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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRussia demands Internet users show ID to access public Wifi
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia further tightened its control of the Internet on Friday, requiring people using public Wifi hotspots provide identification, a policy that prompted anger from bloggers and confusion among telecom operators on how it would work.
The decree, signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on July 31 but published online on Friday, also requires companies to declare who is using their web networks. The legislation caught many in the industry by surprise and companies said it was not clear how it would be enforced.
A flurry of new laws regulating Russia's once freewheeling Internet has been condemned by President Vladimir Putin's critics as a crackdown on dissent, after the websites of two of his prominent foes were blocked this year.
Putin, who alarmed industry leaders in April by saying the Internet is "a CIA project", says the laws are needed to fight "extremism" and "terrorism."
http://news.yahoo.com/russia-demands-internet-users-show-id-access-public-160535546.html
The Magistrate
(95,275 posts)msongs
(67,544 posts)Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)...when you take away their public access to information and the internet.
redqueen
(115,112 posts)What has been seen cannot be unseen
The Magistrate
(95,275 posts)LordGlenconner
(1,348 posts)Cha
(298,313 posts)Igel
(35,404 posts)It's not as bad as you'd think. SEELangs is the Slavic and East European Languages e-list that's been around since forever and includes a wide variety of professors, professionals, librarians, grad students, and such. More than a few Russians (and other Slavs) in Slavic countries and Europe.
The Russian government set up WiFi hotspots at places like parks and post offices, schools. If you want to use those, you need to give your passport #. This only applies to those, not to companies that set up WiFi hotspots. "Public" = "government provided" as opposed to "available to the public." These are far more likely to be in rural and underserved areas.
The other "bad thing" is that all ISPs will have to start keeping all their user info "local", in-country, so that the government "oversight" agency can access them. In other words, no, you don't have to give your passport info if you're using a private-public hotspot. But the info is there, all the same.
Note that "passport" is the standard internal passport that you get when you're 14 or 16, whatever the age is. You're supposed to have that on you at all times in public, it's where you get your residence stamps if you're in certain towns or provinces (you have to register your address with the local police), where you get your employer stamps. The closest we have to it is drivers license or state-issued ID, but there's no need for anybody to report changes of address to the local police and get a stamp saying you're allowed to live there. (This is what some consider to be a free country, unlike the US where, it seems, a reasonable number of people don't even have IDs.)
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Cha
(298,313 posts)thanks joey
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