MeMyselfAndI
Sep 1st 2011, 04:37 PM
Russia designs search engine to spot extremism on Internet
31 August 2011,12:58
Executive Director of the Secure Internet League Denis Davydov said that automated search for extremist materials will be organised in three segments.
(Kazan, August 31, Tatar-inform). Russia’s Ministry of Communications designs software, which could spot automatically the Internet content, which contains so-called suspicious texts, Deputy Minister Oleg Dukhovnitsky told the Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday, reports Itar-Tass (http://itar-tass.com/).
Besides, “we are preparing addendums to the legislation to give a more specified explanation of the ‘extremist material’ notion,” he said. As yet, it is not specified as the Internet content cannot be compared to material carriers of information, like a newspaper or a magazine.
“No doubt, no software can make an expert analysis whether an article contains illegal wording or not,” Dukhovnitsky said. “But the software is able to react immediately to words like ‘terrorist’ or ‘bomb’, and later on qualified experts will be working with the text to see if it may be considered as illegal or not.”
Executive Director of the Secure Internet League Denis Davydov said that automated search for extremist materials will be organised in three segments: video, photo and texts.
“If extremist information is placed on a site, which is registered as mass media, Roskomnadzor will be able to bring the site to a responsibility,” he said. “If content of the kind is spotted in a blog or on a personal page of social networks, the mechanism to delete those sites will start working.”
In spring of the current year, Russia’s ministry of communications launched a similar programme complex to spot children’s pornography on the Internet. At the same time, the ministry says it takes as an exceptional the punishing method for the sites bearing illegal content.
“Banning or closing a site is a way to nowhere, as people have a guaranteed right to receive information and distribute it under the present legislation,” Dukhovnitsky said. “This is why, whatever software is designed, our task is still not to kill any mass media.”
“There are technical options to block any Internet media, which abuses its positions,” he continued. “The thing not to be done is to push authorities to use those options.”
http://eng.tatar-inform.ru/news/2011/08/31/37576/
This is not new, back in 2008, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev wanted more control over the Internet
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2008/07/14/russian-interior-minister-calls-for-restricting-internet/
In fact, our Internet guys are learning from the Chinese, the biggest and best Internet censor in the world. Both MVD (Internal/police) and FSB regularly, I am told by friends who work there, send people to Beijing, where they study from the Chinese MSS. There are rumors they are even learning now how to build a online Great Wall, like in China.
Censorship is not just online here, in everyday life it is a very real thing. The government has a list of books, for example, that cannot be legally sold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_List_of_Extremist_Materials
The problem is, it is not just real extremist works, like Main Kampf, that are banned. It is anything the government does not like. Written works of opposition activists, for example. A book by Boris Nemtsov
http://cdn1.beeffco.com/files/poll-images/normal/boris-nemtsov_4088.jpg
which criticized Putin, was labelled extremist, placed on this list, and several hundred thousand copies were seized and destroyed. One director of a bookstore in Saint Petersburg, who was not aware of the fact that the book was on the list and put it on his shelves anyway, has now been sentenced to 10 years in a prison camp in the Komi Republic. Not Siberia, but not heaven either.
And then there are certain groups making demands. For example, there is the folk tale about Konyok-gorbunok (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Humpbacked_Horse#The_Humpbacked_Horse)
In the book, a Tsar calls Ivan a "tatarin", as an insult. Now, back in the time described in the tale, us and Tatars were... not exactly friends. So, yes, "tatarin" was a insult.
So, today, a Tatar community association, "Bolgar National Congress" is attempting to have this book placed on the extreme list, as it insults Tatars as a people and, according to them, stirs up hatred against them...
http://www.bulgars.ru/dela/voz_kon.htm
Now, even Karina and her family, when I asked them about this, say what those people are doing is ridiculous, and probably will not succeed. A judge in Tatarstan agreed with them, but, on appeal, the Republic's High Court has now dismissed their case. They say they will take this all the way to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation if they have to :rolleyes: Apparently, even most Tatars say this is a waste of time and money.
31 August 2011,12:58
Executive Director of the Secure Internet League Denis Davydov said that automated search for extremist materials will be organised in three segments.
(Kazan, August 31, Tatar-inform). Russia’s Ministry of Communications designs software, which could spot automatically the Internet content, which contains so-called suspicious texts, Deputy Minister Oleg Dukhovnitsky told the Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday, reports Itar-Tass (http://itar-tass.com/).
Besides, “we are preparing addendums to the legislation to give a more specified explanation of the ‘extremist material’ notion,” he said. As yet, it is not specified as the Internet content cannot be compared to material carriers of information, like a newspaper or a magazine.
“No doubt, no software can make an expert analysis whether an article contains illegal wording or not,” Dukhovnitsky said. “But the software is able to react immediately to words like ‘terrorist’ or ‘bomb’, and later on qualified experts will be working with the text to see if it may be considered as illegal or not.”
Executive Director of the Secure Internet League Denis Davydov said that automated search for extremist materials will be organised in three segments: video, photo and texts.
“If extremist information is placed on a site, which is registered as mass media, Roskomnadzor will be able to bring the site to a responsibility,” he said. “If content of the kind is spotted in a blog or on a personal page of social networks, the mechanism to delete those sites will start working.”
In spring of the current year, Russia’s ministry of communications launched a similar programme complex to spot children’s pornography on the Internet. At the same time, the ministry says it takes as an exceptional the punishing method for the sites bearing illegal content.
“Banning or closing a site is a way to nowhere, as people have a guaranteed right to receive information and distribute it under the present legislation,” Dukhovnitsky said. “This is why, whatever software is designed, our task is still not to kill any mass media.”
“There are technical options to block any Internet media, which abuses its positions,” he continued. “The thing not to be done is to push authorities to use those options.”
http://eng.tatar-inform.ru/news/2011/08/31/37576/
This is not new, back in 2008, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev wanted more control over the Internet
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2008/07/14/russian-interior-minister-calls-for-restricting-internet/
In fact, our Internet guys are learning from the Chinese, the biggest and best Internet censor in the world. Both MVD (Internal/police) and FSB regularly, I am told by friends who work there, send people to Beijing, where they study from the Chinese MSS. There are rumors they are even learning now how to build a online Great Wall, like in China.
Censorship is not just online here, in everyday life it is a very real thing. The government has a list of books, for example, that cannot be legally sold: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_List_of_Extremist_Materials
The problem is, it is not just real extremist works, like Main Kampf, that are banned. It is anything the government does not like. Written works of opposition activists, for example. A book by Boris Nemtsov
http://cdn1.beeffco.com/files/poll-images/normal/boris-nemtsov_4088.jpg
which criticized Putin, was labelled extremist, placed on this list, and several hundred thousand copies were seized and destroyed. One director of a bookstore in Saint Petersburg, who was not aware of the fact that the book was on the list and put it on his shelves anyway, has now been sentenced to 10 years in a prison camp in the Komi Republic. Not Siberia, but not heaven either.
And then there are certain groups making demands. For example, there is the folk tale about Konyok-gorbunok (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Humpbacked_Horse#The_Humpbacked_Horse)
In the book, a Tsar calls Ivan a "tatarin", as an insult. Now, back in the time described in the tale, us and Tatars were... not exactly friends. So, yes, "tatarin" was a insult.
So, today, a Tatar community association, "Bolgar National Congress" is attempting to have this book placed on the extreme list, as it insults Tatars as a people and, according to them, stirs up hatred against them...
http://www.bulgars.ru/dela/voz_kon.htm
Now, even Karina and her family, when I asked them about this, say what those people are doing is ridiculous, and probably will not succeed. A judge in Tatarstan agreed with them, but, on appeal, the Republic's High Court has now dismissed their case. They say they will take this all the way to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation if they have to :rolleyes: Apparently, even most Tatars say this is a waste of time and money.