From Techdirt: http://goo.gl/j7ZkU

# Russian Internet Content Monitoring System To Go Live In December by Glyn Moody Wed, Nov 9th 2011 2:33am Back in April of this year, [the Russian government put out a tender][]:

Last week, Roskomnadzor, Russian Federal Service for Telecoms Supervision, announced a public tender for developing Internet monitoring system. According to the tender, the budget for such system is 15 million rubles (about $530,000) and the job applications should be submitted by April 15, 2011. The system needs to be developed by August 15, 2011 and the testing period should end on December 15, 2011.

The major target of the monitoring, at least according to the Russian officials, is not traditional media websites or blogs, but comments at

The stated purpose of the monitoring system was quite specific: the online media outlets (it is important to note that the monitoring system is intended to be used for the content of the sites officially registered as online mass media). Herebs what it would be searching for:

Michail Vorobiev, an assistant to the head of Roskomnadzor, [told][] [ru] Russian information agency RIA Novosti that the systembs purpose was to discover content recognized by the Russian law as illegal. Such system will be based on two elements: a storage that would contain illegal materials (some sort of b thesaurus of illegal keywordsb) and the search system that will scan through the online space and compare the online text with the illegal content in the storage.

The description of the tender is a long and openly published [document][] [ru], so what exactly the system should look for is not a secret. The number and the nature of goals that the search robot should achieve are surprising. It goes ways beyond incitement of national hatred or appeals to violence. In includes not only terrorism, appeals to actions that threaten constitutional order, materials that disclose classified security information, propaganda of drugs and pornography, but also false information about federal and regional officials, as well as content that threatens the freedom and secrecy of choice during elections. Another interesting goal is to discover content with hidden embedded components that seek to influence subconsciousness. If ito?=s not enough, the program would monitor not only textual, but also visual content (photos and videos).

Itbs hard to see how a system costing just half-a-million dollars could achieve all that. And as Russian commentators have pointed out, allowing just a few months for the development and testing is equally suspicious:

For instance, Maksim Salomatin from Park.ru [says][] [ru] that the fact that participants of the tender should finish the work on the system in impossible 3 months means that, probably, Roskomnadzor has in mind some particular organization that has already worked on this program.

Roskomnadzor, Russian telecommunications control body, will launch content monitoring system in December 2011, Kommersant.ru [reports][] [ru]. The system ordered in March, 2011 (see GV analysis [here][the Russian government put out a tender]) is now in pre-release condition. Its documented abilities allow the monitoring of up to 5 mln keywords

In other words, perhaps the whole tendering process was a formality, and things had already been moving forward on this front in the background for some time. Support for that theory comes from the fact that despite the b impossible 3 monthsb of development, [the system will indeed be rolled out next month][]: published at the websites registered as online mass media outlets. It will also monitor user comments. The experts fear that the scale of monitoring will extend to non-registered blogs and sites. As that points out, the danger is that once such a system is up and running, it will be progressively extended to include first b unofficialb media sites like blogs, and then, eventually, everything online. That might also explain why the tender quotes such a ridiculously small figure: the final system would be pretty expensive, but revealing that fact in the original tender would give away the true scope. The question then becomes: what will the authorities do with all that information? Since 2010, Roskomnadzor has been able to require online mass media to remove illegal comments, so it will presumably do the same when content is flagged up by the new system. But the very breadth of the online search is troubling, including as it does things like b false information about federal and regional officialsb, something that could clearly be used against whistle-blowers. Moreover, the danger here is not just for Russian citizens. Once again we are seeing a government striving to keep a much closer watch on key parts of the Internet b in this case, mass media sites. Assuming it succeeds b or at least claims to have succeeded b that is likely to encourage other countries to do the same. Although it would be nice to think that only b repressiveb governments would even think of doing such a thing, recent proposals by politicians in the US and Europe regarding [blocking sites][] and [spying on users][] indicate how naC/ve that would be. Follow me @glynmoody on [Twitter][] or [identi.ca][], and on [Google+][] ## Links [the Russian government put out a tender]: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/04/01/russia-new-government-iniative-ques... [told]: http://www.radioportal.ru/law-club/12417/roskomnadzor-khochet-postavit-onlai... [document]: http://zakupki.gov.ru/pgz/public/action/orders/info/common_info/show?notific... [says]: http://www.cnews.ru/news/top/index.shtml?2011/03/21/432836 [the system will indeed be rolled out next month]: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/10/24/russia-government-to-launch-content... [reports]: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1800370 [blocking sites]: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111102/01495216589/article-e-parasite-act... [spying on users]: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111021/11554216450/eu-politician-wants-in... [Twitter]: http://twitter.com/glynmoody [identi.ca]: http://identi.ca/glynmoody [Google+]: https://plus.google.com/100647702320088380533 -- Pranesh Prakash Programme Manager Centre for Internet and Society W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283 _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE