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 On his popular blog, the online media entrepreneur now instructs
readers on ways to use new technology to get around online
censorship, warning them: "There's not much time left."
With an estimated 75 million people online in Russia, up from just 2
million when Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999, the reach of the
Internet dwarfs that of the clandestine texts shared, at high risk,
among intellectuals during the Cold War.
Where elderly Communist librarians once stood guard over copy
machines, activists say a slew of regulations this year aim to
police the web at one step removed, enabling authorities to target
leading dissenting voices, lean on social networks and telecoms
companies and encourage self-censorship.
"All the people I've had time to speak with so far in the industry
are afraid and confused," said Dmitry Marinichev, who was appointed
Internet ombudsman in July as a nod to critics but who has little
power to alter legislation.
As Western sanctions multiply over Russia's role in splitting
Ukraine, so do rules and restrictions over Europe's fastest growing
Internet market, hampering a promising sector in the stuttering
economy and forcing young entrepreneurs abroad.
Putin signed a law in July requiring websites used by Russians, from
social networks to e-booking services, to store their data on
servers in Russia from 2016, within greater reach of local
intelligence surveillance.
Since last month, bloggers with more than 3,000 followers must
comply with tough rules governing media and since February,
authorities have been able to block websites without a court order;
the sites of two leading Kremlin critics were among the first
blocked, in March, when Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine.
As pro-Russian rebels took up arms in eastern Ukraine, some Russian
news or political sites were also barred. They joined a blacklist of
Internet-protocol (IP) addresses set up with the declared aim of
child protection but extended late last year to include sites deemed
to advocate unsanctioned protests like some of those in 2012 which
marred Putin's latest reelection.
Another new rule last month requires Russians to provide
identification to use public Wifi hotspots and companies to declare
who is using their web networks.
Putin, who alarmed the IT industry in April by calling the Internet
"a CIA project", says the measures are needed to fight "extremism"
but should not hinder freedom of speech.
DIRECT ACCESS
Many firms still do not understand how to comply or fear the laws
may be applied arbitrarily in country where lack of transparency and
fair courts are frequent business complaints.
The chief executive of billionaire Alisher Usmanov's Mail.ru Group,
which owns two social networks more popular than Facebook in Russia,
has warned that freedom from bureaucratic encroachment is vital to
home-grown IT companies.
"The course toward excessive regulation," Dmitry Grishin said in
comments in April that a Mail.ru Group spokeswoman said still held
today, "will lead Russia to lose the Internet as a unique sector
able to be a source of growth in our country's new, post-industrial
economy."
Many are now heeding Nossik's call to go anonymous online. Six times
more Russians are now using Tor, a software to obscure IP addresses,
than last year, the firm's data shows.
In response, Russia issued a 3.9-million-rouble ($108,000) tender
last month to crack the encryption on Tor - used by activists in
countries where the web is censored but also by criminals.
"Soon there won't be anything left to ban," quipped Sergei
Plugotarenko, head of the industry trade group Russian Electronic
Communications Association (RAEC).
In the wake of revelations of U.S. surveillance activities by former
U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, who
has taken refuge in Russia, many countries are considering placing
servers on their own soil.
Russian officials say the aim is to protect Russians' privacy.
Andrei Soldatov, whose website Agentura.ru tracks the intelligence
agencies, said monitoring was the main goal.
"They are making their life easier by getting direct access to the
servers, before the information is encrypted," he said.
Since 1999, telecom operators and hosting providers in Russia have
been required to install equipment used by the security services,
known as the System for Operative Investigative Activities, or SORM.
Soldatov said new legislation extends that demand to social networks
and other online forums, threatening the brand image of tech
companies whose users are sensitive about personal privacy.
In California, Google and Twitter declined to comment, whilst
Facebook did not respond to requests.
The "blogger law" opens popular bloggers up to prosecution for
swearing, libel and "extremism" and fines of up to 500,000 rubles.
It also requires everything posted be stored for at least six months
on Russian soil.
The new rules spell higher infrastructure costs, according to Andrey
Kulikov, an investment manager at Fastlane Ventures, a venture
capital fund whose projects have raised about $100 million to invest
in online businesses in Russia.
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He said it is too early to tell how much impact they will have. "You
need a real investment cycle to see the change," Kulikov said. "I
would not say everything is catastrophic but the political situation
and the regulations will have their effect on the (investment)
funds."
VIRTUAL IRON CURTAIN
On Aug. 18, socialite and Kremlin critic Ksenia Sobchak, who has
more than 870,000 followers on her micro-blog, posted what she said
was a screenshot of a message from Twitter, saying it had received a
request for "certain statistics" on her account from Russia's
Internet watchdog Roskomnadzor.
She rejoiced that it read, "The information requested ... is not
currently maintained by Twitter," but predicted: "...that won't stop
them..." IT entrepreneur and Kremlin critic Leonid Volkov said the
aim did not seem to be a Chinese-style clampdown. "It's clear they
won't go after everybody but now they have another way to monitor
the ones they want to," Volkov said from Luxembourg, where he said
he works alongside 20 other Russian programmers.
"They want to create a virtual Iron Curtain to send a signal to
people, 'Either you leave, and that's fine by us, or stay here but
then we will control everything you do."
That kind of control is some way off as technology firms have pushed
back. When a top Twitter executive flew to Moscow to discuss the new
laws, Russia's watchdog said it asked him to block a dozen accounts.
Twitter said it had not agreed.
Last month, Russian officials went a step further, proposing Apple
and software-maker SAP hand over their source code, saying they
wanted to protect state institutions against spying. The timing
coincided with stepped-up U.S. and European sanctions against Russia
and flies in the face of most major technology companies' business
practices.
Moscow is not alone in challenging technology firms following
Snowden's revelations. It has joined with other countries including
China, Iran and India in seeking to take oversight over global
Internet infrastructure management away from the US-dominated
non-profit group ICANN.
BIG BROTHER?
Critics say the main threat lies at home, not in Washington.
"The real 'Big Brother' is being built before our eyes: A system
that knows who wrote what, when, from where and using what device,"
prominent Putin critic Alexei Navalny said on a blog now blocked in
Russia and run by his supporters after he was placed under house
arrest, refering to George Orwell's novel on totalitarianism, 1984.
In April, Pavel Durov, the 29-year-old founder of VKontakte, a
social media site far more popular in Russia than Facebook, fled the
country. He said he was fired and feared punishment for defying a
government request to disclose information about activists using his
social network site.
"The smart thing to do is to get out of the Russian Internet
market," said Nossik, the founder of online news sites including
Gazeta.ru and Lenta.ru, platforms for alternative views in a nation
where state channels dominate the airwaves.
"Professionals, who were previously proud to work in big Russian IT
companies, are moving. I'm talking top managers."
But for all the efforts to clamp down, the Internet remains hard for
the state to police as users increasingly turn to virtual private
networks which allow them to encrypt traffic on their devices and
access blocked sites like Navalny's.
In a dig at the gap between the perceived ambition and less
efficient reality of Russia's internet filtering efforts, an
activist hacker who briefly took control of the prime minister's
Twitter feed last month parodied: "We should think about banning
electricity - that'd be more effective."
Many of the new regulations are so vaguely worded or broad, drafted
by those who lack savvy, they have confounded technology companies
and bred fears of what lawmakers might think up next.
"It's bad for what is probably the only sector of the economy that
is growing right now," said Vladimir Kharitonov, head of the Russian
Web-publishers Association. "They are slaughtering a hen that lays
golden eggs."
In September, Kharitonov's e-books website was blacklisted because
it sat on the same IP address as one officials said was promoting
illegal drugs. He is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights
after losing a battle over the decision at home.
"Everyone is at risk of being blacklisted," he said.
(1 US dollar = 36.8350 Russian ruble)
(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in Vienna, Maria Kiselyova in
Moscow and Edwin Chan in San Francisco; editing by Philippa
Fletcher)
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