IP: Now Big Brother keeps eye on e-mail

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff@iconia.com>
>To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>
>http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/12/08/timfgnrus01004.html?1124027
>
>December 8 1999  RUSSIA
>Now Big Brother keeps eye on e-mail
>
>BY GILES WHITTELL
>
>BIG BROTHER is no longer watching Russia's citizens at every turn, but many of
>them fear he is reading their e-mails. The successor to the KGB has set up a
>network of data links connected to every major Russian Internet service
>provider that allows unlimited monitoring of private e-mails and electronic
>banking.
>
>Activists claim that the network is already being abused for profit, theft and
>blackmail. The System for OperationalInvestigative Activities (SORM in 
>Russian)
>was introduced quietly late last year by government regulations that needed no
>parliamentary approval. Considered one of Russia's most ambitious internal
>espionage programmes since the fall of the Soviet Union, it is now in full
>force, according to an investigation in yesterday's Moscow Times. It allegedly
>has the co-operation of 350 Internet companies, who had to pay for its
>construction .
>
>Russia's unloved Federal Security Service (FSB), which took over the KGB's
>domestic duties, is able to monitor electronic communication without the need
>for search warrants.The FSB and its defenders in parliament insist that 
>this is
>merely a cost-effective means of surveillance on crime in cyberspace, but few
>doubt that the FSB is not above selling its information to the highest bidder.
>Westerners and middle-class Russians in Moscow who increasingly rely on e-mail
>for cheap long-distance communication were alarmed by yesterday's report
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>Geoff_Goodfellow@iconia.com, Prague CZ * tel/mobil +420 (0)603 706 558
>"Success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html