[governance] Russia plans to create independent web / internet

[Veni Markovski]

the response of the Russians:


http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/10/russian_business_network_respo.html?nav=rss_blog


An individual claiming to represent the Russian Business Network has 
denied media reports (including 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202461.html>a 
Washington Post story I wrote that ran last week) the company 
provides Web hosting services to numerous cyber criminal operations.

Experts quoted in my story and others, the RBN representative said, 
were essentially wrong in their assessments. The response via a 
<http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/russian_network>Wired.com 
article by Ryan Singel, wherein a guy calling himself Tim Jaret had 
this to say:

"We can't understand on which basis these organizations have such an 
opinion about our company," Jaret of the Russian Business Network 
told Wired in an e-mail interview. "We can say that this is 
subjective opinion based on these organizations' guesswork."

Jaret told Wired that RBN has made efforts to respond to complaints 
of wrongdoing on its network. RBN's representative said the 
organization even tried unsuccessfully to work with anti-spam group 
<http://www.spamhaus.org/>Spamhaus, which currently includes all 
2,048 of RBN's Internet addresses 
<http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/listing.lasso?-op=cn&spammer=Russian%20Business%20Network>on 
its blacklist of known bad guys. Spamhaus says RBN is "noted for 
continuously hosting child pornography, malware, phishing and 
cybercrime, and it details information suggesting ties between known 
spammers and the St. Petersburg-based ISP.

First of all, Spamhaus doesn't so much work with ISPs and known 
malicious hosting providers as it does eventually de-list those that 
clean up their act. The fact that RBN's networks have been so 
prominently listed on Spamhaus' various blacklists for so long 
suggests that a great deal of malicious activity is still emanating 
from the organization's various networks.

Faced with such statements, perhaps it makes sense to ask which of 
the two scenarios seems more likely: That dozens of the world's 
leading computer crime and Internet security experts are simply wrong 
in pinning this activity on sites hosted by the Russian Business 
Network? Or that RBN is simply trying to throw up a smoke screen?

John Bambenek, a security incident handler with the 
<http://isc.sans.org/>SANS Internet Storm Center, which tracks 
hacking trends, called RBN's belated defense laughable.

"They're about as misunderstood as a senator soliciting sexual favors 
in an airport bathroom," Bambenek said. "When most of the world's 
cyber-miscreants are paying 10 times more for hosting on your 
network, you don't attract the business by accident"

Bambenek is referring to the starting prices that security giant 
Verisign said RBN charges for so-called "bulletproof hosting," or Web 
hosting for illegal sites that remain reachable regardless of the 
level of legal or technical pressure brought to bear on them. As I 
noted in my story, $600 is about ten times the amount most legitimate 
Web hosting providers charge per month for a dedicated Web site.

Jaret from RBN told Wired that the organization in fact "doesn't have 
any more criminal activity on its network than any other provider, 
and it responds to abuse reports submitted via e-mail and a telephone 
hotline. He claims the organization closes criminals' sites down 
within 24 hours of notification."

Interestingly, a tidbit from my interview with a Verisign analyst 
that didn't make it into the final story indicates that rather than 
shutting down domains that generate complaints, RBN has in the past 
chosen simply to up the price charged to the criminal groups that 
have rented Web space from the network.

Perhaps the most telling statement from RBN thus far comes at the end 
of the Wired article, in which Wired News asked RBN to provide the 
URLs for some legitimate customers. "Jaret says he couldn't oblige -- 
for legal reasons."




At 21:57 10/22/2007  +0200, you wrote:
>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
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