Hackers against the opposition

On June 3, 2005, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article by Sergei Varshavchik "Resistance in the Net", which tells about the plans of law enforcement agencies to take control of information on the Internet.

Recently, law enforcement agencies specializing in computer crimes announced the hiring of former hackers. Such employees, writes S. Varshavchik, may be required to influence the websites of opposition parties and movements. "There have been repeated attempts to find an effective tool for censoring the Russian part of the global network says the author of the article. ," treat Russian President Vladimir Putin with respect .

So far, state services are not able to localize and neutralize all centers of uncensored activity, since the Internet is "an information field that is almost not controlled, not moderated by state authorities" . That is why, Internet.ru editor-in-chief Alexei Kovalev said in an interview with the newspaper, the possibility of fighting dissent with the help of hackers is not ruled out: "Under these conditions, there is a great temptation to destroy a problem that cannot be solved through negotiations with a" pinpoint strike " .

Many government officials advocate the introduction of censorship on the Internet. Thus, Alexander Kotenkov, the presidential representative in the Federation Council, said that a separate law on the Internet is needed, which should provide for "regulatory censorship." At the same time, all sites, in his opinion, should have their own permanent IP address, by which it will be possible to determine the ownership of the resource. And Dmitry Frolov, a representative of the FSB information security center, believes that the powers of special services in the field of information security should be expanded: they should include “preventing the spread of extremist ideas on the Internet, accounting for all illegal actions that occur on the World Wide Web, and access to subscriber databases and their internet addresses . Such an expansion of powers, according to Frolov, is necessary because the Internet can shape public opinion " "to mobilize political forces against the authorities . Obviously, this refers to such sites as Putina.net, Vlasti.net, Politzeki.ru, Grani.ru and nbp-info.ru, suggests S. Varshavchik.

Sources

• Varshavchik S. Resistance in the network // Independent newspaper. 2005. June 3.