As Putin Crushes Russia’s Internet, Obama Stands By
Both the United States and Russia began gearing up over the past few weeks for their coming presidential elections next year. As with most things, the course of events in the two countries was rather different.
In America, the opposition party candidates began jockeying for position and the incumbent declared his intentions. In Russia, where there is no opposition party and the incumbent is a mere figurehead, the corrupt dictatorial regime began systematically eradicating political dissent on the Internet.
In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, there are three significant sources of dissent, all based mainly on the Internet: bloggers on the LiveJournal (LJ) host, the website of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and the website of shareholder rights activist Alexei Navalny, who is something like the Russian Ralph Nader.
Between March 24 and April 8, all three came under a vicious, determined, and overwhelming DDOS attack from a powerful, shadowy enemy — and all three faltered and fell from their Internet perches. One of the LJ bloggers who disappeared was Dmitry Medvedev, the so-called “president” of Russia. Another LJ blogger, Timur_nechaev77, asked: “Who ordered the attack on LiveJournal is a rhetorical question. Who has been carrying out a mop-up operation of the mass media and the Internet for the last 10 years?”
In Russia today, nobody has any doubts about the answer to that question. In Washington, D.C., though, it seems our government remains very much in the dark.
Both Navalny and Anton Nosik, the éminence grise of the Russian-language internet (or RuNet), were blunt and clear in pointing the finger of blame for the attacks at the Kremlin. Everyone in Russia understands that the next national election is likely to be the last, with Putin returning to power in essence as “president for life” and a final neo-Soviet crackdown on civil liberties to follow soon after. The Internet is a complicated thing, hard to control, and practice makes perfect.
A few months ago, Rustem Adagamov, the single most powerful LJ blogger, warned: “The Internet is the last free territory [in Russia] — but it won’t stay that way for long.” It didn’t take long for him to be proved right.
Just as the DDOS attacks subsided, a high-ranking figure in the Russian state security forces — formerly known as the KGB — announced that his agency favored shutting down “foreign” Internet communication hosts such as Skype, Gmail, and Hotmail. These services, he said, use encryption technology that is difficult for the KGB to break, and therefore pose a direct threat to Russian national security.
Putin’s moves to shut out contact between Russia and the outside world appear deranged when you know that Russia is facing a massive and increasing shortfall in foreign investment. With little domestic savings to speak of, Russians depend on foreigners to float their boat, yet their government is doing all it can to prevent them from understanding the needs and concerns of foreigners, which only further alienates foreign money from the Russian market.
And Putin’s goons are going much further. The security forces are already openly bragging about reading the e-mail of opposition leaders, openly storming the offices of opposition publications at will, and openly seeking to bribe LJ bloggers to toe the Kremlin line. They are, in other words, practicing not just to destroy the Internet’s ability to influence the next presidential “election” in Russia, but to bring about a sea change in the way Russians get information from the Internet — permanently rendering the web useless as a means of challenging the Kremlin’s power.
Barack Obama was supposed to be the first tech president. Supposedly youthful and “with it,” the BlackBerry-wielding Obama was supposed to lead us into a brave new world of technological progress. But what he’s actually doing is simply watching as the most serious obliteration of tech-based expression that the world has yet seen takes place in Russia. In fact, Obama is enabling the disaster by helping Medvedev score propaganda points and keep his docile domestic population off guard.
Obama has done nothing at all to stand up for American values in Russia. Instead, he’s munched burgers with Medvedev, unilaterally given up missile defense in Eastern Europe, and made it clear he thinks Medvedev is a progressive figure that America should support. This allows Medvedev to sell himself to his electorate as a man respected by the outside world, further undermining the legitimacy of those who would challenge him.
In fact, to the shocking contrary, Obama may actually support the Kremlin’s efforts to wipe out privacy on the Internet. His administration is actively seeking to crack open Skype and Gmail, just like the Putin Gestapo. Who knows? Maybe Putin and Obama are sharing notes and secret midnight whispers.
In short, one of the most memorable events of the Obama administration may well be the laying of the RuNet in its grave — and the rise of a fully realized neo-Soviet dictatorship in Russia.
(Also read: “The Russian Kleptocracy File: Bank Records and Real Estate.”)
Russia is a failed democracy that has ended up as a fascist state. Putin is just consolidating his control over the nation as the next Stalin-lite. O is getting a free lesson on how to control the internet & quash all dissent. Frankly, any hope of true freedom in Russia is as dead as Lenin. The West sits around & twiddles or sucks their thumbs as Putin ramps up fascist power. What could ever stop him from knocking off Georgia, the Ukraine or any other former Soviet state? What would O do but say, “Naughty, naughty!” Russia supports Iran, Chavez, North Korea & Red China. What more does one need to say about them?
Thanks for this report. If it all adds up, then what we are seeing is a counter-revolution that has been slow and methodical. It’s what can happen in a culture without any particular grass roots tradition, interest or faith in anything else.
Far from worrying about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, I am more worried there about a similar counter-revolution that examines where it went wrong and how it can come back into power.
Perception is everything when it comes to such counter strokes and once passions subside and streets are emptied and time marches on, counter measures can be effected and enemies isolated and picked off one at a time. In the case of Russia, it is evident that there has existed an ancien regime mentality that felt put out and insulted by Russia’s brush with democracy and this had a certain amount of support among the people. One has the same feeling in Egypt.
I don’t know what America can do about Russia. Despite Third World nations giving us credit for blowing over their ‘democracies’ such as is currently going the rounds with a documentary blaming America for the beginnings of the 1964 dictatorship in Brazil, in truth, we have no such powers. It’s a convenient urban myth nations use to absolve themselves of their own failures. But if a nation succeeds in throwing off a dictator then it is always a home grown revolution with no subsequent documentaries ferreting out America’s hidden support because it doesn’t suit the stereotypes and agendas of those journalists to do so. Don’t look for any investigative journalism in Brazil about the ‘hidden’ support America gave Brazil as it returned to democracy in 1985.
Russia is probably gone for now. As their economy crumbles they may crawl back and somehow throw Putin out. Will Russia’s next step be to try and reclaim parts of their lost empire? Would the international community stand for it? If they can’t manage Libya I don’t know what they could do about Russian armies picking off territory little by little and with the accompanying excuses for that type of empire building wherein opposition leaders may actually invite a Russian military presence in.
Almost everywhere you go in the world things seem calm on the surface but one rarely sees a traffic accident actually happen and one gets the feeling nowadays that a massive multi-car pile up is just around the corner.
The more America and Europe are distracted by the problems brought about by their own immigration problems just starting to negatively affect their cultures, the more dictators can have a free hand in the world; the bigger the army the freer the hand since the International Criminal Court can only exert its will in a power vacuum and look at the trouble militarily listless countries like Afghanistan and Iraq have proven to be.
So, then, if tomorrow you were to be sitting in the Oval Office, what specifically would you do to mobilize our rather internationally passive American public to thwart Putin, when we have such massive problems here in America that need immediate correcting from Obama’s naivete’……on top of changing the emphases of a new-vote seeking Congess?
I don’t have access to the behind the scenes issues the President does. I don’t know anything can be done to thwart Putin. Russia is not behind an Iron Curtain where info has to be piped in in propaganda battles. The Russians know what’s happening and apparently don’t care. Why should we?
If you total up all the immoral activities of President Obama, it is plain to see we have our own issues about democracy being swept aside in plain public view.
There are illegal campaign contributions, immoral and illegal maneuverings at the DOJ, a respect only for those laws Obama agrees with, meetings with lobbies outside the White House to escape detection, complicit involvement and approval of Mexico’s illegal and immoral attitude toward immigration while suing the state of AZ in part for angering Mexico and encouraging that foreign leader’s attitude towards an American state, not prosecuting muslims close to the administration.
Obama has pretty much rode roughshod over the American public and done so by lawsuits others can’t afford to fight, using czars, encouraging bills that haven’t even been read and more.
The checks and balances supposedly granted us by 3 competing systems has been worked around by experience and practice and been aided by the media which stubbornly applies double standards and often acts like a member of the Democratic Committee to Re-elect. Congress itself has perfected the fine art of robbing the American public in plain sight. The Republican congress is holding its own and maybe a little better but it’s hard to fight a man who acts like America is some kind of enemy and the only real people in it are minorities.
Obama is the most dangerous President since Nixon and it’s worse in this case because it’s not the man but the system he has developed that simply bullies and intimidates and treats the law as if possession is 9/10ths of it. The fed. gov’t bureaucracy is terribly efficient. The freedoms people were worried about under Bush are being not only eroded but entirely circumvented under Obama.
Somehow, I’m having trouble getting worked up over Putin with this in our own backyard and nothing to check this kind of use of power in the U.S. In other words, I don’t even know how to have a democracy in America. Oaths of office mean nothing. It’s gotten to the point where we need a second oath explaining that approving of the law isn’t part of the occasion – obeying it is.
“Between March 24 and April 8, all three came under a vicious, determined, and overwhelming DDOS attack from a powerful, shadowy enemy — and all three faltered and fell from their Internet perches.”
Well, it seems like Obama wants to do the same thing here in the United States by using the FCC to enforce “Net Neutrality” laws. No need to have an opposition, let alone free speech, when you can shut it down through government regulation and executive orders, right? Funny how much Putin and Obama have in common these days.
Libertarian(and liberal) idea of defending this unhappy Russians from terrible Putin coincides exactly with the idea of defending poor rising Arabs from their terrible Mubarak,Gaddafi,Assad and so on.
Libertarians(liberals) are not interested in rebels` aims or who stands behind them.In both cases we have aggressive nationalists and Islamists.
Free people must be worried about the problem of free world defence from Islamists and Russian revenge-seekers.
Don’t lump libertarian views in with liberal views, as they are extremely different in this and most cases. Libertarian views would be to let these people have their own revolution, not have us ousting dictators.
I feel terrible for the people of Russia. In fact, it was the homeland of my grandfather, who came to America to flee the bolshevics and their revolution. I don’t think anything can be done for them, though until they decide that they want real freedom for themselves. I don’t see this happening anytime soon, though. As a people that have been so pervaded by propaganda and the lies of corrupt leaders, I think it will take something truly monumental to wake the Russian people up.
I feel the same way about Americans. We are asleep as Obama spreas his plague around our country
With all the fraud we see, Obama will be reelected unless we wake up and see this man is thrown ..thrown..out of office. It must be a deafening defeat!!
We need to wake up to the fact we are not doing better as a nation..we are on a down hill slide. Fortunately gas prices are waking up a few Americans up..slowly. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
Russians have always been in “sad shape”. this is nothing new. It is up to them to do what ever it is they have to do to get some control.
Maybe REVOLUTION SHOULD BE IN THE AIR.
Russia (Putin) does indeed need to be watched carefully and with the understanding that he is an enemy. With President Numbnutts in office here in the US, Putin is free to pursue his agenda anywhere in the world he desires. With the “o” concerned mostly with coddling and helping his mooslim brothers,tyrannical leaders across the globe are stretching the limits of their powers in their own countries, and anywhere else they can. . . .
Oh, for a real President, that actually loves his country!!
When the Russian Revolution took place in the early twentieth century, one of the first things Lenin and the Bolsheviks (the Communists) did was to seize control of the nation’s telegraph and telephone network—the internet of its day. By seizing control of all rapid communications, the Bolsheviks achieved a major success in guaranteeing the success of their overthrow of the established parliamentary government.
What would you suppose Obama would like to do? What do you suppose is contained in internet legislation currently before Congress? A “kill switch” which would allow the president to shut down the internet in the event of a “national emergency”.
The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Sysops interpret censorship as a threat to their lives and enforce it.
Top down, or bottom up ? _That_ is the equation !
Solve it, and you find the answer to why Russia will fail,
and the US of A will succeed; The people of the US can and will
resist the shutdown of the Web by using Tech such as WiMAX and
wireless mesh to communicate, despite the efforts of the State;
In Russia, a lone gunman will show up and shut down the site,
and the operator.
And if things carry on as they have been doing for some time now, how long before the DoJ permits the Black Panthers to do just that?
The US is not England, or Europe, and it sure as shinola is not Russia;
In this country our rights are guarded by an armed citizenry.
Harvard Conservative! There was not any revolutions in Russia,coup d`etats only! For example there was not any group of the population who was interested in kolchozes(collective farmers). This is the great question: whether Russians are capable for a revolution.
USSR 2.0. Big surprise there.
The communists did not give away their control over freedom. They merely changed their name and gave the impression of becoming something they were not. The same old communist party hacks were still in charge and it will not be long before those who pine for the old USSR will get their wish under yet another dictatorship behind a false front.
Being dictators they will not be content with restricting freedom in their own country. They will proceed to destroy freedom here to weaken us and the internet with its easy access to information and free speech. The question is how much help they get here.
The communists did not give away their control over freedom. They merely changed their name and gave the impression of them becoming something they were not. The same old communist party hacks were still in charge and it will not be long before those who pine for the old USSR will get their wish under yet another dictatorship behind a false front.
Being dictators they will not be content with restricting freedom in their own country. They will proceed to destroy freedom here to weaken us and the internet with its easy access to information and free speech. The question is how much help they get here.
Putin started out a clerk, and in about 15yr., he’s worth $10b; yeah, he’s all for SELF, sure.
So far as Obama facilitating Putin’s power consolidations, administrative governmental officers, how quickly, they form into a solid bloc opposite “the people”, . . . of every nation, . . .
This could have been OBAMA’S idea, let Putin get away with this, and then he can do the same thing. Think about it.
It fairly obvious that Obama is more in line with Putin’s politics than with the American system defined by Adam Smith, John Locke and our founding fathers.
The problem is that very few of our elected representatives appear to be concerned that our country is being systematically destroyed by Obama and his socialists.
Putin rules with an iron fist where Obama rules with a wrist poised for a golf swing and follow through. The people running the Internet in the USA are your Joe Average and the reluctance should be there to try to take it down from the Beltway. They Barack Woods and Janet the DHS Protector pull a stunt like Putin they may take the net all the way down. Not by their choice either.
One reason why Russia is corrupted is because Orthodox Church has deep emphasis on faith and idealism and produces irrational, faith driven simpletons whose life is driven by believes. As a result, in Russia, finger pointing constitute sufficient evidence to convict anyone of crime. Russians have no need for material evidence. See how it worked in recent history: “Jews drink Christian blood?” Yes of course, they are Jews and it is perfectly logical for them to do so. Let us go and make some pogroms. Nasha vera silnee rascheta! “Enemies of people want to overthrow Dear Comrade Stalin?” Yes, that is what the enemies should be doing, let us root them out by putting half of our population in gulags.
Did anything change since then? In essence I see the same kind of logic applied in Russian public discourse. It transpires in Kim’s own writings (who is obviously a Russian). Here how she reasons “ LiveJournal (LJ) host, the website of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and thewebsite of shareholder rights activist Alexei Navalny, …… all three came under a vicious, determined, and overwhelming DDOS attack from a powerful, shadowy enemy” Who is the enemy? Of course it is Putin! Who else it could be? He personally ordered attack! Any forensic evidence? Any circumstantial evidence? No need for such things, because what else Putin should be doing other than mounting DOS attacks on blogs? Nasha vera silnee rascheta!
Ok, DOS attack will take out the sites for a day or so, but the news of attack will help them to increase number of readers substantially, solely because people will be curious who are the guys who were attacked. So , how it would help Putin? Let me offer a hypothesis: it was not Putin, it was George Soros who ordered attack, paid for it from his personal pocket, only to harm Putin in revenge for throwing George Soros’ NGOs from Russia.
For evangelical readers of this blog who use faith not only in realm of the spiritual, but also in the realm of politics and who were so easily duped by Kim and joined her in blaming Putin without any evidence of crime presented I say:.
God gave you brain that can think logically, therefore it is sin not to use logic when you can do so .
Freedom House report on the Internet in Russia just released:
http://freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/Russia2011.pdf
Russia ranked 22nd among 37 countries examined in the report, behind Rwanda and ahead of Egypt. It went down three places compared with the previous rating. It is classified as “partly free.”
White House Facebook Townhall crashes:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/20/obamas-facebook-townhall-crashes-conservative-group-claims-credit/#ixzz1K7KbGBdZ
That is Putin! Who else can it bee? Putin can reach even US and can sabotage our own internet and our own democracy!
Putin´s Russia is a criminal oligarchy, run by the security services. The Sergei Magnistsky case is the latest proof of this fact, which Obama and the European leaders shamefully choose to ignore:
http://newnostradamusofthenorth.blogspot.com/2011/04/rotten-russia-corrupted-mafia-state.html
Wow, Sergey and Prokofy Nutcase deserve each other with their mutual loathing of the Russian people. I saw Prokofy nutjob was bragging on her blog about all the Russia-related blogs she’s seen come and go. Well, none of them received that smooth Soros/RFE/RL (all the usual cutouts) cash to spew hatred and bilge for six years. Bravo Kim!
So I’m lumping La Russophobe = Prokofy Neva here. Live by Google bombing, you get Google bombed right back at ya, even if Google seems to have some creepy support for Kim’s libelous mission, given how her Google bombs last forever and ever and ever…
LR’s identity is gotta be the worst kept secret on the web. But you can’t tell kids dying of AIDS they’re faking it and be addicted to Second Life and not have it come out sooner or later.