Russia to ban iCloud.. to protect iPhone fiddlers' pics 'n' sh*t The Kremlin is set to ban Apple's iCloud as part of plans to throw up a new iron curtain around Russia's digital communications. Anti-data-offshoring laws will come into force on New Year's Day 2015 that require all data generated within Russia to be stored within its borders. Apple's iCloud service has been in the news …
to be completely fair, which isn't fashionable nowadays, they never actually claimed to be 'communist' in the Soviet Union, it was always 'aspiring to communism'
now most Russians that I know are 'aspire to shopping'
soz for this pedantic waffle, I'll go back to sleep.. oh, but on the iCloud f*ckf*est
http://www.fierceitsecurity.com/story/apple-fails-learn-icloud-security-lesson/2014-11-04
seems Yosemite silently & helpfully backs-up unsaved documents to who-knows-where
- nationalism
- cult of personality
- corporatism and power of business elite
- co-option of church and intertwining of religion with politics
- expansionist
- disdain for human rights
- identifying scapegoats
- control of mass media
- fraudulent elections
- obsession with national security
It's called fascism.
"...promoting traditional family values..."
Why you listed this, I'll never know. Not really combating your view on this (for I have no idea what it is), but today any family values are a step in the right direction, ANY! Spending Christmas with kids on mobiles, with apparently "modern" family values, is similar to waiting in a doctor's office...just waiting for a name call.
I listed it because it was a hallmark of fascist ideology. The 3 K's etc. Just because you share a value with a fascist it doesn't make you one, see Logic. The world is not black and white.
I do not put forward a viewpoint, other than that I remember my history lessons. What is fascism? What is modern Russia? Are there parallels?
Well wasn't it Mussolini who analysed the essence of fascism to comment "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
now, where in the world can we see Corporate power & the States working hand-in-hand? true, that might also include Russia...but I think there are a few rather more experienced Corporatism/Fascism choices...
other scary quotes available here: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Fascism.html
" but today any family values are a step in the right direction"
My family values are very different from yours, obviously. So why are yours "a step in the right direction"? What makes your values better than mine? Jeebus? The little childrens? You're the boss and the kinds should listen to you, damn it?
Pfffffft.
The only family value that matters is as follows: teach the next generation critical thinking.
That's it. It is the only thing that should be passed on. Let the next generation discover their own values and shape their own world.
We've fucked it up enough already as is.
The only family value that matters is as follows: teach the next generation critical thinking.That's it. It is the only thing that should be passed on.
No. They also need self-discipline.
That way, they have a *choice* whether to confront something they see as wrong, or to go along with it for now and change it later.
Without the discipline, the freedom of choice is missing.
And now I'm starting to sound like Lister :-)
Vic.
It's called fascism.
I suggest you study the history of fascism before throwing around the term. There is a huge difference between Facism as it is defined, facism as it has been used in history, and fascism as the term is often used. It's an extremely left-leaning philosphy.
Remember, right-wingers want a weak central government so there can be weak corporate oversight and strong local governments (think states-rights). Left-wingers want a strong central government so there can be overbearing corporate oversight and weak local governments. Which is Russia?
Remember, Germany's National Socialism and Italy's Mussolini Fascism were both born from ultra-extreme liberalism.
Even if Apple, Google, F**book, etc build a datacenter or two in Russia according to current USA law and precedent Russian law (same as Eu law or any other non-USAian law for that matter) can suck a brick sidewize through a thin straw. USA law "overrides it" as far as USA courts and USA three letter agencies are concerned.
So effectively it is a full ban on doing business. It will be interesting to watch and see how this will be enforced (I suspect that because of the current sanctions tit-for-tat it will be enforced mercilessly and with gusto).
Could be a Steyr Mannlicher Luxus with the wooden sideplates, could be either the Halfstock or the Halfstock Magnum version.
Judging this based in the bolt handle shape,the way that the magasine is slightly visible from the side and also the positon/form of the sights.
No idea about the caliber, could be anything from a .243 up to a 9,3x62 or even a .375 H&H depending on the total length of that barrel. ( 600mm or 650mm)
[Quite a bit more expensive than the Webley, lol ]
Could be a Steyr Mannlicher Luxus. No it cannot be. The man is taking the idea of "I use only local makes" quite seriously so there is no way for it to be a Steyr.
Out of the Russian models this looks like Мр 18 мн 223REM with the long barrel option, it is a made to order option by Izhevsk. Mid-price range (sans the optics).
By the way - I am not sure about the optics, that actually does not look indigenous - more like one of the Bulgarian models (they are quite good and sell to both NATO and Russia). As Russians do not generally consider Bulgaria to be "abroad" this may be the case (or it may be a Russian model I do not recognize).
II can't find a reference to a Baikal 18 mh that is not a break action, (an express), rather than a bolt action rifle as we can see in the image ?
Neither can I, however the barrel shape is very characteristic and Izhevsk has been known to do custom weapons (in fact pieces of gunsmith art) especially for him.
Could be a TOZ-122-10 ... http://www.tulatoz.ru/en/production/detail.php?ID=86&SECTION_ID=7
The scope looks somewhat like a Kahles, but I cannot imagine him using anything other than a Russian piece of kit in a publicity photo ... there are some Bulgarian scopes similar to the Kahles, could be one of those ..,
The Register has long been known as an on-line lesbian magazine, so perhaps they're just trying to expand their audience to include gay males as well.
I'm sure the EU Commission made up a law requiring all data on cloud services to be stored within the EU. It happened about 2 years ago, because I took out a Crashplan subscription to store all my data and it's based in the US, but when a friend tried to do the same thing 6 months later they couldn't offer the service because they didn't (at the time) have any EU-based data centres.
So it seems that one hoary old Communist is just following where another has already gone (Barroso was a member of the Communist party in his youth).
"Although Russia is a country that is often criticised for its institutional homophobia, the decision is not connected to Tim Cook's announcement of his sexuality."
I'll bet dollars to Homer's doughnuts that someone in the Russian gubermint is using this as another reason to make life hard for Apple.
Didn't they let Elton John perform in their country, before the Berlin Wall came down, i think. If they let Mr John in, who by the way is 'Gayer than a bucket of Frogs', then there can be no doubt that Russia is at heart, a tollerant 'Gay Friendly' state, QED.
Indeed
The crackdown is not on gays, it is on Gay Public Events. The crackdown is solely because of the constant entanglement between LGBT, other human rights causes celebre and use by the West of Human Rights to advance its geopolitical agenda in the ex-Soviet Union.
Putin & Co have observed the script played elsewhere in Eastern Europe over the last 25 years and he is making sure that there is no way in hell that play can be staged in Russia. Anything and everything that has had something to do with one of the "revolutions" in Eastern Europe is banned or damage-limited using a very carefully crafted and fairly water-tight legal stranglehold.
I wonder how that will affect the webcam girl industry - which presumably contributes to the Russian economy.
All those girls (well, the Russian ones anyway) will be generating data in Russia from their cameras, but mostly, as far as I know, the servers holding snapshots and video clips recorded from those cameras are in the US and Europe.
The problem is that the NSA and GCHQ through their spying programmes have now given a whole load of regimes all over the world a very valid excuse to do some very bad things both in terms of snooping on their own citizens and restricting the flow of data beyond their borders for allegedly altruistic purposes, but in reality in some cases, particularly the likes of China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc etc, it will come down to a crack down on freedom of speech and spying on their own citizens.
The sad thing is that the big western intelligence agencies have basically given everyone else carte blanche by setting a precedent and then arrogantly pushing that notion that it's somehow OK to just override people's privacy and democratic rights on the basis of nanny-state protectionism.
These snooping organisations have also done the US IT industry a huge amount of damage by forcing it to be complicit in some of these spying systems through legislation.
Unfortunately, it's getting to the stage that you can't really trust IT equipment from anywhere anymore. If it's built in China, there's a risk, if it's using US designs/software or is from a US company, there's a risk, if your data's trafficking through the UK or even France there's a risk it's being tapped... the list is endless.
I can fully understand why you need to go after terrorists, pedophile rings, all sorts of organised crime and drug gangs and other terrible things, but there's an element of data-trawling just because we can and because the technology exists to do so.
The counter risk is that because there's no clear oversight over any of these agencies, you've no idea what's being read in terms of intellectual property, financial information, sensitive government communications that might give a state competitive advantage, personal emails that could be used to blackmail someone or sway political campaigns etc.
Also, where does national interest end? Many countries would see the success of their own businesses as in their national interest and legitimately so. Does that mean that it would be OK for a spy agency to provide information about competitor countries' commercial businesses for example? I'm not saying that the US necessarily does this, but there are many other countries where it's hard to know where the state begins and the corporate entities and businesses end and they run almost more like companies than countries, China in particular is a lot like this.
It's a total mess!
If it's built in China, there's a risk, if it's using US designs/software or is from a US company, there's a risk
There is suspicion that Chinese kit is nobbled.
There is certainty that American kit is nobbled.
The suspicion above is largely based on statements from the people that ended up being the ones doing the nobbling.
It's not supposed to be this way round...
Vic.
Is anyone else thinking that this will stop any businesses based in Russia from using ANY SaaS or cloud vendor's services or storage if said services or storage reside outside the federation?! Not overly knowledgable about provision of these things in RU, but surely this will make it significantly more expensive for multinationals to operate in the country, not to mention preventing Russian businesses from being able to compete anywhere outside of Russia?!
Even if foreign firms remain in country, they'll have to hand data over as and when they're asked for it- to suspicious and corrupt Russian government officials who will likely then hand it over to their friends in Russian owned industry.
Not good.
We are very rapidly coming to a position where businesses will need to decide whether to serve China/Russia and those who choose to align with them. Or NATO and those who choose to align with it.* Doing business "across" those lines will be largely incompatible for a variety of reasons.
The harsh reality is that as a citizen anywhere in the world, your communications and data are being monitored and collected by umpteen number of organizations, both public and private. Within the above described alliances, the collected data is largely fluid.**
The problem is that it has become a common practice for so long*** that everyone in a position that could make change, has their own reasons for believing it should continue.
Our Only Hope (TM) is that enough people with the power to make change get upset at other people with the power to make change that a new international treaty on data privacy, security, and regulations as to the lawful collection of it.
Karl P
*Theoretically, there may yet become a greater african state and a greater south/central american state in time, however its likely that they will fall into a loose coalition with one or the other of the above options.
**That is to say that if one agency has a question about data under the jurisdiction of another agency it is largely available within the above outlined "loose coalitions" assuming the right person were to ask it wouldn't be a problem to get the datasets they asked for as quid pro quo is a powerful tool.
***Don't think it's just American doing it, every country where the matter has seriously been looked at has some sort of indiscriminate program in place, or access to an indiscriminate program via an ally.
TLDR; Right now, no matter where you are, your data is largely available to a very wide range of other interested parties. The only realistic fix at this point is for so many people to get fed up that we convene a new set of "Geneva Conventions" on Data Privacy and Security.
A lot of the countries you listed have long filtered a lot of the media content their countries receive. I'd further hazard to guess that most, if not all countries listed, already have programs similar to the NSA's. They just haven't been stupid enough to get caught or admit anything.
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