was solved thanks to us.
At the request of Roskomnadzor, we are blocking communities. We can close for personal reasons, if there is cruelty or disgusting content. To close some communities just like that - Pavel categorically rejected, even then ( December 2011— E.K.). This is his principled position - not to censor anything. Even if some information about him is spreading. Sometimes there is some kind of garbage - “VKontakte is closing soon”, all that. And he is categorically against us deleting it, although we asked him to.
Interviewed
Elena KOSTUCHENKO
Information periodically appears on the Web that messages in the WhatsApp messenger and on the VKontakte social network can be read by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the special services of the Russian Federation. Such data annoys users. They want to be sure that their private messages are their world, their secret. However, is it really so. This can be well understood.
There is an opinion on the Web that special services can read every correspondence on social networks if they need to. However, it should be noted that private messages are protected by law and without a court decision, reading messages is illegal.
Can the FSB read private messages on WhatsApp
In the personal blogs of users, one can read that allegedly the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB have been reading correspondence in r and other instant messengers for a long time. Of course, these are not expert opinions and they are not supported by evidence. That is, Internet users at the level of intuition believe that the secret services are monitoring the correspondence, that's all.
As for the opinion of experts, back in 2016 in the United States it was proved that reading WhatsApp correspondence would not be difficult for attackers or intelligence agencies. Experts assure that everyone can get the encryption key at the time when the user changes it or the messenger itself does it.
The FSB has repeatedly stated that they can read the correspondence of users, but this is done only by a court decision. An application is submitted, the court makes a decision. It is sent to the owners of the messenger and they are required to provide data on the account that is registered in the document. Another question is whether the user will know that he is being read. Most likely no.
Can the Ministry of Internal Affairs read VKontakte correspondence
In social networks, they believe that the Ministry of Internal Affairs can read the correspondence of users in VK. In favor of this argument, a lot of arguments are presented that are considered convincing.
For example, it is believed that a social network would not work in Russia if it refused to provide the Ministry of Internal Affairs with access to correspondence. Users also noticed that after Pavel Durov left VK, the new leadership of the social network stopped arguing with the FSB and other bodies about providing access to information. In their opinion, this indicates an agreement to provide all necessary information upon first request.
In terms of legal means, no one can have permission to read correspondence or other information without a court order. However, Internet users are not sure about this, since more and more bills appear in the State Duma, which indicate that the correspondence can still be read. Russians complain about the appearance of control on the Web, where a citizen is not sure about the reliable encryption of his information.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs can read the correspondence of Russians on the Web and listen to telephone conversations
The State Duma is developing bills to which society reacts negatively. For example, the so-called "Yarovaya package". According to the document, from October 1, 2018, all telecom operators are required to store user data for 30 days, including messages, photos, video and sound files.
The media reported that the operator has all this data, but he must provide it to the special services on demand. This means that the FSB and other services can read correspondence and listen to conversations if the subscriber falls into their field of vision, and for this you just need to go to an unapproved rally several times or light up at a large protest.
Users who do not break the law can sleep peacefully, but they still care about this topic, because it is unpleasant to know that someone can read your personal correspondence. Let there be nothing illegal in it, but these are still private messages that only the addressee has the right to read.
Mikhail Petrov, former chief engineer of the most visited Runet portal, announced a possible alternative to VKontakte.
The new social network, according to him, guarantees security and the absence of any control from the state, writes sobesednik.ru.
On your page Mikhail Petrov announced the availability of correspondence not only to FSB officers, but also to mobile operators. Among the latter, Mikhail Petrov singled out Megafon, whose quality of work has noticeably deteriorated this year.
By the way, it is worth noting yesterday's failure in the work of VKontakte. Messages, photos, posts on the “wall” disappeared from users, there were difficulties with “likes” and comments. For some time, the Vk.com website completely stopped responding to any requests. The reason, according to a spokesman for the social network Georgy Lobushkin, -abnormal heat: “According to preliminary data, the troubles began at the time of the failure of the cooling equipment in the server room of one of the VKontakte data centers in the Leningrad Region. After that, an emergency shutdown of some of the servers occurred.
Petrov promises users a safe perspective: as if his half-brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov will launch a new social network in the fall. A former employee of VKontakte speaks emotionally and promisingly about her upcoming appearance: “From the details: there is no tracking of traces of the entry point - dedicated and static IPs, there are no links to the user's cloud and his files, the inability to read the correspondence even to the developers of the service. In general, our new social network is a prototype of the future state.”
Mikhail Petrov is not a participant in the project, but he advertises it and does not exclude further cooperation. According to Petrov, the new social network will be revolutionary: "The meaning of the network is a world revolution against the existing dictate of those in power over the people."
However, Pavel Durov himself, in a comment to Tjournal, denied information about the possible launch of the network this fall or even its development: “Mikhail has nothing to do with our team with Nikolai. As for new projects, we did not start active work on them, as serious tasks remain on the agenda within Telegram.”
After his departure from Vkontakte on April 21, 2014, Pavel Durov, in a comment for the TechCrunch blog, announced his plans to start developing a new mobile social network. Now his main project is Telegram, a messenger with the motto “Give back our right to privacy.”
On April 25, 2014, Mikhail Petrov, who previously headed the Itsvoy data center, where the video and photo content of VKontakte users was located, announced his departure from Vkontakte.
