“Ironic comments about Putin, news of corrupt officials, anything about Ukraine that portrays them as ordinary people"

  “Ironic comments about Putin, news of corrupt officials, anything about Ukraine that portrays them as ordinary people [and] not crazy fascists, as our government tells us--pretty much anything you post can be viewed as support of terrorism,” says Sergei Volkov, a 23-year-old Navalny activist from Moscow.

  Vladimir Markov, a Moscow-based information technology consultant. “Offcials’ careers are at stake.  [Telegram] has made a fool of RKN and the FSB.... They will do everything to punish this defiance.”

  It’s likely that RKN will soon find a way to close most of the remaining loopholes--meaning that Telegram can be accessed only through proxy servers or virtual private networks; both are methods of disguising the user’s geographic location.

  For years, officials have been talking about creating an exclusively Russian, Kremlin-controlled, independent internet.  Last October the Russian Federation’s Security Council discussed plans to do just that, saying that “the increased capabilities of Western nations to conduct offensive operations in the informational space, as well as the increased readiness to exercise these capabilities, pose a serious threat to Russia’s security.”

 At the time Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that “there is no question of shutting Russia off from the global internet.”  But that’s exactly what Russia’s embattled dissidents fear.  Putin’s internet ombudsman, Dmitry Marinichev, said in April that “Russia is technically ready to separate itself from the World Wide Web.” For the moment, he has stopped short of advocating that.

  But the Russian government attacks on internet freedom have already caused a major brain drain of the country’s cybertalent to the West, including Durov, who was ousted from vKontakte in 2014 after the Kremlin demanded access to user data.  He moved to Berlin to launch Telegram, which now boasts 200 million users worldwide.

Vee Security’s Andreev sees disaster in limiting internet access to Russia’s younger generation.  “Without the internet there is no IT. The social and cultural impact will be terrible,” he says.  “This is so insanely stupid. It’s like burning books.”  https://www.newsweek.com/2018/05/11/russia-crackdown-telegram-internet-putin-vk-facebook-kremlin-world-wide-web-909458.html

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3-7-18      

  Yulia Skripal is believed to have commented “nice” when a friend said the Russian leader stole from the poor and deserved jail.

  It is feared Putin's henchmen may have been monitoring her social media, according to The Sun.     https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/russian-spys-daughter-may-been-12140583