The access of Russian special services to personal correspondence of people in Russian messengers, postal services and social networks has become completely secret.
The document, which introduces new requirements for the organizers of the sharing of the information in the Internet, is published on the portal of the legal information of the Russian Federation.
Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 21 “On Amendments to the Rules of the Interaction of the Organizers of the sharing of Information in the Information and Telecommunication Network “Internet” with Authorized State Authorities Executing Operational Investigative Activities or Ensuring the Security of the Russian Federation” dated January, 18.
The document introduces a number of changes to the system of interaction between information distributors on the Internet and special services, specifies that the interaction is carried out with the using of hardware equipment and software.
In particular, a new paragraph introduced to the part 6 of the Rules. It obliges information distributors to keep any information about their cooperation with the special services a secret.
“The organizer of information sharing at cooperation with authorized authorities ensures the non-disclosure of any information about the specific facts and content of such cooperation to third parties, according to the Russian Federation legislation” – said in the Resolution.
Previously, the document, in which the changes were made, also contained requirements to preserve secrecy, but they were not so definite.
The new rule applies to the organizers of the sharing of information, a full list of which is available on the site of Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications.
The list includes the largest Russian mail servers Yandex, Mail.ru, Rambler.ru, and also the most popular social networks in the RF and Crimea VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. In addition, the list includes a well-known messenger Telegram, a dating site Mamba and many other Russian Internet sites.
This Resolution will be also de facto applied to the occupied Crimea. Therefore, the CHRG experts strongly recommend to the citizens of the peninsula not to use such sites for the exchange of personal messages for the security of the Crimeans.
In fact, the secret services have legalized the opportunity to observe people through programs. And they won’t only be named “spying”, it will be literally. And this doesn’t depend on the purpose of the organizers of information sharing, which are controlled by Russia. According to these rules, even the organizers will not know who did install and what was installed on their sites and who is under observation.
In part 5 of the document it is indicated that the entire flow of information from these sites will be controlled by the FSB of the Russian Federation, and the organizers of the information sharing can’t inform anyone about their connection to FSB equipment.
The expert on digital security Nikolai Kostynian reminded Crimeans about the basic rules of security in the Internet:
“If you would like to chat about something, wherefore you or your chat-companion may suffer (for extremism, terrorism, and so on), then don’t write about it in Russian services such as Mail.ru, Yandex.ru, Rambler.ru, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Telegram and so on.
Everything that works in the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation is not suitable for such communication.
All that you write and do in such services is available (and earlier was available too) to the Russian security forces.
If someone, now or in the future, can suffer because of your correspondence and/or other actions in Russian social networks, mail and other services – then you should abandon such correspondence and actions (posts, likes, comments, location, photos, video, music, etc) – the expert explains.
Earlier Nikolai Kostynian developed a detailed instruction for citizens of Crimea about how not to suffer for the posts, likes and shared posts.
