[governance] Russia plans to create independent web / internet

[Ralf Bendrath]

Is seems Russia is at least partially being cut off the Internet anyway. ;-)

"While "walling off the Russian 'Net" as a response to their illegal
activities, as one analyst suggested, is not a plausible answer for the
problem, until the Russian Government develops a more helpful and
law-abiding attitude about Internet matters, the Web will have to learn to
protect itself in any way it can against these worst-of-the-worst Russian
cyber-criminals."

Ralf

<http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?s=latestnews&id=1887>

Russian Company Outed as Mother of all Cybercrime

Kelly O'Connell, IBLS Editor
Monday, October 22, 2007

A Russian company named the Russian Business Network, or RBN has been
identified as a "Conduit for Cybercrime" by the Washington Post and
blasted by the anti-spam organization Spamhaus for being " ...among the
world's worst spammer, child-pornography, malware, phishing and
cybercrime-hosting networks." The security vendor iDefense advises clients
to block all traffic from RBN. Recently, the Bank of India was
cyber-attacked, with much of the activity emanating from RBN servers. Yet,
the company founder claims it is all just a case of mistaken identity.
Russian officials have shown no interest in shuttering this leviathan of
Internet cyber-crime.

Amazingly, the Washington Post reports those using RBN servers are
"responsible for about half of last year's incidents of "phishing,"" or
ID, credit card and banking theft. The large California-based Internet
security firm, Symantec, claims RBN is responsible for hosting websites
conducting "a major portion of the world's cybercrime and profiteering."

Worse than the financial crimes, RBN hosts websites that procure and sell
child-pornography. Symantec's report states RBN "is literally a shelter
for all illegal activities, be it child pornography, online scams, piracy
or other illicit operations." In addition, the company appears to have
help from the old U.S.S.R. mafia, and obviously have support of the
Russian Government by way of bribery.

European police agency Interpol says that these types of shadowy Internet
companies are able to thrive in places where the rule of law is poorly
established. Ronald K. Noble, Interpol secretary general said,
"...organized cybercrime has taken root in countries that don't have
response mechanisms, laws, infrastructure and investigative support set up
to respond to the threat quickly."

RBN is not a large Internet Service Provider, but it does offer features
most others cannot match. In exchange for pricing plans that are up to
ten-times higher than a normal company, or around $600 per month, RBN
offers what is known as "bulletproof hosting." This means that, no matter
what activities are conducted on the site, or laws are broken, the company
will only superficially acknowledge any complaints. If a serious
illegality occurs, RBN might shut the offending site down, for a few
hours, at best.

While American and European police agencies have attempted to get access
to close RBN, they have had no luck, for several reasons. First, the
company itself does not break any laws, just the companies that buy its
hosting. Second, usually the RBN-hosted criminals do not attack Russian
Web users, so there is no in-state crime to investigate. Further, Russia
is one of the least cooperative countries, when it comes to fighting
cyber-crime originating within its borders. Then again, the business
itself does not even exist. It has no license, there is no named owner,
and even the Internet address itself lists dummy names as proprietors.

Internet providers in other countries have become so exasperated by RBN"s
continued illegalities that they decided to do something very rare on the
Internet -- they decided to wall off the entire server from any of their
users. When one company did this, their spam and phishing attacks
plummeted exponentially.

There is an interesting social aspect to how Russia became a hub of
cyber-criminals. First, it does not help that the Russian economy is in
very bad shape. Second, there are a lot of highly trained code-writers who
are always looking for ways to supplement their meager incomes.
Interestingly, there has developed the widely-held belief that writing
malicious viruses and code is no worse than working as a designer at a
munitions company. Someone is going to design these potentially harmful
creations and make money from them. But the software designers are
personally innocent of wrong as long as they do not themselves use the bad
code to go after others. And then you have the fact that it is almost
inconceivable to get arrested in Russia for cyber-crimes, even if the
Government becomes aware of the activity.

Since the Japanese anti-virus security company Trend Micro recently
reported discovering a "virus cesspool" of over 400 viruses on one Russian
server alone, the problem is not just in one company, but is a
society-wide issue. While "walling off the Russian 'Net" as a response to
their illegal activities, as one analyst suggested, is not a plausible
answer for the problem, until the Russian Government develops a more
helpful and law-abiding attitude about Internet matters, the Web will have
to learn to protect itself in any way it can against these
worst-of-the-worst Russian cyber-criminals.
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